Open Heart Adventure

Okay, I couldn’t decide on a title.  Definitely feeling lost in space, but still, I’m working on taking care.  Who says you can’t have it all!?!  Whah whah whah.  Yes, that’s totally lame and I will continue to do it.

Uhh.  Man, I’m not saying exactly what I want to say, probably because this isn’t my journal and really, you don’t want me to go there.  Or at least my mom doesn’t.  Then again, maybe it’s been so long since my last post that no one is reading this puppy.  Not counting on it, so here is the tame (i.e. boring?) version.

Okay, BIG discoveries again, and they actually tie into the theme of “taking care”.  And I’ll be honest, I’ve fallen off the wagon lately.  Moved last week, saw the ex, saw my dad, you know, shite happens.  Back on track.  So, yeah, not really.  Pretending, which is damn well good enough.  You are so bored by now.  I am bored.

Whatever, good, shoo.  What I’m realizing is that I don’t want to take care of me.  I want someone else to do it!  Really truly, it’s true.  I keep waiting for someone to rescue me (usually a guy) or I continue to wield an oh-so-subtle sob story.  And boy have I gotten good at this.  So subtle I almost don’t notice it.  When I talk to friends I seem to have some crappy story at the ready just in case said friend might be about helping sponsor my pity party.  It’s like this little drug – just one hit.  Just a small amount of sympathy to get me through the day.  Yuck.

Okay, now to move on from beating up on myself – which brings up another point.  That the beating up of one’s self perpetuates the pity party.  Pity party perpetuation.  That is an awesome title.

Stranger still is that I’m a pretty independent gal.  At least on paper.  My mom was a stay-at-home mom and although I broke the mold and went into finance, made some good money, and became independent, the draw of relinquishing responsibility – my own personal power – is awfully appealing.  Notice the use of the word “awfully”.

In our culture, and many cultures in fact, women have traditionally stayed home to take care of their man and their family.  NOTHING wrong with this.  Except when there’s something wrong with this.  Old habits die hard, but what do we give up by being “taken care of”?  A whole lot, I think.  Can we really be autonomous and authentic and powerful (in a non-nation conquering sort of way) when we depend on someone else to provide?  Okay, yes, I’m sure there are cases where it’s possible.  But a lot is changing in our society, and as painful and unsettling as the process may be, I think it’s a good thing.

Said as I’m scrolling through my match.com emails.  Har har.  Not EVEN kidding.  Which brings me back to myself.  Taking care is about 100% taking care of my happiness, my life, my decisions, my money, me.  It’s amazingly powerful and scary as hell.  So scary that I’m not even doing it yet.  Not all the way at least.

Part of me sees that when I depend on someone else to take care of me, I may have the illusion of security, but it comes at a price.  In relationships I’ve often tried to guess what it was my guy wanted from me, or who he wanted me to be.  If I could just be good enough, kind enough, helpful enough, he’d marry me.  He would rescue my ass and validate me.  Nope.  Only I can do that.  Quiet whining…  Okay, fine.

I’m not saying this is all women, not at all.  But probably more of us than we care to admit.  The irony is that we’re so much more attractive to the imaginary “prince charming” when we’re who we are.  When we’re content and fulfilled and not even thinking about him.  When we don’t need him.

Moral being, take good care ladies (and men).  It might be scary, it might be daunting, but it’s always ever been our life’s work.  Gulp.

Yes, I just posted something, I don’t know, 4 hours ago.  And yes, here I am again.  Completely restless, jumpy, searching for songs that will say just the right thing.  Say what I need to hear.  Haven’t found it yet.  Have asked my tweeps (people + twitter), have harrassed my sister, have searched itunes, all in vain.  Limited chocolate in the house, so no help there.  Seems that it’s not about hearing what someone else has to say, but perhaps expressing what it is I want to say.  You know, “Say what you need to say”, John Mayer.  Hesitation… To post or not to post?  Plunge.

Relationships.  Letting go.  Holding the pain that’s in your heart and moving on anyway.  Wowch.  Where are these relationship blogs?  Or does no one want to own up to the painful remnants of a failed relationship?  I don’t.  But here goes…

First gratitude.  Grateful for you questioning my crazy, worst-case scenario perspectives, mostly about myself, and giving me another view.  And I believed you, for the first time.  And in turn, began to believe in myself.  Grateful for your kindness.  Rolling every last item in my suitcase into strange, compact, sausage-like structures such that it closed.  While I took a bath and avoided a melt-down.  Grateful for your patience with me, particularly related to technology, and just about everything else.  Grateful for flowers in France.  Grateful that you held your ground and forced me (unwittingly) to grow.

Oops.  Also known as sorry sans regret (getting there).  Sorry that I was critical.  It had nothing to do with you.  Sorry that I made demands.  I was scared to lose you and find me and well, lose you.  Oops:).  Sorry for being sorry.  Sorry for any pain I caused.  It came out of my own pain.  Not sorry for skipping football games to go shopping.

What I learned.  Learned that depending on you to meet my needs does not work.  That’s my job.  Learned that sometimes people aren’t on the same page and that’s okay.  Learned that good people who love each other aren’t always going to stay together.  Learned that love is acceptance.  Myself first, you second.  Or at the same time.  Learned that I’m learning.  Learned that I don’t have to be perfect and neither do you.  Learning that it’s okay to let go.  Better, in fact.  But really hard sometimes.

The end.  For now.

So.  It’s been a while.  It’s always interesting to notice what’s going on with me when I take a break from writing new posts.  In this case, I’d say some kind of internal shift is occurring.  Uh, yes, again.  I seem to be processing something, and my body has made this known when I fall asleep at 9pm on a Tuesday.  And what a gift to be able to give myself that space.  No “hurry up and make progress” or “get moving already”.  Just exactly what I need – to be okay with where I am.

As you may know, this is my year of taking care of myself and I have been consistently doing that.  Except when I forget.  Which happens quite a bit, but less so than in the past.  And that’s important, because it always comes down to remembering.  Remembering that I’m here and now.  Not in the maze of thoughts and what if’s running through my head.  Not in the not-too-distant future of – - will I have enough money, or will this crappy feeling never go away?

Back when I was living at a Buddhist Center in France I had this most profound and yet really mundane moment.  Doing laundry no less.  Actually, I was hanging my laundry outside during a midsummer’s night in the French countryside.  Okay, not bad.  Still, it was laundry.  A swirl of thoughts were racing through my head and I had this almost imperceptible turn.  An oh-so-subtle shift from dreaming of the future, getting “ground”, planning the what if’s to the realization that, oh, this is my life.  Right now, doing laundry.

The silence was so loud I couldn’t help but notice my life, right there in front of me.  And so I thought, hmm, I can just step into this.  Step into my life right here and right now.  And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.  Remembering to own this moment.  That the future is not my life.  This moment is.

There was such space in that.  And mostly acceptance.  It was one of the first times that I consciously chose to accept where I was.  Instead of dreaming of a better moment in the future when I would like myself more, when I’d be more successful, or I’d feel better.  This was it.  This is it.  Sort of depressing in a way.  Some how I thought all those visions of grandeur and success were my salvation.  It’ll all be fine when I can get there.  Now that I practice coming back to whatever it is that’s going on right here and now, some of the excitement is gone.  But with that, a lot of the pain, grasping, and unhappiness is gone too.  Call the middle way, as the Buddhists do.

I think more than anything, life is not about getting ahead, or getting all of our shit together.  It’s really practicing again and again to not run away from this exact moment.  For me it’s about getting to know how crappy I feel right now.  Or how great I feel.  But interestingly, when I feel great I don’t seem to question it.  It’s when I’m feeling something I don’t want to feel or don’t think I should be feeling that presents my biggest opportunity.  It’s a chance to practice acceptance.  By doing that I step out of the happiness chase – - I stop trying to avoid pain or unpleasantness.  It’s such an exhausting treadmill to be on..

What I’ve noticed is that when I get to know how I’m feeling now, stay with it without pushing it away, it softens.  It also helps me feel better faster.  More and more I’m seeing these scary stories that stream across my mind like a stock ticker tape, and I’m not buying it.  The message, as Martha Beck would say is, “be afraid!”  But really, what does that get me?  Nothing I want.  Life minus the scary stories is pretty cool.  Definitely fresh, surprising, and well, an open-heart adventure.

And by the way, I’m noticing that my thoughts are saying, these blog posts are lame and redundant.  But you know, that’s okay.  It’s just where I happen to be.  Less the lame part:).

After days of rain, cold, and plain old gloom, the sun is finally shining again.  Beautiful, glorious fall day.  Sigh…  Which reminds me, behind all that gloom, stuckness, and funk, the sun was always there.  Okay, hear me out.  In the type of Buddhism I practice, there’s a concept called Great Eastern Sun.  It represents your basic goodness.  Essentially, no matter how bad things get, no matter what crappy stories are playing in your head, behind all those clouds, you have basic goodness and it does not go away.  Just a matter of remembering it’s there and perhaps a little house-cleaning to get back to it.

On that note, I heard Marianne Williamson speak this weekend and it was just what I needed.  I’ve read and re-read her book, A Return to Love, more times than I care to admit, but hearing it again helped.  It’s like, oh yeah, I remember that.  Of course, makes perfect sense.  Then, I don’t know, 5 minutes pass, someone cuts me off in traffic, and ohhh how I forget.

Marianne’s message is all about Love.  Love with a capital “L” because in her book, God = Love.  I like it.  It works for me, and really, whatever works for you.  My coach, Martha Beck, describes God as “Good Orderly Direction”.  This also works.  The gist for me is that there’s some larger entity out there, call it an interconnectedness or energy, or the force.  Which might be why I loved Star Wars so much.  Also might be why some many others did too – something about it resonated. 

If God is love, than God’s opposite is not hatred, but fear.  Fear is essentially the absence of love.  When you’re “in love” you’re aligned with the natural order of things.  So a few questions to get to some truths…  Do people respond better to you when you come from a place of love or anger?  Okay, I’ll answer.  Love.  How do I know?  Because I’ve come from a place of anger plenty of times to see some seriously bad results.  Second question, do you feel better when you’re loving or when you’re hating?  Okay, duh.  My only point is that God or no God, love feels better.

Another point from Marianne.  She asserts that love is light.  The opposite of light being darkness.  So how does one get rid of darkness?  Do you beat it, punish it, yell at it, threaten it?  Nope.  Can you imagine being pissed at the dark and swatting at it in an attempt to make it go away?!  Does not work.  The only thing that really does is to turn on the lights.  Which also goes for fear.  Threatening or punishing fear, or fearful people, DOES NOT WORK.  It only reinforces and strengthens the fear.  Best course of action in my experience is to turn on the love.  Granted, easier said than done.

As always, it’s all an inside job.  Sure there’s lots of fear, violence, unpleasantness (understatement) in the world, so how do we fix it?  As Gandhi says, “We must become the change we want to see in the world.”  This guy knows what he’s talking about.  Did he re-establish India’s indepenedence from the powerful British empire with violence, battles, war?  Nope.  Just the opposite.  He defeated the British Empire with peace.  In which case, “defeated” is probably the wrong word.  He basically turned the lights on and ultimately dispelled the darkness.   Not saying it was easy, but it works.  And now India and Britain have a pretty good relationship.  I’d say better than it might have been had a bloody war ensued.

So this is my new approach.  There are plenty (said w/emphasis) of things in my life that I’d like to improve.  Plenty of things I’ve said, done, that I do say and do, that could use heeps of improvement.  However, the way to remedy that is NOT to focus on what’s wrong.  The answer is to shine the light on what is good, what is working.  Beating myself up about stuff has yet to work.

So instead of the old, “jeez I’m such an idiot, jerk, etc…”, I’m going to make a concerted effort to notice and appreciate the nice stuff.  What I did or said that was constructive or helpful.  What in my life is good and working.  This is not a form of denial (well, not entirely), rather a way to enhance, encourage, and foster all sorts of goodness - good thoughts, actions, experiences, etc…  Because it really is true that what we appreciate appreciates.

Perhaps posting my thoughts, feelings, experiences, isn’t a great idea.  Perhaps I need to invest in a journal.  You know, one that I can burn later on before anyone finds it.  Strange that I’m instead writing in a blog for all the world to see, or all eight of you anyway.  Hi Mom!  (She really loves my writing, says it’s genius:).  Maybe I write it because I want to win a popularity contest – something I have NEVER been even close to winning.  My sisters were the “cool” ones.  But you know, there is a good reason for writing this stuff, and it occurred to me when I was scanning Havi Brook’s blogs in search of some relief.

PLEASE God (or Havi) say something that will help me feel better.  There’s got to be a post out there that speaks to me and what I’m needing in this moment.  Anything than to actually sit here and feel what I’m feeling.  Loneliness, sadness, major stuckness.  Which reminds me of getting a journal.  But I won’t.  Because maybe out of the handful of blog readers out there, whom I appreciate beyond measure, maybe one of my posts will provide a little relief to one of you along the way.  Maybe it’ll be me.

And yes, I feel like this cow.  Between stuckness and a close kinship with dairy (mainly in the form of Ben & Jerry’s), I can relate.  But I’m tired of feeling sad and stuck, tired of this gloomy cloud.  It’s not here all the time, but when it is, it feels like a forever thing.  Which reminds me.  It’s not.  I’m mean, nothing is a forever thing really.  Not the bad stuff and not the good stuff.  We spend a lot of our lives trying to hoard the good and push away the bad.  It seems that the simple act of pushing the bad away tends to lead to more bad.  We feel crappy, and in an attempt to not feel that way (because we should feel good all the time, damn it!), we create another struggle on top of feeling crappy.

I know this.  Intellectually.  I’ve read it in 2,000 self-help, Buddhist, and coaching books, among others.  But I forget.  I’m human.  This post is a reminder to let ourselves feel like crap.  Because sometimes we do.  And telling ourselves that we shouldn’t does not help the situation.  In Buddhism they call it Samsara – - chasing happiness and trying to avoid feeling bad.

So the idea is to lay down your arms.  Give up the fight.  Feel how you feel.  In this moment you’re unhappy, you’re sad, maybe you’re really really angry.  That can hurt a lot.  Well, take some time to get to know it.  If at all possible, welcome it like an old friend – I’m sure the two of you have met before.  If you can’t do that, just acknowledge that, yeah, this sucks, I hate the way I feel right now.  That’ll do.  Now consider that the way you’re feeling right now is not a forever thing. 

Let’s take a scientific approach.  I was after all a science major in college, and yes, I mostly hated it.  Jeez.  Anyway, so two possibilities.

• Possibility one, things improve.
• Possibility two, things get worse.

 If things improve from here, and there’s a 50% chance of that (science here, stay with me), then you wasted some time beating yourself up for feeling like crap.  And I’d bet that maybe you felt like crap in the first place because you believed things would get worse from here.  But look, things improved and you spent all that time wallowing in non-existent future badness.  Not that I’m saying not to do it, just pointing out what’s really going on.  Which is to say speculation.  Speculation that you’ll never fall in love again, or the economy will never improve, or you’ll always feel this way.

Option two.  Things do in fact get worse.  Okay, that sucks.  But think about it.  If things have gotten worse (in the future), then relatively speaking, things are pretty good right now.  I mean, if I knew things would get worse, I would enjoy this time a lot more.  Now.

Point is, you never know.  And maybe you’re thinking, well she forgot about option three, where nothing changes.  That could be an option, but in my experience, things change.  And anyway, it’s a lot more fun to believe that things will improve in the future.  You can’t know anyway, so why not make up something good.  You’ll feel better now.

In fact, I’m feeling better already.  Thanks for letting me share and remind myself to be okay with how I feel now, and to remember that now is not a forever thing.

Okay, I think I’m ready.  Okay, I’m not.  Doah.  You didn’t see it, but after I wrote that first sentence there was a really really long pause.  Not quite there yet.  But I’m getting closer.  And by grown-up, I mean, you know, a grown up.  What do I mean??  Okay, I mean actually, truly being responsible for making my life what I want it to be.  No more excuses, explanations, stories, complaining, etc…  But then there’s the whole human being thing, so I imagine I’ll continue to do some or all of that stuff, but not in a way that keeps me stuck.  Because that’s all that stuff does.

I’ve been on the verge of adulthood for some 34 years now, or 34 minus 21 (through college seems fair) = 19 years.  And since I prefer even numbers, let’s say I’ve been on the verge of adulthood for 20 years.  Fine.  It’s one of those things where I always wanted to take myself seriously and be able to do want I wanted, instead of what I perceived others wanted from me.  That’s being an adult to me.  Being myself, taking care of myself despite the reaction I might get from the other person.  I’ve spent a lot of energy and effort trying to guess what people wanted from me, what I should do or say to please them.  It’s exhausting.  And frankly, ridiculous to think that I could even know, especially when a good percentage of us are doing the same thing.  What an absurd (no offense) group of people – everyone trying to figure out what everyone else wants and getting it wrong, only 90% of the time.  Mean while, there’s a huge internal disconnect.  We’re so busy in everyone else’s business, who’s at home minding the store?

Which reminds me… When I was 7 years old, my younger sister, Becky and I went on a kiddy-roller coaster ride at the Jersey Shore.  Each car looked like an actual car (only smaller) with little steering wheels (one for each of us) and mini-seat belts.  We were both excited, especially about the car part, but as soon as the ride started and began jolting us about, panic set in.  We thought we had to steer the thing in order to stay on the tracks.  Becky was screaming while I tried my best to keep us alive, or so I thought.  It was 5 minutes of sheer terror.  As the ride came to an end I lost my grip on the steering wheel only to realize that the car steered itself.

Even as a kid, I saw the irony.  Not only did I not enjoy the ride, it was scary as hell.  All under the false belief that I had to control the situation.  When I finally let go, by accident mind you, I learned that it wasn’t my job at all.  Becky was too traumatized to enjoy the final 30 seconds, and my 7-year old brain sat in contemplation.  Huh?  What a waste of a ride.

So I think we often do the same thing with our lives, living it so that we “stay on track”.  We try so hard to control the outcome, in this case, what other people will think or feel -  we miss out on a lot of fun.  That, and we disconnect from ourselves and our own happiness, which often leads us to believe that others are responsible for our feelings.  A vicious cycle indeed.

You know, I am ready to be a grown up.  Especially if that means being happy.  One of my favorite quotes says something like – - the greatest gift you can give anyone is your own happiness.  I thinks it’s so true.  When we take it upon ourselves to be happy, it’s no one else’s responsibility, and that frees people up to do what makes them happy.  Not that they need to wait for our cue, but it seems like a win-win.

And how ironic that my definition of being a grown-up means making myself happy.  Guess I get to be a kid again:).

Yes, I’m going to do it.  Talk about PMS in a blog.  While I wanted to share an inspiring, uplifting post, it’s just not happening right now. 

So I know I have PMS when I start honking at people on the road.  In fact there is a direct correlation with the intensity of my PMS and the number of times I honk in a day.  I think it was about 3 honks today.  It’s gone as high as 7.  Although the 7-honk day was a few years back when probably I just had road rage too.

Although this may be amusing, and well, true, please bear in mind that I in no way mean it derogatorily (not actually a word).  It’s a fact that female hormones (and I bet male hormones as well) fluctuate during the month.  Way TMI, but this was my first PMS experience of my 34th year of enlightenment.  Har har.  And it began by getting pulled over at 7am this morning.  Nice.  My tags were expired.  Seriously, how can they see a tiny tag when the sun hasn’t even risen!  And then I start thinking about what a crappy job it is to be a cop (no offense).  I mean their whole job is about punishing people.  That cannot be good for the psyche.  Digressing…

So I got a ticket, handled it well enough, but apparently there was some residual rage going on which led me to drive like a jackass on the way to work.  And of course I was late for my 8am meeting, even though I left extra early.  I could go on, but for the most part, the day continued on this trajectory.  Two pints of Ben and Jerry’s later (purchased, not completely consumed), and I’m feeling a little bit better.

Given my new efforts to take care of myself, I noticed a difference during today’s upheavals.  Namely, how I reacted to myself.  After honking at someone, or being pissed at someone else, or whatever, I usually then feel like absolute dirt and proceed to internally beat myself up.  Which, no surprise, leads me to behave in an even more unpleasant way.  Today, I was almost amused as I watched myself give the lady who drove the wrong way down the one-way parking lane and cut me off to get the spot I was turning into (I was going the “right” way, of course), the evil-eye.  You know, the, “I’m going to kill you now” look.  And then I saw how I wanted to totally demonize her and call her names.  But… I noticed this with some detachment, some space.  And I didn’t call myself names or say “I shouldn’t”, “I’m horrible”, etc…  Instead I said, “I hear you”, “that sucks”, “tough break”.  Miraculously, it helped.  I mean,  not sunshine and daisies, but stabilization.  And while there’s no denying that Ben & Jerry came through in a pinch, the real difference was giving myself a break.

On the subject of giving breaks, it certainly is interesting how quickly I jump to judging others – she had no right to do that!  I can’t believe he’s so insensitive!  But really, the biggest judging is going on inside my head.  I may get pissed off and angry in certain situations, honk, or imagine driving right into someone’s back fender (no judgement, remember:), but I’m realizing that the way out of that cycle is to start being okay with all of that.  I know this because 34 years of beating myself up mentally has improved nothing.

So I would say, if you’re willing to experiment, because I am, don’t even worry about giving the other person a break.  I mean not yet anyway.  Of course if you can do that, great.  But if you can’t, I say do your usual thing – honk, yell at the Indian credit card customer service rep named Carl, and when you’re done, instead of the old, “God, what’s wrong with me” or “I’m such a jerk”, try telling yourself, “that’s okay”.  You had a long/hard/PMSy day (insert your thing), and that’s okay.

I swear when we can do this, things ease up.  We ease up, our reactions to others ease up, and in turn, they ease up.  And if you can’t do that, just notice what you are doing and how you feel after you do it.  It always is an inside job.  Start with awareness, then move to SELF-compassion; follow these steps and you’re likely to reduce your Post Mental Scorn.  Now repeat for the rest of your life.  See, it’s easy.

Wow, so I just listened to an incredible call with Mark Silver and the Heart of Business.  Mark is a Master Teacher in his lineage of Sufism, i.e. super spiritual, zen-like (or eh, Sufi-like) guy who teaches us lay-folk about marketing.  In the event that you don’t have a business to market, I recommend you get one just so that you can enroll in one of his classes.  Divine.  Literally.

But… I will not be talking about marketing today.  I will leave that to Mark.  What I’d like to talk about is neediness.  The mother-load of ick, in my prior opinion.  After starting to meditate about three years ago now, a strange thing happened.  I became needy.  Like crazy needy.  In fact my neediness peaked while living at a meditation center in France for 4ish months.  What?!  I thought meditation would bring enlightenment, or at least the ability to chill out a little more.  Very type-A over here.

In fact, it gave me almost the opposite effects of what I was looking for, initially.  Eventually it kinda sorta helped me calm down, but when I got good at it (whatever that is), I started to see all sorts of things I did not want to see.  During a one-month meditation retreat at the meditation center, because you know, I couldn’t get enough, I felt like a complete leach to everyone and everything.  NOTHING was enough.  Not enough attention, not enough comfort, not enough from the now ex-boyfriend.  I felt like a human vacuum of neediness.  Where did that come from?

Looking back, I see that the neediness was there all along.  Well before the meditating.  But my new-found awareness – - hate you – - brought it all front and center.  It’s been about a year since leaving my meditation mecca and the neediness remains, although less so.  And you know, in a way I’ve been fighting it ever since.  I shouldn’t be needy.  I am totally lame and pathetic for being so needy.  No one else is as needy as I am.  Okay okay, you get the point.

What I started to learn with a new and amazing book I just read, Nonviolent Communication, is that neediness is what makes us human.  Oh.  Okay.  Really, I’m allowed to be needy?  This was then confirmed by my therapist.  Yes I have a therapist because evidently blogging is just not enough.  And then tonight, Mark Silver (mentioned above) talked about the gift of neediness.  What?!  Seriously people.  You have my attention.

Essentially he reiterated the same sentiment as all the other folks, who claim that neediness is part of being human.  He says we’re like lamps – we’ve got everything we need to work, but nothing happens unless we’re plugged in.  You know, to the “source”.  Okay, maybe too woo-woo, but actually  not for me.  The gist is that we do “need” to connect with each other, with whatever we call God, if we call something God, or whatever it is that energizes us (call that God, or don’t, I don’t care).  In fact, the emptier we are, i.e. the more open we are to life, the more open we are to getting filled up.

Okay, in actual human-speak.  It’s cool to be needy, it’s just our cue that we need to take some care.  To do whatever it is we need to do to feel reconnected (whatever that is for you).  Maybe that’s pray, take a walk in the woods, pet your cat, meditate.  But it’s the body’s way of letting us know.  Also, the whole open-ness thing.  In human-speak.  My perspective is that sometimes stuff in life hurts us.  People say stuff, things don’t go our way, people move on.  Life, basically.  It can be easy to shut down during that stuff in a way to avoid feeling it.  But it turns out, you feel it anyway and then there’s no way to let the good back in, because you’ve shut down.

Hence my sort-of new blog title, Open Heart Adventure.  It’s hard to stay open when things get tough, but it’s a way to stay in touch with our human-ness.  To soften around the edges.  Neediness is just the thing for softening.

I have a new outlook on my blog, thanks in part again to Havi Brooks of the Fluent Self.  She is hysterical!  Yes, I am the judge of that.  Just read another one of her posts, an older one, and she actually offered a class called, Screw Therapy and Start Blogging.  OMG.  Dying.  Laughing.  Ahhhh.  So seriously, even if (okay, especially if) no one’s reading this thing anymore but me, that is totally cool.  It’s therapy baby.

So I’m all about getting unstuck and feeling better, right?  And I realize that listening to sad, pathetic, heart-wrenching loves songs while perusing pictures of the Ex is a BAD combination.  But yet it feels so good.  Funny thing I’ve noticed is that it feels good during the sob-fest and then sucks when I’m done.  Definitely addiction-like in nature.  So enough of that.  Until I do it again later.

Now that the sad movie montage is finished, I’ll try to make a point.  During my grieving session tonight, it was done with a certain level of consciousness,  meaning, I didn’t get completely lost in it.  It was more like giving myself the space and kindness to let it come up and out.  Definitely saw the regrets, the “sorries”, a little of the “I screwed it up” stuff, but it came and went.  Not as sticky these days.  And really, this sort of approach works with any painfulness in our lives.  The pain and suffering is all about the story and not about the thing.  Not having an argument with yourself about why you shouldn’t be upset is step number 1.  Okay, that was a double-negative.  What I mean is, let the feelings run their course without all the judgement and “shoulds, shouldn’t haves”.  Let the blah cometh.  The sooner we can welcome the sadness or hurt or whatever, the more quickly it will get bored and move on.  You know, “this too shall pass.”

AHHHH.  Okay, so much for that last post.  Back in the stuck.  Swirling in my pot of stir again.  It’s one of those where the awareness is there and I’m getting the connection between bad feelings and the BAD STORIES in MY HEAD.  And so I’ve spent the last 60 seconds yelling “bad stories in my head, bad stories in my head” outloud.  Yeah, really.  But please don’t call the authorities just yet.

Frantically looking for relief I started to read the hilarious, smart, and oh-so-helpful blog called the Fluent Self.  She – Havi – is all about destuckification (you know, getting unstuck), and it’s brilliant!  After reading her post called “What you do when you feel like dirt”, I’m feeling a little less like dirt.  Just knowing that someone else feels like dirt is a relief.  Especially someone as seemingly cool as Havi.  How can someone that cool and successful and smart feel like dirt??  I don’t know… because she’s human.  Ahh, that feels better.

So after reading Havi’s blog and starting to feel better I paused.  Then the bad stories resumed, but I totally called them out on it and that’s when I started yelling “bad stories in my head” which led to me laughing at myself for being such a spaz.  How do you spell that?

But you know, I wish we would all be a little more honest with each other, and I don’t mean that in a moral platitude-sort-of-a-way, but in a, God, we’d all feel so much better if we were down with the fact that some of the time everyone feels like dirt.  And not in a way to encourage feeling like dirt, but in a way to support each other when we do.  Luckily, Havi’s blog did the trick for me tonight.  And now I’m going to meditate and sit with all that crap-oh-la in just a minute.

Last word on “bad stories in my head”.  It’s amazing how I can take little to no information and craft a deliciously painful story for myself out of my arse.  I know, not a nice image.  But really, where does this stuff come from?  Well, clearly from my mind, which is why I meditate to try to train the darn thing.  Sit dog, sit.  I’m at the point in my meditation where I can see the dog (my mind) eating my shoes (happy place), but I can’t quite get the shoes away from him yet.

Funny thing.  I have this theory that our minds are like dogs.  Hear me out.  I LOVE dogs, no other creature evokes such joy in me  (aside from my nieces & nephews, who aren’t really “creatures”).  Someone pointed out recently that the word “dog” is “God” spelled backwards.  Hmm.  That’s interesting, because I think our minds often get it backwards.  It’s like this hardworking, spastic entity that goes and goes and goes, but without a strong leader it can get seriously out of control.  Our minds usually get the “Godness” or Divineness of things backwards.  And “dog” happens to be “God” spelled backwards.  Coincidence.  I don’t think so.

Lesson #435.  Train that dog, your mind!  Love it, but lead it, and not the other way around.  Think on purpose – or heck, not at all.  And choose good stories in your head.  The bad ones stink.  The end:).