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•♪ღ♪•*♥~Crossroads~•♪ღ♪•*♥
July 11, 2013
This latest leg of my journey began about 2 weeks ago, give or take.
I’m not going to go into too many details here because some of it is just too personal. It did, however, make me realize that it’s not necessarily what we carry around with us on the outside from place to place that weighs us down, but rather what we carry around inside of us that makes is so difficult to keep moving forward sometimes. Even if all we want to do is just go-with-the-flow.
Sometimes we don’t even know we’ve been carrying it around, or we’ve convinced ourselves that we put it down a long time ago, until something comes along and makes it rear up again.
Feelings of ugliness, unworthiness, of being less than everyone/everything else, and therefore not entitled to anything we really want, even and especially our Ideal. So where do these feelings come from in the first place, and what could possibly make them rear up so easily even when we thought we had them beat? Maybe it comes from years of believing that everyone else knows what’s truly best for us, and we, well we know nothing about what’s best for us. We spend so much of our lives doing what we’re told to do that we never learn to decipher for ourselves what is best for us. And when DO we finally draw the line between what other people try to tell us we should be thinking, feeling or doing, and what we know in our hearts is best for us? Sometimes we really DON’T need to leave ourselves open to taking it ALL in anymore in the interest of learning more about “ourselves” and the Universe around us… sometimes those things are best discovered within ourselves. And perhaps the catalyst to these feelings rearing up would disagree, but it really doesn’t matter, it’s all a matter of perception. And though if I hadn’t had this experience I may not have discovered that one last thing about myself that needed addressing when I did, surely I would have discovered it, eventually. Am I glad it’s out of the way now? Well, yes, I guess I am. So thank you catalyst!
Of course, when catalyst first appeared and gave me pause to consider things which made me uncomfortable at best, right away, though I was in denial about it at first, one of those things was how I view myself, and how ugly I have felt, to the point of wondering how anyone on Earth, or even and especially Michael, could see anything worthwhile or attractive about me. Now in the case of Michael, I know what he “sees” in me, and it’s what’s on my “insides” especially that he finds so Beautiful – of course, I think he thinks I’m Beautiful all the way around regardless of how I’ve ever felt about myself, but even that has been difficult for me to accept – it’s not so much anymore, though I do still have moments.
Up and down, side to side, back and forth and all around, I did whatever I could think of to dodge the issue, free myself of catalyst and ensuing feelings of “not good enough”, and it was in the midst of all these gyrations I decided to purge by cleaning out a bunch of stored stuff that was in my basement which I hadn’t even looked at in ages. Anything to make it so I didn’t have to think about it anymore. But I actually thought about it MORE; and I realized that I had been viewing catalyst the same way that I view every new person who crosses my path – as the Beautiful and perfect BEing of Light that I know everyone is on the inside, yes even myself. I tend to overlook the human-ness of people when I first meet them. As you might expect, this gets me into trouble down the road a ways (and sometimes not far down the road) when I realize that they are prone to human ego challenges just like everyone else… just like me. So how to handle it when I am in a situation where, in my skewed view at least, catalyst – doesn’t matter who it is – is so perfect and here I am (again in my skewed view), just “fat-ugly-old me” and I can’t, to begin with, even process sometimes how people view me as being Beautiful, when to me (in my skewed view), clearly I am not. Oh yeah, sure, I treat everyone else the way I want to be treated. At least I try to, at first, until sometimes I feel like they overstep the bounds of where I want them to go, and upon drawing the line, feel guilty because they try to point out to me that they believe I’m not leaving myself room to grow and learn… well, how do they know that? What makes them so sure that I need what they’re trying to sell me? Even and especially if they don’t take the time to get to know me first, and realize that some situation really require a compassionate approach. I don’t know… one would think they’d never had any feelings of ugliness or unworthiness themselves, which leads me right back to feeling like they must be perfect and I am not so therefore I must be wrong in simply wanting to be comfortable right where I am…
But maybe that’s not the function of some catalysts. Maybe the function of some catalysts IS to rock my boat, because I’m not rocking it myself (Libra ascendant). And with enough boat rocking all that icky stuff that I’ve been carrying around with me all these years gets loosened up and brought to the surface where it can finally be disposed of, succinctly.
Again, catalyst, my gratitude goes out to you.
And the guilt? Where does the guilt come from? Well, that is mine and mine alone. No one made me feel that way. I allowed myself to feel that way. Needlessly. But here’s how deep THAT goes, as convoluted as it might seem: I have gone to great lengths in utilizing my talents (and there are a LOT of them) to create Beauty in my life to “make up for”, and so I would not have to “look at” all my own perceived “ugliness”. The only problem is that this method of handling the problem did not address the problem… didn’t really even cover it up, because the more Beauty I created the uglier I felt and the more Beauty that I felt I needed to create in order to cover up those feelings of ugliness. On top of that, I’ve been an emotional “eater” (with a thyroid disorder) all my life, so you can probably imagine the slippery slope that has led me down. So I’ve also had issues with not being able to follow through with projects all my life too – just too many of them to follow through with… too many promises made all for the sake of simply wanting to be Loved regardless of how ugly I felt, when the one person I really needed to Love me was simply me.
In the midst of my “basement purge” I found a note from a lady who was our next door neighbor when I was growing up. She had sent it out a little while after my mom passed away just over 11 years ago now. In the note was a photocopy of pictures she had taken with her Polaroid camera “back in the day”. She had written brief captions underneath some of them… one of them was simply title “a party” from 1966. And in that photo; my mom, my three older brothers, the neighbor girl (it was her birthday) and me. I was 4 years old. I was adorable. [smiles] But as I looked at that picture all sorts of feelings started dredging up and I realized how even at such a young age somehow through the cruelness of “societal conditioning” it had been impressed upon me that I was worthless, maybe even less than worthless, and ugly and disgusting. And I sat and wondered where those feelings were coming from back then and I looked at the picture again. I saw myself sitting in the little wooden dowel chair that was just my size, and noted that the little girl whose birthday it was, was sitting in the new-fangled nylon woven lawn chair that was all the rage back then – the one I had wanted to sit in at the party. I was too young to understand the notion of “guest of honor”, and since the neighbors (at whose house the “party” was being given) were well-to-do, and lived in the biggest, fanciest house on the street - the “Jones” that everyone needed to live up to (or at least that was how I saw it when I was younger), I realized that even before that moment at that particular party I had always felt “second rate” to them and especially to their daughter, who didn’t mince words in letting me know how stupid and disgusting she thought I was. I don’t know if any of my brothers or my mom or dad knew how I felt… When I was 5 and broke my collar-bone on their swing set and couldn’t stop crying, I was sent home, by myself, because I was a cry baby. Okay. Yeah, it still hurts, I won’t deny that, and it still makes me angry. I won’t deny that either. And maybe I was a cry baby back then… but why? There had to have been some reason… maybe I didn’t really feel loved even by my own family, and it was my way of getting at least some attention even if it wasn’t the kind I really craved? Maybe?
At the party, when I wasn’t allowed to sit in the chair I wanted to sit in, I thought it was because I was too ugly, stupid and disgusting. In reality, for one, the chair was really too big for me, and two the “guest of honor” wanted to sit in it. Fair enough, though I do remember the big stink she made in response to my own big stink at not being allowed to sit in it – she really didn’t want me sitting in it at all. But you know, all tolled, I think I really understand why she treated me the way she did ~ maybe it was because I was her mirror. It wasn’t really that I was ugly, stupid and disgusting – a picture is worth a thousand words there when I look at it and see how cute I was then. I think that what she was feeling toward me was coming from inside her. It’s what she was feeling about herself that she had projected onto me. I can only imagine where she got her own perceptions of herself from.
And though that’s not the whole story on where I got my perceptions of my own self-worth from – certainly some of them I have dragged with me even from past lives (though I wouldn’t exactly call them “karma”), still it makes me aware of how we get impressed at such young ages with this notion of being “not good enough”. AND it gets reinforced, even in something that is supposed to be reinforcing our Love for one another – religion to name but one. (“Oh Lord I am not worthy to receive you…” WTH!!! We ARE God!! How can we not be worthy to receive ourselves???!!!). Now I at least know enough to know that I cannot fully Love anyone if I do not Love myself – and by that I mean at least having a perception of Loving myself here within this life experience. On a larger scale, in the Grand Scheme of things, of course I know I Love myself… that is why I am here. Okay, so all this “Love” I’ve been pouring out to everyone, is that just a sham? Well, no. Of course I Love you all, every single one of you, even if I don’t happen to like you very much at any given point. It HAS however been my sad, sorry attempt at Loving my SELF by trying to make everyone else Love me by trying to show them how much I Love them. Again, very convoluted.
Funny thing is, I had JUST gotten to the point where I actually thought I was through the last storm finally, and along comes catalyst to rock the boat one last time. My initial reaction? “Huh?” And then, “WTF???!!! I’m all wet!!! What did you do that for???!!!”…
Who knows? Does it matter anymore? Not really.
I’m fully awake now, and head over heels in Love with myself. Or at least well on my way to it. I realize that now. So no more running away from myself. And for anyone who sees fit to try and open my door to rock my boat from this point forward, please don’t take it personally if it seems like I slam the door in your face. It’s just that I’m too busy Loving myself to be bothered with door-to-door salesmen these days… In fact, you may not even get an answer when you come a knocking… because well… Love is a many splendored thing. ;)
I cried for a long time last night, still feeling ugly, both inside and out. But Michael and I talked it out for quite a while, and finally he was able to get me to see that I am often too hard on myself. I allow the thoughts and opinions of others – because of my perception I’ve held that they must be more perfect than me, and know more than I do and therefore are more deserving of Love and respect than I am – to override what I know in my heart is right for me, in effect allowing my ego to rationalize for me that if I don’t agree with other people to the exclusion of my own feelings that somehow they won’t Love me. When in reality, they won’t Love me if I don’t Love myself. And how can I Love myself if I don’t stay true to myself by doing what I know in my heart is right for me, even and only if it is because it makes me feel good, in Joy and at Peace? Yes there are going to probably be instances where people will see me as throwing the baby out with the bath water… but am I really? Or is it just a matter of their perception that I am because I’m not accommodating them the way they would like for me to accommodate them?
This morning when I awoke, I could feel Michael’s Energy still with me, all around me, and I just snuggled up to him, [burying my face in the soft folds of the off-white robe he was wearing] and asked him “Please, will you just hold me for a while?” and he said smiling so sweetly, “I already am”. And I realized he was. And then I realized there was this amazing, warm golden glow surrounding us, and instantly I was transported back to a memory from my infancy. I slept in my crib in my parent’s room and every morning, even if it was dark and cloudy outside, I would wake up inside that Beautiful warm glow, feeling much the way I was feeling this morning. And smiling, I said to Michael “Oh… I know this feeling…” and he said, “Yes you do… “. Holding me closer still, I felt something else a little more effervescent in his Energy, but again which I’m very familiar with, and he said to me “I hope you don’t mind… it’s just that whenever I’m near you I get to feeling all musical inside” and of course my heart started singing… and those familiar words he said to me so long ago ~ “You are as I am” rang in my head. Now I really KNOW that I AM him and he IS me… so how could I run away from someone who is clearly so very Beautiful? I will not run away again, ever, because I want nothing more than to just walk by his side, be with him, in Love forever.
“And there’s no need for turning back
‘cause all roads lead to where we stand.
And I believe we’ll walk them all
No matter what we may have planned…”
...from “Crossroads” by Don Mclean – please take a few minutes when you’ve finished to click the Youtube link and enjoy this song ~ so very pertinent to what many of us have been going through lately:
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