I am a bar of Ivory Soap…99 and 44/100% pure.
This morning after settling into my newly accepted emptiness in meditation, I heard a voice say, “It’s not emptiness. It’s purity.” What? Wait a minute. We’re talking about me here. Pure? Me?...Yes. At this moment in my life, my nothingness, my absolute 100% nothingness, is a return to my soul on the day I was created.
I felt “dry” yesterday because I have (at least for the time being) transformed into roomy and airy, porous, receptive, and empty of what has been bloating me.
I was the “Blurter Truth Teller,” the “Emotional Sponge” in my family. In addition to carrying my own emotions, I learned to absorb the sadness, the unspoken bitterness, and the disappointment of my mother, and the fear, the rage, and the humiliation of my brothers. I absorbed every ounce of emotion that was energetically alive in my home in an effort to remove the threat of verbal assaults to myself and my mom and my brothers.
I learned early that I could “fight back” at the source. When my emotional sponge was full to overflowing, I could yell as loud as my father. I could be as verbally abusive as my father. I could take what was thrown at me, magnify it and deflect back its verbal ugliness.
My little girl body felt such force behind my counter-assault to his volcanic rage that, as I spewed back, my insides wrung out and twisted like a sponge. All the accumulated familial emotions in one little redheaded sponge pitted against the hot and all-consuming lava of Mr. Mt. Vesuvius Dad.
Talk about some kind of wild and crazy dysfunctional David and Goliath story. However, in this version, David never ever felt that she could win, but maybe she could protect for a few minutes.
On some level in those clash-of-the-titans moments, I thought my internal wringing out was ex-sponging me of the hurt, the disappointment, the sadness, the anger, the humiliation and the fear, but we all know it wasn’t. Once I was dry, the cycle began again. I filled up and waited for an opportunity to wring myself dry.
Please understand, I mean absolutely no blame nor do I feel victimized here. It is simply the way it was or, at least, the way it lodged in my mind, heart, and body. My point is that I have continued to chose to be an emotional sponge with all the bloating, the filling full to overflowing, the weighing down, and, eventually, the pulling under the surface.
That’s why I am so grateful for the vision I had yesterday. Sailing through the turbulent wake of the motor boat and feeling the experience of the conflict, but not letting it overturn me, or bloat me full of toxins like some cheap brand of soap that eventually weighs itself down and sinks to the bottom of the tub.
I have been experiencing something exciting and new. In the face of conflict, I have maintained enough purity to remain buoyant and stay afloat in my oceanic Self.
Who knew?
Me and a bar of Ivory Soap, 99 and 44/100% pure.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Patience Is A (New) Virtue
Something is gently transitioning in my mind and my body, but I have no idea what it is.
I tell myself to be patient.
What is difficult and different for me is that I feel empty. I am usually so fully jazzed up by emotion and ideas and annoyance and impatience. This is just weird.
I have no idea how to handle this new internal nothingness.
So, I tell myself to be patient.
Over the past ten (wow) days since I posted, I have had my share of wack-a-doodle ideas and clever titles pop into my head, but my physically manifested and insistent NEED to explain it to you and myself has left the building.
And yes, there have been conflicts and challenges since I last posted but they haven’t been sticking to me and churning me up into a human coastal eddy. I have experienced turbulence in the waves of my inner ocean, but they have quickly subsided like those of a motor boat crossing my path as I sail on, through the experience but not overturned by it, to my North Star guided destination.
Not sure I like it very much.
I miss my redheaded Irished-induced fire-y passion energized by making sure I am noticed in the room, or being on a mission to annihilate someone, or challenging and overpowering any Goliath brave (or uninformed) enough to get in my way.
I worry that I have nothing left to get excited about. I worry that I won’t feel my friendly neighborhood fire any more. I worry that I will never create another new thought, or fun title, or internally woven metaphor to describe the experience of being me. I worry that I was once a ripe, supple, sweet, abundant, and juicy fruit that has now withered on the tree.
I worry that I not only have nothing; I worry that I am nothing. I worry that everything up until now has been a big stinkin’ circus act replete with costumes, buffoonery, sleight of hand and pink cotton candy. I worry that this work I have been doing has stripped me of my colorful, multi-striped polyester clown costume, rainbow wig, and red nose only to reveal a colorless empty outline of a person.
So I remind myself to be patient.
Patience and I have not had the pleasure of each other’s company. I never made room for it. But I am committing to a more patient patience and allowing the winds of my passion to come from a new and undiscovered territory within my oceanic self.
I’m doing it the only way I know how…by guess and by God.
And by reminding myself to be patient.
I tell myself to be patient.
What is difficult and different for me is that I feel empty. I am usually so fully jazzed up by emotion and ideas and annoyance and impatience. This is just weird.
I have no idea how to handle this new internal nothingness.
So, I tell myself to be patient.
Over the past ten (wow) days since I posted, I have had my share of wack-a-doodle ideas and clever titles pop into my head, but my physically manifested and insistent NEED to explain it to you and myself has left the building.
And yes, there have been conflicts and challenges since I last posted but they haven’t been sticking to me and churning me up into a human coastal eddy. I have experienced turbulence in the waves of my inner ocean, but they have quickly subsided like those of a motor boat crossing my path as I sail on, through the experience but not overturned by it, to my North Star guided destination.
Not sure I like it very much.
I miss my redheaded Irished-induced fire-y passion energized by making sure I am noticed in the room, or being on a mission to annihilate someone, or challenging and overpowering any Goliath brave (or uninformed) enough to get in my way.
I worry that I have nothing left to get excited about. I worry that I won’t feel my friendly neighborhood fire any more. I worry that I will never create another new thought, or fun title, or internally woven metaphor to describe the experience of being me. I worry that I was once a ripe, supple, sweet, abundant, and juicy fruit that has now withered on the tree.
I worry that I not only have nothing; I worry that I am nothing. I worry that everything up until now has been a big stinkin’ circus act replete with costumes, buffoonery, sleight of hand and pink cotton candy. I worry that this work I have been doing has stripped me of my colorful, multi-striped polyester clown costume, rainbow wig, and red nose only to reveal a colorless empty outline of a person.
So I remind myself to be patient.
Patience and I have not had the pleasure of each other’s company. I never made room for it. But I am committing to a more patient patience and allowing the winds of my passion to come from a new and undiscovered territory within my oceanic self.
I’m doing it the only way I know how…by guess and by God.
And by reminding myself to be patient.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
The “C” Word
Yesterday I was feeling very uncomfortable in my skin (again). This has been going on for weeks (and, frankly, I’m getting a wee bit tired of it).
Yesterday was the 27th anniversary of what my son’s dad and I considered the beginning of our relationship.
Yesterday my son’s father asked me to help him out in a financial situation.
In the past, during our marriage, in issues around finances, I often ignored my feelings, my instincts, my inner knowing in favor of his logic and his rational plan of action as to how everything was going to work out just peachy keen. It all made so much sense, and yet I had an internal soup on boil telling me differently. I routinely turned the soup down to a low simmer and defaulted to his logic. And, despite his best intentions, when it came to finances, everything never did work out peachy keen.
In the past, I agreed to his plans for a couple of reasons. I wanted to support and believe in my partner, but, mostly, I wanted to avoid conflict with him.
Yesterday when he asked me for help, for the first time ever from a place of deep connection with my Self, I declined…
And sent myself into an emotional tailspin.
I was transported back 27 years when our relationship was like a shiny new penny: full of openness, care, love, listening, playfulness, and passion about life and each other.
And the sex?? Off the charts.
Sometimes it feels kind of cruel to have had the kind of relationship we did and have it crash and burn so far from its fullest flourishing. The potential for something truly amazing was there, and we let it go.
I know now that part of my part in the release of our potential relationship was in consistently choosing to go against my inner knowing in favor of his masculine logic because I wanted to avoid conflict.
So in saying “No” yesterday from a place of honoring my Self, I had to deal with the very conflict that I have been trying to avoid for 27 years.
But, to my surprise, I found the conflict wasn’t with him; the conflict was with me.
In saying “No,” what I was expecting was an argument having to convince him of my rational, logical reasons for not being able to help. What I got was my brain diving into all the rational and logical reasons why I should help, while my inner knowing was telling me to attend to my boiling soup.
It was an AND place so uncomfortable that my heart physically ached…a simple tug of war of grand proportions. My struggle laid in simply not picking up my cell phone, calling him back, and telling him I changed my mind. My struggle was in staying with my Self and not defaulting to him to make myself feel better.
And with that struggle my stinkin’ intention of three weeks ago flew into my weary mind. Suddenly yesterday’s struggle and all the internal struggles of the last three weeks made perfect sense (of the non-linear, intuitive kind).
Living in the uncomfortability of conflict in relationships with others is not what I have been avoiding all these years. What I have been avoiding is living in the uncomfortability of the conflict of standing in my Self.
Three weeks ago, when I wrote my intention of using conflict as a way to deepen into my Self, and my relationships and the Greater Field of Life, I thought I needed to work on conflicts with others in my world. I never meant, planned, expected, or frankly, wanted the conflicts I was so ready, willing and able to address to happen within the confines of my own skin.
That’s just too hard.
But that is the level of conflict I have been dealing with the past three weeks, and I am just realizing (duh!) that is why I have been so discombobulated.
I was prepared to engage in conflicts outside of myself.
And that just ain’t where it’s happening, lady.
Yesterday was the 27th anniversary of what my son’s dad and I considered the beginning of our relationship.
Yesterday my son’s father asked me to help him out in a financial situation.
In the past, during our marriage, in issues around finances, I often ignored my feelings, my instincts, my inner knowing in favor of his logic and his rational plan of action as to how everything was going to work out just peachy keen. It all made so much sense, and yet I had an internal soup on boil telling me differently. I routinely turned the soup down to a low simmer and defaulted to his logic. And, despite his best intentions, when it came to finances, everything never did work out peachy keen.
In the past, I agreed to his plans for a couple of reasons. I wanted to support and believe in my partner, but, mostly, I wanted to avoid conflict with him.
Yesterday when he asked me for help, for the first time ever from a place of deep connection with my Self, I declined…
And sent myself into an emotional tailspin.
I was transported back 27 years when our relationship was like a shiny new penny: full of openness, care, love, listening, playfulness, and passion about life and each other.
And the sex?? Off the charts.
Sometimes it feels kind of cruel to have had the kind of relationship we did and have it crash and burn so far from its fullest flourishing. The potential for something truly amazing was there, and we let it go.
I know now that part of my part in the release of our potential relationship was in consistently choosing to go against my inner knowing in favor of his masculine logic because I wanted to avoid conflict.
So in saying “No” yesterday from a place of honoring my Self, I had to deal with the very conflict that I have been trying to avoid for 27 years.
But, to my surprise, I found the conflict wasn’t with him; the conflict was with me.
In saying “No,” what I was expecting was an argument having to convince him of my rational, logical reasons for not being able to help. What I got was my brain diving into all the rational and logical reasons why I should help, while my inner knowing was telling me to attend to my boiling soup.
It was an AND place so uncomfortable that my heart physically ached…a simple tug of war of grand proportions. My struggle laid in simply not picking up my cell phone, calling him back, and telling him I changed my mind. My struggle was in staying with my Self and not defaulting to him to make myself feel better.
And with that struggle my stinkin’ intention of three weeks ago flew into my weary mind. Suddenly yesterday’s struggle and all the internal struggles of the last three weeks made perfect sense (of the non-linear, intuitive kind).
Living in the uncomfortability of conflict in relationships with others is not what I have been avoiding all these years. What I have been avoiding is living in the uncomfortability of the conflict of standing in my Self.
Three weeks ago, when I wrote my intention of using conflict as a way to deepen into my Self, and my relationships and the Greater Field of Life, I thought I needed to work on conflicts with others in my world. I never meant, planned, expected, or frankly, wanted the conflicts I was so ready, willing and able to address to happen within the confines of my own skin.
That’s just too hard.
But that is the level of conflict I have been dealing with the past three weeks, and I am just realizing (duh!) that is why I have been so discombobulated.
I was prepared to engage in conflicts outside of myself.
And that just ain’t where it’s happening, lady.
Monday, July 12, 2010
I Hear You Knockin’
I have had three things going on for the past few days that are driving me insane. First off, I am (once again) feeling a pervasive discombobulation and irritation and don’t know why. I hate the generality of the feeling ‘cause in the absence of a specific target, I find it just a wee bit difficult to control my absolute 100% impatience and complete intolerance for anyone who just happens to live on the planet right now. Secondly, the lyrics “ I hear you knockin’, but you can’t come in” have been rolling through my brain continuously for three days, and they refuse leave and go bother someone else.
Thirdly, most importantly, and most annoyingly is that I set an intention to use conflict (my internal kind as well as the relational kind) as a way to deepen into my Self and others and as an opportunity to expand and extend into the Greater Field of Life.
That third thing is the one that kills me because all I want to do right now is contract into my complete distain for everyone (including myself), slap people up side the head and tell them to get the hell out of my way, and eat warm brownies topped with coffee ice cream.
I don’t feel like deepening, or expanding, or extending or evolving the planet. I’ve paid my dues. I was involved in the Viet Nam protests, the Woman’s Movement, and the Beatles Invasion. I’m tired. Can’t I be done now? Let the “young” people do it. I just had my 59th birthday, and there’s a part of me that just wants to retire…from my job, from myself, from all of it.
I’ve done enough changing for this lifetime, thank you very much. I’m tired of “pushing into my freakin’ growing edge,” “deepening into the stinkin’ work,” and “doing my part in the evolution of this whacked out planet.”
Seriously, will anything I do really make any kind of impact? What kind of difference, in the larger scheme of things, is it really going to make if I drop my 2010 version of acid and drop out?
But I have this insistent monkey on my back called Evolution and it’s not going away.
Damn it.
Two weeks ago when I was all fired up about Integration, I told one of my Mastery sisters (but I didn’t tell you cause I didn’t want to be held to it) that with my new intention (see above), I planned for the biggest breakthrough in my life within the next 7 weeks. She asked me how I knew I would have a tremendous breakthrough, and I casually replied, “ Because that is what I decided was going to happen.”
When will I learn to keep my big mouth shut?
Cause let me tell you if you haven’t already experienced it, anytime you put that kind of declaration out there for all the universe to hear and agree to, put your seatbelt on, Honey, you’re gonna need it.
I could only avoid those “knocking” lyrics for so long. Last time I opened my door to a gentle but insistent knocking, my Muse, my Metaphor and my Magician (aka J.C.) entered my life and that turned out pretty good, so about halfway through this blogpost, I decided to look out the window and see who or what was out there knocking.
What I saw out my window’s mind’s eye were men and women, hundreds or maybe thousands of them, all dressed in garments circa 1200 B.C. I immediately understood why they were there.
As you may have read, I visited Paris in May. I saw all the sites including Notre Dame Cathedral. The construction of the Cathedral began somewhere around 1163 and was completed approximately 100 years later. While the Cathedral is undeniably amazing and beautiful, when visiting it, I was humbled by the palpable energy emanating from every rock, every piece of stained glass, and every beautifully crafted section of wood in the Cathedral.
The average life span in those days, I’m guessing, was somewhere around 30. The men and women dedicated to erecting this structure worked knowing that they (and their own children and probably their grandchildren and possibly their great grandchildren) would never see its completion. And yet, they found it within themselves to create for their great great grandchildren and beyond. And in doing so for the future, their very DNA is palpably embedded in their creation.
Now that’s an evolutionary perspective I can begin to understand.
I realized how much I owe them and others like them who came before and took their place in the evolution of beauty, creativity, love, and life on this planet.
If I intend the biggest transformation of my life, I need to answer the door. I need to invite them in and ask them how they found the faith to construct something they and their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren would never be able to enjoy. How they found the faith to build for future generations. How they found the faith to contribute to the evolution of their families, their country, and the world without the slightest chance of basking in their hard earned results.
I can use a lot more help generating that within myself.
And, knowing these people I've invited in are French, I can use a lot more wine, too.
Thirdly, most importantly, and most annoyingly is that I set an intention to use conflict (my internal kind as well as the relational kind) as a way to deepen into my Self and others and as an opportunity to expand and extend into the Greater Field of Life.
That third thing is the one that kills me because all I want to do right now is contract into my complete distain for everyone (including myself), slap people up side the head and tell them to get the hell out of my way, and eat warm brownies topped with coffee ice cream.
I don’t feel like deepening, or expanding, or extending or evolving the planet. I’ve paid my dues. I was involved in the Viet Nam protests, the Woman’s Movement, and the Beatles Invasion. I’m tired. Can’t I be done now? Let the “young” people do it. I just had my 59th birthday, and there’s a part of me that just wants to retire…from my job, from myself, from all of it.
I’ve done enough changing for this lifetime, thank you very much. I’m tired of “pushing into my freakin’ growing edge,” “deepening into the stinkin’ work,” and “doing my part in the evolution of this whacked out planet.”
Seriously, will anything I do really make any kind of impact? What kind of difference, in the larger scheme of things, is it really going to make if I drop my 2010 version of acid and drop out?
But I have this insistent monkey on my back called Evolution and it’s not going away.
Damn it.
Two weeks ago when I was all fired up about Integration, I told one of my Mastery sisters (but I didn’t tell you cause I didn’t want to be held to it) that with my new intention (see above), I planned for the biggest breakthrough in my life within the next 7 weeks. She asked me how I knew I would have a tremendous breakthrough, and I casually replied, “ Because that is what I decided was going to happen.”
When will I learn to keep my big mouth shut?
Cause let me tell you if you haven’t already experienced it, anytime you put that kind of declaration out there for all the universe to hear and agree to, put your seatbelt on, Honey, you’re gonna need it.
I could only avoid those “knocking” lyrics for so long. Last time I opened my door to a gentle but insistent knocking, my Muse, my Metaphor and my Magician (aka J.C.) entered my life and that turned out pretty good, so about halfway through this blogpost, I decided to look out the window and see who or what was out there knocking.
What I saw out my window’s mind’s eye were men and women, hundreds or maybe thousands of them, all dressed in garments circa 1200 B.C. I immediately understood why they were there.
As you may have read, I visited Paris in May. I saw all the sites including Notre Dame Cathedral. The construction of the Cathedral began somewhere around 1163 and was completed approximately 100 years later. While the Cathedral is undeniably amazing and beautiful, when visiting it, I was humbled by the palpable energy emanating from every rock, every piece of stained glass, and every beautifully crafted section of wood in the Cathedral.
The average life span in those days, I’m guessing, was somewhere around 30. The men and women dedicated to erecting this structure worked knowing that they (and their own children and probably their grandchildren and possibly their great grandchildren) would never see its completion. And yet, they found it within themselves to create for their great great grandchildren and beyond. And in doing so for the future, their very DNA is palpably embedded in their creation.
Now that’s an evolutionary perspective I can begin to understand.
I realized how much I owe them and others like them who came before and took their place in the evolution of beauty, creativity, love, and life on this planet.
If I intend the biggest transformation of my life, I need to answer the door. I need to invite them in and ask them how they found the faith to construct something they and their children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren would never be able to enjoy. How they found the faith to build for future generations. How they found the faith to contribute to the evolution of their families, their country, and the world without the slightest chance of basking in their hard earned results.
I can use a lot more help generating that within myself.
And, knowing these people I've invited in are French, I can use a lot more wine, too.
Monday, July 5, 2010
We Are Family
“We Are Family” by Sister Sledge…remember that song? They were a bunch of Sisters ahead of their time. I have had that song in my head since yesterday, and I can’t get it out.
I can’t get it out of my head because when I look at the state of humanity in the world, my self-appointed responsibility in owning my part in the evolution of the consciousness of the planet, and how I often feel I have completely failed my son as a mother, that song is like a good foot-stomping church revival. It brings me to higher ground and here’s why.
Either I am watching too much news on television or a lot of people on the planet seriously hate each other for any number of ideological “Reasons”. What I am getting is that the world is a very scary place, and I can buy into “everyone not like me is out to get me;” as a “Reason” to be a member of a specific group, a tribe, or a family to keep me safe from harm.
(I don’t know about you, but that feels just the teeniest bit archaic to me.)
Further, if there is this feeling in the world, what can one petite-sized, Irish, former Catholic person do about it? It’s way bigger than me, out of my realm and my skill set, and definitely way out of my comfort zone. Better to just hide out, stay small and pretend I’m not just the teeniest bit scared.
Right?
And then thoughts of my son enter the picture and, God damn it, I just can’t stay in my self-imposed sequestering from the world (and just when I was getting comfortable).
I have recently discovered yet another “Reason” to feel guilty about how I/we raised my/our son (please tell me, does it ever end?).
I have two brothers back East. We didn’t speak to each other for 10 years, but as of almost two years ago, one of my brothers and I began a superficial email relationship. My older brother has refused to communicate with me. They are my nuclear family. I do have aunts, uncles, and cousins on my dad’s side (also back East), but they, too, stopped communicating with me when my brothers did. This side of the family has a history of uniting over a common “enemy” and forming transatlantic-sized cable bonds if the “enemy” is a family member. That would be me. When I left the family, I had my “Reasons,” and they circled their wagons to close the gap made by my absence.
People fight with their siblings. I know (trust me). However, when my brothers stopped communicating with me, I realize now, I made a big mistake. The mistake was this; since they didn’t want a relationship with me, I refused to let them have one with my son.
Similarly, my son’s dad has always had a very superficial and on-again off-again relationship with his father, his natural sibling, his stepsibling and his two half-siblings. (I know, makes your head spin). Now, in my experience with them, he, too, has every “Reason” in the world not to interact with them. So he broke off all contact.
But do all these “Reasons” really matter? Yes, when we made them, they felt good, powerful, self-righteous. We thought our “Reasons” for disconnecting from our families was a good thing. For us? Maybe.
For our son?? Not so much.
Because what I have recently fully recognized is that our son has no siblings and no extended group, or tribe or family with whom to saddle up. After his dad and I have left the planet, where is he going to spend Thanksgiving? Christmas? Who will bake him a cake on his birthday? Who will carry his history with him? It felt like a wrecking ball was released right into my solar plexus.
And then Sister Sledge came to rescue me from my guilt and pain, my “Reasons,” my current view of humanity, and my part in it. I was lifted to higher ground. Thanks to my Sisters, I found a part of my part in the evolution of the world (and I honestly don’t think it is only to make myself feel better).
I have decided that it is my responsibility to expand and extend my concept of family and assist my son in expanding and extending his. I, too, am stuck in the traditional family mindset, but I realize it is an antiquated notion. The only way to ease my own pain, create family structures for my son, and evolve the planet is to care about more than relationships in my little corner of the world, and to expand my consciousness further than I ever have…further than is comfortable for me by greeting, in my mind, heart, and soul, every person I meet as my sister or my brother.
I'm gonna look at them, give myself, and receive them in return. We're gonna have each other at "Hello."
If I can envision a Global Family of Origin for my son and other children like him growing up in non-traditional families, maybe by the time I am gone and onto my next journey, they will live in a world where the only things necessary to be welcomed home with open arms anywhere in the world are tolerance, peace, acceptance and hope.
That's the kind of miraculous possibility Sister Sledge was talking about.
And I hope they don't mind:
We are family
I got all my siblings with me
We are family
Get up ev'rybody and sing
(After writing this, I found an organization called We Are Family Foundation. Want to be a Global Family of Origin member??? Check it out www.wearefamilyfoundation.org)
I can’t get it out of my head because when I look at the state of humanity in the world, my self-appointed responsibility in owning my part in the evolution of the consciousness of the planet, and how I often feel I have completely failed my son as a mother, that song is like a good foot-stomping church revival. It brings me to higher ground and here’s why.
Either I am watching too much news on television or a lot of people on the planet seriously hate each other for any number of ideological “Reasons”. What I am getting is that the world is a very scary place, and I can buy into “everyone not like me is out to get me;” as a “Reason” to be a member of a specific group, a tribe, or a family to keep me safe from harm.
(I don’t know about you, but that feels just the teeniest bit archaic to me.)
Further, if there is this feeling in the world, what can one petite-sized, Irish, former Catholic person do about it? It’s way bigger than me, out of my realm and my skill set, and definitely way out of my comfort zone. Better to just hide out, stay small and pretend I’m not just the teeniest bit scared.
Right?
And then thoughts of my son enter the picture and, God damn it, I just can’t stay in my self-imposed sequestering from the world (and just when I was getting comfortable).
I have recently discovered yet another “Reason” to feel guilty about how I/we raised my/our son (please tell me, does it ever end?).
I have two brothers back East. We didn’t speak to each other for 10 years, but as of almost two years ago, one of my brothers and I began a superficial email relationship. My older brother has refused to communicate with me. They are my nuclear family. I do have aunts, uncles, and cousins on my dad’s side (also back East), but they, too, stopped communicating with me when my brothers did. This side of the family has a history of uniting over a common “enemy” and forming transatlantic-sized cable bonds if the “enemy” is a family member. That would be me. When I left the family, I had my “Reasons,” and they circled their wagons to close the gap made by my absence.
People fight with their siblings. I know (trust me). However, when my brothers stopped communicating with me, I realize now, I made a big mistake. The mistake was this; since they didn’t want a relationship with me, I refused to let them have one with my son.
Similarly, my son’s dad has always had a very superficial and on-again off-again relationship with his father, his natural sibling, his stepsibling and his two half-siblings. (I know, makes your head spin). Now, in my experience with them, he, too, has every “Reason” in the world not to interact with them. So he broke off all contact.
But do all these “Reasons” really matter? Yes, when we made them, they felt good, powerful, self-righteous. We thought our “Reasons” for disconnecting from our families was a good thing. For us? Maybe.
For our son?? Not so much.
Because what I have recently fully recognized is that our son has no siblings and no extended group, or tribe or family with whom to saddle up. After his dad and I have left the planet, where is he going to spend Thanksgiving? Christmas? Who will bake him a cake on his birthday? Who will carry his history with him? It felt like a wrecking ball was released right into my solar plexus.
And then Sister Sledge came to rescue me from my guilt and pain, my “Reasons,” my current view of humanity, and my part in it. I was lifted to higher ground. Thanks to my Sisters, I found a part of my part in the evolution of the world (and I honestly don’t think it is only to make myself feel better).
I have decided that it is my responsibility to expand and extend my concept of family and assist my son in expanding and extending his. I, too, am stuck in the traditional family mindset, but I realize it is an antiquated notion. The only way to ease my own pain, create family structures for my son, and evolve the planet is to care about more than relationships in my little corner of the world, and to expand my consciousness further than I ever have…further than is comfortable for me by greeting, in my mind, heart, and soul, every person I meet as my sister or my brother.
I'm gonna look at them, give myself, and receive them in return. We're gonna have each other at "Hello."
If I can envision a Global Family of Origin for my son and other children like him growing up in non-traditional families, maybe by the time I am gone and onto my next journey, they will live in a world where the only things necessary to be welcomed home with open arms anywhere in the world are tolerance, peace, acceptance and hope.
That's the kind of miraculous possibility Sister Sledge was talking about.
And I hope they don't mind:
We are family
I got all my siblings with me
We are family
Get up ev'rybody and sing
(After writing this, I found an organization called We Are Family Foundation. Want to be a Global Family of Origin member??? Check it out www.wearefamilyfoundation.org)
Thursday, July 1, 2010
My Blue-Eyed Girl(s)
My Mastery sisters and I have begun the Integration program and as a part of that, our first assignment was to generate an intention for the next 7 weeks (the duration of the Integration) that will cause a breakthrough in our lives. I have two.
My intention is to welcome, witness, honor and embrace conflict as an opportunity to deepen into myself and into my relationships with others as well as an opportunity to expand and extend into the safety, joy, and miraculous possibilities of the Greater Field of Life.
My second intention is to actively and vulnerably give myself to others and to fully and freely receive what is given back.
If you have been following this blog, you may recognize the influence of my Magician (a.k.a. J.C.) in these intentions.
Since He visited me a little over a week ago, I have been thinking about what He said to me when He was still in His Magician disguise (“Possibilities” and “Miraculous”) and what He taught me last Sunday about giving and receiving through the eyes.
I grew up unhappy with the eyes I had been given, so about 10 years ago, I decided to get deep blue colored contact lenses called Pacific Blues. I felt my eyes didn’t “pop” enough (especially for auditions), so I put colored irises over my own as a way to get noticed. I have to say that every time I wore them I felt like a phony because on some level, I knew that I was using deep blue fake irises, not to draw attention to my eyes, but, ultimately, to disguise what I was sending out through my own god-given yeux.
I cared more about how I presented myself on the outside than how I presenced myself from within.
I began to wonder, if the eyes are the windows to the soul how was my soul being perceived through Pacific Blues? Was my soul prettier? Was my soul oceanic? Was my soul even in the visual building??
I eventually stopped wearing the Blues, but I had to find other ways to avoid letting top secret or top vulnerable information escape via my eyes. I began to notice that I was okay with looking at people when I was giving information (because I could always go “glazed over” on them if I felt too exposed), but I kinda sorta stopped looking at them when they responded.
I basically blinked…a lot.
I first became aware of this tendency when I was cast opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in a movie entitled “There Will Be Blood.” I ended up on the cutting room floor, but I had a full day of shooting one-on-one with Daniel. (AMAZING but that’s a whole other blogpost!) The Casting Director called me when I returned to Los Angeles and said that the Director of Photography and the Director of the movie absolutely loved what I did. Then she asked me, “You blinked a lot when Daniel’s character was talking to you. Was that a character choice?” “Yes!” I enthusiastically replied. “You actors!” she said, “Always coming up with something!”
When I got off the phone I said to myself, “I blinked…a lot??”
I had had no clue.
This "blinking" awareness has been tapping on my shoulder in a more and more insistent way since the Mastery program, but I just wasn’t ready to reveal or receive intimacy through my peepers. Then, J.C. showed up (unannounced). Since that Sunday with Him, I have been practicing looking at people when I talk to them. Giving me and receiving them.
I had an audition yesterday. I went Pacific Blue-less as I have for some time, but, this time, I went with my own cornflower blue eyes firmly affixed in my head. I entered the waiting room, sat and looked at the young Asian man next to me. I said, “Hello." He looked at me, and I awkwardly looked into his eyes. Waiting. And when he responded, I let my eyes take him in. That was it. A small interaction with a correspondingly small connection, but it was a beginning. I went to the restroom, and when I returned and sat down again, the young man turned to me and said, “You have a real gentleness about you.”
I had him from “Hello”??
I almost fell off my chair. Me? Gentle? Gentle is not a word that easily comes to mind for me or anyone I know who refers to me. Strong, tough, leader, “out there”, sassy, funny…those are words I hear often. But “gentle?” I can honestly say I have NEVER heard that word as a descriptor of yours truly.
I liked it, so I tried to recall the last time I felt gentle. I could recall feeling "gentle" up until around 9 years of age, before I was recruited as the family Decider and General.
Suddenly I understood. Through the work in Mastery, I have been slowly making connections with my variously aged inner blue-eyed girls, and they are starting to get out there and reveal themselves to the world. My authentic desire to connect with them has given them permission to come out and play...one "Hello" at a time.
Navigating the world without Pacific Blues, or Atlantic Azures, or any other coverup, just me and my blue-eyed girls (and SPF 55).
My intention is to welcome, witness, honor and embrace conflict as an opportunity to deepen into myself and into my relationships with others as well as an opportunity to expand and extend into the safety, joy, and miraculous possibilities of the Greater Field of Life.
My second intention is to actively and vulnerably give myself to others and to fully and freely receive what is given back.
If you have been following this blog, you may recognize the influence of my Magician (a.k.a. J.C.) in these intentions.
Since He visited me a little over a week ago, I have been thinking about what He said to me when He was still in His Magician disguise (“Possibilities” and “Miraculous”) and what He taught me last Sunday about giving and receiving through the eyes.
I grew up unhappy with the eyes I had been given, so about 10 years ago, I decided to get deep blue colored contact lenses called Pacific Blues. I felt my eyes didn’t “pop” enough (especially for auditions), so I put colored irises over my own as a way to get noticed. I have to say that every time I wore them I felt like a phony because on some level, I knew that I was using deep blue fake irises, not to draw attention to my eyes, but, ultimately, to disguise what I was sending out through my own god-given yeux.
I cared more about how I presented myself on the outside than how I presenced myself from within.
I began to wonder, if the eyes are the windows to the soul how was my soul being perceived through Pacific Blues? Was my soul prettier? Was my soul oceanic? Was my soul even in the visual building??
I eventually stopped wearing the Blues, but I had to find other ways to avoid letting top secret or top vulnerable information escape via my eyes. I began to notice that I was okay with looking at people when I was giving information (because I could always go “glazed over” on them if I felt too exposed), but I kinda sorta stopped looking at them when they responded.
I basically blinked…a lot.
I first became aware of this tendency when I was cast opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in a movie entitled “There Will Be Blood.” I ended up on the cutting room floor, but I had a full day of shooting one-on-one with Daniel. (AMAZING but that’s a whole other blogpost!) The Casting Director called me when I returned to Los Angeles and said that the Director of Photography and the Director of the movie absolutely loved what I did. Then she asked me, “You blinked a lot when Daniel’s character was talking to you. Was that a character choice?” “Yes!” I enthusiastically replied. “You actors!” she said, “Always coming up with something!”
When I got off the phone I said to myself, “I blinked…a lot??”
I had had no clue.
This "blinking" awareness has been tapping on my shoulder in a more and more insistent way since the Mastery program, but I just wasn’t ready to reveal or receive intimacy through my peepers. Then, J.C. showed up (unannounced). Since that Sunday with Him, I have been practicing looking at people when I talk to them. Giving me and receiving them.
I had an audition yesterday. I went Pacific Blue-less as I have for some time, but, this time, I went with my own cornflower blue eyes firmly affixed in my head. I entered the waiting room, sat and looked at the young Asian man next to me. I said, “Hello." He looked at me, and I awkwardly looked into his eyes. Waiting. And when he responded, I let my eyes take him in. That was it. A small interaction with a correspondingly small connection, but it was a beginning. I went to the restroom, and when I returned and sat down again, the young man turned to me and said, “You have a real gentleness about you.”
I had him from “Hello”??
I almost fell off my chair. Me? Gentle? Gentle is not a word that easily comes to mind for me or anyone I know who refers to me. Strong, tough, leader, “out there”, sassy, funny…those are words I hear often. But “gentle?” I can honestly say I have NEVER heard that word as a descriptor of yours truly.
I liked it, so I tried to recall the last time I felt gentle. I could recall feeling "gentle" up until around 9 years of age, before I was recruited as the family Decider and General.
Suddenly I understood. Through the work in Mastery, I have been slowly making connections with my variously aged inner blue-eyed girls, and they are starting to get out there and reveal themselves to the world. My authentic desire to connect with them has given them permission to come out and play...one "Hello" at a time.
Navigating the world without Pacific Blues, or Atlantic Azures, or any other coverup, just me and my blue-eyed girls (and SPF 55).
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