My love is loving me

I want to write a post about something that is key to my awareness at this time...I am finding in my life a lot of things are happening that are similar and it seems that I am the one that is creating these things in my life...,must be if they are all the same!  My living situation is messed up again and I have to move.  They don’t want to deal with tenants and especially tenants who ask them to repair things. My last landlady still is giving me a hard time about my damage deposit with no damage (truly).  My ex is threatening to cut off the kids university allowance if he has to pay me the money he owes me in our separation agreement.  ICBC cannot decide whether I am to blame for the other person going through the red light and have indicated that it will most likely be me.  My friend and lover has come back into the picture and to keep him in the picture – that is – to see him and be lovers requires that I accept that he can continue to see other women as well.  Oh and the principal at the school is not bullying me but bossing me around and acting like I don’t know my job or trying to find things out that I have failed to do correctly.  Wow...seems like everyone is out to get me.  If I didn’t know better I would become paranoid and believe that I am no good for anything! Unlovable!

Lennie and I have talked about the lover thing and what comes up for me as my learning is to just look at my reactions to this situation.  He wants to have this freedom and that is reality.  I have been fighting this reality for a long time.  So let him have what he needs and continue on with the relationship and see what feelings come up for me, not sharing them with him but taking that journey inward.  Rejection, jealousy, not being good enough, not being special... in terms of all other things in my life - what comes up for me?  That I am not good enough?  That I am to blame when things go wrong?  Guilt? Shame?  All of this is showing me wounds in myself.  It is like I have invited the lessons to me to find out who I am. Looking at the things that come up for me and staying in that mode is what will bring me the truth.  Not reacting and getting mad at the lover, the landlord, reacting to the principal, the ex husband.  What do these things bring up for me?  I wanted and often continue to want to leave.  Pack up and go, sell everything and go.  But here is where the work is.  Here is where I need to learn to be happy. Acceptance of the truth, seeing the truth, knowing that we all have the parasite and that others’ parasite is not mine or my issue.  Love them all instead of blame them all or blame myself  Knowing that this love that I express to them will come back to me.  Anger or jealousy or any of that will come back to me.  No one is loving me.  I am loving me by loving others.  It doesn’t matter who loves me because the love that I send out is the love for me too.  I don’t need the love and acceptance of another...I just need to be love...

"Need to Know" Character

The need to know..."Need to Know"...it's been so hard for me to write about these three words, even to the point of extreme distraction.  I would rather do Anything else besides sitting down and writing about it.  It's as though I don't know where to begin and where to end when I say these three words.  (Hhmm..look at that, I even need a beginning and an end)  My whole life, as I can remember, has been constructed with a plan.  I always "Need to know" what I'm doing... where I'm going and what I'm going to do when I get to where I'm going and how I'm doing it.  Writing that is hilarious, but yet this in truth is how I function.

 

Up until recently I really didn't even see this about myself and when it was brought to my attention, my mind was blank.  I simply could not understand or see... for within these three words my whole structure/frame of my life is built.  And to question this....well, so much would be revealed.  Needing a plan, needing to know, constantly creating a structure is safe for me and to take that all away I would then be in "I don't know".  My mind says it is impossible to function, to live in "I don't know".  As my awareness grows around the "Need to know"  I see how truly controlling I am.  It's as though Pandora's box has been opened.  (and I thought I opened Pandora's box 3 1/2 years ago)  I see that every action I take even with spirituality, my journey which I treasure...I have used, constructed, and built my special little frame to see only what I want to see.  And now here comes my big "I can't believe it" statement.  Oh...the projections and stories I weave just to keep my frame together...all of it run by my "Need to Know".

Underneath it all I found a huge amount of Fear.  So for now I sit with the fear as much as I can and do my best to be aware of when I am building up my structure.  I ask myself...who and what am I without needing to know, without my frame?  Who am I without all my stories and roles I play?  the questions go on...  When I do this my mind says a loud "I don't know", sometimes I freeze... sometimes I watch (and am gripped) with a total frantic story line which unfolds about how impossible it is to function...and on and on it goes.  And sometimes, just briefly, when my internal dialogue stops I feel something...something I can not put in words....and am left with the question...maybe just maybe...could it be possible to live in "I don't know?"

 

Dancing with the Saboteur ....

I think my "super-hero" character would have to be The Saboteur!  For weeks, I can go about my life, feeling balanced, happy and "in the moment". I seem to handle life as it comes with a certain ease and pleasure.  Then out of the lightness, a darker presence starts to bubble up into the layers of my  mind, affecting my decisions and choices.  Yes, the Saboteur has returned for a visit!!!!.. This character is like an energy that tries to throw me off my course thru subversion, obstruction and disruption. Sometimes its appearance can be so subtle and quiet that I barely know it is present, until I start to feel unsettled, as if I am not quite right.  Other times, it crashes into my life in full color and glitz, knocking me to the ground, leaving me feel powerless.  How does it play out? Maybe I re engage in unkind thoughts about someone, or I start questioning my dreams in life, or maybe I stop exercising; I start comfort eating etc. The old voices and frameworks return, cajoling me into thinking my new thoughts are just folly. Or I give up on myself. Or I question this spiritual crap, calling it a waste of time and money.... The Saboteur is playing its game with me, and I have to remember that I can change the rules to the game. So the Sabateur sometimes has its way with me, but once I become aware of its presence, I try to just be with it, and try to make peace with myself, and stay away from that self-judgement that would possess me for days, making me even less inclined to do the things my heart wishes. The Saboteur likes to win, and will do anything to make me pay attention to it. I try to reconnect with my heart and emotions, and allow its energy to engage with the Saboteur... It is challenging and I sometimes give into the Saboteur because it is easier. What I have found is that  as long as I don't ignore the Saboteur, I keep its power and influence at bay, and its voice may be in the background, but it isin't the enemy...  the dance with the Saboteur continues, in all its brilliant dance steps, movements and costumes!!

THE CONVOLUTOR

I was thinking we all could have super-hero type characters.
So far I am The Fluctuator or The Convolutor


Fluctuate:

1. to move back and forth or up and down; rise and fall; undulate, as waves
2. to be continually changing or varying in an irregular way:

Convoluted:

1. having convolutions, as in the kidney's tubules; coiled; spiraled
2. extremely involved; intricate; complicated: a convoluted style

Where I am At- THE FLUCTUATOR

I decided to just start writing about where "I am at" and see if I can see a character forming from there.
I am reluctant. I am reluctant to say where I am at. I don't want to "do the work". I just want a magic book (The Four Agreements) to transform me just by reading it. And if that doesn't work, buy the next book, the Fifth Agreement to see what I missed and to correct my mistake.
I say I want to be Free, that I want to be completely healthy and healed.
Then I don't follow through with the actions. I don't sit and meditate every day. I don't get out and get exercise every day. I spend a lot of time on the computer, feeling crappy and thinking I "should" be doing something else but not stopping.
I obsessed over my relationship when we were broken up. I cried almost every day.
Now we are back together and I find that I am obsessing over it again but now its the lack of satisfaction that I feel being in the relationship. I say I want complete honesty yet I am afraid to speak my truth. Because my crazy mind will say that I don't know what is the truth. That I am crazy. I will think one thing one day and then change it completely the next day. Why put him through that? I think of all kinds of theories as to why I am feeling frustrated and end up not sharing anything. It also doesn't help that he tells me that he doesn't want to (and won't) talk about the relationship.
It seems that I only view life through two kinds of glasses. Either the Rose-coloured ones or the Dark Glasses. Either I am madly focusing on gratitude, appreciating what I like in my life, loving it when life seems to be going "my way". Or I am zooming down into despair, looking through the dark glasses, everything appears senseless and hopeless. I have a negative exchange with my lover and I want to break up with him.  I have a migraine for days and I want to die.  I want to get away from the dark SO much. I use a lot of energy trying to turn the negative into positive by rationalizing, by re-framing, by ignoring, by escaping. 
Lennie once suggested that I not keep trying to make lemonade out of the lemons.  That is my habit. How can I make this shitty ________ into something beautiful or at least minimally acceptable.
And if you haven't already noticed, I have the Dark Glasses on right now.
I have no answers.
I am not even sure what the questions are anyway.

Shifting Characters

Writing my "character' has been challenging, because as I write, I discover there are many characters at play, and depending upon my mood or situation, different characters emerge, more out of habit than in response to what the immediate situation might call for.. to make life easy, I realize that I have taught myself  to respond to certain situations like a puppet. I kinda have a matching 'character" that emerges to deal with specific  situations ( the judge, the goody goody, the angry ). But these generic approaches never seems to work, because I realize that each situation is unique and I need to be more aware, and listen and respond from the heart, rather than from an automatic, reactive approach. All situations are not equal, and need to be approached differently.  I guess that my character could be seen as a tad shifty and whimsical, and responding out of a need to be right, rather than a need to truly see and hear the situation, and what it is asking of me, even if my mind thinks otherwise.  No matter how you cut the pie, it always comes back to "awareness" and appreciating the subtleness that each experience asks of you. In a sense I find I ask myself twice how I feel about something, because sometimes the first answer is coming from a place of habit, and if I ask myself the question again, I find myself deepening and the answer is quite different.