the local bar

I decided today, especially since I am officially liberated, that I should attend happy hour. Nevermind that no one I know was available to go with me... I don't need company to go to happy hour, right?? I mean, plenty of other people will be there. It's just that, well, other people irritate or scare me or both, alternating.

Since I have been having difficulty not having responsibilities in my freedom, and especially since when I told my friend today, proudly, that I was so proud of myself for taking myself to the Starbucks to work on my resume, she replied, I would like to hear that you went to Starbucks to read the paper, I decided that maybe I was taking freedom too seriously.

Instead of going to volunteer at the non-profit where I am on the board, after my productive morning at Starbucks (and the morning run!), I visited with a friend, and then I went to a leisurely pupusa lunch with another friend. After all that, I still could have gone to do some volunteering, but, instead, I came home, watched some tv and then went to the bar.

I have been without a regular bar for a while... partly because I relaxed the one night out a week rule, and partly because I just haven't been up to organizing happy hours. Well, tonight, I went to a bar I consider a meat market to have drinks. Not quite the neighborhood bar, ala cheers, but it turned out ok.

I ended up sitting next to the woman who works in the office as the financial manager, who was probably all of 25. She was interested in life and had a great sense of humor...so, well, we chatted and pretty soon, it was two hours later and we hadn't run out of things to talk about.

It turns out I am a nice and fun person to be around. Imagine that.

Maybe the working on how I present myself and trying to JUST BE MYSELF without walls, recrimination or other defense mechanisms works.

I can hardly really believe it, but I am trying.

hunger

I guess I had a sense of the power of the mind with regards to appetite given that I acknowledge being a worry-eater and I know that anorexia and bulimia exist. I just never contemplated how one might have such complete power in the mind over the feelings of the body.

Such was my revelation at the meditation retreat... though my stomach bulged with the amount of food I consumed relative to that which I could work off walking and sitting and meditating, I felt hunger. Not random pangs here and there but the instinct to shovel whenever I was near food. The inclination to hide food somewhere so I could go back to it when it was NEEDED.

Notes on Hunger from today's (8/10) reflection:

Sometimes I have a driven need to eat, shovel, really; it's not at all about being hungry or really needing nourishment, but it is a craving.

In my body, it is a deep craving for food even when I have just eaten; or it is a desire to eat what's in front of me quickly.

I experience it as empty, bereft, hungry in my heart or soul; it's hard because it has an urgency that drives me to try to quench it. It's helpful if I ignore the urge by giving it reality: you just ate!

Lock the keypad on your phone, please

As some of you know, last Monday was my last day at my former job. My reasons for leaving the job are many and varied, but the top of the list is that I was not a "good fit" for the work environment. That is to say, that the director of the organization, and her management style, and I were incompatible. There has been a lot of finger pointing and other blaming tactics, but the bottom line is that it is her organization and she needs to run it as she sees fit; and I do not need to stay somewhere if I feel uncomfortable. This is truly the most reasonable and no-fault way for me to encapsulate the troubles over the last year.

When I decided to leave, you would think that would make her very happy. Finally, she would be rid of a thorn in her side. I was moving on in a very non-threatening way. I gave the organization plenty (over 2 months) notice and offered to train my replacement. I thought I was doing the right thing staying to help, but apparently I had moved beyond the ability to do the right thing. I was no longer included in communication about new or existing projects, many closed door meetings became the order of the day (I was not invited behind the closed door in case you were wondering), and the director's office now needed to be LOCKED at night.

I am on my fifth day of freedom, and, obviously, still coming to terms with what it means to be officially separated from the organization.

That is just to give you a little context for what happened Thursday night (actually 2 am Friday morning) and then again Friday afternoon.

Not quite sound asleep due to too much caffeine the afternoon before, my phone shrieked at 2 am. I jumped out of bed sure that someone in family was in serious danger and grabbed the phone. I love called id. Even in my fear-adrenalined half asleep state, I stopped to see just who would be calling me at 2 am. My ex-boss's name was illuminated in blue.

IGNORE.

Seeing her name allowed me to switch from fear to anger. But not quite that easily. I lumbered back to bed imagining just what sense of entitlement she was feeling that she would call me in the middle of the night on her vacation. [Why and how I know she is on vacation this weekend is just another reason why I am glad to be an ex-employee.]

I climbed back into bed and realized that my heart was still beating furiously...maybe more now that I was noticing it. I would like to say it was still the fear-adrenaline from believing that one of my loved ones might be in danger. But I know better. I was thinking and worrying about what my ex-boss was calling to yell at me about. She never called me to chat. NEVER. It was always some unreasonable request at a markedly not professional time to be calling. But 2 am is a far cry from 7 pm or 8 pm or even 9 pm. And, even worse, I was thinking, What did I do to piss her off this time. [She is like that; since nothing is ever her fault, when she is upset about anything, she will find someone and something to blame for her latest mood.]

I had finally calmed down enough to go back to sleep when my phone beeped. Oh my god, a full five minutes later, my phone tells me there is a message. "She just left me a five minute message?!?!" This incredulous, indignant statement kept repeating in my head. I desperately wanted to just ignore the message, but I knew the phone would keep on beeping. So, I got up and I listened.

It was a good thing that I went ahead and listened. It turns out she had inadvertently dialed my number and was utterly oblivious to the fact that she was leaving a message. From the message, I could tell that she was out. Where I was, it was 2 am; where she was it was 5 am. While listening, I imagined, she was out still. I know that when she is out on vacation, that means she doesn't come home until the sun has long been out. I could hear a lot of noise, so out at a club I imagined. I heard a lot of women's voices and laughing. Eventually, I was bored with this and stopped listening way before 5 minutes were up.

I was disappointed in myself for imagining that she was calling me to take a final, parting shot. I was relieved that it was just a mistake. I was disappointed to see that she was incapable of locking her keypad so this kind of thing wouldn't happen. I had to remind myself that she was not my problem. I went back to bed.

The next day, I had completely put it out of my mind except to think I should share the story with one of my ex-colleagues who would appreciate the story...maybe laugh.

Then, my phone rang at 4pm. I was in the middle of an interview with a high school student, so even if I wanted to, I wasn't going to answer the phone. When I reached in my bag to press IGNORE, I noticed that the called ID said "unknown." In that case, I wouldn't have answered it anyway. A little while later, I noted a message.

When I had a free moment, I listened to the message. It was her again, only this time she had dialed my number on purpose. She must have realized that she had called me in the middle of the night. Unfortunately her ability to manage the features on her phone left much to be desired. I could hear her telling someone that she was mortified and that the phone had gone straight to voice mail.

I realized that she was leaving an unintended message again, only this time I could hear words. I could hear her puzzling about where she had been at that time, what had she said, had she mentioned anything about the doctor?? She went on to say, she is the one; I told you how bad things had been with this girl?

I listened on but there was nothing very interesting said. There was no apology for having called my phone in the middle of the night. No, sorry to bother you, I called you inadvertently. It was all about her. What's new?

I was puzzled, though, how had things been bad from her perspective? She never seemed to notice when she was being impossible. Perhaps it was when I pointed it out and didn't take her raging and raving and yelling? I wish I could say that I didn't care, that it didn't matter. But it does. It is the reason I am no longer there.

Onward and upward. I am moving on, slowly but surely.

mean spirit

I will definitely rate this move as more mean-spirited than outlawing folks from feeding the poor in the park in Las Vegas.

This prisoner, who has been in solitary confinement for so long he probably doesn't remember what it feels like to live among other people, got his story on the front page of the NY Times... and NPR did a series on the implications, good and bad, of solitary confinement this week. And now, he must be punished.

That's not revenge for making a cruel system seem as inhumane as it is? Please.

Someone in solitary confinement has had the temerity to use his free time to express his creativity; he must be squashed.

When was the last time those folks feeling threatened at the jail have donated $10,000 to the children of the prisoners they keep in solitary?

NEVER. But, this artist/prisoner must be punished.

This the same day that reports of waste and abuse come out on the prison system.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Kick me please

Self sabotage is a very complicated, dangerous and persistent problem.

It takes a long time, in my opinion, to figure out that self-sabotage is what one needs to deal with... that is to say, we follow the same pattern, over and over again; we wonder, what have I done to deserve this? when we end up in the same hole we just climbed out of; and then, finally, it dawns on us that the "please kick me" sign we are carrying around on our back is written in our own handwriting.

Yessiree Bob...we wrote it, we taped it and we pick it up and put it back on when it falls off. And, we do this in a sleep walking state where we can't see that it is indeed US creating our "groundhog day" existence.

Then we talk to our friends about it...some listen in such an attentive way that they hear the pattern and after a while, tired of watching people they care about falling into the same hole in a very Pooh-like way, they try to stop us before we fall back in. Sometimes they pull us out and try to give us advice on how to avoid the hole the next time.

All of this is very frustrating for us (we don't believe we are really falling in the SAME hole each time; I mean, we really do believe we learned and changed from the last 100 times we fell in the hole) and for them (they just want to lock us in a closet and play the video of the last 50 times, thinking that will be enough to convince us that we have, indeed, been right here before).

What they don't know is that we can't really hear the advice. Partly, we are determined to get out of the pattern, and we mistakenly believe that we can solve the problem by getting back in the pattern and just doing it RIGHT, this time.

What we don't know is that solving the problem doesn't mean getting back into the pattern and getting it right. In order to solve the problem of self-sabotage, we need to acknowledge that we DO NOT need to be punished. We do not deserve punishment for our selves, our behavior or any past bad acts. It's worse than a messiah complex because we are not just saving the world, we are judging it, starting with ourselves and meting out what we think is appropriate retribution.

Solving the problem of self-sabotage entails loving ourselves enough to be open to constructive, productive and healthy interactions/relationships with ourselves and others. It is the opposite of seeking the interactions/relationships that will ultimately put us back in the hole.

Getting out of the hole and staying out of the hole can be accomplished by believing that we have no reason to be in the hole.

Generosity and compassion demand that I have more patience with myself and my friends who are struggling with self-sabotage. Today that means not feeling bad that I just gave harsh feedback to someone who keeps jumping into the hole with two feet. It also means cutting myself some slack for dreaming about my hole last night.

It is a daily struggle to stay out of the hole. For the past few months, my solution has been to limit my contact with new people. I mean, if I don't meet any new people who will potentially trigger the pattern, then I am safe, right? Wrong.

Being afraid to go out and deal with the world is a better symptom than denial of the pattern. But it is not a long term solution; it's not a solution at all. It demonstrates some willingness to recognize the problem and even to start to battle the desire to jump back into the pattern. Ultimately, though, it does not confront the underlying issue: taking head on the issue of loving myself, or rewriting the agreements about the life I deserve.

I am trying.

What would Jesus think?

So, the city of Las Vegas (aka SIN CITY) has decided that it will be ILLEGAL to feed the homeless on the street. In the myriad of acts, illegal and legal, that go on in Las Vegas on a daily basis, the city feels the need to make up a law about something charitable; dare I say, Christian. I mean, is there one of Jesus' acts (besides rising from the dead) that is more well known than the feeding the folks with the fish and loaves.

For now, it is still ok to feed them in a shelter, but we would hardly want the homeless to feel WELCOME in a PUBLIC place like a park. Parks, apparently, are only for the home-owning tax payers. Oh, and it is still legal to feed the homeless on The Strip... makes me want to go to Las Vegas just to set up a homeless feeding site on The Strip.

Favorite line from this article:

“I don’t think anybody in America wants people to starve to death,” Mr. Reese
said. “But if you want to help somebody, people can go to McDonald’s or Kentucky
Fried Chicken and give them a meal.”

Ok... who knew that taking someone to KFC or McDonald's was HELPING? Thank you City of Las Vegas for clarifying that for us do-gooders. What homeless people really want and need is fast food. So good to know. I am holding on to that tidbit for future reference.

A new verdict for Andrea Yates

I don't know why this feels like a personal victory... I have never met this woman; I probably would not have much if anything in common with her except my body's ability to birth a child.

It's just the idea that we would judge this poor woman in such a way that didn't allow for mercy that made me crazy. I mean, obviously she is mentally deranged. She killed the very thing that was her life. She killed them rather than kill herself because she thought she was sparing them. If that isn't crazy talk, I just don't know what is.

Also, in some very perverse way, I feel as though this whole need to get revenge at any cost and for the slightest thing or the most heinous thing does feel like it creeps into every day. First we are trying children as young as 8 as adults. Have of the adult population can't act like an adult from day to day, but we expect the children watching these adults to know better? We get a bee in our bonnets about something or the other and then we go off like the mob in the night with pitchforks...meanwhile we let pedofiles lead our churches, for years.

convoluted, I know. But with the recent goings on in my professional life, it just seems like we, as a society, have decided that we get to decide individually when a slight requires REVENGE and then we just do what ever we want. Recent article on a study about retribution was somewhat enlightening on this point. (I need to find the link.)

finding comfort

Monday night, at Spirit Rock, I was trying to meditate for the first 35 minutes of silent meditation and felt like I was failing miserably.

I was wondering, to myself (when I was supposed to be focusing on my breath), how the hell I was going to make it through 7 nights of this?

My back hurt, my head itched, all I could hear was the guy next to me snoring, at least that is what it sounded like.

Then Jack gave his talk and we had a few more minutes of silent meditation.

I closed my eyes and the tears began to flow... freedom, safety, comfort... how had sitting in silence for two hours become comfort??

I don't know but it did...

Reprieve

I read the headline: Elephant that Killed Handler Spared with irony and relief. On the one hand, finally, a person has decided to use some of the mercy he/she (in this case a she) possesses and "spared" the life of an animal that was acting instinctually in an unnatural setting. On the other hand, why is this the exception?

Why is it that animals automatically get the death penalty?

We never stop to think that we are the ones with the supposed higher order thinking skills that should keep us from encroaching on the wild animal habitat, putting ourselves in danger, and/or relocating wild animals into settings so divergent than their natural habitats that the animals are unable to behave naturally.

If you place yourself on the tracks with a train approaching, and you get killed, should the rest of us try to KILL the train in retaliation.

Worst, of course, is the go out and kill in revenge instinct that we humans tend to exhibit way too frequently. Someone goes out on a trail in the wilderness, in theory to get near nature; nature, in this case, turns out to be a mountain lion. Person gets killed. Now we are going to go out and hunt down a mountain lion and kill it, claiming we are going to match the teeth marks or some such nonsense. Do we honestly believe that by killing a mountain lion we will somehow deter other mountain lions from killing people on the trail??

Abundance

Just when you think you have hit rock bottom...ok, not that dramatic.

Picture it, there you are, trying to answer what seems like a straight forward question from the DISCOVERY MATERIALS (no pressure).

Over the years, you have created (and been created) from your life experiences, your accomplishments, your disappointments and your longings. Who are you today? How would you describe yourself at this point in your life?

And you are trying to answer honestly, but not too cynically. Instead, you are circling the drain, that is circling the answer, maybe dancing around the edges of what you think. In any case, at the end of too many tortured sentences, there is no resemblance to you on the paper.

Thankfully, the gong is struck and that means put your work away and get ready to meditate. Saved by the bell, for sure.

It is your incredibly good luck to be in a room too full of people who are all waiting to hear Jack Kornfield give a dharma talk. Talk about positive energy.

What is the opposite of grasping? (he asks it very innocently, and the word pops into my head: Abundance) Of course he prefers GENEROSITY. I mean, who doesn't??

Weaving in and out of stories, making his point carefully yet gently, he finally gets to the "how to" portion of his talk. There are three kinds of generosity: tentative, brotherly/sisterly, royal. He keeps telling you that it is ok to be tentatively generous, but that you will just feel more of the love when you are royally generous. Now you are just about to feel badly about yourself for only ever having been tentatively generous when he lowers the boom. With whom should we be most generous??

You got it, yourself.

Lesson learned: when you feel like giving, do it. Don't let yourself give it a second thought. Remember to be most compassionate to yourself. The more you have, compassion that is, the more you will be willing to give.

what you don't know...

I am trying to learn the maximum amount from my latest employment situation. (I wanted to say debacle, but I am trying to be less cynical and more silver lining.) Here's something I learned, or re-learned. (I wish I could say that I don't need to re-learn this, as I feel I have been in this space FAR too often.)

There is already a lot of subtext to this post, and it is only the second paragraph. YIKES.

Lesson: what you don't know will allow you to live blithely along.

Subtext: I would have done much better to note the craziness inwardly and never say a word about it...just plot my escape without ever trying to fix it or offer suggestions to fix it. I mean, so the boss may never hear from me the fascinating and fabulous idea for fixing something; or he/she won't hear how that latest idea is a dog; but he/she DIDN'T want to hear any of that anyway. What my quiet, acquiescent colleagues have on me is that they don't have to become the anti-christ, but I do. Trying to be honest in these situations was just another way for my boss to read me as disloyal, uncommitted and disrespectful. No return on my investment on truth and honesty. Write it down in your journal, tell your friend, keep it in the book of THE WAY I WOULD DO THINGS, but whatever you do, don't tell the boss. This will be my new mantra. I am going to make it into a little sign and post in near the light switch at home. I am going to make it cute and small and keep it in my pocket.

Inferred lesson: not all broken things need to be fixed; especially not by me

Subtext: I admit it, I do have an oversized sense of responsibility. After reading the OCD book, it makes me WONDER about myself. (But that might be another way for me to make this my failing; [haha, my subtext has a subtext which now has a subtext...super YIKES.] {So glad no one really reads this blog but me.}) As a result of the SUPER-SIZED conscience, when I see broken things, I want to fix them. No, I feel compelled to fix them; even worse, I feel compelled to tell people how to fix them. I just need to LET GO and let some things be broken.

Not really related lesson, but on my mind anyway: people who quietly contemplate and only pipe up once in a long while really do have the right idea. [Even though these kind of people really make me crazy, perhaps that is just me not understanding all the true lessons in the world.]

Subtext: It certainly would make my life easier to just SHUT THE FUCK UP. I am looking forward to learning about WISE SPEECH and then practicing it. Thank goodness, god, the goddess, all the little beings that make this world go round that I am going on the residential retreat. I can't wait; now I am on two countdowns.

5 work days left/11 days til retreat

m&ms in solitary

This article is not too long and thoroughly FASCINATING. Please read it if you get a chance.

Thinking about solitude or at least free time has made me wonder what I will do with my idle hands. I note that I need to constantly be handling something if I am not working on something. Sitting on the bus this morning, spare the air, I played with my earring for quite a while before I even realized that was what I was doing. Pulling my hands away from my earring, my fingers immediately found a piece of my backpack that I could fold, unfold, fold again, unfold again, etc.

When my mind is idle, and sometimes even when it is not, it is always searching for something to fill it up. I listen to the news as background at work in part so that I can focus on my work; so that I won't be searching for noises in the background to keep my mind busy. Now, I do the same thing with the clock radio in the morning. I can count on at least another half hour of sleep after the alarm goes off because the news will keep my mind busy and allow me to sleep. The stories will be folded into my dreams, but I won't wake up.

I worry a little as my residential retreat at the meditation center approaches that I will have trouble emptying my mind. I have always been unable to meditate for this reason, or at least believed myself to be incapable of meditating. Why am I going to a retreat then? Because I really want to empty my mind of the "business" -- that is the busy-ness... all of those crazy, random, usually self-sabotage thoughts that run through my mind continuously. I don't seem to have an off button and I can't tune it down; or I haven't found the controls.

In a few weeks, I am hoping to force myself to uncover the controls...to implement a quiet time; to force myself to focus on breathing, living, listening to my heart beat.

So, reading about this man in solitary confinement captivated my imagination.

Think...all you have is time, in a controlled environment with very little stimulation, if any. How many grains make up a cinderblock? I think I would have an answer if I had had to spend every day and night in a small box made out of cinderblock for 20 years. Turning things over and over in my mind, might I have gone crazy? Would I have figured out a way to see in my mind beyond what I could see with my eyes? Would the world have progressed in my mind as it progressed outside the cellblock? What kind of art could or would I produce under these circumstances?

I wish I knew without having to experience the sensory deprivation of solitary confinement.

Beyond the musing of the by-products of solitary confinement, I was also struck by the brutality of this treatment. Perhaps it is not technically torture, but it is certainly a form of psychological mistreatment. What could possibly be gained by doing this to someone? In what was is this treatment rehabilitation?

One more thought raced through my mind as I read this piece: how is this like mental illness? Is someone who struggles with keeping track of what is real and what is imagined living in the same kind of confinement in reverse? So much stimulation with few tools for filtering which is true and which is not. Do those with mental illness long for a day outside this cell? Are they so used to the over-stimulation that they would not know what to do without the extra stimulation? Would they be like the borg disconnected from the collective, bereft, alone, solitary??

What if that's all it is

Lately, I have felt, again, overwhelmed. [Not as bad as when I was having nightmares or not being able to sleep.] It is just that feeling that everyone around you is in need, and you are too. I start to feel like I might not have anymore to give. I think other's needs are only a part of this overwhelmed feeling; it is more about what their needs trigger in me.

Just when I think that I need to be mindful of reserving some resources for myself...that friend who is needing something, asks a simple question that furthers my own quest for understanding.

[Ah...it was RIGHT to give a little bit more of myself, again. Fears of scarcity aside, I usually err on the side of giving more than less, but I am ashamed that I worry about running out of the energy I need to keep giving to my friends.]

What if that's all love is?

"That" in this case is someone who likes you; the way it feels to be "adored" by someone else. At its essence, "that" was a wanting someone else to know you not necessarily anything you felt for him/her. "That" included having someone to hang out with, to be there when you get home, to be the place you lay your head. I mean, we all want someone who is FOR us, right? We want someone who likes who WE are and that looks different depending on the person. It sounds like it is about ME not about US at all. Is that love? Is there something else besides that?

Yes, yes, the butterflies, the obsession, but what about after the lust fades? Is there some greater emotion, some greater connection? I have to admit, when my friend turned to me and asked, "What if that is all there is?" I know she was thinking, what if I gave up when I already had whatever this thing called love is? Well...if you weren't feeling good in the relationship, there was something missing...but was it about the relationship? These are sticky questions, they are like gak being lobbed at you. Of course, we all have issues that we bring to relationships and these issues can cause us discomfort or downright depression. But, that doesn't mean that a bad relationship is just YOU waiting to be FIXED. So, then we are back to the original question....
who the hell knows?

I can only really say this, I know that we expect WAY too much from relationships. I have been accused of thinking of relationships through the lens of the fairy tale. Guilty. Yet, companionship is not relationship. Marriage is too difficult to try to make it work with someone who you don't LOVE. I want to say I believe that LOVE is more than companionship. But I was hard-pressed to really express what I used to think was LOVE.

But, I did come out with another view of an old picture, maybe it will become a panorama; maybe it will be a 360 view that makes more sense when I am done. [Are we ever done?]

Big Moose Lake's Miss Brown

Ok...for a lazy, summer afternoon or hectic hump day, this article is truly a must read.

To give you a sense of what you are in store for with this piece, here's my favorite quote:

boats take "the mildly curious and the recreationally obsessed to the site of Miss Brown’s death."

Sounds like just the perfect vaction spot for me.

Seriously, I am the one who picked a ring out my mother's jewelry box (at 15) because it looked like a coffin.

I wish I were taking a trip to Big Moose Lake...

What if he NEVER loved me?

Is there any thing more pathetic than that question? [NOTE: I mean pathetic to me and not to anyone else who might ask this question, keep reading, I will explain.]

Well, there may be, or there may not be.

But, it IS the question that haunts you when you are trying to "get over" the relationship.

It is actually a string of questions:

What if he (she) never loved me?
What if no one ever loved me?
What if I am not lovable? (that is, what if there is something wrong with me that makes people not love me?)

It goes from pretty bad (read pathetic) to completely debasing yourself and making self-worth nil.

It was a little too much of a coincidence when my friend told me she had been thinking about this question and her ex. I mean, for a week, I have been carrying around a letter to my brother in which I am hoping to explain to him that he doesn't need to worry about this. Somehow, though the words are right on the tip of my tongue (and obviously on the tips of my fingers), I have been unable to write the letter.

It is a little intrusive to hear these emotions from him when he hasn't said any of them to me. Ok, maybe very intrusive. It is possible that these emotions are just too close to the surface for me, so I hear them everywhere. It is definitely possible that I am the one that needs the letter.

Then again...when my friend voiced this question, out loud, not hinted about it, just asked it... it certainly validated my rumination.

Of course, though I have been puzzling about this question and what the answers might mean, I found it perfectly easy to turn to my friend and tell her, "whether it's true or not, it's irrelevant." And, "we can spend a lot of time obsessing about it, or we can work on the root issue." [Right, because I am so grounded, I can do these thing? PLEASE!]

Not that this isn't good advice; but why would anyone take advice from ME on this issue?? I heard the words coming from my mouth, and I knew I meant those words in the most supportive and positive way possible, yet I was surprised and horrified that I could turn to say that to her when I wasn't following that fabulous advice myself.

So, it wasn't about my ex-husband exactly, but I was thinking that terrible spiral of questions myself, JUST LAST WEEK...and I am not even sure what my final determination was.

I am going to now try to take my own advice: it's irrelevant. The root issue: believing myself not worthy of love, is what I need to work on until it is resolved.

what would my postsecret card say?

Apparently it's such a deep secret even I don't know.

Not unlike my desire to uncover "what do I really want?" or "what do I really want to do with my life?" -- these are all unkowns to me.

6 miles

I haven't been as faithful to the training this time around. Not only have I not stopped drinking alcohol, as I did last time around, but I also have not been faithful to the schedule.

This is the first week I have made all the miles ... and three of them were walking.

Still...since the last half marathon, this is the longest I have run in two years.

I am claiming this run as a victory, with pride.

Small steps are still steps forward.

War by any means necessary

It would appear that we can think of no reason not to war. If we have to take recruits who are clearly troubled, well, that doesn't matter as we are just going to use them as sheep and lead them to slaughter anyway.

Ok, that's harsh...but is it not true at this point? We are so desperate for bodies to push in front of bombs and guns and armed militias we will make exceptions to our recruiting rules at a higher rate.

That is bad enough.

What's worse is the number of soldiers returning from war so disturbed that they are turning their rage (and weapons) on civilians in this country.

How can we expect any different from them? In the field, they are told that it is impossible to distinguish between good civilians and bad civilians. They are told that torture is a barely ethical means to a justified end. Why should they see civilians at home in any other way?

How does anyone readjust to civilian life after spending months killing and torturing? When you mix the messages between life and death and ethical and unethical, how do you expect young, impressionable men, who are trying to make something honorable out of something deplorable, to come out on the other side as constructive citizens?

quote of the day

What ought one to say then as each hardship comes? I was practicing for this, I was training for this?
- - Epictitus

If there were real hardship, I would feel justified in feeling this quote today.

These feelings are not real hardship: living on the street, watching those you love in pain, etc.

But these feelings are real and I have to live through them.

But I need to be willing to reach underneath the feelings and figure out where they come from. Why does it feel like hardship? Was there hardship once that has congealed into a mass that rises in my throat?

Today I held it together all day. Tired, exhausted, really. I didn't sleep last night. All the decongestants and allergy meds finally took my sleep completely. Then a full day of new people and then dinner with the colleagues.

Now I feel depleted and defeated. They took nothing from me, yet now I give them all the power and any sense of accomplishment I had today.

How can I let go of the pain (memory of hardship) and the bad thoughts I allow to fill my brain??

What are the steps?

Re-Opening the Third Eye

Not so long ago, but long enough, I felt I could feel and hear things about people and situations that went beyond what one would call the usual senses. I fell into it in some ways, like the trip to Idaho and the crazy mountain woman who taught me to read tarot cards; but in other ways, it had been there as long as I knew, like communicating with my dead grandparents through dreams as a child.

At the time of my greatest openness, when I walked by someone who was in pain, I could feel it, even if I didn't know the person. It was as if there were a hole in my soul that others recognized and it called their emotions. Sometimes I would just get the wash of sadness and sometimes people I didn't know wanted to tell me about their deepest pain. It never felt strange or unnatural. It was the way I was.

Somewhere in the past 10 years or so, I feel I lost it. The hole closed up or was temporarily covered by cobwebs. I don't know. I blame my ex-husband, but that is a pretty easy out. The thing is during my relationship with him, I spent a lot of time trying to bend myself into the person he said he wanted. Unfortunately, just as I would make the last bend, what he wanted changed. It took me too long to figure out that it wasn't really me he wanted to change, it was just his easy way to not have to deal with his own issues. In the process, though, so many traits, behaviors, things that were ME were trampled. Some needed to be trampled or at least reworked. But some were just naive, open-hearted loving of life parts of myself that when described by my ex sounded like psychotic behavior.

Of course, I exaggerate. But, let me give you one example. I am a talker, you might have noticed. I used to get in trouble as a child for chatting with the winos (that's what we called them, pc or not) in the park. I didn't know fear of people. I was drawn to people energy, for better or worse. I talked to everyone, putting people at ease or intuiting their thoughts about a situation and commenting. It is a gift from my father that I treasure. For my ex, this was not acceptable, particularly if the person I was talking to was male. He accused me of flirting with everyone and worse. It turned out several years later that any male with whom I had spoken, in my ex's mind had been my lover. Interesting. Instead of thinking that my ex was just CRAZY, I tried to figure out what I had done to provoke this reaction in him. Since I have never really understood flirting, I didn't know how to modify my behavior in such a way that talking to me wouldn't be construed as flirting. So I learned to not talk to men, or worse, to feel self-conscious about talking to men whenever I had to talk to men. Not surprisingly, I became suspicious of all of my talking to people I didn't know. Pretty soon I was uncomfortable talking to anyone I didn't know. Was this the same person who used to make friends with homeless people?? Hardly.

This was one way that I started to distrust my instincts.

You can only imagine how the rest of the destructive relationship messed with my ability to trust my instincts.

Slowly but surely, the third eye was closed. Every time I looked through it, all I could do was blink and think to myself, is that really what I see?

In the process of rediscovering myself, I am trying to re-open the third eye; to begin to feel and sense more than see and hear. To analyze less and believe more. To trust myself and my instincts, but more importantly, to believe that I have instincts that are to be trusted and to clean the cobwebs out so that I can HEAR the voices from within and without that used to constantly whisper to me. I need to believe they are all still there just waiting for me to be willing to listen again, but sometimes I worry that they have found other people to listen.