Self-acceptance

Self-acceptance was hard today. And as often, sitting with it for a while doing something like Focusing, something like meditation, I’m feeling a lot better. And whether I would have got here, without being there is an open question. At least this particular here is connected to that particular there!

What’s not to accept? The part of me that feels alarmed. Today it’s that, another day it’ll sit differently with me. But this “alarmed” bit, that’s been around for a while. It was the word I used when I first met L. But then I wasn’t really alarmed so much or so often, not like now. Then it was fleeting and also made me seem all cute and vulnerable . . . maybe. Now I have less tolerance for this alarmed spot. But as always when I do finally make room for it, there’s an immediate shift and I see that that part of me is open to growing as long as I keep it in mind.

It just hates being stuck down there in the dark. It hates being held with its head under water.

My resistance is based on the fear I won’t like what it says. What if it has politically incorrect views? What if it wants what it shouldn’t? And what if it’s severely judged for that? Part of me’s not sure I want to know it’s details.

But what I understand is, I don’t have to know all about it to make room for it. Self-acceptance is just one day at a time, being with all this.

And right now it feels pretty good.

Alarmed

When my baby gets too close I get alarmed. It doesn’t feel good. At all. I feel rather scared and “found out.” I don’t want to seen or discovered. How I feel is almost equal to wanting to hide and pretend everything is fine.

As in, “how are you?” “Oh fine.” But it’s not fine at all. There’s no rest then. This comes on suddenly this feeling. It creeps up before I could know about it. Suddenly it’s there and I’m acting from it.

“Alarmed” means that there is danger and I’m in it.

But . . .

But . . . but . . . when I notice that I’m alarmed and have some room for it I simultaneously feel a solitary silent part of myself coming to rest. He sighs. He feels safe now because someone knows that he feels alarmed.

Being close to L makes me feel alarmed or at least I’ve been feeling it for a while now. Not always but sometimes.

When I’m alarmed sometimes I’m afraid that if I just tell the truth that I might say something that will haunt me for years. I might say something insulting that is not how I really feel but is just part of how it feels when I’m alarmed. So I’m afraid to talk sometimes when it’s  like this.

There really is a tme when it’s better to not speak and to go offline and find one’s truth. Every dumb ass thought isn’t ready for speaking and doesn’t need it.

But I was speaking about being alarmed.

I love it when I rest in the bosom of Abraham, just held by some kind of truth. That’s what I fear missing when I feel alarmed, what concerns me so. And it’s what makes the alarm subside when I feel it. I know again that I’m good, or right.  I’m back remembering that I never went away.

I feel the alarm around today and at the same time, or other times today, I feel the constancy of rest. I want to stay with that rest when I’m with L and not rush outside of myself to reassure her, or me, that everything is alright. There really is a part of me that is alarmed.

And just as really, that part of me is not The Truth.

No saviour

We’d like a saviour to keep us from a perilous future but there is none. The mono-chant positivity about the change, the hope, the possibility is like the only-good-news hype surrounding new religion. It’s like the hype around “The Secret.”

Obama is a good man and a thoughtful and and honest man but he’s under the sway of the popular need for a messiah. His sense of dedication and mission leads him to self-select for the job. I love the courage. He’s a man who sees and opportunity and thinks that he can do it. This is a great thing and he’s caused many millions to say similar words and to believe that they can do it too.

The words are right. We can do it and there’s no one else who will do it but us. But he hasn’t explained the cost. There is a cost to self-awareness and Obama hasn’t explained that cost to “the American people.” They don’t realize it will cost them plenty if they want plenty of change.

So I’m predicting despair in the heart and despair in the heartland. And it’s just the way it is that it takes humility to realize it’s only ourselves who can do the saving. Or to accept the cost which is much the same thing.

What I’d like to see Obama do is get information from ordinary Americans. A citizen panel of advisors who can have a no-holds-barred examination of what’s wrong and what’s right with America, without being held and coddled by experts, but coming up with their own truths which could serve as a starting point for a national discussion. This would be conversation we need, I think.

Obama needs some good non-expert opinion. This is mine!

O Blogoshere! / Waiting

Where are you tonight when I need you, out there in the ethers, the slim chance of what’s coming? You know I always wanted to hold your hand and be held in yours. I know you know and that that’s why I keep coming back for more and always will.

Even if coming back means waiting quiet in the alley till you show up. What are you doing? Having a piss behind the dumpster somewhere? Did I forget? Or maybe you just didn’t show up yet, but I’m waiting, waiting. I’m shivering a bit and feeling a tad caught up in my drama. Look at me waiting for you and you not here. I’m more faithful than you I think and immediately know it’s not true.

You were always there and it was me off having a whizz. I just like to play the victim when nobody’s looking, caught caught in my familiar old drama.

Really, I’ve been looking for you a long time, you who’s body isn’t who you really are and who borrows bodies to show things. You move through them like a thread and then leave them to the regular ghost who is lonesome for you again.  Waiting.

Hello world!

Hello world!

This phrase “self-authorship” keeps coming up so I’m going to go with it.

Something about how what happens is a creation, not just just a happenstance. We’re like dreamers creating things from the inside. Relationships, the future of the world, little things like that.

Everything’s not figured out already, I figured that out.  Ordinary people hit the big truths.  Simple lovers hit the motherlode.  Small voices say the big things.  Self-authoring is what we’re already doing.

Mostly the conversation in our head ‘n heart is a passive one.  We listen and mumble along, and try to do the best we can.

But we’re talking to a muse here! “She”s a brilliant conversationalist and has all kinds of nudges and nuances to tease out of us.

So this is a celebration of my own self-authorship and a call out to others. I know you’re out there! In here.  When you stumble upon me, it’s neat if you  fall down beside and say something.