challenges

416: How I would free my spectrum daughter

| Aspergers Girls

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Sophia

How I would free my daughter with Aspergers

1. I would learn everything I could about the spectrum conditions through reputable, well-honored sources; and then readily forget everything I knew and recognize my daughter is a unique individual with exact perfection and a glorious light.

2. I would acknowledge each and every way my daughter’s actions reflect a behavior that in some way makes me believe that I am affected. What is it that she is doing that is causing discomfort to me, would be a question I would demolish, and whole-heartedly embrace the conclusion that I am the only one choosing to be in a state of discomfort based on someone else’s reactions and actions. And in truth my reactions have a direct effect on everyone about me. My ‘job’ as a parent, if I were to assign an exact ‘role’ and ‘duty,’ would be to reflect back to my daughter her beauty and nothing more.

3. I would concentrate on the definitions of imperfection, flawed, wrong, and normal. I’d understand all words are manmade and invented, that even the deepest of spiritual beliefs and psychology have been spoon-fed from man to man, and thusly infected and created into something man-based. With man comes fear. I would readily announce the fear in me, and the fear related to my daughter’s ‘condition.’ I would see that all my discomfort is based primarily on two things: Fear and not living in the present.

4. In seeing I am nothing but the present moment, and that my daughter is thusly only in the present, I would establish a way in which I could practice moment-by-moment being there in a state of grace for my daughter and the rest of family, friends, and society. I would grow, as a role model for my daughter, a person of inner-security, unconditional love and acceptance. I would discard robes of non-authenticity, fear-based projection of self onto others, the selfish feeding that society dictates from mass media, big business, politics, and dogma-based religion. I would embrace the light of my child as my divine teacher and establisher of the breaking of norms to set my own soul free.

5. I would ask her to teach me what she knows, and try to experience the world through her eyes and senses, while recognizing her way is not right or wrong, and just is. I would understand she needs no fixing or alterations, and that in healing my own spirit and aches and longings, and by being in a state of centeredness and balance, she, as I to her, can grow into a reflection of me.

6. I would stop taking her to professionals who are not heart-mind centered and well-established in their own inner-awareness, growth, love and beauty. I would expose her to people that resonate at a high-vibration of acceptance. I would break up with all relations that fed off of her energy, ‘goodness,’ innocence and purity. Recognizing, she, like me, is born in beauty in perfection, I would establish an environment in which she could be the best of who she is: authentic in all ways and degrees.

7. If I ever felt embarrassed or ashamed, I would recognize I have bought into the illusion of normalcy and the ‘right’ way to be. I would declare there is no ‘right’ way to myself and to my child, and celebrate not what is good in her—for to do so would be to automatically judge and establish bad. Instead I would celebrate her in completion, for the gift of her in my life, for the way she has helped me to transition and grow as a person.

8. I would immerse her in her pleasures and passions; knowing her interest are the only means of escaping the chaos of a delusional world that breeds off of profit, greed, lies, and game-playing. I would understand that she sees through the veil of illusion, and is entirely awoken to the process transpiring before her. That to her the world is scary because the people are scary in their attempts to be loved through fear and imaginings. I would recognize until I see the world as safe, she will perceive the world as danger. In order to heal my own wounds, I would dive deep within and embrace my authentic being, risking like I never have and dying a thousand upon a thousand deaths. And through my own dark night of the soul, reestablished in my own profound light and knowing of All, I would return the light upon my daughter. Her established and well-pruned light of goodness. I would return not what was taken, but smothered by my own misjudgment and yearnings. I would thank her repeatedly for her gift of self.

9. I would expose her to life. I would teach her all is okay. But I would not take her where she chose not to go. If she was demolished in spirit in a social environment, I would not expose her over and over again. She is not lacking in her ability to associate with others and be in ‘public’ places. She knows the rules, she knows the game. What she is ‘lacking’ is the blindfold to pretend she is someone she is not in order to be falsely accepted by others pretending to be someone they are not. She recognizes the soul-eyes of the ones weeping and the bleeding pierced hearts. The sorrow is everywhere, and the heart-songs are locked away in over-burdened spirits, so lost upon self their suffering seizes the very encasement of my seeing daughter. And here she is rocked in so much confusion and pain, she longs for escape and safety. Returning her again and again to a place of non-awareness and imaginary games does nothing to lift her or gather her from one skill-level to another; it only reminds her, the over-exposure to the ways of the world, how very different, lost and alone she feels.

10. I would connect her to all awakened souls, so deemed awakened by her, more so than me. Whether this be the towering trees, the preacher on the street, the homeless man, the priest, or the Buddhist on the corner, or the birds in the garden, I would take her there. I would take her into the deep philosophical teachings of ancient scriptures of all denominations and let her find the interwoven connections. I would teach her through example to love all unconditionally, to accept all unconditionally, to erase dogma and the illusion of how things have to be. I would teach her through my very being that she is such a joy and gift to the world and that to let her fly through the removal of my own blinders is to me my own greatest gift to all. I would recognize I can never accept my daughter until I accept the completeness of my self, and in turn, accept the completion in her. Once accepted, my own perception of the world shall grant my daughter the freedom she brought upon me. The release of the self-afflicted self to the service of all. Here I would teach her, through my own being, that her gift shall serve the world, and in so serving the world, she shall be eternally free.

411: Money in the Meter

| Aspergers Girls

On my way to see the doctor this afternoon, I left a message on a complete stranger’s voicemail. Someone I have never seen before. Never have known, and likely will never encounter.

I held on to that stranger while I sat alone at the doctor’s office.

Aspergers was on my medical chart, listed under conditions.

I have this tongue thing, like a gag-reflex tongue I suppose, and a long tongue at that, and my tongue NEVER cooperates, especially with dental x-rays and the like. It truly has a mind of its own. No kidding. As it happened, the doctor lost his patience with me. He tried all ways to get a culture of the white patch at the back of my throat with this long Q-tip thing. But my tongue kept blocking the pokey stick like it was sparring. I was embarrassed, to say the least.

The doctor threw the stick away, and huffed. Quietly and professionally, but the frustration was obvious. Me, being my nervous giggly self, offered: “Are there any tricks? Something you can teach me to help?”

I think he was fed up with the tips he’d already offered throughout the procedure. He kind of snapped, “Tricks? No, I don’t have any tricks.” I felt all of twelve.

My demeanor makes me come across as a stupid-head sometimes: the posture, the anxious laughter, the inflection of my voice. And I fumble with words as my voice squeaks in all of its youngness. You’d think I had the IQ of a horsefly. My un-brushed hair and sloppy attire of the day, likely didn’t help to set the mood of ‘got-it-together-woman.’ I was wishing at this point I’d dressed up for the doctor, at least had my hair up and not all straggly in my face.

Still seeming a bit perturbed, the doc summed up I likely didn’t have strep anyhow. The chances were very unlikely: no fever, no swollen glands, etc. But I knew I was feeling super lousy; I knew when I’d flushed bright red earlier in the day, I’d had a fever, and I knew I couldn’t risk getting sicker. I had an important trip planned and my husband was out of town. I had to know. The anxiety grew.

He left the room without telling me anything except to explain it was basically a sore throat and to gargle. I opened the door and asked a nurse if I could go. I don’t think the doctor appreciated that. He seemed bothered when he explained the procedure of when I could exit.

At this point my resources of zen-being and lovey-dovey-ness, were all but empty. I had a lot on my plate and felt like crap. I don’t remember the particulars, but somehow the subject came up again of tricks. And the doctor said, very bluntly: “I know tricks for kids. I teach kids tricks. I don’t teach adults tricks. Adults should know.”

Man, that wasn’t nice. I swallowed and felt my little heart race. I retorted, “I have to disagree. I have autism and my son has autism. And sometimes adults need tricks too, because our bodies work differently.” He kind of gave me a glance, and that kind of made me feel worse.

He then said, in a demeaning tone, “Have you ever heard of the phrase: Where there’s a will there’s a way?”

He asked if I wanted to try again.

I said, “Yes,” already doubting myself, coaching myself with the silent you can do it, and feeling terribly inadequate. As the doctor prepared another culture, I offered kindly, “The reason I want to rule this out and take care of it right away is because I have to drive in a few days a long distance.”

The doctor approached with the long thing. This time after several more minutes of ‘ahhhhs’ and ‘look up at the corner’ and ‘no stick your tongue back in your mouth’ and much more, the doctor sighed saying he’d likely gotten something, hopefully.

Again the sense of not enough.

Somewhere in the time line after something or another, that I can’t recall now, I lost my equilibrium. I don’t know if it was one final shrug or sigh on his part, or my urge to speak my mind. But I kind of unraveled in a calm but definitely I’ve had enough of this way.

Exhausted, I asked: “Do you not know what Aspergers means and how it affects people?”

He responded, “No.”

I said, “I write for a psychology journal; would you like me to leave a copy at the desk, so you can learn?”

He kind of looked either perplexed or bothered or preoccupied—I couldn’t tell. He said something that indicated agreement.

I said, “You know you were kind of rude to me. You didn’t treat me well.”

His back was still mostly to me, as he stared down the culture. I was thinking this guy was definitely undiagnosed Aspie. I explained, “You sounded like you were belittling me.” I was on a roll then, like when you finally get the ketchup in the bottle unstuck, after that final hiccupping glob, and the rest of the red comes pouring out swiftly.

I continued, “When you talked about not having to teach adults tricks. And you asked me if I knew what Where there’s a will, there’s a way meant. You sounded like you were mocking. And who doesn’t know what that means? You insulted my intelligence. Did you have a bad day or something? I mean the way you were…oh I don’t know what you were. You just weren’t nice.”

I felt a bit like I was in ‘Gone with the Wind,’ in an important scene. Only I was in old blue jeans and wearing socks with my sandals.

He mumbled, “Well, I’ve never had an adult who could not do a culture.”

I said, with a rising voice, “Well do you think I was doing it on purpose?”

He probably wasn’t too keen on being in a room with me at this point. Poor man. I should have given him my husband’s number, so they could commiserate.

The doctor left.

I had some time to wiggle and squirm and text a friend of my experience.

When the doc returned, indeed it was strep throat. He handed me some stick and started to explain about the red line. I said, “It looks like a pregnancy stick.” Now he was nice. He was smiling. He was more relaxed. He was finally sitting and looking at me. He seemed like a different person. He actually seemed genuine and concerned. I could have sat with this person for hours. He was much changed. I sat there hunched with a blank stare contemplating the reasons for his demeanor.

I was thinking: 1) He realizes I wasn’t a moron because I told him I write for a magazine 2) He is feeling kind of wrong for assuming I wasn’t sick 3) He is realizing he was a boob 4) He has no idea what else to do but to give in 5) He thinks I am nuts 5) He is so happy I am about to leave.

As I was leaving I said, about my strep throat confirmation, “Yes, I thought so. I usually can tell stuff about myself and my health.” I imagined I would have talked more and more, if he wasn’t ushering me out the door. I was fine then. He was like my new found friend. I’d forgotten all about the rest—the stuff before he smiled. He’d been kind and that’s all I’d needed.

I reflected back to the stranger, to the voicemail message I’d left:

“I was out of sorts when you left the note because I’d just returned from the airport. I was dropping off my husband there; and now I am headed to the doctor’s because I think I have strep throat. Your random act of kindness kept me from feasibly having that ‘last straw.’ My mother-in-law died this morning. I thought you should know you made a difference.”

When I was parked downtown earlier, she had left a business card on my van’s windshield. I hadn’t seen the note until an hour later, as I was getting into the car for the drive to the urgent care center. She’d handwritten on the back of the card: I wanted to let you know, I saved you from an $18 parking ticket.

She’d put money in the meter.

410: Belly of a Star: New Blog

| Aspergers Girls

Hello lovely loves. I have done some soul-searching…big surprise, and with the help of some friends who listened and offered some ideas, (thank you, thank you),I gave myself some incubation time (new for me, as I used to make quick and rash decisions to end the limbo-state of angst), and have started a new blog.

As I explained to my husband today, I started feeling like a fraud here at Everyday. I know I am not, and I know I haven’t partook in trickery, but I was feeling a bit off balance. In reflection, I realized my focus is likely not returning to the unraveling of Aspergers and the finding of self, as I have pretty much found my self and understood Aspergers in-depth. I suppose I could teach about Aspergers and strategies, and techniques, and such, but that is not where my heart’s intention is at the current moment.

Now that I have ‘found’ myself again, (thanks to many of you), and learned to accept myself, I am finding this silly little-self has plunged deeply into wanting to lose herself, e.g., become mindful, fully present, compassionate, loving and kind with my mind on the benefit of all and not of self. Will I stay in this mindset? I don’t have a clue.

Some very interesting things are happening; if you have been privy to my journey, you know about my visions. Well this morning, I was taking my short drive home from dropping of my son and I had this image and ‘vision.’ I saw my dog in all her cuteness and all her pain-in-the-buttness (her nickname is spastic colon but it should be spastic bladder!) and I had this image of her having the Buddha in her or the light of God, or Jesus, or any of the number of love-filled sources. And I thought I ought to try to practice seeing her in compassion, too. This vision went on for some time: me seeing my dog in different ways, people seeing my dog in different ways. When I got home and read the new book I recently purchased, I turned to the next chapter and the prose was exactly about seeing the Buddha in your dog! Now this was just too much. Events like this continue to happen. Almost every post I write, if I go and read from a spiritual text after writing, the words are typically about what I have just written about. I find this very validating and confirming.

I continue to get a jolt in my heart when someone judges me or judges someone else. I don’t know what that is about. It hurts like a huge electric shock. I feel it. I see it. I accept it. And then it is gone. Before I would have held onto the judgment and taken the words in as my truth. I know I cannot please everyone. However, I still don’t understand why people need to take defense to what I write. It just seems like plain silliness. Sometimes I can see that they are very much upholding their truth as the truth—and I suppose that is their right. I just don’t choose to uphold my truth as having to be someone else’s truth or way, and think the world would be a much happier place if others stopped pushing their belief systems on people. Just my two-cents.

I still have opinions and attachments, obviously. The day I pretend I don’t, call me on it. Because the day I don’t, I won’t be here. I will be floating and invisible. I promise not to haunt you, if you leave chocolate on your night stand. Dark, please.

I was thinking today (hehe) that at moments it appears to be easier walking in this world as a meanie rather than a kind person. People might not like you when you’re mean, but they trust you. They don’t think you are hiding anything and don’t think you have an agenda. Around these parts, in the world I mean, some people get very suspicious of optimistic, giving, authentic, and caring people. It’s like sometimes people are waiting for me to mess up, or be flawed, or say something mean, so they can shout: “Ah-ha! See! Caught Ya!” It’s a bit disconcerting, but definitely part of my journey. I don’t think I will ever truly comprehend loud, aggressive, and in-your-face types of people. I know it (whatever it is) takes all types, and surely if it was a loud, aggressive, in-your-face dog, I would still love the dog, and hope the dog would calm down long enough for me to get close and cuddle. I suppose I see angry people this way, too. I am waiting in the backdrop watching them in their own discomfort and defense, wondering if I can ever truly approach without risking a bite.

I am so not perfect in my humanness. So greatly flawed in my frailties. But in my spirit and in my connection to the all, I am a rockstar. And thusly I seek comfort in my being, accept my journey as is, even with the sudden bolts.

One last thing, a temporary truth, to me, does not imply no faith, or blind faith, or no God, or no source, it just implies, (for me, at least), that I recognize my perception of the world changes from moment to moment based on my emotions, mood, health, environment, exposure, learnings, stimuli, etcetera. Temporary truth can mean a truth I will hold onto until I die, as life is temporary. Or it could be a truth I let go of tomorrow. I find peace in the phrase temporary truth because I feel if others offered me their temporary truth instead of dogma, rigidness, and self-righteousness (at least what I perceive as such) I wouldn’t get those bolts of discomfort.

I am truly not the arguing and debating type. It’s not that I don’t have the wits for it, or the ammunition, or the guts, I just lack the desire to prove a point, when I am not attached to points. I am attached to not being attached… and that’s where I am at. And after four-decades of being stuck like Velcro to MY truths, it feels tremendously freeing to step away and release the heavy burden of what is and what is right.

I still have a personality of course—I just don’t need to prove I am any one to any one anymore.

In concerning this blog, I will continue to write a few posts a month, I think, but only related to ASD. As I was saying, I felt a bit like a fraud, as my blog is pulling a large audience in search of Aspergers, and my genre had quickly turned to mostly spiritual awakenings. By starting another blog, I am giving the reader the freedom to choose if he or she wants to listen to my spiritual thoughts, instead of being bombarded with them. I like this decision. And look forward to the new journey. I will see you here soon. I am sure something is bound to come up not related to the invisibleness of not being—like a barking boob of a person that immediately pulls me out of my state of Zen…. Hehehehe (see I can still fit in, nicely)

Until we meet again, much love and hugs.

Xo ~ Sam

My New Blog is Here:

Meet Your Fellow Belly: About SAM

I am super surprised pain-in-the-buttness isn’t a word! Silly spell check. Come on, this is earth!

Day 408: Love, Judge, and Invisible Need

| Aspergers Girls

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I judge when I think another does not ‘see’ me. I am learning to replace my judgment by thinking: “She did understand me; she did see me; she saw exactly what she chose to see.”

When someone says: “Don’t judge me,” they are being contradictory, almost hypocritical, if the negative aspects are removed from the word. For in order to claim someone is judging another, the accuser must first have judged.

To evaluate and categorize another is to judge. To decide another’s behavior is to judge. To place one’s truths on another is to judge. To say my god is the right God is to judge. To say I know a truth is to judge. Whenever a mark is made, a claim, a stake put into the earth, one becomes judger and the other judged. There is no way around this. The judger of the judging is equal to the one accused.

I am releasing my need to judge anything and anyone, and any event. I find only discomfort now in judging. And even more displeasure in defending or clarifying a feasible ‘truth.’ Clarification, unless sought after by a seeker, to me, now feels like a fear-based approach. As if I am saying, “Wait, that’s not what I mean. Please see me so you are not angry and so you will not misinterpret me.”

Now I see. I see this and I laugh.

It’s silliness in the making.

I find myself stumbling from time to time—a toddler learning to walk in all her sweetness.

Whenever I feel discomfort in my body and mind, the pain is non-explicit in its coming. Meaning there isn’t one thing or one someone who brings the pain. It is me. I am the source. Always the source. I see this clearly, and can laugh now at my own accuser: SELF.

I can accept the gift of another’s words or I can say thank you, but no thanks: Keep your gift for yourself. Not needed here.

Prior to this spring, I wanted to be understood because I longed to be seen and loved. Now that I know I am love, I am loved, and I love, the need-base has shifted.

Where I longed to be understood (loved) before. Now I long to be seen as love. But in longing to be seen as love, I recognize a desire. For there is no purpose in wanting, except to try to erase the illusion of loneliness.

I have moved beyond the need for validation, praise, and being ‘enough’ in someone else’s eyes. Usually–that is. In my harder moments of pain, I want nothing but to be held and comforted, reminded of my beauty.

However, it is in my pain now that I celebrate my ability to be human. My ability to transition into deeper wisdom. I see all as a gift. No goods and no bads. The world doesn’t hurt once the bad is removed. Even through the times of extreme anguish, an observer steps back and applauds the journey, the courage, the ever-full heart of love and praise of love.

What I still desire is for another to say: “I see you in your fullness and beauty and light. That is all I see.”

I want to be seen through eyes of love.

Which ultimately means I wish others to heal to a level where they love themselves unconditionally, and in doing so, love others the same. I have grown tired of assumptions, and guesses, and conclusions others reach about me. It’s really a waste of energy.

But I see the confusion of some—how they think they love me or another unconditionally, when in fact there are huge needs attached. (Outcome based needs. Wanting someone to be a certain way. Loving because of qualities or features, instead of loving for no reason but to love.)

I only want to be loved because I am a reflection of the good in another. That’s the only love that feels real. The only love I can feel.

In seeing this, the fact that attachment to outcome or desire implies a degree of false love and the absence of unconditional love, then I realize my very own need to be seen through the eyes of another as love is conditional, and in that way false-love. And so I practice release of even the desire to be seen as love.

I know the more I release the more I feel the love of the ALL and in this I am free.

Still the joy of being seen beyond judgment, deciphering, classifying, guesses, fingering, figuring, and dissecting is pure brilliance. And when I cross paths with a friend or another who loves this way, who loves purely, the healing is phenomenal.

I recognize the light in you, so many say, but do they really?

I want my voice to be a healing vibration of love and nothing else. Yet, when I open my mouth, or type on a screen, I am faced with the reality of others’ interpretation. The only remedy is not to speak. And here I am thinking might be where I am headed.

The more I speak or write, the more I hurt. MY soul knows no one can hear me unless he or she wants to hear me; and those that don’t hear, will turn me into any fantasy they choose. And thusly, I am writing for the few that will see me; the ones able to move beyond the judgment and analysis and pondering. The rest who don’t love unconditionally, will judge me.

And to me, this is my sacrifice for love: To be judged over and over, and made into someone I am not.

Someday I will give up this sacrifice and give up the thought of sacrifice, and just be at peace. I will be that person who barely speaks unless approached by genuine seeker. For I no longer desire to speak a truth to people who are not hearing my truth. And it seems entirely silly to profess an ever-changing truth to an ever-shifting audience. I am wondering too, as I write, if that my main suffering is of the separation, the falselove, the falsehood, the fear.

It is the separation that hurts.

I grow weary of being placed into another’s expectations. Of being made to fit another’s comfort zone. I am comfort; I am love; I am freedom; and if another cannot see that, they do not see me.

I see them. I see them as love. Beyond the fear, I see only love.

I have absolutely no desire to prove a point or to debate or to establish a truth. And the strongest desire, I cannot disrobe, is the want of others to do the same. To enter with me in the space of no doubt, no fear, no cause.

I don’t even forgive anymore, because I don’t ever get to the point of anger or resentment in which I need to forgive. The anger can’t slip in long enough for me to make up lies about another. If anger comes again another day, I shall dismiss it. And if I let it linger, then I shall forgive all readily. I also don’t judge myself. If I did, I would naturally judge others. If one judges self, he undoubtedly applies this to all.

I don’t even give the benefit of the doubt to people, because I don’t doubt people. To doubt is to judge and to deem unworthy or not enough to some degree. And that is all based on the past and interpretations.

Still, as of late, I get this awful sensation from many people that I am being probed and needled, hooked upon and latched onto with their microscopic lenses to find my potential fault or meaning or wrongdoings. I get the feeling sometimes that others are searching for the ugliness in me to justify that they are better or to justify their own ugliness that they believe exists.

This makes me wonder why.

If I write with no intention but to share my truth and to love (without want of fame, recognition, love, attention, debate, profit, etc.) and only with the ‘want’ of understanding self fuller, so I can be a more loving and giving being, then what about my truth is there to dissect?

And isn’t it the most fearful who would fear my love and proclaim their truth as only truth?

Why do people want to make me into something?

I desire to be more invisible than visible now. I long to just hold you from where I am, speechless, the words all erased. And if I am selfish, it is in my desire to have someone do the same—to just love for the love we are.

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406: Fear, Desire, and Attachment

| Aspergers Girls

I wasn’t my ‘full’ self, yesterday; I recognize this and understand the reasons. I am doing much inner processing, and sometimes allow myself to still try to seek perfectionism when none exists. When I do that, I try to seek perfectionism in others. All I say about someone else is a direct reflection of me. So in reviewing yesterday’s post I discover a bit about me. It’s not fun and it’s not not fun. It just is. I do this review of me without judgment. I am human and that is that. I may be a spiritual being having a human experience, but I still have this brain, this body, basic needs, and some lingering desires, and thusly I still project myself upon others. There are a few things going on with me. But even in “seeing” myself clearly, no matter the view, I remain the observer and not the judge.

I was more prone to slipping into moments of brief fear yesterday, because my husband is heading out of town to see his mother who is close to death. Normally, death would stir up multiple loops for me. I would have likely, before, spun on death and illness, worried about my husband being out-of-town, thought about the money the trip was costing, stressed and agonized over the pain of the sufferer, created and recreated future scenarios, guilted myself up for not being good enough while his mother was alive, chased down thoughts like a dog after a cat, had trouble sleeping, and so on. Now with the dismissal of fear, the repeated dismissal—as I still have fear—I don’t get lost in my mind. If I do slip out of the present, it is for clear reasons:

1. Thinking of a desire
2. Thinking of the reason I have the desire
3. Wondering how to detach from the desire
4. Wondering if I am presenting myself authentically and coming from a place of love
5. Wondering if I have said something that misrepresents my true heart
6. Wondering how to help more and love more
7. Analyzing my desire to see if the desire truly erupts from love and no other source
8. Catching and feeling the fear, and gently releasing the fear
9. Reminding myself not to self-judge
10. Checking in with my body about how I feel and how I am responding to my environment
11. Watching myself to see if I am in the present, past, or future
12. Briefly glancing ahead if I have to prep for an appointment or outing. (What to where. How long to tell my son I will be gone. What to bring. Etc.)
13. Checking in with myself to respond in a way that does not teach, dictate, or come across as ‘knowing the answers.’
14. Reminding myself I know nothing and that I am an accumulation of my perception, exposure, and experience.

Other than these thoughts above generally I am:

1. Listening to the deep self while I write.
2. Listening to the guiding voices that used to seem like angels, but now feel a bit different.
3. In the act of creation, e.g., writing, poetry, painting.
4. Focusing on what another is saying, doing
5. Experiencing a deep depth of knowledge that comes as images, words, and what seem to be lessons.
6. Experiencing the now–the moment–the present

Today, I awoke ‘rawer’ than the last few days; primarily because a change is occurring with my husband leaving town, and also because I feel somewhat unsettled from my post yesterday.

When fears come, they come briefly. Usually only a second or two, sometimes a minute, and very rarely more than an hour. The fears I have looked at this morning come in the form of self-messages, which I recognize as a temporary lie disguised as a truth.

1. People don’t see my heart.
2. I am over-stepping boundaries and speaking too much.
3. I am not good enough to be sharing my journey.
4. I ought shut up.
5. People don’t get me.
6. I am fat.
7. I am not desirable.
8. I am crazy.
9. I was wrong.
10. I am a bitch.
11. I still have impure thoughts.

When I look at the fears, they dissipate. One or two might linger and try to keep popping up but when they do I have disciplined techniques. One such technique is to ask myself if I am in the past or present. Whenever there is fear, I am in one or the other.

Another is to remind myself no one’s opinion of me is a truth, not even my own.

I also tell myself I am light and love and in that I am exactly enough.

If one of the fear messages is about a desire, such as to be a perfect body shape and/or size, to look pretty, to sound smart, to appear sweet, to be rid of unclean thoughts, etc. I look at the desire two ways. First I recognize it is a desire and in doing so this frees me of an obligation. Desires feel like contracts with fear to me. So, I simply wave goodbye to the desire and decide I don’t wish to desire. The bliss of the moment and the absence of fear beats any and all longing for desire. In this way I substitute in my mind the desire for desire with the peace of the present moment and the state of love.

The second thing I do is look at the desire and recognize what the attachment is beneath the desire, e.g., to be loved, to be seen, to be accepted, to be right, to be perfect, to be a good example, to achieve the state of enlightenment. When I can pinpoint my desires to exact attachments, I am able to slip the weight of longing off of me, and free up more energy for love. I have to, at this point, continually remained disciplined. Even thoughts of being too disciplined or too focused on awareness pop up. I then remind myself that is okay. It’s where I am at. And see this as an attachment I cannot yet remove, but will someday.

Even all of this I see as slipping out of the present, and recognize in over-analyzing my ‘path’ I seek refuge in the fear of the future and past. I see this all at such a depth that the observer in me tires, my body pigs out (for body fears being disowned and no longer in power), and my emotions become more evident. I feel more vulnerable and behave in a more attached way.

It is a fascinating cycle to watch. Overall, my mind is 95% calmer and lighter than a month ago. Even with these thoughts of analysis and discipline spinning round, I am able to step back and stop. To breathe and be witness to the moment. I am learning to do things repeatedly without effort or want of outcome, including my thoughts about no thoughts and thoughts of the way I focus on the now. The best moments are when I am in the now without want to be in the now. That is tricky, and something that can hurt my brain, if I think too hard on it. The layers of desire fascinate me, as does the fact that I am much more an audience to my life than an actual player.

With all that said, I had a spike of fear from reading a recent comment. I thought to myself: “Well, yes, I know that. Why do you have to point that out? Why are you focusing on that?”

I felt a huge rush of feelings; all this fear at a masquerade ball dressed as emotions.

1. Inadequacy
2. Defense
3. Failure
4. Imperfection
5. Righteousness
6. Self-centered
7. Panic
8. Not enough
9. Unseen
10. Unloved

One simple comment, and boom, I was swimming in fear. The key for me now is I feel the fear so instantly, it doesn’t really have a chance. And I feel it at such depth, it has even less of a chance of remaining. Plus I show it to the light which is you, another person, and/or myself, and that light exposes the fear for mere shadow. It has become a kind of hide-and-go-seek game. Except fear has so many guises, sometimes he switches gears in the middle of the game.

From reading my post yesterday, I recognize in myself that I am still struggling with the desire for:

1. Fun
2. Understanding my interests
3. Being heard
4. Wanting to relieve others blindfolds
5. Self-fulfillment in the form of enlightenment

It truly is interesting, because now whenever I share my thoughts, I see a whole underlying event occurring, like an undertow, or the molten lava beneath the surface, or the paint beneath the paint beneath the paint. There are so many vast layers of illusion. I am learning to make fun out of the illusion itself.

Now to spend some quality time in the moment with my coffee. The liquid amber golden swirls. The richness…the depth…..

Until the next time my brain opens and releases. Much love and light to you my fine lovely friend.