Not Needing Approval

I have a young friend who speaks of the time when he reads stories with his daughter as a time that needs no confirmation. There is wisdom in his phrase: a time that needs no confirmation. We all need to touch down with the source of life, again and again, in order to brighten enough to continue. Whether we make our way in by playing or listening to music, by meditating, by painting, or loving, or reading stories to our children, or to our friends' children, or to ourselves - when we close our minds like tired eyes and surrender our hearts like mouth thirsted open, we come upon a common source where nothing need be approved or accepted, where no rejection or criticism need be overcome. The experience itself is all the authority we need.
Interestingly, these renewing moments open precisely when we forget about ourselves. Like horses with blinders we can't quite shake, we sniff out our way until we come upon these deep pools to drink from. And for the moment, we are saved.
In truth, we drink from this great paradox daily; though everyone alive shares this moment we are living right now, no one experiences this moment more directly than you. No one can say what it feels like for you to be alive but you. No one needs permission to be alive, to stay alive, to know the joy of touching your unrepeatable hand to the earth. 

I don't think I have done a good enough job lately of expressing gratitude to the dear ones in my life who allow me to spend time with them. Time that needs no confirmation. Where in that space and time I feel no judgement, rejection, or criticism for arriving exactly as I am in that moment.

Thank you.

Unconditional Love

Unconditional love is not so much about how we receive and endure each other, as it is about the deep vow to never, under any conditions, stop bringing the flawed truth of who we are to each other. -Mark Nepo

 

 

 

Authenticity in Growth

We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are, when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed, and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.
When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances for joy.
It's like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. In this way, our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world, but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold, and the car handle feels wet, and the kiss good-bye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable. 

I feel like I am continuously and progressively making an effort to live the most authentic version of myself. Continuing to shed the layers of protection that keep me from feeling, to experience my truest and most pure sense of self, even when those experiences are unpleasant or hard. Even in my moments of self imposed solitude (and my moments of collateral solitude from others) I am not shying away from the hard work. Every single day I am committed to my readings, my meditations, my angel card contemplation's. Even though it would be so easy to shrink back inside myself and give up, I push myself forward. Building momentum for something more. Something greater.

A Storm is Brewing

I've had a rocky day today. The situation at work escalated a bit, as my coworkers again decided to approach me with disrespect and a shitty ass attitude. Over the course of the last year of working with him, I have had to say something to the boss only a couple other times previously, but this week has gotten bad. His tone with me has been utter shit, I don't deserve it, nor will I tolerate it in the workplace (or anywhere else, really). So I collected up my hurt feelings, sprinkled in a little anger, and called our boss. I let him know how condescending and abrasive my coworker has been this week. "I understand that in his mind I am no longer a member of the team, but last time I checked you were still signing my checks and haven't given me an end date... He needs to be reeled back in before he steamrolls your new interviewee right out the door." He thanked me for the heads up and said that he would talk to him. I also reminded him that teaching my coworker a little compassion could go a long way. "Ask him to put himself in my shoes for a minute. How would he feel, already on the verge of panic trying to figure out what he's going to do next for work, but while also still trying to maintain his current job responsibilities while it lasts - knowing he's being replaced any day and then tack on a nasty ass attitude from your coworker..." He said he felt extremely sorry that he treated me poorly.

There was another issue this week where my coworker threw me under the bus regarding sending clients a worksheet, and who in the household was supposed to complete it. Luckily I keep meeting minutes for all our meetings, and presented both the minutes and a drafted email that my coworker approved, with the verbiage THEY REQUESTED. It really does come in handy to keep documentation. My boss apologized again, told me there was a miscommunication on their part, and that I was indeed doing what was asked of me. He asked me to send him an email to his personal address (as the coworker monitors the bosses work emails very closely) detailing his behavior this week. I told him I would have to send it from my personal email as well, as the coworker also monitors my inbox AND sent email correspondence. There was quite a long pause before he said "I'm sorry, did you just say he monitors your sent emails too?" Yep. I could hear him growing uncomfortable. "Well that seems excessive... I know he likes to be in control of things, but there comes a point you need to trust people a little..."

My boss is a good guy.

My coworker has just been a dick.

Maybe I'm not just experiencing rampaging hormones after all (just kidding, I totally am) but maybe there's more to it. There has been a shift happening within me. I'm not backing down as quickly or as easily as I used to. I'm not going around looking for a fight, but push me enough times and I'm bound to shove back. For a split second, I thought about how the coworker was going to bash me to the boss in retaliation. A split second I felt bad for reaching out to the boss. It didn't last long and I threw that tiniest hesitation right out the window. This is a teachable moment for my coworker... for my boss too. Even for me.

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My reading today was in reference to finding the center, and talked about the eye of the storm.

Repeatedly we are thrown into the storm and into the center. When in the storm, we are exacerbated by our humanness. When in the center, we are relieved by our spiritual place in the Oneness of things. So to find the center and spread our battered wings is to feel the God within.
Our constant struggle is in living both sides of this paradox. For we cannot get to the center without going through the storm that surrounds it. Yet the storm of human experience can only be endured by knowing what the gull knows: The storm can only be survived from the center. In how we pass each other from storm to center and back - there you'll find the trials and gifts of love. 

I have managed to survive a couple pretty brutal storms already this year. The stronger the storm, the more affirming it is to reach my center, to feel Something Greater working within me. There are more storms on the horizon. Big ones. Nasty ones.

My Lord is my shepherd... and my poncho. We've got this.

Distortion

The messages the past couple days have revolved around depression and distorted views because if it. There have been a couple excerpts that have really gotten my attention. Touching on things I have been avoiding, or trying not to acknowledge, as acknowledgement makes it real.

There was a story of a man visiting his 94 year old grandmother on a beautiful sunny day. He sat with her in the room she lived in and she commented on how gloomy and grey the day was. It was then that he noticed that the window was filthy - hadn't been washed in a year. The old woman chuckled and said "Got a dirty eye, see a dirty world."

It is the same with our minds and hearts. For our very self is the one window we have into this life. And so often, we suffer the mood of a dirty window, believing the brilliant world gray.
Perhaps the purpose of authentic relationship is to help each other keep our minds and hearts clear. Perhaps inner work is the ordinary art of window washing, so that the day is fully the day. 

This definitely had me contemplate my mood the past couple days. I have been viewing things through a dirty eye, distorted visions due to my own negative thoughts.  The idea of authentic relationships also strummed a chord within me. This past week or so I have been recoiling in on myself, feeling sorry for myself and pouting - the emphasis of my negative thoughts has been on "myself." I've been focusing on past resentments, sharing and reliving past traumas, convincing myself that I am somehow failing, and in those failures I will lose the people I care about.

Which brings me to the reading today that opened with "As long as we see what has come to pass as being unfair, we'll be a prisoner of what might have been." I see so many of my beloveds struggling with this lately, as I am struggling with it. Our situations are all very different, but the underlying theme of hurt is a singular one.

I offer what has surprised me in my pain; that life is not fair, but unending in its capacity to change us; that compassion is fair and feeling is just; and that we are not responsible for all that befalls us, only for how we receive it and for how we hold each other up along the way. 

I have not been a very good friend lately. I have been distant and quiet and wrapped up in my own head and heart, licking my past wounds while also fabricating new ones with a dirty eye on the world. Rather than being gentle with myself and offering myself loving kindness as I navigate through some murky waters, I have have been moody and disgruntled and just in a funk. I have let frustration and depression get the better of me.

I'm trying to pull myself back out of it. Take a look at what it coming up in my thoughts and why, and shaking it off. Shaking it off and releasing the negative self talk into the universe. Opening myself back up to relieve the blessings.

While rearranging my room, I came across an old stamped coin. On one side is a dove, soaring in flight. On the other is scripture: And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit He has given us. ~John 3:24 

I have no idea where it came from. It was in a box of knick knacks that I had collected as a little kid. Maybe I bought it in Rome? Maybe some other Divine force is at play and made sure to put it in my hand when I needed it? He abides in me. Even while I've been off pouting in a corner like a sullen little kid, I feel the warmth of His Love dropping around me like a soft blanket.

"There, there, little one. You're so tired that you're getting fussy. Come, have a snack and something to drink and lets have a cuddle to calm you."

A New Setup

As so many things continue to shift and change in me internally, I decided to makes some changes in my physical world as well. My room at my parents house was set up exactly the way my mom wanted it, and it was also the catch all for discarded furniture. There were 2 dressers, 2 desks, a book case, and some other random cabinet, in addition to the bed. It felt cluttered and claustrophobic. The power went out on Friday around 2pm, so I had some time to kill as I was dead in the water for work. So I moved some things around. Completely changed the orientation of my room and work space. Switched my work space to the antique writing desk and got rid of the other desk completely. Moved the bookcase closer to my bed, which I moved into the dormer cove. It feels more like a safe nest, and less exposed. The floor space is more open; it's easier for me to navigate. I've only stubbed my toe once fumbling around in the dark, and that is pretty remarkable. My work space feels more comfortable too. I have a place for my office supplies. My gifted CDs of music are more accessible for me to switch out. My pens are no longer just strewn about. Things have a place, and it just feels less chaotic. There is still a great deal of clutter and stuff to sort through/get rid of, but for now a few pockets of my space feel more like MY space.

I even added some "stuff" to the walls. I made a fairly large fluid painting, but I'm not sure I want to hang it yet. I'm still playing around with color and technique. My favorite one so far is now hung in the cove where my bed is, but it's a tiny painting and feels extremely out of place. I was thinking of mounting my completed paint by number and popping that up on one of the walls too. It's just so barren.

Speaking of barren...

I no longer am. After a glorious 7+ year hiatus from fertility via my IUD, it has finally run out of juice and I have returned to the land of the menstruating. I am not exactly happy about it, but it also makes some of my recent (over) reactions more understandable. As my body has shifted back to producing it's own hormones, I have been left feeling an undertone of depression. Quick tempered, more lethargic, mentally jumping to the worst case scenario, and generally just feeling left out and/or forgotten. In hindsight I could have approached the blowup with my father more appropriately. But maybe an explosive response was what he needed to be shaken out of his haze of my "blissful childhood." But last week I found myself keeping to myself. There were times I wanted to reach out to people, wanted to ask for time, for conversation, for something... but I didn't feel I had a right. Everyone has their own issues going on, and I didn't want to be a bother with my hormonal outbursts of emotional garbage. Instead I folded in on myself and spent a little time with some books, created a new painting, and dug in the dirt with my daughter. I'm still feeling a little fragile, a little left out, but I'm also falling back on my meditations and readings for comfort. Plus I placed an order online for birth control pills that should be arriving any day. Screw this hormonal nonsense. I prefer to be logical and emotionally sound. I almost feel like a flailing teenager with an unrequited crush and it's annoying as hell.

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I was reminded just now that everything is impermanent. And that even my hormonal mood swings can be met with steady, soft patience from within. Perhaps it really is best that I didn't reach out to anyone while I felt like I was floundering. No one else needs to witness to these moments of instability - mostly because of a fear of being judged and rejected for feeling weak. Sometimes I feel pretty brave in my vulnerability but lately I feel... more reserved. More embarrassed, really. I don't like feeling embarrassed or ashamed for feeling, even when the feelings are exaggerated and not necessarily normal. This has been a practice in letting things come to the forefront, acknowledging them (even acknowledging as irrational), and letting them slip away. It just hasn't been as graceful a process lately.

July 1, 2016

According to the Social Security Administration, the date that I "allegedly" became disabled is July 1, 2016. Well, on my second application anyways.

I had a meeting this morning at SSA where they reviewed my application and asked questions to amend it, so it would make the most sense. Like, why did I go back to work full time after I filed (and was denied) Social Security Disability Benefits in 2014? Well, the government declared I wasn't disabled, and since I "had another hand" I could work in a different field. So I tried. I tried and it didn't quite work out. So in July of 2016 it became evident that I couldn't work full time anymore.

This particular interview was just about my work history and what it is exactly that I do. When I asked about the medical stuff, my case worker said that it would all be reviewed in the next 30 - 60 days, and that they would mail me a letter of determination. She said it can take as long as 6 months if they have a hard time collecting medical records or verifying my employment. I completed all the information online, but there really wasn't a place for me to explain what it is like to live with Ehlers Danlos. All I can put down are the symptoms: chronic dislocations, hypermobility of my joints, fibromyalgic pain, chronic fatigue... But that isn't what living with this is like.

It's waking up every morning and doing a quick assessment to see what may have slipped out of place while I slept, and figuring out how to pop it back before pain registers. Its having to think about every step I take - willing my body to stay put together, concentrating with each step "ankles in, knees in, don't hyper extend, don't roll." Lather, rinse, repeat. It's looking at a basket of laundry and having to guess how much it weighs, and how likely it will be to sublux my wrist and fingers just by picking it up. It's tensing up every time I am near a dog who jumps up, or has a tail or body right at knee level - even when it's my own dog. It's having to explain to nosey clients, cashiers, complete fucking strangers on the street why I have ring splints all over my fingers, and why my hand looks kinda funny. It's having to make sure I don't wack an already broken fused wrist on tables, walls, chairs, doorways because my brain still registers that hand as functional and I literally forget that I can't bend it out of the way and I'm left not only feeling pain, but feeling stupid for not knowing better. Its waking up with tendonitis in my right hand/wrist and not knowing if today is the day that my other hand is going to fall off... That I will no longer be able to type, to drive, to cut my own fucking food...

So I'm a little frustrated today. With the process. With my body. With the unknown variable of what my body will do next to fail me. I never know what is coming, and that is really scary and frustrating sometimes.

May is Ehlers Danlos awareness month... Yay?

I just feel very small and alone in this moment. I'm running out of options and I'm trying to figure out how to provide for myself and my family. It's possible I may not qualify for anything because I'm still married, and that sucks too.

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On a different note, but also somewhat frustrating... I made a couple more fluid paintings yesterday. They were both quite interesting to me, and apparently they gained the attention of my mother. She knows the process. She knows they take weeks to dry. So why she felt compelled to fucking touch one of them and drag her finger down the middle of it is beyond me. It wasn't just a little smudge in the corner... She dragged her finger across it. She admitted to me when I got back from my appointment that she couldn't help herself and she "touched it because it was so pretty..." but it's wet fucking paint... I resisted the urge to snap at her to keep her fingers out of my creative processes, that she had no right to touch it, and she does NOT have permission to meddle in things concerning me. Those thoughts raced through my mind... But I looked at her face, her body language - she looked genuinely sad and embarrassed and I told her I was a little annoyed, but perhaps she should just refrain from touching the canvases without asking first. She said that was fair... and that she was expecting me to be mad.

"Well, you did just single handedly ruin my budding art career, but I'm sure I'll figure something else out since it's now over forever and I'm never going to make another one of these things ever again..."

I laughed it off and she stopped holding her breath. I think she was expecting a similar explosion to the ones I have been dishing out to my father lately.

Not today, Mom. I'm too tired.