Telling Stories ~ Module 51: Oneness

I find it a bit unnerving to focus on my thin-skinnedness or my thick-skinnedness. It feels like someone will overhear me and say I am WRONG!!!

Perhaps that is my story?!

One thing I am sure of is that I have made it my Life’s Work to BE both less and more sensitive. To toughen up and all the while BE highly considerate of others.

Those “others” never seemed to HAVE feelings or express them in language I understood. I always felt I was a stranger in a peculiar [and somewhat scary] land.

A message I heard [mayBE it was said only a handful of times] was I Don’t Want To Know About That.

“That” always referred to me, my feelings, my pain, my fear, my deep uncertainty about BEing here at all, and my constant low-grade confusion.

I heard this message at an especially tender time of my Life, BEtween 11 and 16 years of age.

I was very clear about only one thing in those years: I was NOT wanted.

A burden.

An oh well I’ve only got to DO this until you are 18, Now go and leave me alone child in a splintered family of people I Now see through different eyes with a more open heart.

I thought I was broken. Unfixable. Flat-out wrong.

If I spoke of it I was in for exasperated anger, flaring tempers and punishments, and often felt that BEing Me was something I had no idea HOW to BE.

Why did all my parts NOT work “right” like others’ did?!

I never ever felt a sense that what I experienced was something I shared with anyone.

That is the story of my skin. Too thick and too thin, I was never Just Right.

Over the decades since I was that young girl, I’ve learned that I am NOT the only one to have felt this.

To have experienced a deep and lasting sense of BEing outside looking in where I was NOT welcome.

Still, I tend to keep more to myself. I want to connect, sometimes far more than I think anyone could imagine, but I am unwavering in my determination to protect and cherish myself, even if I’m the ONLY ONE who does.

Coping. That’s my skin story. Coping.

Accepting that this is just the way things are.

NOT trusting my own radar.

I often think there is something NOT Right or simply Wrong, but I don’t speak up or take wise, adult actions to sort things out.

I don’t ask for help.

I no longer go to my family members without having dragged myself through hell and back FIRST, and then never without apologies and feeling really ashamed to BE having this “problem” at my age… hoping THIS TIME I might discover I’ve been wrong all along.

They DO, they really REALLY DO like me!!!

I tell myself all the time to expect nothing and to NOT BE surprised when there is nothing. Recent events have borne this out yet again.

I shake my head. I try to snap myself out of it. I “act as if” I’m okay with all this. But living alone it makes it hard to “pass” as okay.

That is far easier when living with others. So I suppose this Life Choice is convenient. A way to seem more thick-skinned.

But…

I am NOT so easy to fool as others.

Plus I don’t encourage myself to BE more thick or less thin in the skin department. I look myself in the eye. And the heart.

I know myself better than that…

Oneness is another kettle of fish entirely. It is something I imagine, envision, hope for, and look for. I rarely see it and I sometimes feel that my seeing it is really stretching myself across a wide chasm.

But I have experienced it.

And much moreso in this year, this A Year With Myself Year.

Each week I have read and resonated with something, oftentimes many somethings.

I have gradually and steadily come to see that others must have similar perspectives to my own. Otherwise, how could they say or write or dream up things that sound so familiar to me?!

Camp was a place, during those difficult years in particular, where I felt what I suppose is Oneness.

I’ve often thought and mayBE even said that Camp saved my Life.

And then there is my son.

How I FEEL about him.

Who he is to me.

Where he came from.

That is a Light shed in a Very Dark Room.

He helps me cope with the skin thing.

He loves me.

As I AM.

As I AM NOT.

He listens. He hears me.

And he shares himself with me. Which is so amazing and BEautiful.

Those are my stories…

...if the world was made of people who could do that...

A YEAR WITH MYSELF MODULE 50: SERVICE

Teaching As a Tool for Changing Yourself and the World

As a teacher and a student of Life, this Module touches me and inspires me in myriad ways, places, and fashions. Even my assumptions about it, picked-off, one at a time and in such gentle ways, teach me much to un-learn as well to re-learn.

The trick for me, for this post, is to say what I most want to At This Moment. I realise I could write reams of posts and journal-ish writing about any one of the Modules.

As a teacher in my Former Real Life, of little children, of adults, of young people and of teenagers, [are these NOT separate categories?!] I know my teacher’s heart. It is distinct and uniquely bent just for me.

As a teacher in my Present Day Real Life one thing that I know is that my motivations are different.

Totally.

And they are exactly the same.

EXACTLY.

As far back as I can remember I was teaching. Teaching my bassett hound to read. Teaching myself to write. Teaching my teachers how to challenge me and help me BEcome a self-driven [NOT hard-driving] girl who could easily evolve into a self-driven woman.

I have had many job titles and positions within organisations and in my own businesses. I have learned to DO things that have zero relevance Now. [and a few that didn’t even THEN, in my opinion ;~D]

I have learned to teach myself how to DO or Learn new things or simply desired things. I wanted to blog  so this year I started that and goodness, Now I have several blogs and I am thinking up what I’d like to try for 2013!!

I have un-learned that grades and outcomes matter. Sure, they matter and always will. BEcause I live in a World which places value on things that I don’t completely get and often don’t agree with at all. What I mean is what and how they matter to me. For me.

Recently I was writing about selling my art. Someone commented back to me about what I wrote and said something so interesting. She said that is why she STOPPED making art. The upkeep, care, and other maintenance our art “product” requires.

I moved quickly past my reaction that I have completely lost my compass, a place I go often when the topic of selling my art comes up, and into the heart of her words.

I saw immediately that her comment was an answer for me. To a prayer. To a wish. To a hope.

To help me understand that the MAKING of my art is the Whole Thing.

Like teaching. The reason I teach is BEcause I CAN. BEcause I am given the opportunity. All the time. Whether it is a “job” description, for any sort of remuneration, or BEcause it is my Purpose in that moment.

I teach BEcause I am alive. Above ground. Breathing in and out.

Today I taught myself to stop BEfore hurting Gracie’s feelings. To see round the corner of what I was about to DO in reaction to what she was choosing to DO, BEing a dog. [even a dog who had a spa day yesterday!!!]

Yesterday I taught myself to keep talking and thinking and processing even though I didn’t get the reaction from someone else that I had got from myself!!!

Every day is an opportunity to teach and re-learn. To un-learn and re-teach. To try and fail. And try again. Or try something else.

Still, Now that I have gone off on a word-bender, I want to come back to the one thing in this moment that most moves me in this Module.

On page 8, left column, near the bottom Tara Sophia Mohr says:

We focus incredible financial and social capital on teaching children how to read, do math, and play sports, but we don’t teach them how to forgive, cope with an argument, react wisely when they are afraid, or manage their own anger – even though we all would probably say our lives would be much better if the world was made of people who could do that.

WOW!!!

This is juicy stuff. This is the heart of WHY I am Here. On Planet Earth. Right Now. As all that I AM and all that I AM NOT.

Hope, Enthusiasm, and Sparks of Possibility

A YEAR WITH MYSELF

MODULE 49: HOPE & ENTHUSIASM

Rekindle Your Inner Spark Over and Over Again

I loved reading this module, especially this past week. I am using December as a Month for Reflection. It really helps to DO so with Hope. And with Enthusiasm. It was refreshing and frankly quite lovely to see that my Inner Spark is well-lit and shining.

Reading caused me to think back on my Life BEfore what I consider “my Life” Now. A longer ago ME. Younger. A bit more fearless. Far less concerned with what other people thought or felt.

Then, almost without realising it, I was locked onto a sensation I can only call a Nor’Easter of Optimism. How it blew in and through and, yes, almost right on by me a couple times.

When I reflect, generally, I have to wade through Regret, Shame, Blame, Resentment, and a significant amount of Quicksand.

This week, reflecting was totally different.

Gentler.

Clearer.

Bolder.

Understanding.

Even forgiving.

I look back on the week and realise its many gifts. And the tremendous surprise I felt when I saw there WERE gifts. That is quite the thing…

Sometimes Life feels ginormous and impossible and frankly, I’d rather go take a nap.

Yet with a splash of Enthusiasm, a couple shakes of Perspective, and Hope, Anything BEcomes Possible…

Lovingkindess... It's What's Essential

A YEAR WITH MYSELF MODULE 48: Lovingkindness

Touching the World with Kindness and Compassion

As someone who loves to invent words, play with their spellings, and oddly capitalise, the word Lovingkindness has held a very special place in my heart.

I heard the word BEfore I read it, and I didn’t know it was [is] a real word with actual dictionary definition status.

Definition of LOVING-KINDNESS

: tender and benevolent affection

First Known Use of LOVING-KINDNESS

1535

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/loving-kindness

I spent this week reading, listening, and reading more. I immersed myself in the notion of Lovingkindness and let it steep in me. 

I am finding a comfortable familiarity with it, one deeper than surface and NOT at all glib.

It can BE difficult to BE loving or kind. To some people, to me. For some people, for me. 

And yet what else is there but this?! 

Is there actually a Life to BE lived and cherished where Lovingkindness is NOT central and essential?!

While this module covers many aspects and experiences of Lovingkindness, for me it is the foundation of everything. 

It is where I BEgin and return. 

It is how and why I live Life. 

It is a guiding principle as necessary as Hope.

I’m reconsidering my “positions” on some things in the LIGHT of Lovingkindness. 

[Which is extraordinary all by itself…]