BUT...

A YEAR WITH MYSELF MODULE 34: MONEY MATTERS

This quote on page 3 from Brené Brown “had me” by the 7^th word…

Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy – the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.

A word I intend to use almost NEVER:

BUT…

A tiny word which takes what came BEfore it and strikes it out definitively.

Yet in the context of this Module of A Year With Myself, devoted to Money and the notions round Our Money Stories, Contexts, and richly layered MEANINGs, the word gains points and power from me.

I think that coming to understand our Money Story/Stories is essential work. In particular where it is nearly invisible background, like the noise electricity makes we don’t notice until there is a power outage. Still. Hollow.

It is safe enough for me to say that I’d never have got involved in A Year With Myself were I NOT ready, willing, and able to dive in and take Stuff on. Still, the topic of Money is so large, oozing its way into every nook and cranny of Life, it seems there is likely little headway to BE gained exploring it “with myself” alone.

BUT…

Here’s the thing: My money story is written, filed, and stored. My Money MATTERS, on the other hand, are what I write with each breath and every blink of My Right Now.

This year I have taken long and deep pauses to look and see what I think I see there, where I am looking. I’ve grown brave and embraced the risks involved with such introspection. I have stumbled, frequently…

BUT…

This Matter of Money matters to me Now in a far different way. Far FAR different.

Today I see money as a companion. I see how I misunderstood its purpose for BEing in my Life, how wildly wrong I was about it for nearly all of my Life. Yet it is still and always a companion for the Journey.

I agree that it is energy, that wealth is a state of mind, an attitude, and I am all about knowing this companion, but that is all that it is, a companion. It is NOT Me, it does NOT stand for Me, define Me, and it certainly does NOT speak for me.

I’m neither more nor less BEcause of my companion.

BUT…

It certainly is BEcause of ME.

Out of Focus

Module 33: Laser Focus: Learning to Focus on What Matters the Most

When I think about focus, I think of how the Very Best Most Wondrous Things in my Life have come when I stopped TRYING to make them happen. Trying to will them into BEing. Trying to BE Good Enough to finally deserve them, or their generic equivalent.

As someone who lives a lot in her head, I have had to learn to separate my automatic from my zoom focus. I’ve had to try an entirely different lens. I’ve sometimes even changed my camera.

When my 12-year relationship was rolling into its 14^th year I started to see something I’d completely missed and long misunderstood. Love is NOT meant to BE two people living apart. Love is NOT something to BE earned or deserved. And Love is definitely NOT about keeping score.

Love is patient. Love is kind. And OH!! YES!! Love does NOT envy. Or boast. It’s NOT proud and wait… oh-oh-no it’s NOT rude or self-seeking…

Ummmmmmm… How’d I miss ALL that?! Had I been living in a fantasy World???

Apparently so. You see I spent a good bit of my childhood separated from my one or both of my parents. When I BEcame a mother I A] didn’t think twice about taking OUR son 3000 miles away from HIS dad when we divorced; and B] didn’t catch on to the wrongness of then spending the bulk of my son’s childhood 3000 miles from HIM.

I can see how I got confused. I can even see how I may have totally BElieved that focusing on the quality versus the quantity of time shared with my own parents or my own child was the point. [but I gotta say, that quality sure wasn’t anything to BE excited about…ever]

It makes sense to me, Now, that I could BElieve my ex-partner and I would benefit from BEing apart, that we could “make it work” [even though it was clearly NOT working] and whatever benefits we were receiving surely weren’t DOing either of us any discernible good.

Back on point, however, I was looking at Laser Focus and that which really matters MOST to me. The fact that I still had some relationship with my parents growing up, and later, with my son as he grew up seemed enough. I mean, why should I expect anything MORE than enough?! And why, since apparently my ex-partner needed that first year, then one more year on her own, and our house wasn’t selling and well, I was okay on my own keeping myself preoccupied with, well… Why didn’t I SEE there was trouble, with a capital “T” and it wasn’t JUST in River City!!??

Today I see with that perfect focus: hindsight. I see my misunderstanding self DOing what she thought was “best” or “right” under the circumstances.

I see, NOW, that survival doesn’t equal enough.

I see it was my focus got in the way of what I could see.

Ohhhhhhh…

Navigating the Winds of Change

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. ~ Lao Tzu

Often I am struck by the utter simplicity of sensibility. It is like a waterfall that I didn't recognise as water, falling. This week’s Module in A Year With Myself is Winds of Change. In its pages and stories and reflections I saw very clearly that Change is a constant, for all humans, for Life, and yet we all seem to alternately resist and attempt to control it.

These last 6-7 years of my Life are all the proof I need to see that what Lao Tzu said is wisdom well-heeded. Everything that is How I Live/Who I Am has changed so completely that I have trouble remembering what/who/how I used to BE. I’m NOT embarrassed to say how much I resisted everything that changed. [BEcause it was only totally] Nor am I going to pretend this resistance wasn’t filled full and overflowing with sorrow.

I have a confession to make. I REALLY miss my son when he was about 0 to age 5. [he is going to BE 34 in October] I may have mentioned this BEfore. I keep several photos round about the Wee Cottage from Way Back Then, all of which give me the warm and fuzzy feeling that the baby, toddler, and wee boy is still Right Here, Right Now. Of course, I am NOT delusional [or only a little!!] I am only a mother. For years, decades Now, and the turn of a century, I have wished away Now dreaming I might, magically, BE able to spend a day with him at various ages and stages that came and went like the wind.

Of course this isn’t possible. And Today I know it. He’s grown up. He is an extraordinary man. He simply blows my mind. Life has naturally and spontaneously CHANGED him. It is DOing so, Right Now, as I am writing this, and whenever anyone else may BE reading it.

I think that learning to live Right Now is so much harder than it sounds. It requires exacting fine-motor skill at Letting Go. It demands that I enJOY Life and simultaneously let it GO while opening to What’s Up in the next Now. It means I must resist my natural resistance. It’s… complicated.

And yet it’s also like getting used to the pitch of the sea. At first it is a bit nauseating, then it gets a bit better, and eventually dry land seems, oddly, a bit tame.

Change is constant and even Change is always changing. It’s like dancing with the wind. And simply letting it lead.

Patience with small details… Rumi

I don’t recall where I read this bit of quote, but I DO know that it gives me that “structure, a trellis around which the grapevines of my work can grow…” that Molly Gordon speaks of in her Vision Interview with Cigdem Kobu in Module 31: Habits.

A Year With Myself www.ayearwithmyself.com is a whole lot about small details. For me anyway. It is about making myself aware of my habits and practises, BEing kind to/with myself when I discover I’m in my own way, and allowing for the very intimacy of BEing fully ME to envelope me, no apologising, justifying, or explaining required.

But what is most important and I think has been affirmed for me in this Module is that Habits Are Good. And, that as Aristotle said, We are what we repeatedly do, [emphasis mine].

I am one of those fortunate people who has a storehouse of experience to draw upon and launch from. I really enJOYed Tamara Holland’s Vision Interview where she says, Relying on experience, which is one of the greatest gifts of age. Experience has taught me that consistent effort over time will get you places and results that you would not get if you did not put in the effort. I realise she could have said, BECAUSE I SAID SO, but I liked the plug for age BEing experience, something I have been growing more aware of in recent years.

I am also noticing a trend these past several Modules where I feel affirmed and my Gratitude is taking regular flight. I felt I would always BE a perpetual mess/mass of contradictions and just that side of crazy, yet in the past year I have shifted into another perspective.

Here’s the thing: it is NOT so much my age that has given me experience to draw upon as it is many repetitions of experience that encourage me to more fully appreciate BEing the age I am and living a Life that is “just right” for ME.

I am on a mission of sorts this year and many times felt/feel I’ve taken a turn down a road that didn’t take me anywhere near where I was heading. Interesting scenery, meeting cool people, and discovering some great ideas aside, I haven’t yet found my “just right” road.

Yet BEing the operative word.

Sometimes I get worried and fret and dig up my poor little seedlings to see if they’ve put down any roots… YET!!! I am NOT a gardener, but I can say with certainty this is NOT a good habit for growing things. There is a whole arena of “small details” of which I am no part whatsoever.

On the other hand…

I am looking back Now on habits that I have built by simply DOing them, one day, and the next day, and I Now trust completely that they will “take root and grow” as long as I keep DOing my part.

I have also discovered that it’s NOT about some imagined RESULTS of these habits and practises but that it is who I am BEcoming by simply DOing them that it turns out I’m “after” on this “mission.”

It is a good realisation, however “late in the game” it’s coming to me, that what I am after is an ordinary Life in which I get to BE extraordinarily ME. NOT the bells or the whistles, just ME…