SHUT DOWN
I am blessed to have people in my life who ask me the difficult questions that I don’t want to answer. Even more blessed that they know I don’t want to answer, and push me through. Last night a friend of mine did just that, and I have been thinking about it ever since.
Last night was rough for me in Ministerial Duties class. I knew when I walked in I didn’t want to be there, and almost left during the first break. I hung out, and on break my friends Katherine and Cody spent some time with me and we just talked about some things, which of course is where the tough questions came in. Katherine has a way of reading me, and although I don’t often respond emotionally to things, she found my tell. She said that when I get emotional about things my chest and neck get red, something I never realized. We talked for a while, and although she pushed me a few times, I never answered her question of what I was feeling when a particular topic came up.
The truth is, I don’t know. I have spent much of my life blocking out the things that make me uncomfortable or unhappy. I blocked out most of my childhood for that reason. The challenge is that I have a strong desire to write a book to help others. I want to share my experiences so that others can learn from them. The bigger challenge is that I have blocked out many experiences, particularly the emotional part of those experiences. It’s interesting that this topic came up in our discussion last night, since I have been reflecting on this very subject for several days. I want to write a book, but where do I begin? How do I explain certain experiences, when I can’t bring myself back to those moments to re-experience them? I tend to approach them in a completely non-emotional way, they are things that happened and they are what they are. While I believe this is true, I also don’t believe that I can TRULY overcome these things if I don’t approach them on an emotional level. See my quandary?
It is really quite interesting when I think about it. I am an empath, so in reality I tend to be extremely emotional. The thing is that it is other people’s emotions that I am feeling… I don’t know how to feel my own emotions and I don’t know when that happened. When I truly think about it, I think I may have always been that way with certain things. I’m famous with those who know me best for “shutting down”. How can I heal, and how can I teach if I shut down. It frustrates me because I AM a healer, and maybe I am because I can be objective with other people’s issues, but how much better could I be if I could come to terms with my own emotions?
So hold on, it gets better. In class last night we were talking about how, as ministers, we will deal with domestic violence situations, suicide and sexual or physical abuse. These are all things I have experienced, and while I was uncomfortable in the beginning, I just continued to get more and more agitated throughout the class. I was anxious, agitated and aggravated and I just wanted to run, which I did by the way at 9:15. There were many factors in my desire to run, and on the surface it was because of all the energy in the room, and some peoples’ needs to be right and not open to others’ perspectives or feelings. When I think about it more though I believe that is my chicken exit. Some people use humor, I use shut down. I envision it as red lights flashing in my brain and sirens blaring with someone on a megaphone repeatedly yelling “SHUT DOWN, SHUT DOWN, SHUT DOWN”. I have had the opportunity to see recently how often I really do that, and more importantly how it affects me.
I believe that everything happens for a reason, and I don’t believe in being a victim to anything that I have experienced. But am I serving myself by not feeling anything at all? I don’t think I am at all, actually the more I think about it I believe it is a cop-out. However, I have been doing it for so long, the truth is that I don’t even know how to begin to learn how to feel or explain my emotions. If you ask me, I’ll always be fine. That’s not a very good way to work toward letting people in is it? More importantly, it certainly isn’t a very good way to explain my experiences and help other people.
So where do I begin then? The voice inside me says I must start at the beginning. I don’t know what the beginning is. Is it the moment that I was abruptly born and came sliding out of my mother onto the floor? Clearly I don’t remember that, but I have no doubt in my soul that it impacted my life. . . Or is this very moment the beginning? Is it this moment that I get to choose to feel what I feel and put it into words without self judgement and with out the fear that anyone else will judge me for those feelings?
How do you go from being that strong woman who, while empathetic, can’t feel any of her own feelings? How do you go from being completely NOT vulnerable to opening up and allowing others to support you and help you, and even sometimes carry you along some parts of your journey.
Well, I guess you start at the beginning. My truth is that the beginning is this very moment, this is the beginning of the rest of our lives. While I still have no idea how I would even begin to “feel” after all this time, I do know that I have some serious angels surrounding me, both on the spiritual level and those who were brought to me in physical form. I choose to believe they were brought to me for this very reason, to take hold of my beginning, to work backwards and to share my journey with anyone who wants to listen and who may benefit from it.
What I have discovered is that suppressing my emotions certainly hasn’t served me. Even though we tend to believe that numbness is feeling nothing, neither good or bad, truly numbness feels a lot like emptiness. I choose today to lean on those people who have stepped in my life to hold me up when I feel like I can’t stand on my own. This is not something I have ever done, nor wanted to do. But today, I realize that I need it, that they want that for me, and that I deserve it.
We were brought here to love and to receive love. By not allowing others to love us, we are taking something extremely miraculous away from not only ourselves, but from those people. We are ALL deserving of love, love of God, of Spirit, of the Universe, of nature, of everything…. because we ARE love. Each of us is love, deserving of love, and meant to share our love with others. We are doing everyone a dis-service if we aren’t allowing both.
That’s my story for today. I’m sure there will be more to come on this topic, as it is bound to be an interesting journey.
-Blessings
February
It truly is amazing how our subconscious mind works. I chug along with life and one day I wake up and just feel blue. Not like the blue where you just wake up in a funk, but the blue that kind of takes you over and you cry about everything. (Since I’m not a person who cries a lot, I take notice). I look up and I say what the heck is wrong with me? And then I notice the date and it makes sense. Yes it’s February. February, it used to be such an exciting month, 3 birthdays in my family plus the birthdays of over 20 friends (apparently May and June are big months for making whoopie, probably because no matter where you live it’s too hot to go outside). Anyway, as I was saying, up until 7 years ago, February was a great month. Lots of celebrations, laughter and love. The second month of the year, so if I made resolutions now would be the time where I went back to not having any, the year is well on its way and we are looking forward to a great year ahead.
But that all changed for me and my family 7 years ago. I fight the battle in my head wishing I could skip February, but not wanting to rob my sister and my Dad of their birthday celebrations. I think about how they must feel, knowing they feel the same way I do, and knowing a month that used to be celebration for them is just sad for them too. In my heart, knowing that I am not the only one in my family who at some point early in February wakes up with feelings of dread, sadness, emptiness and loss. This for me is February since my Mom passed away.
Throughout the year I have my good days and my bad moments. A memory could spark and I feel sadness for a little while and then a song comes on that reminds me that she is here and I am okay. February though, is different. I wake up feeling empty and heavy all at the same time, I say to myself “It’s going to be a great day” but that feeling, that truly I could never put into words, never really goes away. A song comes on that reminds me that she is here and I just sob and wish that she truly was. I’m a person who pretty good at hiding my emotions, I refuse to be a victim to anything in life, but this is different. So some days in February, I wake up and I cry before I get out of bed and I wonder how I’m going to get out of the little funk I’m in, and by the end of the day I realize I never did. People say stuff like “What’s wrong with you today?”, “Wake up on the wrong side of the bed today?”, “Bitchy much?”, “Are you going to be like this all day?”
We’re in this time where people are uncomfortable with emotion, where we are constantly hearing “Don’t be a victim” or “You need to get out of that victim mentality” and we start to bottle everything up an refuse to show what we are feeling because we’re worried about how others will treat us. Well here are my two cents on the “victim” subject. I am a HUGE believer in not being a “victim”, BUT does that mean that we aren’t supposed to feel? Or do we at some point need to acknowledge that we are feeling sad, or lonely, or angry and just be with it and feel it. And maybe that means that we are gloomy or cranky for a day, a week or even a month, and maybe it doesn’t mean that anyone needs to fix us.
When someone we care about passes away we hear “It will get easier with time”, “Time heals all wounds”, “I know how you feel”. Here’s some ugly truth for you. It does not get easier with time, my wounds aren’t healed and you have no freakin idea how I feel. We choose our emotions right? We choose how we allow others to make us feel, so I choose this, I choose today to be gloomy and sad and cry my little heart out and I choose NOT to feel guilty for what some people want to call being a “victim”. And truly, as a friend of someone who has lost someone, please know that you can’t fix it and you can’t make it better. That’s not what being a friend is about. Maybe that person needs you to just be there, be with, and not say a word. For some reason as humans we feel this need to fix people and make them feel better so we try to say the right things, that truly just turn out to be the wrong things, simply because we have become so uncomfortable just being in the moment with someone. My very favorite poem is called “The Invitation” by Oriah, one paragraph rings in my head often.
“I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.”
Last year, on the anniversary of my Mother’s death I woke up in a hotel room just crying. I look back on that day often because it was such a terrible day for me. My best friend had no idea how to make me feel better and two things he said still pop in my head and bother me to my bone. First he said “You should be celebrating her life”. To which of course I responded “I celebrated her life last week on her birthday, today I’m morning her loss.” DUH!! Then later he asked me if I was “going to be gloomy all day.” To which of course I shot back “I might be, is that a problem for you?” I was angry with him for a long time because of those two things. I can’t lie, when I think about it I’m still angered. All I needed was him to just sit there and be with me, not finding it necessary to fill the space with words.
So here I sit on February 4th looking forward at what the month holds for me. Tomorrow I will have breakfast with the most important people in my life and celebrate the birthdays of my Sister and my Dad. On February 15th, I will wake up and celebrate the life that my mother’s 61st birthday and a week later on the 22nd I will wake up and mourn her loss. In between I will wake up and I will have my good days and bad days. Memories will undoubtedly pop in my head that I forgot about and I will laugh or cry (or both) at the flip of a switch. I will hear more songs that remind me of my Mom than any other time of the year, I will hear her voice and smell her perfume. I will be reminded that it doesn’t get easier, and maybe it isn’t supposed to. I will be reminded that my reason for being here is to do what would make her proud, and I will. I will create new beginnings this month, a new project, new milestones, wonderful things that make her proud and provide sparks of light and hope for when next February comes around. I will wake up and thank God for my life, my family and the amazing blessings that I have in my life and I will hope for a better day. I will strive to be a better person tomorrow than I was today and I will be reminded that when someone I love is hurting, maybe I don’t have to try to fix it….maybe they just need me to be there.
There are few lessons in this one… I’ll let you find them on your own.
I’ll end today by saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my family and friends this month and by saying I miss you to death my sweet angel.
Blessings….
The Invitation
The Invitation by Oriah
It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon…
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.
I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.
I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.
It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.
I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.
I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.
By Oriah © Mountain Dreaming,
Disappointment
Here’s the truth, somewhere along the line someone close to us will disappoint us. Here’s more truth, disappointment is an emotion that we ourselves are responsible for. Huh? No, really it’s true. No one can make us feel anything without our permission, so while someone stands us up or isn’t there for us when we hope they will be, or they forget something, it isn’t necessarily that their intention was to hurt us. The way we respond to “disappointments” is our own choice. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt or anger us, it’s just a circumstance that we have the power to choose how we react to.
Sometimes things come up, sometimes emergencies happen, sometimes the people that we call friends are a little more self-centered than we’d like them to be. The true question is whether or not it is something that came up, or if it is a recurring theme that happens with someone.
For example, you make plans with a really good friend who has always been there for you and although you make plans to go to the movies they call 30 minutes prior and cancel because something came up. Okay this sucks, we’re disappointed and life goes on. It’s not something that happens often, if at all, and although you were really excited about hanging out with this person, you feel a little disappointed….and you get over it. No one’s fault, life happens, everyone is over it.
Example #2. You have a good friend that you always have a good time with and you love dearly. This friend forgets plans that have been made, things come up, they’re late, make excuses and/or they continuously disappoint you. This isn’t new for them, you think you are used to it, but every time it happens your heart hurts and you are disappointed. Who is responsible for you feeling disappointed this time? Is it the person who is famous for standing you up and not being there when they say they are going to be? Or once again is no one really at fault. The truth is this person exhibits the same behavior they always have, it isn’t that they have changed for the worse. Why is their fault for not changing who they are? We have a choice in this type of situation. We accept that the person will never change and we never let it bother us when they are who they are… OR if that isn’t something we are capable of doing, we have to decide if this relationship is beneficial to us, and if it is worth us allowing ourselves to feel hurt or disappointed. (Yes, I said “allow ourselves”).
The truth is, in my opinion, people don’t change. They may change habits, they may change routines, sometimes a person’s true colors eventually shine through for the better or the worse, but at the core they don’t change. What right would we have to try to change them? If we are in relationship with someone it is because we accept and love them for who they are, who are we to say what they should or shouldn’t change about themselves? If there is something we don’t like about someone on our lives we have a simple choice to make, suck it up and accept them or realize they may not be someone that you want in your life, or in your close circle. It’s okay to do that, it truly is okay when you realize that someone isn’t the person you need them to be in your life, for you to decide they need to be in one of your outer circles, or in no circle at all. It’s better to do that then try to change them, or to allow yourself to feel hurt by them all the time and just resent them. Don’t you think? Resentment certainly doesn’t benefit either party, so why continue to hurt yourself? Yep, by allowing this type of relationship or behavior to continue where you are constantly feeling hurt, you are doing that to yourself, no one is doing that to you.
My Mom used to say “Shit on my once, shame on you; Shit on my twice, shame on me.” I think that applies here as well.
We are the creators of our own life. No one can do to us what we don’t allow them to do. There comes a point in life where we need to be the best person we can be, and sometimes that means changing relationships or making difficult decisions. Regardless, it truly is up to us how we allow people to treat us, in then end it is our own responsibility to make sure we are taken care of. Surround yourself with love, surround yourself with people who truly care about you, realize that regardless of who you are or what you may have done in your life you deserve to be treated well….you owe it to yourself and everyone in your life to ensure that you not only treat others well, but that you are treated well.
Blessings…
The key to change… is to let go of fear
I think its natural to have a fear of change, I’m pretty sure every person has experienced it at least once in life.
In my last post I had mentioned that I have been re-evaluating my life and that I felt it was time to stop waiting for life to happen. Well I have taken the first step. I have officially given my notice at my job in order to start my own business. While it was something that I was waiting for until I had the amount of money I felt like I needed as a cushion, I also felt like I would never have that money. Not that the money wouldn’t come to me, but you know, you save money, then something in the car or house breaks and the money is gone. Its like people who say they want kids but they are waiting until the right time…Its waiting until the right time that forces life to pass you by.
I realize that while I have overcome a lot of things in life, but I have also allowed fear to stop me from doing a lot.
Starting my own Transaction Management business is something that I have been wanting to do for several years, but I had been waiting for the right time. Well I have made the right time today. I know that I am good at what I do, and I know I will be successful. Sure there may be a few months that I will struggle, but the truth is I will most likely be very successful. Even if I’m not, at least I’ll know that I tried.
The more I think about it, the more I things I think about that fears stop us from doing. Changing jobs, starting businesses for fear of failure, those are common. Then there are those of us who never tell the person we love that we love them because we are afraid they won’t feel the same way. We are hesitant to start a relationship because we are afraid it will fail or that we will lose the friendship we have with that person. We don’t buy a house because we are afraid we won’t be able to afford it. We put of having children because we think maybe we can’t afford it, or that we won’t be good enough parent.
But maybe it isn’t always about the fear of failure or the fear that we can’t afford something, or that we aren’t good enough. Maybe we have other fears, the fear that our new business will actually be successful. The fear that we don’t deserve that success,or that we don’t deserve that new house, or worse that we don’t deserve the unconditional love of a relationship or a child.
Here’s the thing, if we don’t overcome those fears, there can be no change, and without change there can be now growth. The sad truth is but not telling the people we love that we love them, or taking a chance on that relationship, or new job or having that child we always wanted we miss the moment, a moment we most likely will never get back.
In the last year I have told someone I was in love with them…and no they didn’t feel the same way… but I’m still here, I survived. I held a baby for the first time since I miscarried 13 years ago, something I refused to do in the past because I was afraid I couldn’t handle it. I left a job with people that I adored to take less money, I now gave my notice to start my own business. I’ve said things to people that I was afraid would make them hate me, but they didn’t because they knew where my heart was. Sure the fear is still there, its something that will always be in the back of our heads, it just a part of life. But the truth is that fear is nothing but an illusion, even an excuse not to challenge ourselves. We get comfortable where we are and every change scares us. Changes and choices we make may hurt more than others. However, those choices and changes, and overcoming fears are growth, regardless of the outcome. If we aren’t growing, can we even say that we are living?
If I have learned nothing else this week, I have learned that life is entirely to short to wait for great things to come to us, life is too short to not take the risk to make a change, or to say the things we are afraid to say. Tomorrow is NOT promised, we have all heard that, we all know it logically. Sadly though, it sometimes takes the loss of a friend to really remind us and make us understand it. While I can say I don’t have any words left unsaid with the people I care about, I know I have a lot of changes to make to fulfill my dreams.
What fears are you willing to overcome to have the life you deserve? What change are you willing to make to ensure that life doesn’t just pass you by? What words that need to be said are you willing to say before you never get a chance to say them?
My regret is that it took the loss of an amazing man this week to remind me of these things that I already knew. Rest in Peace David Horton.
How Many Do You Have?
We all have them in our lives. Some more than others; some closer than others. The “friends” who are often negative, complaining or self-centered. Maybe they obsessively monopolize your time by discussing all of the terrible things that are going wrong in their life, or how every day is a bad day. The “friends” who constantly ask favors, or expect you to pick up the pieces of their broken day. Maybe they even insult you with subtle put-downs or cover you with guilt or make you feel self conscious. “Friends” who need endless financial, emotional or mental support, yet they provide little or no support for you. Often times they are not only not supportive, but outright insensitive to your needs for comfort or understanding during your own trials. These are the friends that I like to call Energy Suckers. We all have them in our lives to some extent, some people probably do a better job at keeping those people at arms-length than others.
If you have enough of these Energy Suckers in your life, there comes a point that it all comes to a head. You find that you are popping Benedryl or Nyquil to help you sleep, then when you finally sleep your night is over-ridden with nightmares, so even though you finally got some sleep you feel more tired than you did before. You notice that your personality has changed, and you become edgy and resentful. Your eyes start to twitch and you start stuttering your words. The small amount of stress you once had turns in to full-blown anxiety, and you begin to have uncontrollable panic attacks. Your physical, mental and emotional health becomes jeopardized and you know you must make a change.
Why do we keep these people in our lives? There are many reasons, we may feel trapped, or unworthy of better. We have a need for people to need us and we just want to help people. Maybe it’s a family member so you feel required to keep the relationship as it is. Maybe we feel that no one can help them the way we can. Maybe we just can’t handle the idea of losing that person from our lives, or we are scared to approach the person or people about the problem.
It comes down to this. The only thing we can do is take responsibility for the situation. By tolerating the negative behavior of others, you are condoning it. By taking the abuse, because it IS abuse, you are discounting your own self-worth, and we all deserve better than that. Making excuses for Energy Suckers or remaining silent just to get along with them is just people pleasing, and the sad news is that Energy Suckers cannot be pleased, no matter what you do or say. It’s time to make a decision, either cut the person out of your life, or at the very least set some boundaries.
Friendship is about positive give and take. We all benefit from someone else’s energy sometimes, that’s what friendships are about. However, when helping your friend is hurting you over and over you need to consider the importance of self-care. If you consistently feel anxious, depressed, unsatisfied or stressed after speaking or spending time with your friend, that’s a sign you need to act on your behalf to protect your peace. Feeling obligated to an unhealthy relationship is counterproductive to you and your goals in life.
I’ve often heard it said that we are the sum of our top 5 friends. We are almost always judged by the company we keep. By continuing on the path of surrounding ourselves with Energy Suckers, and losing ourselves, we are also being judged by who THOSE people are. We must really take a look and see if those people are a good representation of ourselves.
It really is a very hard thing to deal with. You try to tell yourself it will get better, or that they need you. I wonder why we so often discount our own needs, or how badly we may need someone else’s support in order to help a person, who doesn’t even seem to want to be helped.
It comes down to this, how well can we take care of someone else if we aren’t being taken care of ourselves? At one point or another we need to realize that by allowing the wrong people to suck our energy, we have nothing left to give to ourselves, which in turn means we have nothing to give to anyone else. The truth is, the “right” people, won’t constantly suck our energy, they will lift us up with their love and support.
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