The Girl From Walden Pond

Why am I so stuck?
Why have I worked so hard to still be so stuck?
Why do I still feel so childlike and incapable of being an adult, like I'd never grown up?
I feel incapable of being a good mother.
I feel incapable of feeling happy and free.
Of making my own decisions and living in a spiritually sound way.
I see no way out.
It feels like a farce to think I'm actually an adult and will ever find a way to feel happy and free and to be good at anything.
It's all an illusion I just can't keep up.
Leave me alone all of you who think I can actually be someone who matters.
I am a follower and that's it, a support in the shadow of the great ones, helping from my dark corners from which I creep, only to dart back to my dark, lonely hiding place.
It's all a show.  The cheerfulness, the autonomy, the capability.
I am not worthy and capable.
I must admit the truth before I can be anything.
I am terrified to be alive, responsible for children, and to have a life of my own.
I am a small child.  How could I do that??
Leave me alone and expect nothing of me.
We all know that's what you'll get in the end.
I can't keep up the song and dance anymore.
I have no more to give.
I have no energy to keep this up.
It's not real.
What's real is that I'm tiny and insignificant, incapable and scared to death of all of you.
I don't want a relationship with you because it means I'll have to do this "thing" some more.
Being with you makes me into something I hate.
I don't want to hate me, so please stay away.
It's how I feel in relation to you.
I hate what I become when I try to be with you, when I think perhaps I can make you happy, when I think maybe we can interact in an enjoyable way.
My dreams crash to the floor.
It all shatters and each time this happens, I feel smaller and smaller, less and less capable of having any impact on the world, on you or on me.
Each time I feel more angry, hurt and helpless to affect anything in my world.
Each time I retreat further, darker, smaller.
Further into myself where I can't be seen.
More masks, more veneers, more pretending, hard surfaces to show to the world.
Less expectation of happiness, connection, intimacy, realness.
I BECOME that veneer, that face I show to the world.
I forget that the realness even existed, that I ever had dreams of connection, intimacy and true love, of authenticity and joy.
It hurts too much to remember that.  Way too much.
I think I would die if I had to expose myself one more time and dream again of real intimacy.
She is so small, so hidden, so protected in a rock hard shell, in complete darkness, tucked away where no one will find her.
There is a disconnect between that pure heart that ventured out to seek connection and found none and the shell of a girl that lived my life.
Years ago I had a dream of a stone statue of a girl called "The Girl From Walden Pond".
That was me, the girl that appeared to be a girl, but who you could put your hand through because she wasn't really there.
Pretending won't make it different.
Acting as if I'm real won't make me real.
It's just more of the shell.
It's either her or it's not.
It's the real me or it's the shell.

Push to Open

So here's another one; the first being the tulip scenario.  I had a meeting with a guy, Paul, who was leaving his office the same time I was, so we walked out together.  He suggested we take the stairs so I pushed the door to the stairwell.  It didn't open.  I pushed again, harder.  Still nothing.  So I pushed harder.  I think I pushed it four times, harder each time.  Paul chuckled and another guy walking past us gave me a "Settle down, there.  Everything's gonna be just fine" kinda smile while he pushed the big green button that said" Push to Open".  Ohhhh! Right.

I laughed, as I'm doing now, recalling the ridiculousness of the situation and how foolish I looked, except I really didn't care about that.  I cared more about the symbolism behind it.  That's how I live my life.  Pushing, pushing, pushing, even when the thing clearly isn't working.  "I'm in control!  Me!  I got this!"

Letting go is so hard.  It's much easier to hold on tightly to what feels safe.  What a false sense of security, holding on to illusions.  In fact, I feel chaotic and uncertain when I'm pushing and trying to secure control that I will never have.  We already are safe.  Always have been and always will be.  It's the vulnerability that's scary, but that's the only place we'll find what's real.

My Drug of Choice

It's not drugs, alcohol or cigarettes.  It's not even shopping or TV; it's not sex or gambling or obsessive exercise.  No, it's much more subtle and more difficult to recognize that all those.  After spending years TOTALLY judging people who watched a lot of TV,  it dawned on me one day that spending hours on the internet is not entirely different.  If I'm cruising the net, what am I not doing?  I'm not consciously intending on how I want to spend my precious time and energy. I'm not focused on what is truly meaningful to me.  I'm certainly not focused, maybe not even aware, of how I'm feeling.

When I'm feeling really upset, I feel frantic to talk to someone about it.  Why? Because I'm not very good at comforting myself through it.  Instead of accepting how I feel with self-compassion, I scramble to find something to do, whether it's opening my computer, organizing the cupboards, or taking care of just about anything.  Even talking to someone about what's wrong is really a distraction from being alone with my feelings.  All of these things are a "fix" to get me by until the next time I hit a breaking point and need another one.

What would I rather do?  Really focus on the feeling, even enhance it, call all of it to the surface from within me to feel it as intensely as possible.  The feeling will fester until it is felt.  The only way out is through.

Grow, F***ing Tulip!

I called my friend, Mimi, last weekend when I was feeling down about all the emotion I had just spewed on my friend.  She knows me well and knows how hard I am on myself and how hard I strive for perfection.  She said, "Imagine a tulip coming up out of the ground.  You're like a thunderstorm when the tulip needs stillness and tenderness.  It's like you're standing over the tulip saying 'Grow, f***ing tulip!'"  Wow, that's been powerful for me!  Hilarious, too.  I laugh every time I think about it!  It's so absurd.

Then Michael, my counselor (love him!), was helping me process through some emotions a few days later.  I was being abrasive with myself because I want to be strong and able to handle anything.  I actually am strong and can handle anything, but I don't like to admit that the opposite is true as well.  I don't want to admit that I'm actually hurt very easily and that there is a heap of hurt and sadness stuck inside from all the times I didn't allow myself to feel it.

As I was trying to get in touch with the feelings that I needed to feel, Michael said "What if you were trying to coax a bunny out of a hole?  What would that look like?"  "Come on, let's go, it won't hurt" is too harsh for a bunny.  Bunnies are very gentle, skittish creatures.  They scare easily and require quiet and calm.  They'll stop dead in their tracks at the first unknown sound and they'll run away to hide at the first sign of danger.  They will only come out of their hole if it's quiet, peaceful and safe.  If you want to get to know the bunny, you'd need to be quiet and peaceful and allow the bunny to come to you, offering a safe, nurturing presence.  Forcing and coercing will not work.  It simply won't.

These have changed my perspective entirely.  When I talk with my kids, I think about the bunny.  When I am impatient or disrespectful to myself with my words or thoughts, I think about the bunny.  We are all like bunnies. Our true selves can only feel comfortable being seen in a welcoming, accepting and loving environment.  It's apropos that tulips and bunnies are both representations of springtime, new beginnings and resurrection.

Knowing

If there's one thing I have learned on my journey, it's to trust myself.  My friend, Kathleen, and I joke about how I was when I first started on this path and was going through a divorce.  I would call her and say, "I don't know what I think... tell me what I think!"  I used to just plain assume I didn't know the answer.  I had no idea how to trust myself and was much more comfortable following whoever was in front of me.

Wow, is that different now.  Now when I'm cloudy, I get impatient and frustrated and wish I knew exactly what to do, but really I know that it's just not time to take action.  I've learned to differentiate between analytical conclusions, which sometimes are right on, and what I KNOW.  When I know it, I know it and there is absolutely nothing anyone can say to sway me.  I know it through every cell of my body and in the deepest part of my soul because it's really an awakening to the truth.  It's when I'm getting in touch with my higher self and the thing that is exactly right for me.

When I find myself in a vortex of confusion about what to do next, I have to remind myself that I know the answer and ask my brain to step aside for a moment.  I feel for the right answer and trust whatever comes to me.  I always find myself saying, "Okay, yeah, I already knew that." Always behind the confusion, the truth is uncomfortable for me, like having to tell the truth to someone when it's the most scary thing to do ever, or having to sit still to feel sad about something I've been avoiding my entire life.  Yikes!

It feels confusing because the truth is competing with the ego.  An internal battle between what my soul knows to be true and the story that my ego likes to tell about who I am and what I like to do.  No matter how spiritually evolved or intuitive a person is, no human being knows better about me and my life than I do.  I honestly thought they did.  It's' so liberating to know that I know what to do.

No Pointing Fingers

Anger is rarely about the thing that brought up the anger.  Anger is such a blessing, because if you look straight at it and get to know it and to know yourself through it, light is shed on the darkness.  I had been asking to know and heal my anger and irritability that I had been holding onto for so long.  So there is was, right in front of me, though I certainly didn't see it clearly at first.

Last week, a friend of mine told me about her being mistreated by a man she was dating.  I was very suddenly and surprisingly angry.  I wanted to give her the space she needed to make her own mistakes and live through her own process of learning without judgement.  I know that's what I need from my friends.  Instead, I was consumed with anger and sadness and focused on how wrong she was for allowing herself to be mistreated.  What I wish I would have done is noticed that she was bringing up so many emotions for me, told her that I needed the time and space to process through the emotions on my own, and then addressed them with her if it was still necessary, from a place of love in my heart.

Unfortunately, that's not what I did.  Instead, I had begun to process through it all and to understand where the anger and hurt were coming from, but was still angry with her for being so careless with herself.  I felt that she "needed" me (that's another story!), so went ahead with the ensuing conversations and proceeded to spew my unprocessed thoughts and feelings all over her.  She felt hurt enough by me that she no longer wants to be my friend.  Zowie!  What have I done?

So on I go, seeking deeper and deeper inside myself for the answers.  It's ME I need to look at, not her! It's ME that put up with mistreatment for a very long time. It's ME that hasn't yet forgiven myself for it. Someone said to me this weekend, "when you're pointing the finger at someone else, there are four fingers pointing back at you." Isn't that the truth!  I have no doubt that this situation that feels like a lot of hurt, will transform itself into healing for the highest good.                        

Against the Storm

Chaos all around
Unanswered questions, uncertainties
How can this be!?
Pushing, pulling, whirling
Core of self, principled
Only authenticity will be enough
Insecurities, doubts, fears
Push through, maintain you
Stand tall, unbreakable against the storm