The brief moment of joy quickly passed to confusion, then sadness, then balance, and then back again to sparks of joy watered-down by questioning.
I was confused by the emotional and spiritual process I went through. I had been published! My words in print. Was this not a vision come true? Was this not a distant dream?
But still, with the news, with the confirmation, I felt a lingering sorrow.
I know I was battling between what is ego and what is self-satisfaction. I wondered if they were indeed the same.
I know I battled with humility. I know for an instant I felt proud or pride, or some related cousin. And I didn’t like the feeling.
At first I thought I was feeling guilty–guilt for feeling good about an accomplishment. I reasoned I was stifling happiness with the guilt of pride and the fear associated with losing humility.
I compared myself to others, and what I “should” be doing; how I should be celebrating. And then I logically debated all the reasons why this publication was not celebration-worthy. I questioned my capacity to feel “good.” I questioned my adequacy as a being. I went round and round in this circle of mixed emotions and deep, complex opposing thoughts. I searched out the caverns of my mind, until exhausted. And then I sank into body submission of fatigue.
Last night I prayed for refinement and serenity. And for much of today, I have found peace. I understand that I do not have low self-esteem—to me this is illusion. I understand that when I am confused about how to feel, it is because I have based my emotions, like much things in life, on a rule-book that I created founded by personal experience filtered through my senses. I realize, too, that yesterday I was no further from the truth than I am now.
It’s not that I had or have low self-esteem. It’s not that I don’t think I am unworthy or worthy. It’s not that I am acting prideful or humble. I am none of those labels or names.
It’s not what I was or who I was. It was where I was. I was lost. I was lost and pulled away from my faith. I was momentarily swept out of the presence and present. I was enticed by outcomes and promises.
I recognize when I am tuned into the collective universe, when I believe in the magic of the world, in the magic of you and me, and in the beautiful infinite possibilities for love, it is then I am whole and complete. The feelings don’t get jumbled and the thoughts don’t get all twisted, when I am clear in my connection to my higher power and higher good.
On reflection today, I spent some two hours reviewing joy and reviewing sorrow.
In my mind I saw the illusions.
Even though one of my visions has been realized (being published), I am not as joy-filled as I had expected, or perhaps as others might have expected. And that is okay.
Today I am recognizing joy’s partner: sorrow.
I couldn’t have completed The Ten Traits without decades of suffering. The words would not have been searched out by others had they not first had cause. My message would not be whole without first being carved out through pain. Both yours and mine.
And thusly, I am left wondering if indeed I do understand joy quite well. That if in fact, I am in a state of continual joy. But only through recognition of the ashes of suffering.
Joy Sings
I am joy.
Squeezing me out of me.
Releasing being like some over-expired lemon.
Disappointed in the bitter sour that remains.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze.
Some ravenous fowl picking away at barred plumage.
My substance an existential shell of resistance, once labored to create.
Inside whispers: Complete though illusion.
Outside weeps: Unworthy in existence.
Opposites.
Naked, though cloaked in tattered rags, I waver, from one to the other.
Bemused, as sadness quakes, I sleep soundly through unawareness.
Forgotten upon shallow waters.
Until waved onward to deeper grounds.
Still bearing witness to starlit nights.
Though standing erect in dissatisfaction.
Invited by command to denounce self.
The suspicion of being, the suspicion of joy, scoured.
Incomprehensible happiness holding the hand of the lingering voice of no one.
“The obsoleteness of temporary. The absolute of change,” clangs the bell of the imagined captains.
I respond without breath.
And I question.
In accepting misery to circumvent suffering, did I not modestly forbade self-joy?
In rendering joy denied, do I accept misery in completion?
Thusly moves the wheel.
One axle: Seeker of non-truth whom claims found truth righteous.
One axle: Seeker of truth whom believes found truth not-righteous.
Who is this joker? This shadow? This phantom?
This awkward misrepresentation set down.
Left to squander in misgivings.
Where does this joy I am speak?
When not formed in shape and drifting.
Where does this joy live?
When unseen unless trapped.
Captured fleetingly in passing moments when invisible brother is silenced.
When the suspicion is eased. When the noise erased.
There I sing, this joy released to captivity.
Caged amongst the residue of sorrow escaped.
^^^ my sad song this morning that I replayed over and over; something I do on a regular basis, the playing of one song several times. In music I find a comfort, an uncloaked realism and truth which pulses in the blood and connects me back to the collective whole. I am reminded of how we all suffer and are all searching.
The thing about “downloading” information is most of the time, I don’t remember the very words I scribed!! Shoot-ness. I wished I’d read this last week! (Releasing Ego Post: Day 91) But then again, better to let the universe unfold as it will.
My “visions” didn’t come this morning at three. Nope. I woke up at four thinking: Wow, they are done!
And then poof, the invisible fairy god mother that lives inside my head appeared without appearing, and spoke without speaking, and recited the most loveliest of godly poems. So heavenly. This time I was mostly, if not completely awake, and got to savor every morsel. I vaguely remember a dove, a laurel branch, a brilliant sunrise. But, like always, my memory is mostly wiped clean after the early morning visions.
I find it fascinating that during these early morning callings, that even though there is no voice, I can still comprehend words. Remarkable, indeed! The images flow like the gentlest of rivers, the words each healing and so full of energy. Truly unexplainable.
Today, I had the whereabouts to “ask” with out even forming thought, (I know? Weird, isn’t it?), “These poems are so beautiful. These visions, too, but I can’t hold onto them; I can’t remember them enough to share them. Why?” I was “told” that these ones, these early morning wakings, were for my benefit, and thusly for everyone’s benefit, and that I didn’t need to share them. They were liken to a present.
On my way home from dropping my son off from school today, I talked some more with my angels and we had a good laugh, as their humor is divine. They showed me a seagull pooping on heads. I think the angels were poking fun at my past post, a few days back, the one about finding beauty in everything, the one in which I readily, and quite eagerly, with the heart of a five-year-old, couldn’t wait to share. I even showed my hairdresser the post. “Look at the beautiful images you can find in the bird droppings. You wouldn’t even know it was bird drooping, would you?” And I wonder why she thinks I am intense.
My angels showed me a seagull pooping, and said that the treats they give me in the early morning are like little treats that I don’t have to send down or drop on people’s heads. We got into a discussion about how I’m not putting stuff on people’s head, especially not crap! They just left, as they don’t quibble, and as they departed, I am quite certain that I detected distinct laughter.
On the way home, in my van, I decided to go out of my zone, this illusion I’m living in, and started to frantically wave at trees. They liked it. After all, they are living things! I mean we wave at some animals, and some pretty rotten (<perspective/I know) people, we can at least wave to that which gives us air to breathe. When I got home and pulled into the driveway, I screeched through my van window, whilst flapping my hand back and forth like a grade-schooler: "Hi Fred!"
I think my cedar tree was a bit embarrassed, like when I try to hug my teenager. I swear Fred was looking around with dodgy eyes, shrugging his shoulder branches, and telling his buddies, "I don't know that chick. I don't. I swear." But I know there was a secret part of him that liked the attention.
This early am, when my "visions" came, I noticed a bit of premenopausal night sweats. Thusly, on my way home in the van, prior to waving to the trees, I got to thinking that since ultimately our hormones control much of the universe within our physical body, that maybe they are potentially body gods! This gave me a whole higher level of respect for PMS. In fact, I think when I go all B-word later this month, I'll get on my knees and praise the invisible gods inside of me. This got me thinking… (Did I mention it is only a seven minute drive home.) This got me thinking, that feasibly, I am having visions from my hormones. That bit was somewhat unsettling. That's when I started waving to the trees.
You see? It all makes sense! Purposeful waving hello to trees while driving to distract myself from the possibility of hormone Gods controlling my brain. Perfect sense and sanity, me thinks.
Oh shimmer me brains….(made that up) I hope my psychologist isn't reading this post. I really don't want to be labeled with magical thinking, AGAIN. I go and meet him today. Thus this bubbling fear which causes me to ramble, me thinks.
I did hold onto this one distinct vision from early today. Very peculiar and spectacular.
I was shown pockets, and shown all the places pockets go on pants, e.g., butts, below front of hips, knees, sides, inside material. I was shown that my spiritual search for self and truth is liken to the placement of pockets on pants. I've tried all sorts of places. But the predicament is that I’ve run out of places and ideas for the pockets. I was shown that I feel as if I've run out of places to put the pockets, and actually judge, to a degree, that the pockets on pants should have evolved. at least just a little bit in the last century. (Kind of like toilet paper rolls< not part of vision, hormone gods threw that in.) Then they pull out the big picture. I was pulled back beyond the pockets and shown that it isn't that the pockets need a place to rest, it's that there are no pants! I was shown two bare legs. And then understood that as long as man has two legs (symbolically speaking) that he will forever search for where to place the pockets ( for the imaginary pants for the imaginary legs). And so the journey isn't in trying to figure out where these pockets need to go, or how to evolve the pockets to fit the pants, the journey is in realizing there are no fricken pants to begin with! (They don't use fricken, but I like the word.)
This got me to thinking about the naked dark-skinned, buff gardener that worked at the hippy camp my mom took me to in the 70's. I remember with clarity walking down this long flight of wooden stairs and the dark-haired naked man coming up the stairs. I remember thinking: There are naked gardeners?!!!! No fricken way! I watched him with fascination the entire trip whenever I passed the vegetable patch. Remarkable indeed, I thought. Remarkable, indeed.
I was all but twelve. But man was that the highlight of the trip. That and the hot tub and cool glass-dome house I slept in, and the community cooking, and forest. Ahhhh… I'm in a hippy mood now.
So I'm resting in bed, rather tired of being woken up so early for visions, though entertaining they be, and I'm understanding that this gardener in all his nakedness, he was on the right track; I mean the pants were off!
Today I'm carrying around that visual of the illusion of pants and legs, and a little bit of the very real naked gardener, (I did mention he was hot, right?) and it is helping quite a bit. Every time I start thinking about where I am supposed to be putting my pockets, I just remember I have no pants!
I thought about going to the psychologist with no pants on, just to prove a point about the restrictions of reality and how we are all in one grand illusion and he is a manifestation of the collective whole, but then my dog, she whispered, "Not such a good idea, Mom." And Fred, he joined in further out in the background of my mind, waving his branches and mouthing with his perfectly shaped oval, cartoon like mouth, "NO!"
So be it!
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here’s a little sample of what I hear sometimes. This piece is from almost two years ago.
03 26 11 Fear and Struggle
Automatic writing is automatic because you are not stopping to formulate a question, thought, or subject in your mind, but instead just participating. As if you were in a vehicle, you are along for the ride, but are not the one exerting energy to keep the engine running, except the slight pressure you apply to the pedals and steering wheel Thus, here you steer the conversation, in a way, through the “choice” of words that bests describes the “knowing” we are conveying; and likewise you provide a small amount of pressure to the key-pad and a small amount of energy through agreeing to come along for the ride.
Onward to discussion: There is a layering effect of fear. Fear begets struggle. Struggle does not beget fear. So let us start with fear and leave this struggle for a latter time. On the outside of this layer, which can be seen like a long strip of celery, you have the immediate and recognizable fear. There are two opposing opposites, which is redundant but nonetheless necessary to say. Opposites are always in opposition: this is their nature.
When you (as many) are presented with obstacles it is beneficial to remember that this is nature; that all is obstacles in some sense, whether intended, implied or circumvented, or even brought to for higher good.
In good we do not mean the opposite of bad. “Higher Good” is one such connotation (word, meaning) or better yet “knowing” that has no opposite. There is no “higher bad” or “lesser bad”; yet still, this “higher good” exists.
Side Note: (So much stopping for explanation can be tiring and lead us off track, but this sidetracking is very much necessary. Take for instance the traveler on the road who has set out to travel a very long distance, days, perhaps even months—he cannot merely keep stepping without stopping moments for water, nourishment, or rest. Even if in this moment he is still standing and moving forward, there is a brief pause, a slowing of pace, or the like, that will change the pattern he was previously set forth upon. This is the same. We are traveling a long road, an intense journey with you my friend; and along the way the pace will shift; and any implied impatience or fatigue on our part is only what you have interpreted; and perhaps is your own you carry; for our time here is timeless, this process instantaneous. Yours is ours in every sense,; only our perception is not sense; our knowing is not perceived; our being is not standardized by rules, expectations, evening out, balancing and fixing).
There, where you stand, where you dredge forward, there is a constant need for examination and rebalancing.
Here (where we are) we remain in balance; not perfect, because there is no word as perfect; yet ideal, as there is a word as ideal, which inspires hope. Ideal in the form of perception can be viewed as a model and an ultimate awareness, and is not intended to denote a state of degree which divides.
And here we digress again, writing in circles that are apt to confuse. How funny this confusion, as if linear and one stone to the next is necessary to communicate.
Are you not a stream of consciousness, free-flowing…free to go where (you) are meant to go? Why then must you insist of taking even this thinking and processing of yours and commanding it follow a preset, agreed upon set of rules? Who taught you to think? Who has taught you to write? You have.
And where did these rules come from? Was it from another human, many humans, that without knowing created a structure of what is “right,” what is “easy,” and what is “accepted.”
WE say to you now, and forever, that first you must free your mind (your thoughts) from the same imprisonment you have imposed on your entire life and those around you.
It serves you no benefit to govern your own thoughts. Let them flow like the freshest of waters to the places that need nourishment. Let the water provide respite and joy to the driest of soil. Let them pour down and touch the rocks edging their way into the very fiber of concrete that has (in illusion) existed as solid. Wash forth, bringing with you the treats of the sea, the sunlight of the forest, the empress of the mountain, the tiger of the valley…can you not see these are but words. What if the one was the other? What if the desert the valley, the rock the pine, the sun the tree? What if?
And so you create, and so we wait. And then you will come to see the only thing left, that is not of mind, is what resides behind the mind, in us, in you, in what is that has so silently and patiently waited.
Worry not, my Dear, Dear One. Worry not the ways in which the water flows or how it turns. Worry not of anything. Only listen to the sound of our sweet voice, and know above all else we are this “real.” We are not of creation and labeling. We Are.
When searching for truth, search for that which defies rules, but at the same time, most effortlessly brings you peace and knowledge.
Look for a reverse of rules, judgment, and the need to maintain this balance. In this you will know there in no harm, no intention, no expectation; only a gentleness once-removed from guidance. A tickle perhaps that needs to be addressed in the timing appropriate for the appointed one. And with this said, in so many words, we return to the previous waters of fear.
And so we say to you loudly, if we had but voices, that this fear is a product of the system of order you have created: The one of checks and balances, of compartmentalizing, organizing, and sorting out. Instead of decorating and celebrating, you spend much of your energy trying (as the mind is made) to place what is into category.
In this manner you judge without knowing, evaluate without realization, and this continues without forethought or afterthought.
How interesting how the mind tries to survive, to exist in what has been called an “ego state,” as if individually, with hyper-alertness, a one, who is neither solid or all knowing, can exist at all without Source.
How interesting how the human is the one creature granted life on earth who feels perfectly in the “norm” in his struggle for individuality.
Let us remind you fear comes before struggle, and it is the exact fear of being alone that leads the individual human to struggle to be independent—quite a quandary and interesting parallel.
You are in essence taking a whole, perceiving whole as a one, walking as a perceived one, standing to proclaim your “oneness,” and looking for recognition for this “oneness.” Without judgment or intention for harm we say this walk is somewhat absurd.
Take the mighty ant (once more), or any given creature for that matter. Does he take a path of oneness and try to prove how mighty he is? Does he wait for recognition and admiration? Does he wear his medals? Does he see himself as greater? Does he waste any precious energy on being better, noticed, or necessary? The only such creatures that beg for attention or those so-called “domesticated” that are placed in home, cage or tanks of water; the ones trapped or fenced in. For they have learned this human game: that if I can somehow stand out, please, perform, or provide, then I will be noticed. Noticed to them equals firstly food and love.
You are no different from the domesticated beast. You have self-inflicted yourself inside barriers (that do not exist in your realm), believing as you examine all those around you that in order to be fed (loved), you must be seen, you must stand out, you must perform to expectations.
This is interesting, and partially social-conditioning from the previous ages, where a tribe working together was able to survive. Except now this “working together” has become a “race” in which no one truly succeeds, but continually fails; because there is no end to a race of good enough.
This is important to restate: THERE IS NO END TO GOOD ENOUGH.
For you were good before you took your first step. And there is no enough. One that is endless can never be filled. One that is energy cannot be a vessel that holds a substance and idea that man invented. Firstly, you are not of concrete matter to hold this substance; and secondly, this substance of being good enough doesn’t exist.
You see how this conversation is going—like the stream—we do this purposefully, do we not, to untie your perception of walking and jumping stone to stone. For now, in this moment, in the vibration and rhythm of these words, in the pictures we have painted, you will see that there need not be this “order” to move forward.
On fear again we revisit. The celery stick is layered, is it not, with strings that you can pull and pull until the core is reached? And then once the last string has been pulled there remains a substance. So let us look at this fear in relationship to struggle.
First there are several rules you have created around fear; like all else you have categorized the concept of fear in a manner to bring you more temporary comfort; even if in this so-called long run you are made to feel much worse at the end. What we “see” first is the fear that is associated with pain and struggle.
You have a set of rules for pain. And they are as follows, as far as we can tell.
If you have control over this pain, then there is less of it. Likewise if you yourself willingly partake in this pain, there is further less of it. However if another person causes pain without your knowing or agreement there is more. And likewise, if another source which you can neither see nor understand causes this pain, you are further broken. There is again this hierarchy and rules you have self-created and bought into. So the analysis as is follows:
The pregnant mother wanting impregnation knowingly sacrifices herself for the coming pain of childbirth, as she knows she was the one who is creating the condition and that in turn she will have achieved an infant. So here we see the mother has some control, knows the most likely outcome, and will partake in this pain, often repeatedly, to reap the reward (end product).
Again, we have the man, (we say man for all), and he has seen the need to shed pounds from his body. He partakes, in full control, in an exercise regime and strict diet that will and does bring much pain of a variety of source. He feels this pain in his exertion while exercising, the pain in his belly that tells him he is longing for what he had before, and the pain in his mind that follows the brain of his belly, wanting what was instead of what is. There is pain. There is struggle. But there is intention, control, and a desired result. Here again pain is more easily accepted, and the result is not despair, questioning, and wonderment, elements which lead to woe.
In degrees, you can then see, that pain is better tolerated in spirit when a sense of “control” and “better outcome” is preceded by perceived infliction.
The latter part of pain occurs when a person perceives he has no control, and this pain then erupts in magnitude, exploding with an intensity that causes weeping and withdrawal, if not externally than in spirit form. Such pains are limitless. In example, we provide the loss of anything or person. Loss in this discussion is interpreted as a great and powerful, unpredictable and unexpected event that leaves the one feeling lessened in degree. Loss is a pain that is out of the control of the subject, and therefore felt to a greater degree. Loss is a pain that was not planned or intended, and therefore felt to a greater degree. Here we see that without the concept and belief of “control” and “intention” the pain is deeper and more severe. These are the rules you have made.
Still this loss is often explainable by nature; because of all things of the mind you seek explanation. You find comfort in definitions and explanation. What is unexplainable is feared. What is feared is a struggle. So even when man has partially invented the cause of loss, there is still some respite of mind, because a reason can be pointed to.
And still we peel the strings of the celery. Lessening the core to some degree by peeling away the layers of ego.
In this we could say that all is learned from pain. Without great pain you will not come to know great love. Without great experience in one realm, you will not know great experience in another. This holds true for where you are, because you have created it so.
But we say onto you that today you can know great joy and love without the accompaniment of upcoming pain. How is this so? It is so because you can close the door to pain of the mind, first and foremost, by seeing the imprisonment and balancing you have thusly created.
So many think this “Nature” has created the black and white, the good and bad, the lesser and greater, but this is man’s perception. No other living entity on earth, existing of spinning energy, equates the world thusly so. No other sees this world in extremes and places into compartments. And with all other (beside mankind), with all their power and spinning energy, the world still exists, despite their differing view.
You see, as they are not exposed to such way, they do not believe such ways. What you are exposed to becomes your belief. You live in a state of constant changing mirrors, and when you look in and behold yourself, uncertain still of what you see, you lean on neighbor for support to tell you what they see. You borrow the eyes of a blinded onlooker to judge what IS.
Better yet, we say, and those of ages say, to look inside to you and know what is, to flow forth like water, unbounded and undammed.
There is no essence that is not you. Whether you divide yourself twice, or three times in the blink of an eye, you are still you. Whether you sort pain into rules and categories, it is still pain. The degree to which you see pain through glasses of discernment or glasses of categorized judgment, is the degree to which you see others the same. Applying rules to pain is in the same applying rules to people. It comes back to judgment and the need to sort. It comes back to replacing and eradicating judgment with loving discernment and acceptance.
The key to your release from fear, is the key to your release from everything that pains you or imposes struggles at any level: the simple release of that of which you have no control, the release of the need to make something of whole into something of one.
We go on and on today, in unestablished and unwitty prose, not so much to confuse and distort, but to release the stream inside of you. Those that read will know. And those whose eyes are closed will not. Until the table shifts, and what IS is seen.
Digest these words through gentle reading, and the truth will be felt beyond the senses.
Samantha Craft, all rights reserved, as well as the sole keepership of said brain. I know you want it! giggles!
This little girl who lives inside me was crying today.
And through the tears, I started punishing myself saying, “This is ego; don’t go feeling sorry for yourself.”
Until I remembered that by focusing on ego, I simultaneous give ego power!
One of the things weighing heavy on my mind is this chameleon presto-chango act I do.
As chameleon, I have perfected several degrees of metamorphosis. I do this by mimicking someone else (real), a character (tv), or the stereotypical characteristics of a specific role (detective/when I was 8).
I’m quite good at imitation; I can pretty much take on any role to perfection.
It’s like a hidden talent. A type of hidden talent that seems like it would come in handy, like double-agent-Jacquelyn-Smith-from-Charlie’s-Angels handy. But it doesn’t. It just pretty much sucks.
Case in point, when I first moved to the state of Washington, two and a half years ago, I meet a spiritual teacher I admired.
Bingo! Bingo! Bingo! Some part of my subconscious brain screamed, upon the acquaintance of this lady; and then, without telling me, some part of me set about to transform. Not to be her exactly. I mean I didn’t want to live in her house or steal her husband; that’s kind of loony, fatal-attraction-psycho-scary. But a piece of me did mean to clone her using my body. Hmmmmm.
In regards to this one woman, I learned how to mimic her voice, how to dress like her, and then studied to become a spiritual counselor, just like her! Surprise. Turns out I make a pretty good spiritual counselor. And, even after I tossed her persona out, I kept her cool, mellow voice. Bonus!
I think this self-discovery of self acting out a role that is not actually true self, has to be one of the oddest sensations known to mankind. And you can't really debate me, unless you've experienced this; and if you have experienced this taking on of roles without your conscious knowledge, then I am certain you would agree with me about the oddness factor, anyhow.
For all you non-chameleon types, the presto-chango experience is akin to being possessed by another life form or like being in a drunken spell for several months, and wondering what you did during those black out moments. Only you never black out completely, just a part of your awareness does. Maybe it's like waking up and finding out you have had a third hand for a few months but didn't even see it or know you were using it.
How, with my keen observation and analytical skills, I could not see my very own self doing something so obvious confuses me.
I imagine, beyond my ability to see, somewhere inside of me is a tug-of-war, where the participants are fighting: This way; be like her, be like her! No this way; be like her, be like that!
Which leads me to today.
Lately,I have been having a lot of spiritual experiences.
I am woken about three in the morning to vivid spiritual lessons. I am still half-asleep, but very aware that the lessons are occurring. But before I awake fully, most of everything is erased. Sometimes it’s poetry, other times images, sometimes Biblical verse. Also, I have been having powerful prose just pour out of me. And I have felt grand moments of serenity, peace, and healing. All of this is divine, in and of itself; the only trouble is that a part of me, that subconscious part, has been latching on to a new role; that of guru, or seer, or prophet, or even martyr. And it doesn’t help that my mom, who is always overly proud of me, bless her heart, is sending me links to saints!
And it all kind of sucks big time. Because that role of a seer, unlike suburban bimbo bunko player, is super serious and frankly no fun at all. And yes, I did the suburban bimbo bunko player part well, until I realized the acting had just about crushed the whole of me.
Oh, poo poo, crap, yuck-o!I so don’t want to drive down another road of roles again! “No way!” she exclaims. She being me, and flipping off ego, to boot.
To get sucked down the hairy drainpipe of yet another role will kill me. And this one role of the perfect seer is just too much.
I was already too serious (INFJ, Idealist, Cancerian, Only child, Aspie)…label Queen I be. How could I get more serious?
Crap! Where am I?
Damn it! (ahhhhhhh)
I’m tired of this role playing. I’m just plain tired. I’m turning in my costumes for good. I don’t care if the rest of me protests. I just can’t live anymore pretending. And if my brain won’t listen to me, then I’ll just have to take measures into my own hands.
Today was a step in the right direction. I figured out what I’d been doing, again. And then did something to symbolically stake my claim for change. I am happy. I am relieved. And I am excited… Unless, of course I am a seer channeling Shirley Temple and perfecting the role of a twelve-year-old, which is pretty darn possible.
And just to think two days ago, I was wondering if since I’ve been married and had kids, if I could still join a nunnery, and if my kids could live there, too, and my husband could have those special type of visits. I figured, likely not.
Here’s what I did today! So twelve and so loving it!
I am often depleted energetically in new environments with unfamiliar people. Part of the reason is because I am empathic and can innately pick up on others’ emotions and state of being. The other part of the reason I am energetically depleted seems to be entirely biological, at least in the way my brain senses the stimuli around me and in the way I process the input I am receiving as a result of the stimuli.
Sometimes, quite frankly and honestly, I would be a better listener and friend, if I didn’t have to look at you.
Because I am extremely analytical, acutely self-aware, and live in a heightened state of sensory awareness, I often forget that the majority of mainstream society does not process their environment the same as me.
I forget that the majority of people are not responding to me in the same way as I am inexplicably responding to them.
The first part of my energetic depletion is spawned from the belief system that I am being sliced and diced and dissected visually by another, only because when I spot another, I generally have to take each piece of person apart and put the features back together to make sense of what I am seeing. As a result, distinct markers of a face and body are found, categorized and reorganized.
I try to take apart another perosn and piece him or her back together without being judgmental. In other words, if a “big” nose is the first thing I see, I remind myself that “big” is a judgment and based on my limited perception and biased collective experiences, while understanding that societal norms determine the essence of beauty for most folks, norms which are indoctrinated onto a sub-culture by profiteering establishments.
Thusly, as I’m beholding another’s appearance, and trying to make sense of what I am seeing, in regards to features and taking in the whole picture, I am also simultaneous reminding myself that the individual’s features are not right or wrong, good or bad, or striking or dull, they just are.
And beneath this linear thinking of releasing judgment based on the indoctrination of societal norms, in the same juxtaposition, of me being with me, I am trying to remind myself, that according to many spiritual belief systems, that self and this other person in my line of vision do not even exist.
All of these thoughts pass through me, just as I am stepping into the line of vision of another: the release of judgment, the reminder of the limitless of the illusion of universe, and the fact that I am entirely analytical when it comes to viewing another.
And the added fact that I know way too much for my own good (and would apparently make a good sitcom character).
With all of my thought-processing, I become distracted and don’t realize that the other person I am analyzing is most likely not viewing me in the same manner as I am viewing him or her.
While my mind is shooting a million miles per second, the other person’s mind has probably just thought: nice red sweater or there’s a brunette middle-age woman; or, if it’s my husband: There’s my hot wife.
But I forget this.
Somewhere between wondering if my fly is open, my teeth are flossed, my nose is big, my hair is brushed, and if I matched the right color socks, and wondering what the other person is dissecting about me, and what this makes that person think, and how he or she has categorized and judged me and has fit me into his or her comfort-level of classification, I turn into a tailspin of panic, fearing that the other person is not only doing to me what I am doing to him or her, through dissection and examination of part, but also reaching conclusions based on the data received.
Ultimately, when all is said and done, in the midst of my boggling analysis of said other person, I am fearing the conclusion the other person has reached about me, whether it be red sweater or big-breasted tart; I am wanting to huddle into a corner and make myself entirely invisible and inaccessible to onlookers.
Wherein if I lived in a world where I was masked and cloaked, and perhaps entirely invisible, I think my anxiety, and resulting depletion of energy, would be drastically reduced.
But since I live in a world where I am seen, I am also faced with the fact that I am judged and categorized based on my appearance.(It’s no wonder my son with ASD refuses to wear anything other than plain clothes—no designs, no images, no nothing.)
And in so being keenly aware that I am looked upon with deciphering eyes, whether fleeting the observer’s glance be or not, I want to then explain to the observer as much about my true self as possible, fearing that the person has reached conclusions about me that are entirely false and inaccurate, because the gathered data is based solely on my exterior.
In the meanwhile, I am having a miniature debate in my mind about how the release of fear and the release of worrying about whatever people think of me is optimal for my state of well-being and reciting the random quote that says: what people think of me is none of my business, while holding back an entire dam of dialogue longing to be thrust upon the person returning my glance, so that I might attempt to accurately describes my spirit behind this cloak of humanness.
When all is said and done, all of these processed thoughts, (including the deductions of reasonings circling around the non-beneficial and detrimental effects a fear-based outlook to the collective of spirit, mind and body), have left me wiped out, and wondering how it is that up until this point in my life I have not become dependent on the port wine I savor some evenings, or at least a stiff shot of cough syrup.
For my brain is such a grand uniform of thought that even a sergeant general, marked with the stoic stars and stripes, could not maneuver his troops inside me to find the potential threat of enemy.
And then, with the coming of more and more rushing thoughts, I begin to laugh inside, realizing again that more than likely the stranger is not analyzing my distinct features; and then the sadness settles in, or at least what seems like sadness, but of late seems more akin to the knowing I am different and likely a different species of human all together.
In the meanwhile, with all of these aforementioned thoughts, my mind is continually involved in a game of connect–the-dots, bringing all the facial features together to make a collective whole.
And quite frankly sometimes I don’t like what I see. And then there is always the lingering notion, that this is all much-to-do about nothing, because if I was ever to see this person again, I wouldn’t recognize him anyways, because I cannot retain visual images of faces in my memory banks.
By this time, when my thoughts have run full course into a state of exhaustion, the person I was looking at has either moved on and out of my view or he or she has moved on in conversation. And where the person is left waiting for me to respond to something said, that she assumed I heard, just as she assumed I was ready to listen, I am still wondering, if in fact, if I look older or younger than this person, because I have wrinkles under my right eyes in the same way, and likely the same depth; and this person is still so pretty even with the marks of age; and I wonder if the wrinkles are appearing more engraved because of the lighting and what the person would look like in an alternative setting, with say a red scarf instead of green; and if her hair is naturally blonde, or now with her aging, recently dyed; and when I should stop dying my hair; and if I remembered to mark my hair appointment on the calendar, and why at times I seem so forgetful.
Through all the analysis piled upon rhetoric and philosophical jargon, added to the process of scaffolding current information with past information and connecting other to self, and the tangent of strings my mind travels to, I am left literally spent, my pockets of reserve penniless, and my wallet flung open for the taking.
And so it is I wonder, when the others, perhaps less aware of this process, say: “Look at me, while I’m talking to you.”
I wonder if a person realizes what one glance, what one look, what one simple demand, demands of me.
Pass me the port, please.
~~~~~~~~~~
(dang if I ain’t one prolific goofball and a half)
Someone once told me that there are three doors to self:
One door you willingly open and show the world. A second door you open to some. And a third door that usually remains closed, a place where you hold the deepest hurts, secrets that if exposed might make you crumble.
In February of 2012, I opened the third door.
Through a series of events, including the discovering of my Asperger’s Syndrome, my necessary exiting from a university counseling program, and my beloved dog’s death, I spiraled into a place of deep depression.
Having been told by a licensed mental health practitioner that indeed she had no doubts I had Aspergers, a massive vault of inner self was opened. It was as if I’d been carrying around a phantom secret my entire life, teetering on a finite point of self-knowledge, but never quite touching down to the answers.
And now I stood, feet firmly planted in the muck and guck of all the places I’d traveled, both externally and internally, faced with all the years of wondering and searching, from priest to psychiatrist, mountain after mountain climbed, in hopes of figuring out essentially “what was wrong with me.”
I knew from a young age that I viewed the world differently. I am an observer of sorts, always an observer, analyzing and picking apart the pieces that intermingle about me, in the spaces between thought and reason, in the middle point where the black and white merge to form something beyond grey.
I see in pictures, vivid images. As I write now, the words are first filtered, almost simultaneously with first thought, into a stream of expression, each word carrying its own color, rhythm and vibration. And the world, my world, is like this too: everything, everywhere, something moving and carrying its own awareness, as if screaming to be seen.
My world is a constant mystery, a present to be opened time and time again, each new day a new beginning. I cannot help this. This is who I am and whom I have always been.
I don’t understand rules and customs, not because I lack the ability to see what is happening, or to read between the lines, but because I see the infinite possibilities of other choices and options, of other paths, so to speak.
I don’t understand dogma and criticism and rights and wrongs, as it seems there is always another side, another way, and in this way, somewhere a victim struggling to be heard.
A passion so deep, runs through me, a river of sorts, that twists and turns and carries a truth I understand, even if no one else does. In a sense I need no confirmation or validation, it is as it is, and just who I be.
Yet, to live in this world, to walk where I walk, there is this way about me, this way I am supposed to be—some societal-imposed rules of conduct and expected behavior that confuses me; for since a child, I was left to wonder, who are the inventors of these rules, and why do they invent?
I was left to wonder why the others, who weren’t me, but seemed an extension of me, behaved in predictable patterns determined by some unknown structure, endowed with the gifts of evidentally knowing when there is nothing to be known, at least nothing to be feasibly discovered in the infiniteness of variables of truth.
I discovered early on that my only solace was in my faith, that being, by my choosing, and my choosing alone, a universal maker that I call God. In here, inside my faith, and only here, I found answers. I began to see the scope of the world as so narrow, at least when viewed through the eyes of so many lost travelers. I began to see that I too was lost with them, in this collective of nonsense recreating games in an attempt be seen.
I stepped out. I removed myself from the game, and was immediately ostracized and shunned, repeatedly corrected for not being as everyone else; even as I watched and knew that all about me was imaginary, people filling in the holes with their ways, when they weren’t really their ways at all.
For to be inside me, is to be inside complexity. Everything mixed and unmuted, painted and swirled with endless possibilities. But it appeared that to be inside of another, at least most of another, was limiting and restricted, honed in by self-inflicted leashes.
I was isolation.
I was what the experience of isolation encompasses: the observer knowing she is different, not knowing why, and forced without reason or cause to walk outside of the line.
I was a loner; though I stood alongside my peers, I was always alone.
I was alone in my creation of different selves in an attempt to move through a world that made no sense. I was alone in my attempt after attempt to be like that which I did not understand. I was alone in my compassion to want to touch another at a level they were uncomfortable touching. I was a traveler who knew not where she touched down and knew not with whom she was supposed to meet.
I was alone.
I was alone until I reached out, not to another, but into the deepest corridors of self. I was alone until I sat within the inner makings of what rested behind my door number three. Until I purged out all of the demons and hauntings and broken pieces of self, and set about to reform the being I truly was.
And then, as I began to see me, unleashed from the fear that had once buried me, others began to see me too; for it was in my true self that they recognized a part of their own true selves. It was in the opening of my third door that others were freed to open theirs.
Together, myself intertwined with others who knew of me and who understood the axe of isolation and disconnection, we began to emerge—one door upon the next, opening and reopening.
And with this opening, we began to see we were no longer alone.
We began to see beauty.
We began to heal.
For finally someone could see us.
Finally we were no longer invisible.
Finally we were understood.
And this is my door number three, these words I have shared, above and below, and out there, in the circling space of energy; not because I needed to find another, but because I needed to be free.