 is for Quiet
In the not so distant past when I was busy being a stay-at-home/work-at-home Mom, I noticed a shift as I was working at—but not really succeeding in my business endeavors. I noticed that I would get nervous as Sunday would end and Monday would begin. All the noise and activity from the weekend would end as I would send my daughter off to school and close the back door. The peace and quiet I had wished for mid-Saturday had finally arrived and because I’m an introvert I desperately needed this time because I love to be re-energized by some good old fashioned alone time, but during this past year Monday mornings started to feel different to me. The house was so quiet it hurt my ears. Really. The silence was so loud it seemed to echo a noiselessness in my head that was a little scary. I had never been afraid of the quiet before. I had never dreaded alone time before. I had to make friends with this new quiet or I was certain I would go crazy. Some people love to turn on music or the T.V. to drown out the silence, but I really do appreciate the quiet. I love it when it’s quiet, but it had started to feel different and I found myself turning on the T.V. to avoid dealing with the constant noise of my quiet. I think my “new quiet” was holding a mirror to me and my life. I had to face some pretty big truths about my life. The biggest one was probably the fact that I was hiding. I had been hiding from admitting that I needed to make some major changes in my business and my life. I was hiding from the truth that I wanted to be writing but I wasn’t writing. I was hiding from the truth that I was angry about several things that had recently occurred and instead of admitting I was just plain pissed off I wanted to “behave” and put a forgiving face on it for others. I was hiding from the truth that I needed help but was afraid to reach out to friends for fear of refusal. This new quiet was so damn loud that there were moments when I would walk through the house and scream to drown it out as I moved from task to task. I had to start talking to it, asking it what the hell it wanted from me. There were moments of self-loathing that I had to get through in order to find out all the things in my life I had been hiding from, and thanks to this quiet I realized that there wasn't anything I couldn't handle, nothing was really going to hurt me, and most of all I wasn’t going to be able to hide anymore. The quiet wasn't going to shut up until I learned all this. I finally forced myself to face it and make it my friend. It helped me start writing again, it kept me company while job hunting, it supported me through some self-exploration, and I am happy to say that my quiet time is once again quiet. My entire life I have never been afraid of silence and didn’t understand other people’s need to fill the void, but now I know the fear that comes with silence. My only advice here is that silence is not fatal. The fear you feel during the quiet is perhaps trying to teach you something, and if you take the leap of faith to talk to the quiet I’m sure there are lessons there for you too. Try to take a day without the music and T.V. to see if there is anything the quiet is trying to tell you. Trust me, you won’t have to work at it, if your quiet wants to tell you something it will be crazy LOUD!
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 is for Open
Be open. Be open to trying new things. That sentence makes me chuckle inside because I don’t think I would consider myself particularly adventurous and open to new things anymore, so my suggesting to you that you should be open to new experiences seems a bit ridiculous. But I know it’s correct; I tell it to you because I need to tell it to me. For me if my regular lunch table is already full and I have to sit somewhere else with new people I can get a little twitchy and off my game. I guess I like routine maybe a little too much. I don’t go out. I don’t dress up anymore. I don’t travel much. So maybe I’m in a rut. I have a million excuses for why I don’t do any of these things anymore, but no more excuses. For one day I can be open.
It has been a long time since I’ve opened myself up to others because being closed off feels safer and more comfortable. It’s spring so I should be opening the doors and windows inside of me and outside of me and let the fresh new breezes blow through. And if you’re listening Breeze, feel free to take all the dog hair and dust with you, thanks. Grab a pencil and paper and start to make a list of phrases that start with, “I will be open to…” and just keep going until you stop. I was amazed at some of the things that came through me onto my list, and I feel better now because I am also open to learning new things about myself. Good Luck!!  is for Love
I entered an essay contest once about “love.” The problem I had was that the contest asked us to write about a time we learned the meaning of love. The more I thought about it the bigger and more confusing the word love became to me. I was spinning! Which kind of love? Unconditional love, conditional love (I remember learning about this one really well) romantic love, true love, lasting love, platonic love, brotherly love, sisterly love, parental love, love of oneself. This list kept on growing with love as the base but the actual experiences of each love being so very different, and each with their own very different attached lesson. I couldn’t articulate what I meant into my contest entry, Willie’s Home, so I wrote about trying to teach an aspect of love instead. The essay is HERE if you want to read it. It didn’t win, but it is one of my favorite memories of writing losing essays. Honest feelings of love are of course wonderful sensations. They are a wonderful place to live. Any aspect of love, any version of love, and any honest moment of sharing love is important. I no longer worry about finding romantic love—I missed that boat. I choose to focus on motherly love, the love I extend friends in need, and my ability to demonstrate love by accepting others and circumstances without judgment. It seems to me that learning about love is a lifelong activity. I didn’t understand unconditional love or how that truly felt until I was 38 when my daughter was born; having a no strings attached love for another human being blew my mind. I am still learning about selfless love as I watch other giving so much of themselves expecting nothing in return. To have learned how that feels though, I don’t think I’m there yet. I don’t have any sisters so I will never learn exactly how that love feels—not in this lifetime anyway—and that’s okay. I am working on the loving of oneself thing, it has been very hard, but I can honestly say that right now as of today, I still do not know how that love feels. I imagine it to be this awesome wave of love, similar to unconditional, that will just wash over me one day when I least expect it. I am guessing it will be life-changing and will open me up to other kinds of love in the process, but I’m just not there yet and that is also okay. Love is big enough to keep on teaching me for the rest of time.  is for Faith
Faith can be difficult; I should say faith is difficult for me. To trust, rely, and believe with unwavering conviction challenges me—but not if I'm trying for just a single day. If for just one day I focus on trusting the day to take me where it goes safely, then I can smile through the day. My goal will be to link a bunch of these single days together and create a confident, trusting life filled with trustworthy friends, loyal confidants, and faith in the beauty and madness of it all. For one day focus on faith. Believe in yourself first and foremost before you put your faith in another. Those empty spaces inside you that don’t contain faith in yourself that you can handle it, can do it, can accomplish it are the exact spaces that get taken over by others to be used as they please. These people may be wonderfully kind and full of good intentions wanting to help you in your hour of need, but then again why not believe in your own ability first, and then call upon others to assist you. Unfortunately for me the people that took over those empty spaces in my life were not especially kind with good intentions. The opposite has been my experience more often than not, and my faith has been shaken, but I refuse to give up. I see faith, confidence, and trust working for others so the way I see it my day has to be coming! For some, like me, it is difficult to ask for help because it is difficult to trust. Other times it is difficult to ask for help because you don’t know what to ask for. Having faith in yourself first leads you to the right questions to ask, the specific needs you have for seeking help. Faith that you can handle what comes no matter what—be it a job loss, a death in the family, a broken bone, a car accident, a broken heart, an addiction, an assault, whatever life throws at you, believe first that you can handle it, then sort out those pieces of help you will need. Have faith that you will always be able to handle what comes your way today. Don’t give your crisis away to someone else to handle for you. If you do you have just given away life’s greatest opportunity to learn exactly how strong you really are. You can earn yourself another new badge of supreme courage if you like to imagine yourself in a decorated coat of armor--or maybe that's just me. Have faith that you are never alone, never isolated, never not capable—you are able to own your crisis or problem, and once you believe that you're able to learn from it is the moment you know exactly how to seek help and guidance without giving away your opportunity to learn. I always like to say, "Feeling alone is a human experience; being alone is a spiritual impossibility." Today try saying this, “I have faith in ME today. If it rains let it pour; this I can handle.”  is for Epiphany
For today try to remember an instance when your brain just clicked and you said, “Ohhhh now I get it!” or perhaps an “Oh! I see it!” That spontaneous moment when the perfect idea or solution to a problem just popped in your head bringing with it a moment of great release and joy. The mystery has been solved. The veil lifted for a moment and all was good. What I love about these moments is the coinciding amnesia that comes with it. You forever “get it” and the way it felt to be so confused and seeking is just gone. It reminds me of those illusions you look at until you see the face or the horse or whatever it is you are supposed to find; once you find them you can never go back. You can never un-find them. For the rest of your life when you see that tree picture you will always see the faces hidden within. My wish for you today is that perhaps you actually have an epiphany during the day, but part of the accepted definition of epiphany has the words “a rare occurrence” in it, so perhaps today won’t be the day…but what if it is? Oh how wonderful. My moments of epiphany typically occur around a problem I’m having or a puzzle that needs solving at work. They finally arrive within the twenty-four hour period that I “gave up” on it. I don’t mean that I’ve given up forever, but I have temporarily admitted defeat and decided to set it aside for awhile and think about something else. It is the grace of Spirit that whispers inside my head and all of a sudden I just know “this will work!” Funny thing about that Spirit that Inspires, it knows when I’m faking. It seems to know when I pretend to “give up” just to see if it will bring me the answer. I truly with all my heart and soul have to walk away and dig into something else. As you begin your day say, “Today I will release my need to know the answers or directions to take. Today I am letting the right answers just appear in my quiet, unassuming mind.” |
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