Masks are for Halloween

I am willing to be known

There are many faces I can put on when I choose to protect myself from others.  I can fake happy, hard-working, put-together, sort-of cool, professional, or whatever I think I should be or feel in a particular situation.  The masks let me pretend while I secretly feel completely lost and afraid.  The illusions I create by hiding behind masks can rob me of opportunities.  They can keep my authentic self trapped, stunt my emotional growth, and keep me disconnected from others.  This can be reinforced in subtle ways everyday.

"How are you?"
"I'm fine...."

How many times each day do I hide, even from the people I want to be connected with? I sometimes choose to ignore my feelings or put on a mask for fear of being a burden to others, whiny, weak, dramatic, unaccepted, or discovered as a fraud.  When I live in fear of what people might think if I share my true feelings I will always be running from myself and keeping others at a distance. The vulnerability I feel when I am authentic is powerful. It can reveal to me what I need, the courage I need to face what I fear, where I am injured and require healing, how I can nurture myself and allow others I trust to nurture me. It opens the door to freedom and connection.  No amount of protection is worth creating a barrier that will forever cut me off from the connection I desire and deserve. I am taking the masks off and choosing to be vulnerable and authentic. 

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq5nW5YqtnoyVBQ23OuqrYFoO_t5fXc-ZkP0oEOcPm-hQjenmmdCTjwzwLVyzngsB2pS6HilNhBaMRLVGWXLs_rTMGqJtrSiTN0oCGu7wk-0xS3wrMd_R3XYX3OkZXzpIR7go0VI3F_y5-/s1600/Behind_The_Mask.jpg

Opening more than my ears

I am listening with my heart

I had a conversation this morning about housework issues that is a familiar one.  Although the content was not new the underlying issues are wrapped in strong emotions that make it hard to untangle and come to a shared understanding.  I have been thinking about how I listened and I can see that I missed some important things that were said.  The Chinese symbol 'to listen' is made up of several separate characters to express what it means. I was so focused on expressing my own emotions and being protective of myself that I was unable to truly listen with my eyes, ears, heart and undivided attention.  I am happy that I was able to be expressive, and I also have disappointment that I was not more sensitive and attentive. 

It is the most important, and also the most difficult, for me to change unhealthy patterns that I have established in my long term relationships.  When I recognize those patterns I can institute positive change by my willingness to take accountability and work on making improvements.  Today I will listen from my heart so that I will hear the desires and needs that are beyond the words being spoken.   

  

#79

I choose to accept that who I am, and where I am, is enough

This post marks the 79th affirmation I have written for this blog.  I started this project in early December of 2012 and sometime today or tomorrow it should reach 5,000 total views.  I am deeply appreciative of the support and encouragement you have given me during that time.

As I mentioned in a previous post this week (Big4) I have a difficult time with emotional expression. Part of my purpose in creating affirmations for myself and sharing them with others is to improve my ability to connect and express my emotions, affirm my needs, be vulnerable, and works towards reaching my full potential.  I am always hopeful that it will also resonate with someone that can relate to my experiences.  Although not even a year ago I would have scoffed at the idea that I would be writing daily, I would have been doubly incredulous that it would be personal affirmations.  Regardless of what others may think I can recognize this as significant progress towards what I want for myself.  Being this vulnerable terrifies me but is completely necessary if I want to reach my goals.  Yet after saying all of that I spent some time today fearful and doubting that what I am doing makes any difference at all.   

My self-defeating tendency is to never feel like where I am at or what I am doing is enough.  I am far too focused on what I have not accomplished or how far I am from my goals, rather than appreciating the progress I have made in my journey.  I do not know why I do that.  I do know that it sucks the joy out of every moment that I allow it to happen.  It is my choice how I will frame the events of my life.  There is no value or honor in being a martyr of circumstance. 

Choice makes all the difference.  I have experiences that can be seen as evidence that the world is a cruel place.  I have emotions that indicate I should despair.  The defining factor is what I choose to believe.  Am I a victim of circumstance or the author of my story?  How will I choose to see myself and others?  Trust has been broken for us all at some point in life, do I choose to forgive and trust again? Optimist, pessimist, realist, they are all arbitrary labels for choosing to look at the world a particular way.  What need is there to argue over who's viewpoint is right? We are all living the reality we have chosen.

I frequently find that my heart and my head tell me different things.  My mind may know something to be true, but my emotions contradict it.  I don't need to spend time trying to decide which one is "right" I need to make a choice about what I want to believe. Once I make that choice it manifests into reality.  I had a student tell me that she didn't do affirmations because they felt fake. She is completely right and I have often felt the same way. The whole idea of affirmations is making a choice to take what is paradoxical inside me and decide what I will choose to believe.  Although I can not choose my circumstances or consequences I can shape the experiences that shape me by choosing how I will make sense of them.  Affirmations are a declaration of what I choose to believe, not what I already feel.  If I already felt it, I would never need to affirm it.  In the moments when I find contradiction and paradox I will consciously choose the better part.

Thank you for being on this journey with me.  Walking together is so much nicer!

How does your garden grow?

I am cultivating my truths

I kind of grew a garden last summer. In one section of the garden I planted some tomatoes and corn but before they reached maturity they were choked out by crabgrass when I got too busy to weed. I also had corn in another section of the garden that didn't produce because I had sprinkler problems and the corn withered when it did not receive proper moisture. I also lost some peppers and tomatoes that rotted on the vine when I waited to long to harvest them.

The seeds I planted were good but what they produced was dependent on how I cared for them. What seeds of truth in my life do I currently neglect or are choked out by the cares of the world? For example I know I should exercise regularly but when I get busy it is one of the first things I neglect. How often do I insist I am too busy or it's too hard to pursue my truths? As I develop new skills and patterns I have learned if I do not nourish them through attention and persistent practice they will wither.  Today I will consciously cultivate my truths and reap the harvest.

The Big 4

 I will feel everything while holding on to nothing

Healthy emotional expression is an ongoing struggle for me.  My tendency is to hold on to certain emotions by choosing not to express them.  Anger, sadness, fear, and loneliness are probably my big four. I define those emotions in negative terms and that is part of why I keep them to myself.

One of the ways I can change this is to start thinking about my emotions differently.  Anger can teach me what's important to myself, it can also be an expression of self-worth when my boundaries have been violated.  The tears of sadness can be cleansing and allow me to mourn loss and move on. If I allow myself to feel these emotions I can start to let them go.  If I hold on to them by not expressing them in healthy ways anger can morph into bitterness, and sadness may lead me into a feeling of despair or hopelessness.  Even an emotion I define in more positive terms like happiness can trap me in the past if I try to hold on to it and focus on what was, instead of what is.   

I have more work to do in this part of my journey.  For today I will be present through all my experiences, let my feelings flow through me, and then release them.

Stop chasing cheese

I respect my limits and persevere with urgency, not haste

I am getting older and have noticed that sometimes when I am playing sports my mind moves more quickly than my body has the ability to respond. In those moments I realize that if I keep pushing beyond my physical limits I am more likely to get sustain an injury, or at the least embarrass myself.

I do not want to curb the passion or desire I have to pursue my goals, but I do need to recognize the necessity to be patient with myself.  My journey can only be traveled one step at a time, one day at a time, and it is marked by perseverance not speed.  I may find moments when what I need is to just slow down, breathe, and be gentle with myself.  If I run faster than I have strength I may find myself tripping and falling face down in the dirt. 

I am reminded of an annual tradition in Gloucester England where a giant wheel of cheese is rolled down a hill.  Participants chase after it as gravity quickly creates a momentum beyond their bodies abilities to control.  The event quickly becomes a jumble of flailing limbs and  bodies careening off one another. Catching the cheese becomes secondary to the vain attempts to stay upright and avoid major injuries as they crash down the hill.

 

HOPEEPOH

I see the world as a kind place

 The past week I have struggled with the idea of how to affirm hope.  I have wanted to write about it as a way to celebrate my daughter's birthday, but have experienced difficulty in how to express it adequately.  It became even more complicated after wrestling with a few of my own problems that stirred up some feelings of anger.  

I was not feeling particularly hopeful, and although that is the perfect time to affirm hope I could not find the words.  I started to look for quotes about hope that might help crystallize my thoughts and inspire me, instead it caused me further pause.

Hope, deceitful as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route.  ~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Once you choose hope, anything's possible.  ~Christopher Reeve

Hope is the only universal liar who never loses his reputation for veracity.  ~Robert G. Ingersoll

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all.  ~Emily Dickinson

Things which you do not hope happen more frequently than things which you do hope.  ~Titus Maccius Plautus

Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come.  ~Anne Lamott

In reality, hope is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs man's torments.  ~Friedrich Nietzsche

Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent.  ~Mignon McLaughlin

 What I found was not exactly a clear picture of what hope is supposed to look like.  Is hope what comes before the miraculous, or is it just a way of covering my eyes to the cruel truth? I think the answer is yes.  To which questions this answer applies is a matter of how I choose to see the world.

If the world is a cruel dark place waiting to hurt me, hope is something that will only cause me pain as it sets me up for disappointment again and again.  If the world is a kind place I have no reason to think that what I hope for is not only possible, but that the universe will conspire to see it happen.  How I see the world is going to determine how I interact with it.  It will influence the way I interpret and respond to each experience I have.  The emotions my experiences trigger and the way I view myself and others will all be influenced by how I choose to see the world.  Today I choose to view the world as a kind place where hope can blossom.   

The road that is built in hope is more pleasant to the traveler than the road built in despair, even though they both lead to the same destination.  ~Marian Zimmer Bradley