Coming to Terms with Being Human

As I attempt to live well these days, it is difficult for me to come to terms with how ineptly and misguidedly I have lived in the past.  I’m only 28, but I still cringe when I think of how foolish I was for the past 10 years.  Years cannot be re-done.  But the past does need to be released, like a snake slithering out of an old, dead skin that no longer does her any good.

My focus has certainly been very centered on myself and what I want, rather than going with the flow and observing what a sensible course of action might be.  I feel like since I have not been living my life fluidly and well, I keep hitting brick walls and falling with a huge thud.  I do keep getting back up and continuing, but my negative experiences have left me nervous and expecting the worst.  Expecting the worst is no way to cultivate a cheerful present and future.

I guess it may be interesting to stop thinking of my life crumbling as a failure.  Life kind of tends to break everything down eventually.  Maybe the Buddhists do have it right.  Maybe it is just a question of how you perceive the inevitable crumbling of life.

I’ve started doing a lot of Yoga for the past week or so.  It’s really nourishing.  It is also a goal I have had for quite some time now, so it feels good to finally live pleasant days in the way that I would like to.

I think new age spirituality may be right.  I’ve been fighting it:  Acceptance.  I’ve been thinking I could participate in life in entirely my own way, with no regard to how things actually are.  Surprisingly, haha, that hasn’t been working for me.  There is nothing I can do to entirely change the powerful tides of life’s ocean.  I think it’s time to accept that I am a speck in the Universe.  A compassionate, thoughtful speck who tries her best, but a small part of a huge world nonetheless.  It’s not even depressing, it’s just time to admit it.  I don’t feel insignificant, but at the same time, it feels good to relinquish my Napoleon complex.

It’s okay (living a balanced, wholesome life)

I have calmed down now.  I’m not taking down my “practical rage” post because it has worked wonders on my psyche.  I’m feeling much stronger and braver now.  The past week or so has been incredible.  I have gone from crippling self-consciousness and timidness to feeling strong and proud of myself in each moment of each day.  It was a transformation that was a long time coming.

One of the most important things was to go from having a very vocal inner critic, to having confidence in my own decision making without any inner critic whatsoever.  Unfortunately, meeting a few toxic people over the years and also my own sense of creepy perfectionism had been taking its toll on me.

One important moment came when I noticed how much guilt I felt when looking at a nice present my husband had gotten me by surprise.  He bought me an expensive digital recorder so that I won’t forget the songs I write.  Completely thoughtful and caring of him.  Instead of feeling so good that I have a thoughtful husband who knows me well and cares about me, I felt guilt and I felt as if I did not deserve to own such a lovely recorder.

I had the unfortunate, and I believe incorrect, belief that there was something more moral about not “wasting” nice things on yourself.  I think it’s a tricky issue.  Obviously greed is bad.  But at the same time, living comfortably and enjoying yourself in life, I now know, is not bad.  For instance, Bill Gates is an over-the-top example.  I’m sure he lives a luxurious life.  But he and his wife also want to help others, so the Gates Foundation does help out around the world in huge ways.  It wouldn’t do anyone any good if Bill Gates gave away absolutely all of his money.  It’s okay to live well and enjoy your life.

I think I had this weird idea lurking in the back of my mind that if I denied myself enough pleasures and enough happiness, somewhere people in a far off corner of the world would somehow be better off.  Yeah, it is weird when I bring the idea into the light and put it in words like that.

I still think financially sound countries can do more to help countries and cultures that are really struggling.  I still want to help people when I can (which at this point means earning more degrees and hopefully being a psychologist one day).  But recently I am realizing that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.  I can’t control how other people act or how other people may choose to see me.  But I can know that I am cheerfully living my days in the way that works best for me.

Life Unfolds Well

The past week or so has been a pleasant surprise of delightful life transformations.  The transformations are details, but significant details that really affect my quality of life each day.

List of fun stuff recently:

-          Power Yoga success felt really good

-          Feeling much more confident recently

-          Struggling to only live in the present

-          Releasing a lot of bitterness and negativity these days

-          Going to meditate and let things be open-ended

-          Sometimes life’s glitches help you out before you even know you need the help

-          Nature does its own thing, without paying attention to how humans think things should be:  Extreme thunderstorms, power out, geese meandering across the road, holding up the cars that want to speed by.

-          Finally realizing, kind of, how people get the guts to be artistic and creative without holding back, which is awesome because I didn’t know I’d ever be able to see that

-          Wrote pages of my story for many consecutive days, which I also didn’t know would ever be possible

-          Having trouble settling down and patiently following my life’s route forward.  Keep wanting to fly off in any other direction, run away, timidly slouch from planned expectations.

-          Slowly learning to keep my harsh, bitter inner critic silent.  Which is very important, because my inner critic can be quite devastating.

-          Letting myself enjoy my own sense of stylishness, which is tons of fun and also brand new for me.

Ever Mysterious

I started reorganizing my books last night.  I wanted certain subjects to show more prominence on the visible shelves.  I wanted the placement of my many books to demonstrate something about what was going on in my head.

First I put my Buddhism and spirituality books in a box to store for a while.  Then I decided to just move them from a visible shelf to a more out-of-the-way shelf.

I think Buddhism is just a place-holder for me.  I think my interest in Buddhism and spirituality creates an open space for my curiosity and not-knowing about life.

I stayed up late, watching random musicians’ performances on youtube videos.  Everyone was very polished in their musicianship, but also very raw and brave.  No apologies were made for personality quirks.  The poetry of the lyrics and music and performance were noble and starkly shimmering with artistic yearning and fervor.

People say that creativity is one of the best aspects of life.  I think it must be true.  The elegant creativity of each person’s dignified individuality is shining and brightly beautiful.

It was so late at night at this point, my inner critic must have been asleep for the night already.  So I wrote a six page free association poem.  It was pretty nonsensical, but expressed how I was feeling at that time quite freely and refreshingly.

So Buddhism is a place-holder for my reaction to life as a muddle of weirdness.  I don’t think the organization of current Buddhist groups and spiritual groups really works for me at all.  I have to go solo in my adventure of life.  But as proper society goes, Buddhism and spirituality are my labels for that unknown, bizarre quality that life is immersed in.

Some people can just let the big life questions be.  Not me.  I would be more relaxed if I could let go and admit I will never be able to neatly compartmentalize life.  But I do love getting tossed around in life’s ocean waves and currents of mystery.  So for me spirituality becomes a sense of unknowing wonder and incredulous awe-struck pondering.

The freedom of life is so broad and wide open.  I have been too caught up in fake ideas of how polite society should be and my relationship to that polite society.  Even though we all must communicate with each other, there is a side to life that is unique and bold and not easily communicated.  My brain’s landscape shifts and twists and changes.  Only my own personal awareness has my unique perspective on life.  I’m weird, but we’re all equally weird in a really beautiful and undefinable way.

My mistake has been to attempt to categorize life.  I wanted the Natural History Museum version of life:  everything fossilized and stagnant and easy to observe and comprehend.  What I get when I observe life, as is the constant, is a sense of things that defies the word “paradox.”  Life defies the neat pages of dictionaries and encyclopedias.

Meanings and definitions shimmer like hazy heat mirages above the desert road.  The tangible and intangible intertwine and weave around each other in dizzying non-patterns.  (smile.) (sigh.)  Life is really amazing, and even though I’m lost and wandering, I’m still really enjoying my time.

Trying Acceptance

I never accept anything about life.  I just usually thoroughly critique anything that crosses my path.  Not always in a negative way.  But in a constructive way that says, “this should change.”

I hear that peaceful people typically have completely accepted everything about life, and that is one of the main reasons that they are so peaceful.  So, starting last night and today, I am giving acceptance a huge try.  It will certainly be something very different from my usual mind frame.

So I guess at this point I have to just admit that I’m a very controlling person, since I already let it slip that I haven’t been accepting of anything.  I will have to give up pretending to dictate how everything should be.  I mean, I would do it all in the name of good stuff, like I don’t want people to face hardships if they can avoid them.  But you can’t really be compassionately controlling, you have to just be compassionate and let everyone learn things for themselves.

I’m the main person who will be learning a thing or two.  It is embarrassing to admit that in my mind I have been wanting to change the entire world rather than change the way I am or the way I think about things.  Since the opposite is what is possible, I will finally be accepting everything else as it is and just trying to change myself in a cheerful way.

This past week has been amazing.  I didn’t do anything incredible.  But I was able to enjoy my time in a way that I haven’t been able to before because I was so worried and anxious.  I think it is interesting that one mind frame can eclipse any other perspectives if you forget to see things in different ways.  Or forget that it is possible to see things in different ways.

While I am trying out acceptance as a way of approaching life, I will also be keeping in mind gratitude for my good fortune.  I saw and read a few items about historical wars and times of oppression this past week.  It was very harsh and heartache-inducing.  The contrast of my completely pleasant lifestyle that came to me relatively easily made me want to cherish every peaceful moment.

So, I have much gratitude for the fact that I have a pleasant lifestyle that makes it possible for me to peacefully try acceptance of life.

A Peacefulness that is difficult to define

I like the epic swells of music and heavy beats with the music of Dido and Jem. The perfect production goes with the earnest lyrics. I also like the acoustic guitar twangs and bizarre lyrical descriptions of indie folk music. I’ve been listening to Pandora stations on my iPod a lot recently. The quirky folk music is on the Laura Veirs station. Most of the other artists I’ve never heard of before.

Maybe my extremes in music taste carry over into all different parts of my life. I can be upset or happy alternately, throughout the day. I am probably more emotional than the average person, but everyone can be emotional sometimes, so mostly it’s probably just dramatically human.

Or maybe there was a reason I was so overly emotional. I had something bitter from the past lodged in my soul. It was like looking at the world through a sinister lens while the bitterness remained. Of course, I claimed to not understand the concept of forgiveness because I felt like I could never condone the past at all, but mostly I just didn’t want to let go of my sad story.

I spoke with my husband for a long time yesterday afternoon. The day had been full of emotional ups and downs for me. I was bringing turmoil into a perfectly serene and lovely environment. It was time to dislodge the bitterness by talking it out with the person who cares about me.

Music can conjure up a past time and place. But anything else can conjure up memories too. When you get to a certain age, if you don’t let go, everything around you rings with distorted memories and strange emotions that should be forgotten. You’ve got to let go and allow yourself to be unconditioned to your surroundings. It’s no good to live in an antique photo album of your life when your life is yearning to move forward to things that are brand new and dazzling in a unique way that cannot be referenced to the past.

After the long, emotional talk with my husband, I felt like I could enjoy everything with new eyes. Without even trying, I felt completely peaceful later on in the evening. That morning I had been completely anxious for no clear reason. Now I felt peaceful just sitting and knitting and listening to music. The pure contentment was a wonderful feeling that I had long been in search of. I needed help to get there.

This morning as I was walking to the car I noticed four buds of flowers on a vine. Less than an hour later when I returned, the flowers had blossomed and opened beautifully. It didn’t even take as long as I would have thought, yet I couldn’t have completely predicted the future and that everything would work out.

I’m still knitting a lot. Working on a purple mitten that is a big challenge. I’m counting stitches, rows and rows of purple. I read a funny book and laughed out loud enthusiastically.

I was previously holding myself up to an impossibly high standard that didn’t allow me to enjoy any of the frequent charming moments in life. I think now I have finally turned off the “so what?” voice in my head that was ruining everything.

Even something totally unique can inspire you to be totally uniquely creative yourself. That’s how it is with good books and good music for me often. My husband and I have made a deal with each other to have rough drafts of our creative pursuits by the end of the year. It’s awesome to have a special person to plan wonderful things with and to be able to cheer each other on as we do fabulous things.

So, I watch as the fragment of bitterness floats away, getting lost high up in the atmosphere and finally leaving me in peace. (smile.)

Knitting a Bigger Heart

By Belle

Last night after dinner I decided I was going to improve my knitting skills and learn something new.  I was going to watch youtube videos and learn how to knit socks.

It was clear that knitting socks was going to be laughably difficult for my skill level.  So I dug out all of my knitting needles, a crochet hook, some knitting books from the library, and about four balls of brightly colored yarn.

I started reading through the Stitch n Bitch book (from the library).  I think it has good steps to get me from beginner to intermediate knitting.  I may get a used copy of the book soon and work my way through the stitches and projects.

While I had all of my knitting out, I decided to finish the hat I was knitting.  Disaster!  It was too large, and yet at the same time too short.  I successfully finished the top of the hat, but it wasn’t really a hat at all.  I may turn it into a pillow, the front half of the pillow that is.

With yoga, I’ve heard that you run into all of the issues of your life while you are working on your skills on the yoga mat.  I think the same could be said of many other skills, such as working on knitting.  It makes you think.  You see a different version of an issue that you’ve been running into frequently.  Important issues will not be ignored, at least not forever.

It’s difficult for me to see how different and unique each person is.  Sometimes I see everyone as different versions of me.  But I think I need to be even more open-minded and observant than that.

When I try to look back and see where I came from and how I am the way I am, it’s difficult to see anything clearly.  Like everyone else, I am a self-made woman.  Somehow this sometimes feels lonely.  I like being unique, but it means you can’t expect to find the answers to how you should be out in the world anywhere, or even from your past.

My husband says I’m impatient.  Life takes trust.  You have to trust that the incremental progress that you make each day may someday lead to a finished project (finished product sounds too much like I’m trying to sell something).  But sometimes, even if you put a lot of work into something, the finished project isn’t what you wanted it to be.

I think this sense of impending loss is why I’ve been turning to Buddhism.  Part of me is happy to admit that I don’t know what I’m doing, and that what I’m trying to accomplish isn’t working out.

I may not ever accomplish anything impressive or significant with my life.  But that can’t be the end of the story.  There has to be a sense of satisfaction with each knitted stitch.  You can’t live for the finished project.  You have to live for each individual moment, because most likely that is all that there is.

Learning from a Bad Day

An interesting thing happened this week.  I thought I was choosing a week of peace and quiet.  I’ve been relaxing, doing a lot of knitting, some reading and writing.  Some of the time this week has been very relaxing.  BUT.  Today was no fun.  Today was very stressful and it’s hard to say exactly why.

Even though I wanted to take it easy and allow myself to be happy, I felt very anxious today.  I found myself dwelling on negative past memories.

Yesterday afternoon I felt very content.  I listened to the pleasant book-on-cd “Espresso Tales” about life in fictional Edinburgh by Alexander McCall Smith.  I finished knitting the cool scarf that I started last week.  Contentment was finally mine.  I was pretty thrilled by the experience of contentment, which is rare for me.

I expected to be about to repeat the feelings of contentment by doing almost the same things again.  I spent time in the same comfortable room.  I thought it would be great.  Instead, negativity and anxiety found me.  Then, I kind of found thoughts about bad memories to go with my bad mood, which of course only escalated my nasty mood.

I fought against the bad mood all day long.  Why me?  I thought.  Why can’t I decide when I want to have a pleasant day?  I thought I had all the factors of a pleasant day in place.  I thought I had created the perfect scenario for happiness.

In late afternoon after my mini laptop gave me difficulties, I hit the roof.  I felt incredibly frustrated.  Frustration is one of my least favorite feelings (which is probably understandable to many people).  I kept myself from throwing the laptop across the room, so at least I had some sense left.

I talked to my husband on the phone, and I was pretty livid.  I thought it was horribly unfair that I should feel so bad when I was trying to use perfect conditions to feel good.

I got some fresh air and an iced coffee from McDonald’s and I started to feel a lot better.  It was a beautiful day outside, a sunny afternoon with a blue sky and fluffy white clouds.  I realized a few things.

Somehow I had managed to take my inexplicably bad day and learn something new from it.  I realized that I can’t shrink from life and expect to avoid all negative emotions.  Life is life.  I won’t somehow be able to outwit the worst of it and only pick the good stuff.  Life isn’t fair, but the way life randomly smacks you with new stuff to consider is pretty darn equal for everyone.

I also thought to myself, if I’m going to deal with random frustrations even when I am trying to enjoy a pleasant day surrounded by the comforts of home, I may as well get out there and do something daring and fun with my life.  I can at least try to follow my biggest dreams since I can’t sit out the drama of life entirely anyway.

Third, I’m going to have to give the majority of my inquiries into spirituality a rest for now and just be myself and try to rely on my basic smarts and common sense.  I have really been trying to be perfect in some way, also in an attempt to avoid conflict and frustration in life.  But I guess that is not the right way for me to look at it at all.  I have unreasonable expectations from life that create a foundation that falls away like sand with the slightest obstacle.  I expect life to always treat me well if I bargain with it and whine.  Guess what, that won’t work either.  I thought I could avoid all of the hurt of life somehow.  But all I can do is be strong and face the difficult stuff.

Even though my learned ideas seem harsh, they strangely make me feel a lot better.  I have more compassion for others because I think almost everyone is doing the best they can while facing life’s difficulties themselves.  I think there are many conflicts in the world that are caused by humans acting unethically and treating each other badly.  However, there is also a lot of grasping at survival going on in the world currently.  Even though none of us are perfect, we can still try to help each other in the kindest and most thoughtful ways possible.

I have renewed faith in my own strength and forward movement.  I won’t be waiting for a magical perfect moment anymore, because I don’t think that perfect moment will ever arrive.  But I can grapple with life in my own way each day and do the best I can.

Pleasant Morning Epiphany

My thing recently has been to feel timid.  Ugh, feeling timid is just about the worst thing ever.  It makes it impossible to live freely, because you are always second guessing yourself and wondering what the next person over is thinking of you.  Feeling timid is the way to feel if you are not feeling strong and confident.

This morning I slept in and then took a refreshing shower.  First thing, I conquered the dishes that were piled in the sink.  Then I played some of my own songs on the guitar while the coffee maker was gurgling.  With all of these commonplace morning events, I realized something.

I have been dwelling on a handful of bad memories for months now.  This morning I finally felt the weight of a good life lived, my life lived as an accomplishment of many years going it alone instead of just something I suffered through.  I finally feel proud to call my life my own.  It has been a lot of crazy experiences, but it was a solo trip.  No one person was there beside me the whole time, just different friends along the way.

It is almost as if I have been in denial of how strong I am.  I am strong enough to have faced 28 years of life, and I’ve taken a lot of risks.  Only about 25 percent of the risks have paid off, but that’s okay, because I learned from every experience.  If I focus on the scope of my life overall instead of just a few negative memories, then I can be fine.

I feel the urge to help others, but I have to wait until my psychology degrees are completed before I can really contribute a lot.  But I won’t be waiting around.  I will be enjoying my very fortunate life.  Feeling strong finally also makes me feel a lot of gratitude.

Being timid makes you feel like you are not up to the challenge of life.  Now that I finally can see how strong I am, I am now looking forward to enjoying life instead of fearing it.  It still saddens me that many people in the world suffer and are much less fortunate than I am.  But I can only help others if I am strong and do my best in life.

Reading & Thinking

I have been diving into some great reading and film watching recently.  I have been reading and inspired by Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird.”  Lamott is so lushly descriptive, it really creates a great reading experience that makes you want to write too.   Lamott is one of the few people I know of who will outwardly admit to being entirely human, with all of the messiness and imperfection that that means.  I have started writing because now I can tunnel to my unconscious a bit to get the material for typing out.

I am reading “Eat Pray Love” by Elizabeth Gilbert for the second time.  I saw Gilbert speak at a theater in my hometown a few months ago.  She is very brilliantly engaging and inspiring as well.  She makes me want to just go ahead and be my own person, after she describes all that she went through to be her own person.  It’s great when strong women show their independence and demonstrate that you don’t have to give up any of your own emotions or caring or fascination with life to be your own confident, independent woman.  Gilbert also makes me stop being bashful about wanting to travel the world.  Her message seems to be, just go for it.  She gives up caring what other people think entirely as far as I can tell.  Her book is wonderfully honest and vulnerable, yet in a strong way.  It’s really incredible, and I’m really enjoying reading it again.

I have also started reading the new book “Slow Love” by Dominique Browning.  I think it is interesting that Browning is still going through so much even though she has had a successful career and successfully raised two children, all on her own.  Even though Browning is also a strong, independent woman, she has let the men in her life treat her badly, at least in the first part of the book that I have read so far.  Browning also confirms my negative view of the glamorous people in New York who glare at everyone else.  I am glad I never have to try to “make it” anywhere.  I am perfectly content to be my own type of lone person, totally unique and totally unknown always.

I feel lucky to have found my husband, who is not a typical guy at all.  It is possible for a man to be sensitive and caring and thoughtful.  From reading popular literature and seeing popular films and television you wouldn’t think it’s possible.  But there are some guys out there who are their own creative type of person, and thank goodness I happened to find my husband or I think I would have gotten more and more cynical.

I watched a yoga documentary.  It is about a skeptic who has yoga forced upon him, but he manages to stay true to his own disbelief, which is very impressive to see.  You can’t make someone be who they don’t want to be, luckily.  I think anything in life becomes what you put into it and what you make of it.

I have also started the book “A Path with Heart” by Jack Kornfield.  He seems to have a lot of great experience to pass on.  I think I like his Buddhist perspective on things.  I learned a good lovingkindness meditation from the book so far.  And I also read an interesting chapter on taking your meditation seat and then taking that awareness and grounding with you wherever you go, as if you are always sitting on your own meditation seat.  I really like this idea and I am going to try to incorporate it into my life.

After reading “A Path with Heart” this morning I was able to take off in a positive direction.  I have been putting myself in a spotlight of negativity and judgment.  I didn’t realize that it was all self-created, or at least self-sustained.  I have had to put up with a lot of nasty people throughout my life, and unfortunately I internalized unkindness and judgmentalness.  But I am leaving that behind and being my own confident person.

I have been feeling good about being myself recently.  Two evenings ago I was sitting in my comfy chair and I had an epiphany.  My path will be my own only.  I am halting the attempt to follow others and reflect what others do.  I have to be my own person totally.  It was a really great realization, that I trust myself to handle all situations in my own way and distill all information through my mind in the way that I want to, taking what I can from books and viewpoints and discarding the rest if it doesn’t work for me.  There are not really any authorities on life.  Each person is her own authority on her own life.  No one should follow anyone else, and no one should try to have any followers.  Everyone is equal and everyone’s life is unique.  What works perfectly for one person will not work the same way for anyone else.  I’ve got to cut out my own path entirely.  It’s the only way to be happy and live contentedly and well.

So, I continue to read great writing by unique individuals, while enjoying being my own strong, unique person.  Life can be good if you work to uncover the beauty in it for yourself.  I think I will still struggle at shutting out nastiness and negativity.  But overall I am confident that I can happily relish the good life that I create for myself.