Casting the Dark Shadows Aside

Sometimes I think about something from my past that makes me cringe. I imagine most people have similar memories that make them want to cover their eyes and wish they could go back and undo that episode or chapter in their lives. 

When I was in my 30s, I spent a lot of time recovering from my 20s! :>) I had a scroll of regrets that shook my confidence and made me feel less than I should have. I didn't want to send out my stories--didn't want to call attention to myself for fear the past would creep up and bite me in the butt.

Then I realized everybody's got their own stuff. The self-centeredness of youth made me think my mistakes were of interest to anybody else. (Since I'm not a politician.) We all have our less-than-optimal moments: as children, students, lovers, spouses, parents, employees, siblings, and family members. Many of us have had our dark hours and wicked phases. 

Now and then I'll still have a random memory that makes me suck in my breath and wish I could take it back. But this morning I decided to embrace it all. Might be because I'm reading a LOT of good fiction, and good fiction introduces us to characters who show us all sides of their personalities and history. And that's what makes them come alive and makes us root for them.

So I challenge you to reconsider your dark shadows. To let them reside comfortably among the finer moments. To do so is to accept all of you--all parts of yourself. Last year I read Learning to Love Yourself: A guide to becoming centered by Gay Hendricks. It was the first time I'd encountered the notion of immediate acceptance of our flaws and mistakes as they happen. That becomes the way to truly meet your potential. Iyanla Vanzant is a perfect example with her boat load of hardships and a past that could've choked the life out of her.

I realize now that it makes perfect sense to accept it all. I have been a fool many many times, and I'm sure there are many more foolish episodes to come. But the energy spent regretting takes away the positive power from the moment I'm living.

What exactly does your mirror have to tell you?

You probably know I'm on this healing journey. I believe our childhood hurts and fears and pains live in our bodies like alien creatures. And like alien creatures, they must be dealt with; otherwise they take over your life and you wonder what the hell happened.

So I deal with issues by a) paying attention to my feelings when they creep out of bounds, and b) catching myself behaving in ways that go against my "personal philosophy." I then spend a bit of time figuring out what happened to pull me off balance. This works for me because: 1) it breaks the habit of having underlying feelings run my life, and 2) I get more insight about who I am at the core and why I do what I do.

Case in point....
I ran into a former student today. We hugged, and she smiled as students do when they meet their teachers in public. The onus is always on the teacher to ask questions and give feedback, etc. I LOVE meeting students in public, so we chatted on and on, then I went to back to my car. Before I pulled off, I caught myself looking in the mirror! Hmmmnnnnn. Then I think! AHA! A little remnant of my abandonment issue! Why? How?

Because abandonment issues (and probably a host of other issues) play out by making the irrelevant relevant. Instead of going with the flow and taking life as it comes, "abandonment survivors" (just coined this phrase) take stock a lot by

• looking in the mirror to see if something's wrong, 
• reviewing a conversation to determine whether we sounded like an idiot, and
• coming up with what could've, should've, would've gone differently.

But my true self cares less than a cent about what I was about to see in the mirror after a random conversation. So I looked away from the mirror and didn't give another thought to what the student saw or what either of us said. 

Because this mental and physical scrutiny is all about that underlying feeling that something unexpected can blindside me and I wind up in an unpleasant place. Maybe I looked like a hoochie in my exercise clothes; maybe sweat had dried and I had eye boogers, etc. My instinct was an expectation of something being wrong, expecting to be judged harshly, or even to be judged favorably. I was about to relinquish my power and give it to somebody/anybody else-- and have her make a difference in my psyche. I mean, really?!

I'm a grown woman, and I have been living long enough to have conversations and interactions all day long without needing an assessment of how I'm doing!  

So this is going to be my homework for the week: Be present when I'm engaged with somebody, then move the heck on. Don't waste my time reflecting or going back over it unless it's for some clearly positive and healthy purpose. 

My AHA experience is this: Before you look in the mirror, ask yourself why you're going there. Most times, you'd be better off just going with the flow and putting yourself all the way into your agenda. Because the truth is that retouching the makeup, recombing that bang, or seeing if that pimple got bigger will not create the experiences you want in life. Trust me on that! 

Don't forget to order a copy of Salt in the Sugar Bowl! See how abandonment issues run rampant as the adult Sawyer children deal with life and love after having being abandoned by their mother, Sophia.  http://www.mainstreetrag.com/store/MSRFiction.php 
$10, plus S&H


"Just finished Salt in the Sugar Bowl. Read it slow to savor every word, every character. As I read from character to character, each became my favorite at the moment. Great story,  one that can be found in any big family. You are an incredible writer, a writer from the heart. Loved that you mentioned Brooklyn, Ft. Greene. Laughed, smiled, smirked in some parts. Can't wait for your next."     
 --Maria Villafane, New Yorker

It's okay to be uncomfortable

I told my daughter the other day that people would be a lot better off in the world if they had the mantra: "It's okay to be uncomfortable." Since she's just going out into the world for real, so much of what she's encountering is new. As I listen to her take on various situations, it dawned on me that much of what happens in our daily lives is a little bit uncomfortable (and sometimes a lot uncomfortable). Life really is kinda challenging:
We have to meet new people.
We have to interact with people we don't like.
We have to sit in meetings and hear about things that we don't like to hear about.
We have to wait in traffic and on lines.
Sometimes we have to walk through puddles.
Our underwear might ride up all day, or our tights crawl down.
We have to learn to use technology that we are clueless about.
We have to work through lunch to meet deadlines.
We have to drop everything and take somebody somewhere.
We have students or clients or somebody that we simply have to grin and bear.
We have to balance our checkbooks, so we don't run out of money.
We have to eat the lunch from hell because we didn't have time to make it in advance.
We have to change our plans for the gazillionth time because somebody found out about something that changes everything.
We have to make speeches or read aloud to strangers.
We have to put ourselves out there.

I could go on forever. The thing about this realization is that it made me a bit more okay about the IDEA of being uncomfortable. It's like we can go through lives with this myth about getting comfortable. But that makes us long for something other than the experience that we're having.  And maybe a lot of comfort is happening for a lot of people. But for me, I'm REALLY confortable for about an hour or two everyday. That's about it. For the rest of the time, I'm stretching myself to make life work, and making mental adjustments for what just is......

Fear in all its irrational glory!

    Fear cripples us, increases our heart rates, and does all kinds of harm to our human experience. All I have to say is that many people actually survive and even thrive in the midst of war, with debilitating illnesses, after losing loved ones, while living in horrendous sanitary conditions, having to walk miles just to get a ration of water (By the way, megabusinesses are actually rerouting villages' waterways so their plants can bottle water for our consumption! See http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/klessill/, and http://www.enviroalternatives.com/waterglobal.html, http://www.onlineeducation.net/bottled_water (Once you read about it, you'll probably stop buying bottled water.)

But I digress......

I really just want to put it on record that I'm serious about living beyond the fears that render me less effective than I need to be. According to filmmaker Michael Moore, the American media pretty much scares us to death with its ads and news reports, so it's no wonder our bellies flutter like flags throughout the day. We're reminded of aging with its creams and procedures, of how much fun we're not having by all the fun people are having on TV, of what marriage should be according to TV love images, and how clean our house should be-- even if our careers keep us away from it 12 or 13 hours a day, and on and on. There is so much stuff in our heads to distract us from what could be (on most days) rather pleasurable journeys.

 So, I simply want to confront the feeling of fear when it happens, and truly consider how much worse things could be. That's how I'll start reprogramming myself. As I've said before, most days things are soooo much better than they could be. This really might be as good as it gets, so we might as well start enjoying it.