Month: July 2017

The Day Everything Changed

Today, in an instant, the voice that had been whispering “go to that event in LA, you know you want to, have an adventure, screw the fear and the so-called reasons why you can’t”, sat up, took charge and, after a few months, it finally commanded, “GO!”. I respectfully answered, “ok, thank you.”

I had been shooting that voice down left and right with doubt. Those doubts are part of the story of who I *think” I am. But who I am is always changing. Who I am now knows more, trusts more, I am not the person I even was yesterday. Today, I chose to be the person I want to be. I decided to make her voice louder than the doubts I’ve had my whole life.

Yesterday I’d decided I wanted to use this blog as a document. I wanted to have proof later, show a record. I am going through a change of massive proportions. I was going to write about it but the unfolding was happening so fast I didn’t want to stop it by even trying to put it into words. I just kept listening and watching the movie of my life unfold. It told me secrets yesterday that I hadn’t heard before. And it was giving me little clues, little pebbles on the Path. I followed them.

And today, I am taking a leap of faith. That is the person I’ve dreamed of being. It’s not out there in the future. It’s here. It’s already arrived. And I shall be telling you all about this journey in the coming days, weeks, months.

There’s twists and turns, it’s blurry up ahead, you’re not sure what’s real or a mirage, and there’s a steep fall to your right. Stay on the road and keep adjusting your vision. The way will be made. It’s right there in front of you. You are it.

The Forgetting Returns (or so it thinks)

This blog thing is basically my journal right now. Is there something wrong with that? That’s a Little Me question. I don’t have the energy to care. Maybe my age is finally loaning me a favor, thank god. So I fell into the Dark Side again this past week, after having not gone there in quite awhile. I have been going through so many changes within myself that have allowed me to start writing more, meditate more consistently and for much longer than I ever have, and that has helped me to get more attuned to my heart and body and what they really need. I even stepped out and onto the stage of the big bad world to finally express it. I had been making great strides.

Then I had The Fall. The stress and pressure of taking care of my Mom, being her only support in almost every way, came to a head again when I had to spend another entire precious day off dealing with her needs. All of it, the financial pressure, her mental state, her constant and total reliance on me, just hit a boiling point. We got in a big argument and I spent the whole day crying off and on, between the shopping and phone calls and bickering.

We always make up and then it’s better again but this time it took so much out of me that the next two days I was utterly exhausted; cried some more from the stress of it, and my job situation, and my housemate, and underneath that, just wanting to have enough time and energy and clarity to sit down and write. This amounted to me feeling like I went from powerful and exuberant creator the previous week, to whimpering teenager with no confidence or motivation the next. Then I went to work and was so affected by other people’s energies, I came to the conclusion that “I just can’t handle doing this work anymore! I’ve got to change my life!”

But then, just now, it came to me again. Those people’s energies, and the job, only affect me that way when I’m in a doubting, fearful place about myself and my life. In that state, I’d be feeling that way about any job. On the other hand, when I’m trusting, knowing and doing what I need to do outside the work to feel good and excited about what is coming, the job doesn’t affect me at all. In fact, I sometimes enjoy it.

The Forgetting had started to overtake me again last week and Little Me only wanted to just escape, quit. But. I know that right now, that job is the most allowing of me to follow my path as any I could have at the moment. It does drain me often but not always. The thing is, I don’t have to let it. And it does allow for the freedom of saying yes or no to work. I’m not bound to any of it. Quitting and stressing more about money and having to start a whole new job right now would actually only add further stress to my life. It would postpone, yet again, my writing and speaking and being the person I want to be, am, NOW. Quitting would really be my self-sabotage pattern taking over, again.

The reason the job seems, seemed, so crappy, is that I didn’t feel I was strong enough. “I just can’t do it. The Forgetting is too powerful. I don’t like who I am when I’m there, I’m going to run away to the next thing!” That’s what it would be if I quit right now. I’d be running away from myself, not facing what I know I need to do in order to really change – Be my Glorious Goddess Self NOW. That means doing what it takes to treat myself how she deserves to be treated; to feel as her, now. I don’t have to wait for the right circumstances. If that’s what I believe, the right circumstances will never come.

I can do this.

It’s coming, lock your doors…The Forgetting!

I love Aziz Ansari’s show on Netflix, ‘Master of None’. In the last episode of the first season, he’s a struggling actor and is at the premiere of a bad scary movie he has a small part in. He’s invited his friends, is very excited, and before they walk into the theater he plays a game with them, a gotcha joke. “Wait, you guys, I’m not feeling well…I think ‘The Sickening’!.. is happening!” It’s adorable. And that moment is the comedic version of what happens to me, at work.

I’ve had a respite this week, my own little vacation. I purposely didn’t make any plans involving anyone else, I didn’t go out of town. Right now, not filling my precious time off with more stuff to do and people to be with was what I needed most. I decided I would call this my retreat, my sabbatical. I’d make my priorities just meditating, writing, exercising, eating mostly fruits and vegetables, in that order, and refraining from facebooking, netflixing and eating or thinking too much. I used my time wisely, today is my last day off and I’ve made huge strides. I even took huge, scary action. I’m more in touch with myself than I’ve ever been. I’m remembering more consistently who I am. Gosh, this is the life!

And yet tomorrow, I start back up with the jobs. I shall begin the day in the same way as I have been; meditating, writing and exercising. But then. Then, for the next eight hours or so and random days in the next week, month…I have to go do something and be something I don’t want to do or be. Knowing this, I have anxiety about what will happen to me. Because what often does is this: by the end of the day, I’ve experienced a dread, then a fog, then, uh oh, I don’t feel so well…The Forgetting!…is happening!

How long can I hold on to these feelings of inspiration and joy? Don’t let go! I’m losing my grip! A final plea I’m not even aware of says quick, lock your doors, don’t allow these menial tasks, that tone in a co-worker’s voice, the crappy staff food lying around, the gossip, my body’s aches, my tiredness, into this sanctuary! Suddenly it’s the zombie apocalypse and I’m back in my old identity, having completely forgotten. What? Forgotten my power, who I really am, my innate knowing that all this is an illusion. I don’t have to let this job, and the fact that my ego thinks I shouldn’t be doing this, affect me. That is a choice. I am unlimited and this job is just part of the path to what I know is on it’s way. It’s my training ground, my spiritual bootcamp if you will.

In my current, expanded and relaxed state, I know that. But the more time that goes by in the day, on the job, I start to identify with what I’m doing, the role I’m playing. And soon The Forgetting starts to weave it’s spell. The space that was allowing in all the inspired ideas and new ways I was thinking about myself starts to get smaller and smaller. The thoughts that were reminding me of who I really am, and that even this job can be fun because I know it’s temporary, can no longer even occur to me.

They are outside my limited personality that’s getting caught up in chiming in with co-workers, telling old stories, and complaining about one thing or another. Those thoughts, “that are lovely and of good report” (-Neville Goddard) are beyond this narrow perspective, just outside the barrier that The Forgetting has enclosed me in, knocking patiently. But I can’t hear them. And then, I’m back to the person who’s putting herself down because she can’t believe she’s still doing this for a living.

The endless slippery slope of what that one destructive thought creates, lands me in a state of confusion, exhaustion and numbness by the end of the night. Now The Forgetting has settled in and I go to sleep in the itching discomfort of something being very wrong. This truly is a horror movie. The horror of thinking those illusions are real is playing to the sold out crowd of insecure, doubting and fearful personalities in my brain.

But here’s the rub. Life will always be presenting unwanted circumstances. And when we do get what we want, something else comes up that we don’t want. And we want something else again. This is the human experience, and we chose it. We wanted to play a game, the ultimate game, on ourselves. The only way to keep expanding was to forget who we really are, and be presented with contrast. We can’t see the light without the dark. Thus, we would then do, then finally be, whatever it would take to remember. With each new peek of who we really are, we are now even more than we were before. And when we’ve learned all there is to know here, we’ll move on to the next planet, vibration, frequency, whatever you want to call it. And we’ll begin a whole new adventure. If we always knew that we were God, the Universe would no longer be infinite, it would keep banging it’s head against the wall and start to shrink! And the Universe would be all, “say what, God? I can’t even be called The Universe anymore? Now I’m Mini Me Universe?! This is so boring!”.

So back to Groundhog Day. I wake up, shower, make my tea, put my headphones in, listen to my favorite music or talks that remind me, meditate, and start the entire process of Remembering all over again. Then, not always, but often by the evening, The Forgetting starts sneaking under the door of my consciousness. But after all, only our minds can make a hell of heaven, and a heaven of hell.

So, tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya, tomorrow! I shall create a game out of this too, and a new determination. How long can The Remembering last? Can I Remember all the way through to when my head hits the pillow? What if I really could? What vistas, what worlds await me. Tomorrow is Day #1. Let’s find out!

 

Infinity Me and Little Me, sittin’ in a tree

Last night I got up on a stage, in front of a sold out crowd of 650 people, to tell my five minute story. Holy crap. It wasn’t awful, and it wasn’t great, perfect! That’s all I wanted to accomplish, as the only way I was able to have the nerves to do that in the first place was to keep reminding myself that failing is part of the path. And what would have been failing anyway? Panic attack and giving up? Maybe. But even that, at least I leapt! And that’s not a failure. Just doing it is the point, the only point that I decided would matter.

That, and that I just want to learn; thus, to grow. That’s all experience is really for.  Then the clincher, allow that growing to make us know that all we have to do is just Be anyway. We forget in all the doing and learning and growing that we already had it, we already are the answer to all of our questions. One question going into this was to simply find out more about myself. From that new knowledge, I continue to expand. So Being becomes simply allowing myself to continue with the next right step, instead of resisting that step with fear. And knowing what the right step is can only come from allowing myself to Be. What a paradox it all is.

So back to specifics, what I learned from last night. I learned that while waiting to see if my name would be called (contestants put their name in a hat, only ten get picked), I wasn’t as horribly nervous with the usual symptoms as I thought I’d be. In these situations, my heartbeat often betrays me. It feels like a gorilla in a cage, beating on my chest to get out. It makes my breath shallow and my voice loses it’s resonance. I feel like asking the person next to me, “do you see this thing?!” It’s so heavy and strong that I’m sure the protrusions must be visible on the outside.

But this time, not so much. Until of course, my name was actually called – #4 out of 10 storytellers. As I jumped out of my seat to walk to the stage, at least I had the relief of “thank god I didn’t have to suffer through to 10!”. But once I got to the microphone stand, whoo lord, there came the gorilla. I said “Hi” into the mic, and was acutely aware that I already felt breathless. So I took as much air in as I could, and turned my head to the left to exhale. I didn’t want to blanket that scared-shitless-breath onto the audience, they didn’t deserve that. Let the stupid air take it. “Screw you, air!”

I began. And like in a few, past, similar situations, I was not in my body. I was not calm, or in the moment. Little Me was slightly to the right of my body going “don’t forget that line! oh shit you forgot that line! omg now you have to make something up! this is sucking! they’re not laughing! this story is too intense, you’re making everyone uncomfortable!”. Meanwhile, Infinity Me was chuckling.

Infinity Me, my good buddy, has been talking to Little Me more lately. “You’re doing just fine, you always are, you’re so cute and funny when you freak out, I’m laughing, see?”. Little Me noticed but tried to ignore Infinity Me. “Whatever dude, they’re not, I’m dying up here!”. And lo and behold, I go completely blank. I am now somewhere between Little Me and Infinity Me. The next line has escaped me. I pause, and manage to play it off for a second, thinking “stay with me people, this is part of the brilliant drama of the piece!” Infinity Me then whispers, “just make something up, they won’t know the difference”. So, I obey. I keep going, while also aware I’ve skipped a whole section somewhere. And now, the all important last line has escaped me. But Little Me is quiet. I don’t panic. Now I’m just noticing the fear instead of becoming it, and a variation of the line pops out that’s not half bad. Done!

As I walk off the stage, Little Me wakes up, “oh god that was awkward!”. I proceed to step down onto what looks like the steps, but it’s actually the speakers, just barely keeping myself from falling. Little Me, “omg how embarrasing!” A kind, elderly gentleman in the front row gets out of his seat to extend his hand. I recover graciously and walk a few rows back to sink into my own lonely seat, pretending to enjoy the next storyteller, “haha! see everyone, I’m so relaxed and don’t care that I’m so disappointed, haha!” When that story ended (“got a better score than me, of course”), the nice man who helped me gets out of his seat and walks over to where I’m sitting. He reaches for my hand again and leans down to look me in the eye. “I really liked your story. It was genuine and sincere.” Well then. Of all the compliments I could have gotten, I’ll gladly take that one. His name is Ralph and I run into him later as I’m leaving. Tomorrow he’s going to Shakespeare in the Park. “It’s going to be so fun. Hope to see you at the next Slam!” Ok Ralph, if you say so.

When the final scores came in, I landed pretty square in the middle. The middle, between Little Me and Infinity Me, was where I was on stage. I played matchmaker. I don’t need to dump Little Me for Infinity Me after all. I want them to fall in love. Little Me deserves it, so does Ralph. Infinity Me just can’t help it.