hurt

i was talking to a mama friend last night and realized something. (yes, this is my super morbidly intense phase...i'm hoping if i don't fight it, i'll move past it soon....everyone cross your fingers...i even have my toes crossed)

anyway, i was thinking about how there is something weirdly "comforting" about thoughts that are generally negative...anger, hurt, resentment, insecurity. i was working through some of those feelings last night, and i told my friend that i was realizing i needed to not hold on to those feelings...be justified by them, defined by them. that normally, as counter intuitive as it is, i'd grab ahold of those nasty feelings, stroke them, feed them milk...anything to keep them near. because somewhere deep down, i guess i find them comforting because they justify not doing things that may involve risk...not taking a chance...not making myself "vulnerable". they feed that illusion that i'm in control because i'm not going to take a risk and therefore i'm "safe," even though i'm sad and miserable.

but i can let those feelings go. i can feel them but refuse to be identified by them. i really can. i've tried it and it worked. it was....so nice. of course i'm still waiting, in some small part of myself, to find out if really i'm just screwing it up and this is all a figment of my imagination. but maybe if i stay focused in the now, i can make the illusion last forever...

i had a good day today. got a flat tire, got it fixed, drove home on the doughnut. met with the cooperative mamas, made some decisions, set the next meeting date. watched the children, really watched them, smiled a lot, felt good. getting ready to make some bread, try making homemade mozzarella, some other good food. looking forward to the weekend.

left foot, right foot, breathe...
thank you, thank you, thank you....
peace

kindness

today's been...emotional, i guess. but i still have things to get done, so i need to, you know, keep it together. (which is a great blog, by the way...beautiful, beautiful pictures of beautiful, beautiful children)

anne lamott has an essay in grace eventually called "the muddling glory of god." aside from being a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, annie also was a bulimic. this essay is about her binging and getting through it or getting through the absolute craving to binge, i can't remember. (but still kind of like my whataburger deal yesterday, i guess) here are the passages i underlined...

But thinking of him [Jesus] reminded me that food would not fill the holes or quiet the fear. Only love would; only my own imperfect love would.

It is hard to remember that you are a cherished spiritual being when you're burping up apple fritters and Cheetos.

My pastor, Veronica, says that believing isn't the hard part; waiting on God is. So I stuck with it and prayed impatiently for patience, and to stop feeling disgusted by myself, and to believe for a few moments that God, just a bit busy with other suffering in the world, actually cared about one menopausal white woman on a binge.

..and respond to myself as gently as I would to you; this is all I am ever really hungry for.

there were a few other passages, but i'm going to stop with this last line. because i am going to be gentle and kind with myself today...as gentle and kind as i would be with someone i love.

running on the treadmill yesterday, even though i am a bit sore today, was really a very gentle experience. being present, being focused, being centered...whatever i end up calling it (because i really do need to think of a word)...is really a more natural state of mind for me. not a habitual one just yet, i admit. but a more natural one. for me.

i have watched people this week be just as stuck being them as i feel stuck being me...those things that we ccan't change, no matter how hard we try, even when they don't really "work" for us. reiki says they are things we aren't able to let go of yet, because they are not finished teaching us our lessons. i can buy that. (as long as i'm not the only one with lessons on the planner...) *smile*
peace

healing

today had kind of a rocky start. by ten, i was thinking i needed to get whataburger for lunch and shove my mouth full of it...i was even considering getting a second burger just to rub all over me, so big felt my misery, i suppose. i was going to bathe myself, inside and out, with what i used to think of as comfort food, but what i now know will make me sick. so i was going to choose to make myself sick.

so after an hour or so on the computer, avoiding doing anything that might serve me well in the long run, i put on my workout clothes and got on the treadmill. well, i did lift a few weights and stretch first, but i spent an hour on the treadmill, walking, climbing, jogging....thinking, working, reading my reiki book. it was a good thing. i'm glad i did it. today was actually a big day for my treadmill time because there were some things i started thinking about that i wanted to work through a little with words...

i started out wondering why the hell my need for "comfort food" (which would make me sick) was soooo strong, so deep. i mean, i don't normally consider buying an extra burger to rub through my hair, so it was kind of weird to feel such an overwhelming craving for that. i've asked the mamas in my cybertribe why do do we do that? why do we want things that are bad for us? especially when we are feeling badly already? what is that tendency to do self injurious things when we are already hurting?

i was thinking for me, there's a belief that i'm not really worth goodness. so maybe i sabotage myself, because i think that's what i "deserve"? probably that makes some sense. but i really do believe, deep down, that life is good and we are all good and that the goodness in us and the goodness that is life are drawn together, even though there are all these little things that get in the way. so why is the default crappy? i mean, i didn't get the burger or burgers, and that's big, i think. but why was i craving them so much...

the reiki book today was talking about how reiki always works for the greatest good. i've been thinking a lot about the greatest good, even praying about it. it's right up my alley. it's God. but the book talked about how the positive energy drawn to intentions centering on the greatest good for many is much greater than the positive energy drawn to intentions centering on the greatest good just for yourself. this was big.

because last night i got in an argument with my spouse. and what it was over isn't important. but somehow, during it and afterward, i could feel how deep the well is for healing in me. healing i feel like i need, not that i feel like i can give, just to explain. and i had noticed that earlier in one of the blogs i didn't post. that while i am very concerned with pleasing people, making sure people know they are loved, experience joy...i am also endlessly needy for those same things. and that's kind of hard to balance. because while i want to always give, i don't often feel like i'm receiving much, i guess. i mean, i know i am. but when i am needy, it always seems like the cupboard's bare.

oh, and another thing i thought of was that my relationship with health is wonky. like, i've always felt being healthy was a defensive action...if you're fit, people can't put you down for not being fit. if you're not fat, people can't use that to hurt you. as though somehow your vulnerability justifies someone else's bad behavior toward you. but today, i started to see being healthy as a way of making sure i would be able to give and receive to the greatest ability and for the greatest good. i don't know...it definitely made me feel more joyful inside. because i don't work well defensively...it wears me out....totally kills the joy. if i am acting out of a concern that someone wants to hurt me, well, it just doesn't feel natural to me. not that i'm not aware there will be times people will want to hurt me, but i just see that desire as being an unhealed hurt for that person, and i don't feel very threatened by it. because we all have those, right?

i don't know...these are big shifts and hard to capture in words, but i just felt like it was time to try a little.

anyway...once i started reading in this reiki book about making ourselves channels for pure energy, allowing us to experience and live with the energy so long as we're willing to accept it for the intent of sharing it, well, then things started shifting. and i started seeing that when i receive healing, when i receive positive energy, it does not have to go in the bottomless pit of my "neediness" but can be shared as the positive energy it is. meaning it's an endless amount. because i have the ability to heal myself.

ok, i think that's enough for today. still trying to put feet to these rather lofty ideals.
peace

just a small check list of sorts

--book club was fun. they really don't discuss the book much at all, which is kind of weird. but maybe if i actually read the book for next month, i'll have something to add, thereby increasing the discussion time from fifteen to at least seventeen minutes. we'll see. but we did discuss eddie izzard quite a bit, tell some stories, and laugh a lot. it's strange to be seated at a table with a group of women and hear them tell stories about each other's births, spouses, houses, families...it was so apparent how long they'd known each other. and me the outsider... but i mean strange in a neat way. i enjoyed it. i just wonder sometimes if we're really meant to settle here in this place of ultra-conservatism. i mean, these women did and they seem happy. i guess we'll just have to see....

--emily died. not emily saliers...emily, my mouse. it was sad. she ate some grapefruit seeds while she was out on saturday, and i haven't googled it, but that's all i can figure would've been bad. unless she ate my incense or something? i don't know. so amy is all alone. and i want to get her a friend, but i'm going to wait to be sure she's healthy for awhile before i start some chain of mouse deaths in my house...that would be so sad.

--my spouse woke me up at six o'clock this morning because he heard something in the wall. he was getting ready for work. he was all laughing/wow/freaking out about it. i was all grubby-eyed/drowsy/wtf? about it. and then he proceeded to leave a bunch of lights on in the house...as though five of us weren't still sleeping. i guess i should say seven because the dogs were asleep, too, and then miss kitty started whining to go outside and, oh, i was just annoyed. but i think he was all chipper cause, well, you know, he got some last night. and we've been talking a lot. and i think he's feeling good about things. and i am, too. nothing like being the total outsider to get you to make peace with those you're closest to. he even said he'd start doing yoga with me...and NOT make fun of us...yeah...i'll believe it when i see it.

--i've been thinking a lot about the mamas on my mama board...and just the circles of friends i have, in general. the diversity. the shared love and support. what's important to each individually. what becomes important as we journey as a group. i still have a lot to learn. but the shifts at this point seem to be coming below the verbal radar, which is important sometimes....saves it from potential mindfucking. must be sacred stuff... but i do love these women.

--it feels good to get stuff done around the house. actually getting a lot of this stuff out of the house is doing great things for my state of mind. i might post some pics later of the kids' closets...please don't think me crazy. but i want to preserve this moment...if i get around to it.

--and i think that's it for now. last rock climbing class is today. i am looking forward to a little more "unstructured" time. i have a post brewing about my second born son that i will try to get to this week. i have a couple of meetings this week, too. piano. no flute. i think i've got it under control...snort.

peace

ramble on

so the blogger at triangle nose posted the simon and garfunkel video to slip sliding away. she's so cool, because below the video, she posted the line, "you know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away." and that has stuck with me since i read it yesterday. kind of a challenging of that sense of control...the more you think you have it, the more the universe will pull you back to the reality that you don't have it. i mean, i think that's a strange statement in the sense that yes, there are things you are in control of. like...you. and only you. and really, only certain aspects of you, at that. and then there are those times we think we're controlling our lives, but actually, it is someone else and their impact on our lives we are trying to control which is, you guessed it, someone else and not a small aspect of you that you actually have control over. i have been turning that line around in my mind off and on for awhile.

then...i am attending a book club tonight. i've been invited for a number of months, but am finally going to remember to go and make the effort to be there tonight. the book we're reading is the secret life of bees, by sue monk kidd. i think i have lent my copy of it out, so i haven't actually read it...this month...or even this year. i read it a few years ago. and i am not remembering it very well. i vaguely remember the story line...online synopses have helped jog my memory a bit this morning...yes, i am cheating for my book club. i am already a book club failure...ha but i found this little passage today....

"You know, some things don't matter that much, Lily. Like the color of a house. How big is that in the overall scheme of life? But lifting a person's heart--now, that matters. The whole problem with people is--"

"They don't know what matters and what doesn't," I said, filling in her sentence and feeling proud of myself for doing so.

"I was gonna say, The problem is they know what matters, but they don't choose it. You know how hard that is, Lily? I love May, but it was still so hard to choose Caribbean Pink. The hardest thing on earth is choosing what matters" (147).

i had a post i never posted the other day that started with talking about the hiking i did when my kids had their outdoor climbing trip last week. how i had forgotten how you can follow a path when you're hiking, be trucking along, and then all of a sudden, that path stops. and i'm usually pretty focused on helping a little one on the path, so it's always kind of disorienting to me to lose the path or find that a path has ended. like, "huh? where the hell did the path go?" then i have to look around...usually behind me ("yeah, there's the path i was following, i'm not making this shit up"), then around me ("yeah, there were others on the path and they seem a little confused, too...except for that guy over there...why doesn't he look confused?..."), and then start picking out a "do-able" route to the next path i can find. (yes, i am almost always this conscious of things...it annoys me too, so get over it.)

and that's been kind of how life has been lately. i was trucking along at a good pace, feeling confident in the path and my ability to make it, and then all of a freaking sudden, that path disappeared. whoa. (i know, i know...it was hardly even noticeable, right?) well, it was hardly tolerable at times, but i think i've found another path. i have no clue where it goes, but i have faith in a greater power, an infinite good, an ancient wisdom...a collective consciousness...yeah, it's God...feminine and masculine, understood, beyond understanding. i was talking to a friend who studies a lot of buddhism the other day. i was telling him how the masculine pronouns in the bible irked me. you know...the whole perpetuation of patriarchy in christianity. so he started telling me how for something to be, there must first be a space for it to exist in. we were comparing it to breathing...how your lungs expand (or the diaphragm expands them...this isn't biology), creating a vacuum that draws in the air. so he was saying that if God was masculine, the space God came into, fills, exists in was feminine. to which i responded that the universe is the feminine uterus God exists in?!? and he said right!!! i don't know. it was a fun discussion...even if it was the blind leading the blind. :)

so anyway...doubt and misery and anger and resentment have come in and cleared out a path, i suppose. although i don't really want to be on a path created by those things.... maybe they came in and cleared out all those silly notions that i am the most important or that i am in control. and now i can hear the things i need to hear. now i can feel the pull toward what i call my true north. it's always been a very strong pull....in a direction i do not always understand because i am not always consciously choosing it...other than i am choosing to follow the pull. i don't know. hard to explain in words. but so much more natural than the last month...although i suppose that was natural, too. in a painful, uncomfortable way. there are still things i need to do. and i am sure i will get them done when i am ready. i'm on a path again, see...so i can see a little ways ahead of me. ;)

ramble off
peace

please don't report me

to the health department.

all this cleaning today and i walk into my kitchen to see a mouse on a plate next to my sink. gah.

luckily, it was one of mine. emily. i don't know how she got out, but i am not making a lot of progress cleaning when i keep running back to her cage trying to figure out how the hell she got out.

craziness.

peace

cleaning house

that is what i am doing today. cleaning, sorting, organizing, donating, throwing away, and handing down. i used to do this every season when i only had one or two kids. but since having the fourth, i think i've done it twice. and knowing the littlest will be five this summer, i think that may not have been enough. ok, ok, i know it wasn't. but i'm paying for it now, so i hardly think a guilt trip would be productive...

i've only accomplished cleaning out one closet. it is a closet shared by my two youngest (sloppiest) children, so that's good. and many little pockets of their room (they share with one other brother who is also a slob) have gotten cleaned in the process, so i think i can handle my second born's closet today. then i want to move on to my room....big ambition today, i am telling you... but second born got invited to a friend's house. one of the mama friends picked him up and will bring him home in a bit. she's already emailed me to tell me how wonderful he is, how cute the two are together, and how grateful she is i let my son go play there....gotta like all that in a woman. i wonder when i will refer to any of them as one of my friends? they are all friends. and i feel sort of a part of them... i just felt so close to the mamas i knew before i moved that i wonder when i will find the new friend setting here...

ok, i have made it through five cd's so far today. and no, they weren't all indigo girls. just two of them were. the other ones were the once soundtrack, jonatha brooke, and the eagles. back to work for me.

but first...go to my blogroll, cleverly titled "blogs i read" or something like that...find the one with the word "boychik" in the title...yeah, i can't remember those exact words either...click on it and read about her marathon. i will put a link to her donation page in my blog later (even though i told her i'd do it four days ago). she's running a marathon for the leukemia and lymphoma society. awesome. and she's doing it in san francisco. brilliant. so if you have a little to donate...maybe check the cushions of your couch....please do so. she's an amazing person and you'll be glad you got a chance to help her out. (i'll do that better later aimee...but with all the house cleaning and such, i wanted to get on top of it at least a little...) :)

and for the mamas i need to mail stuff to, that is my goal tonight.

i think i can, i think i can, i think i can....
peace