I'm waiting outside the lawyer's office while Jessica and her husband sign the papers selling their house. For some reason I've always loved the bittersweet feeling of nostalgia, and while it's been sad for even me to go into their nearly empty house and think of my memories there, not to mention hearing their stories and imagining how they feel, somehow closing this chapter and making it officially a memory is sweet in that weird bittersweet nostalgic way.
Is that strange? It's sadder before it's actually over, and when it is, it's a relief.
We're always shooting for that feeling of relief--that feeling of ease, that "this is where I am" that is definitive, not in flux. Uncertainty keeps me out of the vortex more than almost anything.
So after my "I'm really trying not to bitch" post, trying to figure out how to be ok with where I am, I listened to a workshop from last year in Phoenix. The entire workshop, it seems, was about how to be ok with where you are. Ended relationships, uncertain financial situations, and health issues all illustrated Abraham's main point: to be ok with where you are, you don't have to pretend that you're not bothered by your circumstances; instead, take the being bothered as an assurance that your inner self has already become the solution to your problem, and accept that gladly.
The most poignant example was of a man who had been in pain for years. People would tell him he looked like he was in pain, and he would deny it aloud, while knowing all the while that he really was. Abraham pointed out that you can be in pain and in the vortex at the same time; the key is to be ok with it, and to take the pain as a signal that your cells are asking for healing. Denying and pretending to not be in pain only discourages you in the long run, making it harder to be hopeful or better. Acknowledging that your cells are calling out for greater health reinforces that greater health is already real in your vortex, and all you have to do is allow it.
Denying that you're hurt by your lover's departure only makes the hurting more acute. Realizing that that hurt is only your separation from your inner being, who already knows what you're looking for in a lover, makes it easier to come to terms with that sense of betrayal or guilt.
Denying that you're financially up shit creek is just a recipe for financial disaster.
So my aim is to take the signs of discomfort as evidence that better stuff is waiting for me in my vortex. New contacts, job interviews and ideas for making extra money are lining up in the physical world, which is further evidence for me to dwell on. My life is pretty fucking beautiful even if I don't eat out or shop the sales as much as I like.
And I got a Tardis coffee mug for Valentine's day, and a lover who knows me well enough to pick out cool presents that I really dig.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Being OK with where you are
There's a certain weirdness in my mind about allowing. A dichotomy between what I want and what I'm already happy with.
You can't get away from wanting to grow--wanting new stuff, new experiences, new relationships--yet the best way to allow that growth is to be really happy with where you are, which, in my mind, almost means that it's not ok to want more. If I were really happy, I think, I'd just stagnate and never move on to anything new. This can't be farther from the truth, yet I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the actual truth--that by accepting where I am I open myself up to all sorts of new possibilities.
It's fucked up.
Our society is inundated with stories of people who were never content, who used their discontent to drive themselves to new and better highs. At least, that's the story we tell. Men who have fought their way to the top at the expense of their personal lives, who never learn to be happy with what they have--this is a universal tale that generally ends in tragedy, leaving a legacy of urine collected in jars (who was that? Hunt? somebody help me here), insinuations of pedophilia (thank you, Michael Jackson), or feeling they are above the law (thank you, politicians everywhere).
We'd all rather be happy, but for some reason in this scenario happy = poor. I know plenty of unhappy poor people. We look at the apparently happy rich people and wonder whether they're truly happy (Oprah springs to mind).
So my work is to untie this convoluted mess in my head and choose the truth that works for me.
Anything that you believe is true, by the way. If you believe that men are womanizing scoundrels, or that the world is out to get you, or that we're all tiny insignificant specks, you'll see evidence all around you.
It's partially Law of Attraction--like attracts like, and you get what you think about. I think it's also, though, our inherent desire to be right. We look for evidence to support our beliefs, and if we believe all mechanics are crooks, we'll remember the $130 oil change and forget that nice guy who stopped to help when our car broke down.
I don't think we should go through the world with blinders on, but what's the point of dwelling on crap that only holds us back?
Edison (who wasn't nearly as cool as Tesla, by the way, but he works for this example) could have focused on how many dysfunctional light bulbs he'd made and grown discouraged. Instead, he saw every failed experiment as a step closer to success. We can see his work as maddening, but considering how long it took him, I think he saw it as more of a game. Nobody could try that many times and think of it as drudgery.
I'm not advocating locking onto a goal like a pit bull on a mailman; rather seeing your work as a game--seeing life as a game--not to be won or lost, but to be played.
I lead a rich fantasy life. Yesterday while jamming along with Grand Funk Railroad, I couldn't help but imagine myself as a rock star, and wonder what my life would be like if I'd pursued that goal from an early age. There is a tinge of regret there, which I try to avoid, and which is why I'm thinking about being ok with where I am. Maybe it's silly to think I could have been a rock star--it's a common dream--but it's one thing I felt passionate about when I was a kid.
Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, says that 10,000 hours of practice brings us to mastery, citing examples like The Beatles and Bill Gates. Can you imagine doing anything for 10,000 hours without being passionate about it? Or while feeling like it's drudgery the whole time?
There are plenty of things I could feel passionate about, but fear and frustration make me wary of caring that much. These are not Vortex-y feelings, obviously. And when I do have Vortex-y feelings (hope, joy, love), the thought of investing time and energy into such projects sounds fun. The process sounds fun, rather than a drive toward a certain outcome.
The cynic in me, the part that likes to be right, thinks that the Vortex is just a trick to get me to do what I've always wanted to do. It's a different kind of control than Christianity--which got me to not do things I wanted to do--but a controlling trick nonetheless. Things won't magically come to me when I'm happier, I think. I will have wasted all this energy on just being happy, and will end up less happy when I wake up from this dream because I'll realize nothing magically came when I was happy. A more substantial, lasting happiness will come after years of drudgery and misery and hard work.
Which is nonsense, I know, but I latch onto it like--well, like a pit bull onto a mailman.
I know what Abraham would say if I spoke to them about it. "Stop telling that story. Tell the story the way you want it to be."
So what's my story? I am acutely aware of my false beliefs, which will or won't make it easier to replace them with new ones? No, that doesn't really help.
Go to my usual story of life is good in general, girlfriend is amazing and wonderful, etc? Jessica is, of course, always amazing and wonderful, and that does help, but it doesn't change the way I think about money and success. In a way, it both helps and hurts--I feel like I can do amazing things with her, yet I feel bad for not having done them already because I want to be amazing for her. (She says I already am, which really does make me feel good.)
I feel like it's a problem to be solved, which sometimes is fun and sometimes is frustrating. I'd like to rewrite the code in my brain, download success software a la The Matrix and start fresh without having to police my thoughts.
And yes, I know, the more I focus on this problem the more real I make my lack of solution. On the bright side, when I do allow the solution it should be a HUGE one, because of all the fine-tuning I'm doing on the problem.
So now--now I focus on the solution. I think how nice it will feel to let myself be who I really am, to not beat myself up for not letting myself be me. To look around my life and really appreciate the beautiful-ness I already have. Now I tell my new story, the story I want to tell.
I've spent way more than 10,000 hours living, so I must be really good at it. And I must love life, because that's a lot of time to spend on drudgery. And, actually, I definitely do love life, not just provable by the default that I'm still here. Life is fun. It's where we enjoy cool stuff like music and intimacy and coffee. It's full of new experiences, like joining a pool league and finding a new author. So, yeah, I definitely love life.
No matter what I do, I'm generally good at it pretty quickly. Nursing, massage, grammar . . . making chainmail . . . . So if I can figure all that shit out, some of which is more fun than others, I can figure out whatever I need to. Rather, whatever I want to. And what I want is an amazing and full life, which I pretty much have in fits and starts, rather than just wandering through wondering what the hell's going on, which I do less and less.
And I want to appreciate what I have, which I do. Nothing worse than an ungrateful bastard who can't see the really cool stuff that's already there. And my life is full of cool stuff--friends coming over for movies, lots of hobbies and cuddling at home and on the go, music everywhere I turn, audiobooks and paperbooks and ebooks, and a really cool jacket that everyone compliments me on that I got for $25. Big things and little things and they're all good.
And I'm good.
You can't get away from wanting to grow--wanting new stuff, new experiences, new relationships--yet the best way to allow that growth is to be really happy with where you are, which, in my mind, almost means that it's not ok to want more. If I were really happy, I think, I'd just stagnate and never move on to anything new. This can't be farther from the truth, yet I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the actual truth--that by accepting where I am I open myself up to all sorts of new possibilities.
It's fucked up.
Our society is inundated with stories of people who were never content, who used their discontent to drive themselves to new and better highs. At least, that's the story we tell. Men who have fought their way to the top at the expense of their personal lives, who never learn to be happy with what they have--this is a universal tale that generally ends in tragedy, leaving a legacy of urine collected in jars (who was that? Hunt? somebody help me here), insinuations of pedophilia (thank you, Michael Jackson), or feeling they are above the law (thank you, politicians everywhere).
We'd all rather be happy, but for some reason in this scenario happy = poor. I know plenty of unhappy poor people. We look at the apparently happy rich people and wonder whether they're truly happy (Oprah springs to mind).
So my work is to untie this convoluted mess in my head and choose the truth that works for me.
Anything that you believe is true, by the way. If you believe that men are womanizing scoundrels, or that the world is out to get you, or that we're all tiny insignificant specks, you'll see evidence all around you.
It's partially Law of Attraction--like attracts like, and you get what you think about. I think it's also, though, our inherent desire to be right. We look for evidence to support our beliefs, and if we believe all mechanics are crooks, we'll remember the $130 oil change and forget that nice guy who stopped to help when our car broke down.
I don't think we should go through the world with blinders on, but what's the point of dwelling on crap that only holds us back?
Edison (who wasn't nearly as cool as Tesla, by the way, but he works for this example) could have focused on how many dysfunctional light bulbs he'd made and grown discouraged. Instead, he saw every failed experiment as a step closer to success. We can see his work as maddening, but considering how long it took him, I think he saw it as more of a game. Nobody could try that many times and think of it as drudgery.
I'm not advocating locking onto a goal like a pit bull on a mailman; rather seeing your work as a game--seeing life as a game--not to be won or lost, but to be played.
I lead a rich fantasy life. Yesterday while jamming along with Grand Funk Railroad, I couldn't help but imagine myself as a rock star, and wonder what my life would be like if I'd pursued that goal from an early age. There is a tinge of regret there, which I try to avoid, and which is why I'm thinking about being ok with where I am. Maybe it's silly to think I could have been a rock star--it's a common dream--but it's one thing I felt passionate about when I was a kid.
Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point, says that 10,000 hours of practice brings us to mastery, citing examples like The Beatles and Bill Gates. Can you imagine doing anything for 10,000 hours without being passionate about it? Or while feeling like it's drudgery the whole time?
There are plenty of things I could feel passionate about, but fear and frustration make me wary of caring that much. These are not Vortex-y feelings, obviously. And when I do have Vortex-y feelings (hope, joy, love), the thought of investing time and energy into such projects sounds fun. The process sounds fun, rather than a drive toward a certain outcome.
The cynic in me, the part that likes to be right, thinks that the Vortex is just a trick to get me to do what I've always wanted to do. It's a different kind of control than Christianity--which got me to not do things I wanted to do--but a controlling trick nonetheless. Things won't magically come to me when I'm happier, I think. I will have wasted all this energy on just being happy, and will end up less happy when I wake up from this dream because I'll realize nothing magically came when I was happy. A more substantial, lasting happiness will come after years of drudgery and misery and hard work.
Which is nonsense, I know, but I latch onto it like--well, like a pit bull onto a mailman.
I know what Abraham would say if I spoke to them about it. "Stop telling that story. Tell the story the way you want it to be."
So what's my story? I am acutely aware of my false beliefs, which will or won't make it easier to replace them with new ones? No, that doesn't really help.
Go to my usual story of life is good in general, girlfriend is amazing and wonderful, etc? Jessica is, of course, always amazing and wonderful, and that does help, but it doesn't change the way I think about money and success. In a way, it both helps and hurts--I feel like I can do amazing things with her, yet I feel bad for not having done them already because I want to be amazing for her. (She says I already am, which really does make me feel good.)
I feel like it's a problem to be solved, which sometimes is fun and sometimes is frustrating. I'd like to rewrite the code in my brain, download success software a la The Matrix and start fresh without having to police my thoughts.
And yes, I know, the more I focus on this problem the more real I make my lack of solution. On the bright side, when I do allow the solution it should be a HUGE one, because of all the fine-tuning I'm doing on the problem.
So now--now I focus on the solution. I think how nice it will feel to let myself be who I really am, to not beat myself up for not letting myself be me. To look around my life and really appreciate the beautiful-ness I already have. Now I tell my new story, the story I want to tell.
I've spent way more than 10,000 hours living, so I must be really good at it. And I must love life, because that's a lot of time to spend on drudgery. And, actually, I definitely do love life, not just provable by the default that I'm still here. Life is fun. It's where we enjoy cool stuff like music and intimacy and coffee. It's full of new experiences, like joining a pool league and finding a new author. So, yeah, I definitely love life.
No matter what I do, I'm generally good at it pretty quickly. Nursing, massage, grammar . . . making chainmail . . . . So if I can figure all that shit out, some of which is more fun than others, I can figure out whatever I need to. Rather, whatever I want to. And what I want is an amazing and full life, which I pretty much have in fits and starts, rather than just wandering through wondering what the hell's going on, which I do less and less.
And I want to appreciate what I have, which I do. Nothing worse than an ungrateful bastard who can't see the really cool stuff that's already there. And my life is full of cool stuff--friends coming over for movies, lots of hobbies and cuddling at home and on the go, music everywhere I turn, audiobooks and paperbooks and ebooks, and a really cool jacket that everyone compliments me on that I got for $25. Big things and little things and they're all good.
And I'm good.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
What the world needs now is a little classic rock
The last few days I've taken short car trips and not felt the need to hook up my iPhone to listen to my own music or Abraham seminars. I was muddling through financially (generally the topic that brings me out of my happy feeling place; unfortunately it can't be avoided altogether), and on the radio comes Nirvana, Soundgarden, Queen, Led Zeppelin, Pearl Jam, Tom Petty . . .
In my moment of looking for a feeling of relief and wondering if the only place I might find it is inside a temper tantrum or by being hit by a car--when looking for the next logical step and wondering if winning the lottery is ever the next logical step--I found my Vortex on the radio.
When I was in therapy in New Orleans, I told my shrink that I should design therapy for people with ADD. I get bored a little too easily to stick with one method for more than a few weeks, and in my plan there would be exercises that the therapized person would do until he/she lost interest, then move on to the next one.
I'd been enjoying The Alphabet Game (see previous post) for some time, and made a variation in which I just go through the alphabet naming things that make me happy (lots of foods and places to visit: A is for apple pie and Alaska, for example) instead of happy emotion words (like Alignment, Appreciation, Allowing, Basking, etc.) which I'd burned out on after a few weeks. There are only so many K words, for example (Knowing, Kindness . . . Kite-like flying on a wave of good feeling?), and lack of variety breeds stagnation in my head. Boredom is not a Vortex-y feeling. Trying to come up with a new M word during a massage session, I had a client turn over before I did the back of one of his legs, and he ended up with a lot of neck work, which I hope he appreciated.
I still do the Alphabet Game during sessions almost every day--it's good for long moments of silence--but in the in-between, it was only lifting my mood so much. Say a word a few too many times and it loses its oomph.
Corralling my thoughts can be hard work sometimes, and I'd been thinking about just resting from it and turning to mindless computer solitaire games (which I do plenty enough as it is) and finding relief there. Problem is, it's not so much relief as numbness, which I'm not sure is much of an improvement over irritation and impatience.
The radio reminded me that happy thoughts are everywhere. You don't have to manufacture them from scratch. Open your ears and eyes and sing at the top of your lungs, dancing around in the driver's seat for the entertainment of your fellow commuters.
This morning I discovered that the amount of taxes I paid last year is less than what I was hoping for in my refund. Grumbling, I turned on the radio, and Grand Funk Railroad was just starting their cover of "Some Kind of Wonderful."
(Lyrics stolen from lyricsfreak.com)
Which is why J always stands for Jessica no matter which game I'm playing. :)
In my moment of looking for a feeling of relief and wondering if the only place I might find it is inside a temper tantrum or by being hit by a car--when looking for the next logical step and wondering if winning the lottery is ever the next logical step--I found my Vortex on the radio.
When I was in therapy in New Orleans, I told my shrink that I should design therapy for people with ADD. I get bored a little too easily to stick with one method for more than a few weeks, and in my plan there would be exercises that the therapized person would do until he/she lost interest, then move on to the next one.
I'd been enjoying The Alphabet Game (see previous post) for some time, and made a variation in which I just go through the alphabet naming things that make me happy (lots of foods and places to visit: A is for apple pie and Alaska, for example) instead of happy emotion words (like Alignment, Appreciation, Allowing, Basking, etc.) which I'd burned out on after a few weeks. There are only so many K words, for example (Knowing, Kindness . . . Kite-like flying on a wave of good feeling?), and lack of variety breeds stagnation in my head. Boredom is not a Vortex-y feeling. Trying to come up with a new M word during a massage session, I had a client turn over before I did the back of one of his legs, and he ended up with a lot of neck work, which I hope he appreciated.
I still do the Alphabet Game during sessions almost every day--it's good for long moments of silence--but in the in-between, it was only lifting my mood so much. Say a word a few too many times and it loses its oomph.
Corralling my thoughts can be hard work sometimes, and I'd been thinking about just resting from it and turning to mindless computer solitaire games (which I do plenty enough as it is) and finding relief there. Problem is, it's not so much relief as numbness, which I'm not sure is much of an improvement over irritation and impatience.
The radio reminded me that happy thoughts are everywhere. You don't have to manufacture them from scratch. Open your ears and eyes and sing at the top of your lungs, dancing around in the driver's seat for the entertainment of your fellow commuters.
This morning I discovered that the amount of taxes I paid last year is less than what I was hoping for in my refund. Grumbling, I turned on the radio, and Grand Funk Railroad was just starting their cover of "Some Kind of Wonderful."
I don't need a whole lots of money,
I don't need a big fine car.
I got everything that a man could want,
I got more than I could ask for.
I don't have to run around,
I don't have to stay out all night.
'Cause I got me a sweet ... a sweet, lovin' woman,
And she knows just how to treat me right.
Well my baby, she's alright,
Well my baby, she's clean out-of-sight.
Don't you know that she's ... she's some kind of wonderful.
She's some kind of wonderful ... yes she is, she's,
She's some kind of wonderful, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahhh ...
When I hold her in my arms,
You know she sets my soul on fire.
Oooh, when my baby kisses me,
My heart becomes filled with desire.
When she wraps her lovin' arms around me,
About drives me out of my mind.
Yeah, when my baby kisses me,
Chills run up and down my spine.
My baby, she's alright,
My baby, she's clean out-of-sight.
Don't you know that she is ... she's some kind of wonderful.
She's some kind of wonderful ... yes she is,
She's some kind of wonderful, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeahhh ...
Now is there anybody, got a sweet little woman like mine?
There got to be somebody, got a, got a sweet little woman like mine? Yeah!
Can I get a witness?
Which is why J always stands for Jessica no matter which game I'm playing. :)
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