Changing My Thinking

I'm very clear that everyone in the world loves me. I just don't expect them to realize it yet. Byron Katie

Off to dinner with Chels, February 2008.

Check out my superhero necklace, made by the lovely Andrea!

Oh, oh, OH! I have discovered Byron Katie, and she is a real superhero. I'm so excited about her work that I don't know where to begin. Right now I am reading Loving What Is, and I can't put it down. I keep replaying memorable sentences all day- driving to work, eating lunch, taking a bath. It has been a long time since a book resonated with me so deeply. It is as if I have found another (huge) piece of my own truth, put into words so eloquently by another human being.

I will try to break it down for you here, but just know that I cannot truly put into words what this has ignited in me. If you are the least bit interested, check out the book for yourself. Katie (as she prefers to be called) says that it is not people or events that cause our negative experiences, it is our thoughts about those things. She has a method of inquiry that she calls The Work. Basically, you take any thought that is causing you pain, then you ask yourself four questions. Those four questions can lead you to a place of happiness and inner peace, no matter what is happening "out there."

I have used the four questions to turn around thoughts about my job, my roommate, my body, and past relationships. What is interesting is that none of those circumstances changed, but my thoughts about them changed in the moment. Changing my thoughts has allowed me to really, really see the perfection in what is. I wouldn't say that The Work is a magic wand that has changed my experiences permanently, but I do know that I will have the tools when the negativity sneaks back in. I really feel as if I have stumbled across the work that I will do for the rest of my life.

Just this evening, as I was getting ready for dinner with my good friend Chelsea, I found myself criticizing the way I looked. It's that time of the month, and I was experiencing the dreaded "mushroom effect." I thought to myself, somewhat unconsciously, "Your fat makes you really unattractive." Remembering Katie's approach, I simply asked myself the four questions. Moments later, I walked out my front door feeling confident, happy, and relaxed. Without the turnaround, I would have spent the evening sucking in my stomach and wondering what complete strangers were thinking about me. Instead, I had a great time connecting with an old friend. This. Stuff. Works!

If you find yourself in a similar situation, remind yourself of something that really stood out to me tonight. What other people think is their business. You decide whether or not you are attractive. Your thoughts determine how you feel, and that's what really matters.

Loving yourself takes courage. I'm not completely there yet, but I'm getting braver every day.

A Quick Gratitude Fix

Back to the ick again. I can blame it on several things- the stomach virus that has kept me home for two days, the below-freezing nasty weather, job dissatisfaction, yadda yadda yadda...

Time to put the great things I've learned to work, right? Let's see, where to begin. The problem with having so many useful strategies is knowing which one to use. So I'm going to go with the only one that makes sense right now- good ol' gratitude.

It's been a while since I've compiled a list of things I'm grateful for, so here goes.

The kid at Taco Bell telling me I have a beautiful smile, prophetic fortune cookies that offer a little bit of hope on a PMSy day, taking the back roads, hard work being rewarded, doing flips in the grass with Tara, beautiful kitchens, chatting on front porches and waving at passersby, Cracker Barrel's apple butter on biscuits, good-bye kisses, diving boards, dump cake (oh dear GOD, yum), courtyard gardens, rainbows, sunrooms, candlelit anything, fresh watermelon in the summertime, planning our trip to New Orleans with Tara Bear, care packages, a beautiful moon, cool cucumber slices on my eyes, surprises, inspired writing, baseball at dusk, sunroofs, feeding horses by hand, afternoon thunderstorms, getting away, Tara's mashed potatoes, curling up with a book I can't put down, tipping well, homemade quilts, attending interesting conferences, my Across the Universe soundtrack, socks fresh from the dryer, card night at Melba's, fall leaves, sweet dreams, celebrating how far I've come, wishing on stars, a tidy work area, saying what needs to be said, stand-up comedians, beautiful paintings, feeding the ducks at Shannon Springs, not being attacked by the ducks at Shannon Springs, rereading old journal entries, hand-written letters, my heavenly bathrobe, the sense of accomplishment after a trip to the gym (yep, it's been a while), watching my kindergarteners get really giggly over puppets, new entries from my favorite bloggers, church bells, new babies, Charlie Brown specials, rooms filled with loved ones, a quiet morning commute, collapsing onto a soft mattress, visualizing, simple answers to questions, silly notes, a lazy housecat, the right words, old-fashioned elevators, rewriting my history, the perfect parking spot, chocolate fountains, the kindness of strangers, keeping up with old friends, nicknames, optimism, nightlights, James Taylor's Fire and Rain, massages at Bliss, hippos.

Thank you, Universe, for the good stuff.

In celebration, I am off to bake cookies. Want some? ;-)

Shoes

See these shoes? These adorably cute, seemingly perfect shoes? I love, love, love these shoes. These shoes got a girl who couldn't care less about shoes to get really, really excited about shoes. They look great, especially with fitted jeans and a crisp white shirt. There's just one downfall. They don't fit. At. All.

Sigh.

I wore them to work once. I convinced myself that the Perfect Shoes just needed to be broken in a little, and then we'd be the Perfect Match, this girl and her shoes. I smiled every time someone complimented me on my groovy little mary-janes. I was the only one who knew that I was dying to take them off and throw them out a window and perhaps run over them with my car. Twice.

They have taken up residence in my bedroom floor. I guess I've convinced myself that one day I'm going to wake up and they're magically going to fit perfectly. Except, of course, they aren't.

So why all this talk about a pair of ill-fitting shoes? Because, unfortunately, they are the perfect metaphor for the way I have lived my life.

I have stayed in jobs I hated, jobs that made me cry when the alarm beeped in the morning, because I thought it should be the right job. They certainly made me look good to the outside world (or did they? Can I ever really know that? I digress...). You know, just being able to say that's where I worked or being able to add it to my resume. And of course, there are many people out there in the world working the same job, and they were happy, fulfilled. Surely there must be something wrong with me. Surely I was missing something. Truth was, those shoes might have fit other people perfectly, but not me.

I have gotten into, and stayed in, relationships that absolutely made me miserable. My god, D was a cute pair of shoes. A devastatingly cute, sucessful, intelligent, "perfect" pair of shoes. And D came so close to fitting me that I convinced myself that he did. I spent a long time being really happy on the surface while cringing inside. I changed many things, many this-is-what-makes-me-who-I-am things, to make those shoes fit. They never did. Not only did I spend many months mourning the shoes, mostly I (am I really admitting this?) mourned the way they made me feel. Cute, successful, The Perfect Gal for The Perfect Guy.

I've worked jobs I hated, stayed in relationships I hoped would eventually bring me happiness, tended to friendships that were never meant to be, gone on diets to make my body acceptable to another, tied myself to religious beliefs that I thought made me a better person. I've worn too many uncomfortable pairs of shoes, put myself into so many roles that didn't fit, spent way too much time doing the things I thought would make me look good.

And in doing so, I have forgotten that I am whole, complete, and beautiful without any of that. I've forgotten to ask the Universe for a pair of shoes that fit me perfectly.

Until today.

And until those shoes arrive, and they absolutely will, I'm going to revel in the decadent feeling of going barefoot. ;-)

Back to essence...

The dent that brought me back to Who I Really Am, February 2008.

Whew. One of the things I am most grateful for in this lifetime is that I have friends who let me freak out. There is such freedom in knowing that I can show the dark, unevolved parts of myself to those around me, and they will still see my light.

Like I said in my last post, it's been a strange year so far. Lots of little icky things, combined with the dreary weather, has had me drowning in sadness, frustration, and doubt. To top things off, last Friday while I was shopping with my roommate, my beautiful little car was hit.

Looking back on that night, I wasn't really concerned about the car. I didn't shed a tear or throw a fit or drown my sorrows in a cheeseburger or a shot of tequila or a cigarette. (That's not to say it didn't cross my mind...) I did call Tara for a venting session, but it wasn't all that dramatic. I just felt numb.

What had me worried was this. What am I doing, what am I thinking, to attract all this negativity into my life? What do I believe about the world that causes these experiences to show up? I sat with that question for a while, then I fell into a fitful sleep, full of nightmares and an early morning migraine.

Well, as luck or divine intervention would have it, the next day was absolutely beautiful. It was one of those sunny, breezy days that make it really hard to throw a pity party. I drove my dented little car to the home of some of the people I love most, and as we sat in the warm sun, I felt all of the negativity fall away. I kid you not, I could feel my aura becoming lighter.

I wiped away tears as I thought of all that I have experienced that made financial woes and sickness and work issues and a dent in my car seem miniscule. I recalled nights laying in bed wondering if my mother would live until the next day, the lump in my throat threatening to choke me. I remember running away from home at age fourteen, feeling absolutely hopeless and unlovable. I look back to the day when the love of my life walked away from me, and the many, many lonely nights on the floor that followed, begging god or whoever was listening to take my life.

Then I thought of everyone in the world who was feeling hopeless and unlovable and lonely. I thought about hunger and poverty and rape and genocide and opression. I found myself feeling more grateful than ever before. I have a life full of amazing people. I have a job that allows me to live in a nice home, with electricity and water and a washer and dryer and a dishwasher and cable television and wireless internet. My little dented car is still in working order, and when the darkness set in, it took me to the arms of people that love me. I have my health. I live in a place where I am free to live my life any way I choose. I have the power to change my thoughts, and that is perhaps the biggest freedom of all.

The ego is addictive. The pain, the fear, is comfortable because it's what we have known for so long. I still go there, to the darkness, when things seem to be going wrong. But thank goodness, I always eventually come back to my essence, the part of me that loves deeply and is immensely grateful and sees the perfection. There is nothing more beautiful to me than coming back to love after spending time in fear. It is very much like the bright sunny day after a long winter.

Thank you to everyone who lets me be both the dark and the light, for loving me the same no matter what I choose. Words cannot express my love for you.

And now, knowing that more winter days are ahead, I'm off to download Jack Johnson's new cd to get me through...

The Blahs

I must admit, lately I've been down with a case of the winter blahs. Tara and I joke that we have seasonal affective disorder, but boy, this winter has me thinking it may not be a joke after all. It isn't just me- I am looking around at the people I care about, and almost everyone seems to be sharing my experience. Sickness, everywhere. I honestly cannot list one person I know that hasn't been sick this winter. Just yesterday, my school had 80 kids absent. That makes a pretty big dent when your enrollment is 200. It's not just physical, though. I am sensing an all-around feeling of ick- depression, relationship woes, chaos at work, dissatisfaction with life in general.

Me, well, I've been sick. Good ol' sinus infection that just won't go away, and yep, I've tried it all. Right now, I'm just deciding not to fight it. Just rest and good foods and vitamins and water and walking outside when the weather's nice. Mostly getting comfortable with the fact that I'm in a blah time right now, but spring is around the corner.

Financially, things could be better. I had just read some really inspiring stuff about prosperity a couple weeks ago, and so I decided to just go for it. I asked the Universe for more money, specifically $500. Just a little test to see if anyone was listening, basically. Well, well, well. Guess what? Someone hacked into my Paypal account and cleared out my checking account. (Universe, are you listening? Perhaps you misunderstood...) Once it was investigated and resolved, Paypal began putting money back into my account, $500 at a time. I'm going to be honest here and say that I started to believe that the Universe had heard me, and that it had a very cruel sense of humor.

I owed $550 in taxes last year, so I reworked some things and had them take out more money each month. I was so excited about getting my taxes done this year because I really, truly expected a refund. Tara and I made plans to take a trip somewhere using the extra dough, but those plans came to a halt when my refund was...drumroll, please...seven dollars.

There is more. Oh, trust me, so much more. But most of it is stuff I can't discuss on here. I am not sharing this to get pity from you. I am truly, truly grateful for the good in my life. But I didn't want to get on here and be inauthentic and tell you that I am in a really good place in my life right now. I'm not.

You know what I want? (Universe, I know you're listening. Please take note.) I want springtime and fresh air and flowers. I want to make more laughter-inducing memories with my best friends. I want snow cones and capri pants and drives with the windows down. I want s'mores and drinks around a fire late in the night. I want to travel somewhere great with my best friend (tentative plans are in the works). I want to eat really delicious healthy foods and take walks in the sunshine and love, love, love this body. I want to read really juicy novels from my lawn chair. I want me, and the people I love, to live the really good life.

Winter, you and I are no longer on speaking terms.

Spring, please hurry.