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
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.
My Name is Heather and I am an Obsessive . . .
Hi, my name is Heather, and I am an Compulsive Overeater, not to mention an OBSESSIVE DIETER. Oh yes I am, and I will be the first to admit it. I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that I would go more into the weight thing, and I really do want to share some of the revelations that I had yesterday.
I should go back, back to the age of 11 or so, when I did Weight Watchers for the first time. Lost 20 pounds, never made it further than that. Then of course for the next 21 years of my life, I tried every Fad diet out there. Phen Fen, when I was 18, dropped 80 pounds, best invention ever….until it started blowing up peoples’ hearts. Of course I gained back the 80 pounds, probably over a course of 2 years (which by the way is still the record for the longest I have kept weight off). Then it was Atkins, The Cabbage Soup Diet, South Beach, the Zone, Weight Watchers (7 more times), The Fat Smash Diet (I really did think that Dr. Ian from Celebrity Fit Club was my answer), Low fat here, no carb there, I even tried out for the Biggest Loser, you get the point.
In June of 2008, I started Medifast, I swore this was the next best thing (after Phen Fen of course). I dropped 55 pounds in just about 2 1/2 months. 5 Pre-packaged meals a day (meaning bars, soups or shakes) plus one no carb, “normal” meal, averaging about 750-800 calories a day. I did really well on it for a while, until the holidays came around, and I ate a piece of bread and my world went to hell. Then the severe pain…. Great, I lost 55 pounds, gained 40 of it back in a matter of 6 months, and now, well now I have shot out my Gall Bladder, who needs a Gall Bladder anyway? The Gall Bladder has to go, it’s preventing me from eating meat, which is the only thing I can really eat, since I can’t eat carbs right? Bye bye Gall Bladder, Hello second try at Medifast….then third…and well let’s just say as of 2 weeks ago I was on try number 7.
Here is my point, look at these “diets” we go on. Now let’s be clear, ANY diet will work, if you follow it, we all know that right, and I’m not trying to bash Medifast, or any other diet for that matter? It’s a matter of what we can and are willing to do to lose weight. Why are so many of us willing to inject our body with hormones, swallow pills to speed us up, teas to help us sleep, eat nothing but cabbage soup for a week, deprive our body of carbs, or fats, or any other thing, when we know that once we go back to “normal” our world will likely come crashing down again.
I realized last week that all I really wanted was a banana, and I “couldn’t” have one. Who is actually okay telling themselves that is OK to deprive ourself of something like a banana?? I must be completely crazy. All this time, I have been an extremely firm believer that so much disease that we have in our world is due to the processed food and chemicals we put in our body (because I know that back in the day when we were eating off the land we didn’t have all this disease), and here I am eating “packaged bars” 5 times a day, which are absolutely full or chemicals and preservatives, and DEPRIVING my body of the things that God put here for me to feed not only my body, but my soul, like Fruits and Corn, Nuts, and Milk, I mean really, can a girl just get a glass of 1% milk every now and then?
All of this has been an extreme whirlwind of Ah-Has for me in the last 24 hours. Aside from the fact that we fill our bodies with these toxins, we feed our MIND with toxins and make ourselves believe it’s going to be ok to do this. We actually tell ourselves, if I can just do this for 5 months, and drop 100 pounds my world will all of the sudden be ok. I got news for you….you’re dead wrong. There are a trillion ways to lose weight….keeping it off is the hard part. And how many times have you been completely devastated after depriving yourself for a year to fit into a hot dress……only to gain it all back in 1/3 of the time it took you lose it. Why isn’t that telling us something?
What would happen if we fed our bodies with more natural foods, ate when we were hungry, and actually gave into our cravings? Perfect example…I’m craving a piece of chocolate, ah yes, a Hershey’s Kiss will satisfy me (26 calories, by the way)….. Well it would have, but I have been craving chocolate now for 3 weeks, and the straw just broke my back and I’m going to go home and eat an entire bag of oreos……How did that work out for ya? Our bodies crave certain foods because our bodies are trying to tell us we’re lacking something. What if for just a little while we stopped stepping on the scale, and examining our fat rolls in the mirror, and ignored the media…and started listening to our bodies???
Well stay tuned, because that is what I have decided to do. And maybe that means losing a pound every 3 weeks, but maybe it means my body finally being content with what it is given. Maybe it means being okay with not fitting into the mold that society has made for me….Maybe it doesn’t mean a thinner me, but it means a healthier me?
“My definition of success is total self acceptance. We can obtain all of the material possessions we desire quite easily, however, attempting to change our deepest thoughts and learning to love ourselves is a monumental challenge.”
Stop Worrying About Everyone Else and Worry about Yourself
I have to say that I am truly blessed to be surrounded and supported by some very amazing people. There are very few people in this world who are not afraid to call me out on my crap, this is the quality I think I cherish most in both Kevin & Fred (they’re my “bosses”, if you didn’t already know that).
Every week we have an accountability meeting, in which we discuss not only my job goals, but my personal and personal financial as well. I decided to take an item off my personal goals because I didn’t feel like I had time to really dedicate the time to doing it, even though I feel it is something that I need to do, and would benefit tremendously from.
Well, of course they both questioned me as to why I took it off, and I was asked if rather than stop doing it completely, wouldn’t it be more beneficial to at least do it part of the way. Of course I made my excuses as to why that wouldn’t work, and OF COURSE, they called me out on it. Said I don’t finish anything I start (for myself). This is SO true, I don’t. In fact I was thinking about it the other night, actually I think about it quite often. Aside from career goals, I have not completed many of the things I have set out to do over the course of my life. I beat myself up about that one constantly, and in my conversation with Kevin & Fred a lot of it became clear for me.
I have a habit of putting other people before myself, I always have been that way. Kevin opened my eyes by sharing with me something Rick Geha said at a class last week, basically stating that by not taking care of myself, how can I really take care of and give to others….. Wow, that’s deep stuff. Wait it gets so much better… He went on to say that if I want children, do I really want to teach them that other people’s needs are more important than their own, because despite what we tell our kids, they do as we do. No for me that was an EXTREMELY smart tactic, knowing how much I want children. (Those guys know me too well!) It also really made me think about my Mom, that’s the person she was, her whole entire life she always put other people before herself, even though she used to say “Stop worrying about everyone else, and worry about yourself.” I truly am I my mother’s daughter, which by the way I couldn’t be prouder of. But as much as I thought I had broken most of the bad cycles I grew up with, this is one that I had never considered.
So, needless to say the spiritual/self development goal that I had taken off my goal sheet is of course back on. I could never begin to describe how grateful I am to have Kevin and Fred in my life, who always force me to see another side of things, and get out of my own way. I’m blessed to have two people who want better things for me than I want for myself.
That being said, how many times have you given up on a goal or dream because someone else’s was more important? If that person really cares about you, do you think that is truly what they would want for you? Better yet, why do we so often see ourselves as less important that those around us? Chances are, they don’t think we are less important.
I believe it’s true that if we don’t take care of ourselves, we can’t truly give of ourselves to others. So who are we hurting and/or helping by treating ourselves poorly?
Expectations
I was having a brief conversation earlier with a very good friend of mine about the fact that we both have “high expectations of people.” (We’re both Virgos, so it’s very much a trait of ours naturally). I’m not going to go all into expectations in general, but I do feel the need to discus expectations of how we are treated. Now, I personally don’t think I do have high expectations of other people, nor do I think I should ever have to lower my expectations (even thought I believe we all tend to all too often) I expect people to be kind to others, honest, straight-forward, respectful, to communicate with me and most importantly do what they say they are going to do. Really, I am an extremely easy person to please, and those little things bring a smile to my face.
For example, I think that someone telling you that they are going to call you means that they should call you, or at least text you. I don’t think it’s a lot to ask, even for a text to say, hey, I’m really busy, I’ll call you when I can. That took a whole what, 5 seconds? People not doing what they say they are going to do has been something that has really bothered me for a long time. I think it shows a complete lack of respect for the other person. I do believe that there are absolutely times where things come up. For example (and this is just an example), you make tentative plans with someone one day around 12:00. The day comes and you haven’t heard anything, so you send a text, “hey, are we still going to do….(whatever your plans were)?” and they don’t respond. Uh….HELLO? The problem here isn’t that the person couldn’t make it, the problem here is that they person couldn’t pick up the phone and call, or text, or send an email, or a facebook message…I mean come on, it’s 2010 there are 500 million ways to communicate with someone, without even having to talk to them. So that’s a high expectation? I should lower my expectation, so I get worse results the next time? I think not!
They say “Expect the worst, and hope for the best.” I used to do that, and now I worry that if I am expecting bad things, bad things will happen (it’s the whole putting positive things out to the Universe thing), but if I expect people to meet my expectations, and they don’t, I end up hurt. It’s a huge catch 22.
I think that if you truly respect yourself, you should have high expectations of how people treat you. If you don’t, you’re settling for less than you deserve. The trick is having those high expectations, and if someone disappoints, you don’t allow them to do it again. Settling for less than we deserve is not what we are put on this earth to do, especially when it comes to how people treat us.
By not doing what you say you are going to do is discounting the other person’s feelings, disrespectful of their feelings, and quite honestly showing the person that you think they are unimportant. You are also setting the expectation for that person to think that you are unreliable and that you will probably fail them again…. Especially someone who isn’t very trusting to begin with. Again, life happens, but that’s what communication is for. It’s one thing to not be able to do something you said you were going to do, it’s just inexcusable to not take the time to tell them you aren’t going to follow through.
There you have it. I know that I only covered one little thing about the things we expect, but I truly believe that if you begin lowering your expectations of people, people will continue think they have to do less to meet your expectations. That’s just my take on it. . . Do what you say you are going to do, and if you aren’t able, have some respect and tell the other people involved.
Follow Me