On Our Stories (Blog #734)

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Today’s thoughts–

1. On slaves

Today my friend Kim told me that she recently read that only slaves work seven days a week. Slaves, and bloggers like me, was her implication. Ugh. She’s kind of right. As much as I enjoy and reap benefits from this project, I often feel chained to it. Am I ready to quit blogging every day, every damn day? No, not yet. But perhaps until I reach my next goal (1,000 days in a row), I can find other ways to let up on myself.

2. On enlightenment

This morning I woke up tired, tired, tired, and despite going back to sleep and even taking a nap this afternoon, I still am. And whereas I’m always paranoid that I’m getting sick, it’s probably just whatever’s in the air. And what’s so bad about sleeping all day?

There’s this story about enlightenment. A student asks his guru, “What do I do before enlightenment?” and the guru says, “Chop wood, carry water.”

“What do I do after enlightenment?” the student asks. To which the guru replies, “Chop wood, carry water.”

In other words, don’t complicate things. Psychologist Sheldon Kopp says your life is your life; enlightenment means accepting what is. So don’t make things harder than they already are–eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired.

3. On our stories

This afternoon I worked through another chapter in Mastin Kipp’s Claim Your Power. And whereas I’ve been thinking that the exercises related to releasing emotions associated with old traumas probably wouldn’t work (because I’ve tried everything and nothing works), they actually are. According to Kipp, a lot of self-help material talks about changing your thoughts, but that’s only part of the puzzle. He says our thoughts (and emotions) ultimately stem from our beliefs or our stories, that each of us has a handful of core beliefs that–how can I say this?–fuck with us. For example, I just mentioned one of my core beliefs–I’ve tried everything and nothing works.

You can imagine how frustrating a belief like this might feel. That was the gist of today’s exercise–to read out loud and FEEL what my core beliefs, well, feel like. More specifically, to feel WHERE my beliefs live in my body. Again, I approached this task with a lot of skepticism. I thought, Maybe it’ll work for someone else, but it won’t work for me. But as soon as I began, I started getting answers. This belief (there’s not enough) lives in my sinuses. This belief (life works for other people but not for me), lives in my stomach. This belief (the world is not a safe place) lives in my (extremely tight) shoulders. That’s when I started crying, when I said out loud, “The world is not a safe place.”

I imagine we all have core beliefs that would bring us to tears (or rage) if we finally admitted them. For me, I know I’ve been carrying that one about safety around for a long time. Decades. And whereas the cathartic moment I had this afternoon did help–it felt like finally letting go of a heavy load–it’s not like that belief completely disappeared when I stopped crying. Healing happens in pieces.

4. On hope

This evening I re-read some more of my old blogs. As I’ve said before, I’m finding a lot of compassion for myself through this process. Not that I’m trying to read my story as if it belonged to someone else, but I still find myself having that experience. I keep thinking, This guy’s all right. He’s pretty funny. He’s doing the best he can. So this has been on my mind, that this person I’m reading about is me and that I can apply all those positive feelings I have for the me of the past to the me of the present, that I wouldn’t treat him like a slave and I don’t have to treat myself like one either.

I’ve also been thinking about hope, about what would happen and what my life could look like if I dropped even one of my core beliefs. I mean, how would your life be different if you all-of-a-sudden saw the world as a safe place or believed that life could work for you too, that the universe was on your side? Wouldn’t you breathe and move easier, freer, if just ten percent of you were less afraid? Wouldn’t you swing your hips a little more? Wouldn’t you let your shoulders relax? I know I would.

I’m beginning to believe these things are possible.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If you want to become who you were meant to be, it's absolutely necessary to shed your old skin. Sure it might be sad to say goodbye--to your old phone, to your old beliefs, anything that helped get you this far--but you've got to let go in order to make room for something new.

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Life Is Not a Race (Blog #732)

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This afternoon I saw my dermatologist for a follow-up after last month’s discovery that my skin is generally pissed off by, well, a lot of things. (Aren’t we all?) Anyway, it was the easiest appointment ever. We discussed a couple minor irritations, but basically my skin is fine now. Better than yours, probably.

So there.

After my appointment, I went to a coffee shop and finished reading a book by Sheldon Kopp my therapist recommended. And whereas the book was overall lovely and helpful, it also contained some dated statements (it’s an old book). For example, “Homosexuality is heterosexuality gone astray.” What utter nonsense. As if gay men, for example, really are attracted to the women but simply–unfortunately–wandered off one day, got confused, and couldn’t find their way back to a nice set of tits. Gone astray. Like, Dear me! How did I ever wind up in bed with this naked studmuffin? Please. This just goes to show you–don’t swallow everything you read hook, line, and sinker. Even people with letters after their name don’t know everything.

I guess today was a day for reading, since after finishing the book I just mentioned, I re-read some old blogs, numbers 61-70. In my attempt to re-read all over-700 of them, I’m taking them ten at a time. And whereas I could have read more this afternoon, I figure I won’t get worn out this way. Plus, what’s my hurry? Life isn’t a race. I’ll get there eventually.

Last night I started reading a book called Claim Your Power by Mastin Kipp. It’s basically about discovering your purpose and uncovering any subconscious blocks you may have to achieving it. But like my project of going back and re-reading my blogs, finishing this book is going to take a while, since it asks that readers complete a 40-day workbook/journal and recommends not skipping ahead. Normally, I would anyway. But in an effort to trust the process, this afternoon I completed “day two” and shut the book when I finished. Life isn’t a race. Plus, maybe the ideas in the book will have a chance to sink in this way, a chance to simmer.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

This evening I’ve been fighting a headache. It started to creep up on me at the coffee shop, and since it didn’t let up, I took some pills when I got home. Thank god for pills. Still, they haven’t quite done the trick. Nor has the relaxation mediation I did about an hour ago. So now I’m blogging in bed, horizontal, trying to not make any sudden moves. I’m trying to relax. That’s something I’ve been hyper-aware of lately, just how much I tense up when I feel pain. This, I’m sure, doesn’t help a tension headache. So I’ve been trying lean into my unpleasant experiences rather than push against them. Is this fun? No. Is it helpful? Believe it or not, yes.

I’ve read in a couple different books that say our bodies actually relax more when we pay attention to our pain or tension rather than trying to grin and bear it or ignore it altogether. When we accept what is rather than attempt to push it away. There’s a similar idea that’s presented in the book I started last night–that our unpleasant emotions will dissolve when we fully feel or experience them–not when we shove them down or ignore them. I’m working on this. Earlier today I thought about money and immediately felt stress. And whereas I’d normally “think about something else, think about something else,” today I let myself feel the stress, the panic of scarcity. And I didn’t die. Later, when I handled a money matter online, I didn’t have to pep-talk my way through it. The stress was gone.

Now I’m ready to call it a night. So many times over the last two years I’ve soldiered through this blog despite being tired or sick or having a headache. I’ve soldiered through a lot in life–clenched my jaw, shoved down my feelings, and pushed on. But there’s a price to pay for this, I think, for not listening to the wisdom of your body and emotions. And whereas I often get frustrated because I don’t know what my body is trying to tell me, I think that any discomfort or pain is, at the very least, trying to say, “Stop. Slow down. Sweetheart, life is not a race.”

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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You can’t stuff down the truth—it always comes up.

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