Each Day, R/Evolution

Striving for Gracious Change - Parting Ways

For anyone who has ever had to part ways with a loved one, an open letter shared, but meant for one.

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We are both experts in recapitulation and crafting the optimal story to express our understanding of a situation.  That is how we move forward in life.  Rationalizations and Understanding Why - we pursue these things to give closure, to justify and accept change. 

At the very Meta, for the infinite myriad of trajectories that has now opened up for us both, this parting is a Gift.

We got to know what it was like to experience a relationship with an equally awakened and powerful partner.  We saw elements of ourselves in each other that reflected aspects we liked to or needed to see. We have derived valuable learning and experienced growth during the tenure of our relationship.  In any relationship, romantic, business or friendship - there are depths of trust, intimacy and love that can be achieved.  And I think we did pretty well.  This is why I do not hold any part of my relationship with you as a disappointment or betrayal.  Those are heavy things to hold. A drag coefficient.  I know we have been blessings to one another.  But its time to invest my energies elsewhere.

We just couldn't keep moving forward, because our mutual paths are at a necessary point of divergence.  Our next level must be something we haven't been able to see or grasp because we have become too clouded with the vision we have been trying to force. This is the sign to let go, say thank you, bless you, and then turn your head to other visions, with full knowledge of my unspoken acknowledgement of my confidence, love and support of you, even as I move in a different direction. In my opinion, which of course you may or may not share, anything less than accepting this basic and encompassing truth, is an interpretation lacking in enlightenment or true compassion.  Unconditional love is based upon this understanding.

Mutually arising, and always with more love, because love is abundant and compassion is infinite.

Carmen

Post-Midnight Litanies summon the earthquake

Feeling the strain and the pressure of multiple responsibilities.  Make me a diamond, pressure.

Just now, as I was awake at 1.30am-ish, I began to break down - the tears flowing out of the cracks in my tightly bound shell.  Too focused on "How." I forget.  Do not focus on how. Focus on the intention, big, bright and clear.  Nothing can penetrate the laser focus trajectory of a well defined intention.

Desert winds blow strong outside. I hold the baby in my arms. The Podfather is away from us tonight.  So tired, so much data whirling in my mind, the hierarchy of my priorities holding fast even through the maelstrom of competing desires and demands from the outside world.

The reset begins, the litany - wherein I rock and sway, the prayers of thanks and humble acknowledgement of the generous, compassionate and abundant blessings bestowed upon my life.

Thank you for my son and his perfect health. Thank you for my mate and his love. Thank you for my beautiful family and their support. Thank you for the love, support, guidance and protection of my loyal friends. Thank you for my purpose and the opportunities to fulfill it. Thank you for the experiences that have helped me to build the strength I need to approach my life with courage and resolve.

I let the gratitude and the abundance flow through me until I feel cleared of shadow, until my consciousness is filled with the feelings of blessings, fortune, grace.

Focus my intentions. Align my values and my priorities with planned action. Set determination.  Breathe in strength. Exhale tension.

The earthquake came and went, during this ritual.

Words to calm. Words to create worlds. Words to soothe. Words to build bridges. Words to set boundaries. Words to express love. Words to summon. Words to invoke. Words to broadcast and bind intention. Words to cut through conspiracy.  The power of words, the power of the tongue. Words to say thank you. Words to mark and manifest from the quanta. Words to order chaos. Words to prompt and expose.

I sequence my words to reflect the sequence of events I desire. 

I remember who and what I am, and give thanks for all my Selves.

Feeling Yourself Disintegrate

Sometimes, the wanderlust surges to be unbearable.  To travel, to get lost, to assimilate and wander, to sidestep this current life trajectory and be another me.  I am envious of travelers. I feel a loss of mobility.

Home is where I do my chores, where I raise my child, where I work.  I am here 99% of the time, 24 hours a day/7 days a week. I spend most of my time online, "goggled into the Metaverse" as it were, while my meatsuit, now executing the primary mode "Mominatix", sits in the same rooms, all day, each day - thank God for social networks, online shopping, twitter, email and IM. The internet is the only place I am free to roam, the playspace to match my mind's need for data and stimuli.

When I am not staring at a computer screen for work, I am looking at/after my son.  When I am not washing bottles, doing laundry, feeding, changing diapers, rocking to sleep, singing, baby-talking, or grousing to my husband about the perceived perpetually imbalanced division of parenting responsibilties, I go to the Net because it's the only "me" time I have left.  I can't visit friends much anymore, nor do they visit me. No one wants to bother me. Everyone assumes I am "overwhelmed" and "swamped" and "doing baby priorities" and it's true. And I have to remind myself that there's nothing wrong with being where I am in my life, that raising Phoenix is a worthy and important job, and that a mother should dedicate her life to raising her children.

But I have heretofore defined myself by my independent movements, my agility, my multiplicity, my mobility, by the dedicated maintenance of a network of profound long-term friendships.

So this current reality, laden with new responsibilities and priorities, cuts.  Clipped wings hurt. I can't do much of what I used to, I can't be as free as I once was. So *I* can't be who I used to be. I can't get on a plane and lose myself in alternate realities as I love to do.  I am bound to this life, now.  Yes, I know I chose it.  Yes, I know resistance is futile. Yes, I know this is my "next level" and "unexplored territory." Knowledge never really cures, it consoles at best. Weary sighs of resignation, useless tears, staring blankly at wall.  Face the baby.  Initiate blessings-counting sequence. 

Are these unenlightened thoughts?  Have I not yet completely surrendered to my own evolution?  I look at my baby and know  there is no other path other than being his mother, with all the selflessness and sacrifice of selfhood that entails. 

The key to not feeling tired is not letting oneself feel, at all.  Feelings are an indulgent luxury. Now is not a time to be bogged down in feelings.  Not when there is so much to do.

Optimal Mindset versus 3rd Trimester Preggy Hormones: FIGHT!

About 8 weeks to go until Pod's arrival.  The pregnancy has been going fairly well, except that I may have developed gestational diabetes.  More blood tests this coming week.  Most people who've been around me say that I'm pretty "normal" and surprisingly even-keeled, even immune to a lot of work-related stresses. 

But I've been feeling a little low these past 2 wks or so.  Feeling the waves of hormones and crying jags. Spacing out and filling the "space-outs" with anxieties.  I feel so slow, heavy and torpid. Stuck. Trapped. Immobilized by my own weight.  Sometimes I'll do "kick-counts" of Pod's movements.  Sometimes he can move/kick/turn about 100 times in 10 minutes.  It exhausts me.

So I've been crankier, and sleeping extra, and not going out anywhere at all, which in turn makes me feel cagey and cabin fevered and lame.  I've also been having yucky thoughts.

Normally I don't allow myself to focus on dissatisfactions or self-destructive thoughts, especially because I do believe that "what you focus on, grows," and if I allow myself to focus on feeling trapped and dissatisfied I can work myself into a fine state in my own mind, and end up mad and crying and feeling frustrated and desperate.

When this happens I do try my best to self-regulate.  I start a litany of "Thank you's" - counting my blessings and focusing on being content, alive, blessed and safe, forcing my gaze to the sky and breathing deeply to dissolve the incipient dark knots of clouds brewing in the scowl across my forehead.  I try, I try, I am blessed, I am cared for, everything happens as it should, I am blessed, thank you for my life, thank you for my healthy baby, thank you for my family, thank you for my job, thank you for my husband, I am grateful and thankful and blessed for my friends, for all my support and the people I can count on for love and care. . . I try, I try.

I've even succumbed lately to naming my feelings, which I try to avoid doing because in naming feelings I buy into their materialized existence.  I've been talking about feeling "fragile" and  "tender" and "anxious" - and those words trigger certain physiological and psychological reactions within me.  Although I know full well that I create my own state, I've not been able to help these feelings lately, which only makes me criticize my own self for knowing better and yet letting my own self-control slip. 

At least payday is coming round again, I will be able to treat myself to a sorely needed prenatal massage, a manicure/pedicure, maybe a facial.  I've been working too hard on all fronts, just for survival, just to keep my mind active even as I feel my body has been hijacked.  And there are a few lovely Pod-centric baby celebrations upcoming.  That will cheer me even as this home stretch taxes me with it's hormonal roller coaster, physical and emotional demands.

Unique Extrusion of the Infinite Blanket

Look for your own. Do not do what someone could do as well as you.
Do not say, do not write what someone else could say,
Could write as well as you. Care for nothing in yourself
But what you feel exists nowhere else--
And out of yourself, create, impatiently or patiently...
The most irreplacable of beings.

-Andre Gide

Of course, being a) an Aquarius and b) born in the Year of the Rabbit - the word that jumps out at me in this quote is "Impatiently."  I am quick to think, to strategize, sometimes too quick to react, and I do expect things I work toward to manifest NOW.  My meditation over the past year: "There is time enough for everything. Kairos, Logos, Atomos."

Trust in time as a sequence of ordered events, not as dates on a calendar.  Especially good to remember during a Mercury Retrograde.

Super Mario Parkour!

I've recently become intrigued with Parkour, and am also quite excited that Matt has found Sheffield Parkour. 

Imagine my delight when I found this video of "Super Mario Parkour."

Self Mastery: Enjoying the Plateau

Having recently experienced several life transitions, growth spurts, big changes and goal achievements, I find myself already chomping at the bit for the next level, the next big vision to be big and bright before me.

I found and married my life partner. I processed and put away years of grief for lost loved ones. I've created a whole new career, in response to a disability. I've overcome several unmentionable and significant personal challenges and trials. I've confronted and transformed several core limiting fears and beliefs. A film I helped to write is being produced and filmed; I have a new office for my hypnotherapy practice; I'm teaching more students for voice; I'm integrating everything I do, all my skills and experience; I'm happily married to a beautiful mate; I have a great group of friends; I have a loving and wonderfully supportive family; I have a restored faith in the divine; I have a handful of key collaborators for both personal and especially professional symbiotic relationships; I'm doing well with my GTD.

Wow, I think. A new comfort zone. How long will this last? Will the other shoe drop? Why does faith oscillate - one day so self-assured, another day, discouraged and doubtful?

Something within becomes restless and uneasy at the thought of things going so well for so long. Something within wants to push and keep pushing before momentum is lost.
Something within tells me I'm not doing enough, even when I'm hitting my goals, and I'm on the right path.

Enjoy. Dig deeper. There are levels within levels of perception and acuity. I must continue to sharpen the skills and the mastery with repetition, to further hone my unconscious competence. I must focus on what I have, at least for awhile. Enjoy the plateau, the downtime, the comfort zone, the new default space, the mastery of that which one year ago, was still a tiny seedling of growing awareness.

I must remember the beginner's mind. I must focus on what is in my hands, and notice that each gem is multi-faceted. I must stay clear in intention and consciousness, envision the goal and its rewards, and advance with confidence.

My anxiety dreams are back. I analysed them, and they tell me: No fear. No excuses. Life is not a dress rehearsal.

I embrace this plateau. I haven't felt this safe in years.

There is No Secret to Balance

There's no secret to balance. You just have to feel the waves. - Darwi Odrade, in Frank Herbert's Dune

I have always been a syncretist.  I am an autodidactic sentience feeder, and through continuing exploration of philosophy, esoterica, empirical data, aphophenia, research and study I stir the Soup that feeds my own soul, and creates my perception of reality.

In the Philosophy Soup:

Ayn Rand's Altruism
Anais Nin's Multiplicity
Joseph Campbell's Journey of the Hero,
Hermann Hesse's hermetic circle where magic is born,
Nietzsche's will to power,
Jung's Animus,
and Zen Mindfulness
Frank Herbert's Bene Gesserit codex
Eckart Tolle's Power of Now
William Gibson's Pattern Recognition
Louise Hay / Candace Pert's thoughts on mind-body medicine
Ralph Waldo Emerson --- SIMPLIFY
Robert Anton Wilson's - Maybe Logic and all things Illuminatus
David Allen's, Getting Things Done

How to cook it all down to a daily practice? It's already so tasty!

Happy H-Bombastic birthday to my gorgeous Heathervescent, who not only helped me set up this blog, but also gave me a lovely gift of a Medical Ch'i Kung seminar, run by Dr. Hirano.

I am looking forward to using Yin-Yang balancing techniques in my hypnotherapy practice as well as my vocal studio.

There is no dark without the light, no joy without the sorrow,
no sun without shadow
Some days will ride high and spin fast,
others will be to restore and enjoy the stillness
In all things, find the balance
This is the Way of the Tao, to yield to the balance
This is the Instruction to find the blessing and learning in every experience
This is the Invocation to remember what Flow feels like
This is how I  access my Optimal Mindset!

Flow with whatever is happening and let your mind be free. Stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing. This is the ultimate. - Chuang Tzu