Your Best Is Good Enough (Blog #852)

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This afternoon I saw my chiropractor, the one who works with the mental/emotional/energetic causes of physical problems. This continues to be a trip. Today was my third appointment, and the man’s gotten more done with me than a handful of other chiropractors have in six times the visits. For the longest time I’ve been constantly aware of tension in my neck. And whereas it’s still there, now there are days I don’t even think about it. This is progress. This is good progress. That being said, the guy’s methods are weird.

I say weird but I only mean they’re weird compared to most medical people’s methods. I’ve spent a lot of time in the alternative healing community, and I’ve seen some really strange shit. Compared to that stuff, my chiropractor’s methods are really quite benign. Today he used muscle testing to get at the underlying emotions behind my long-time struggle with sinus infections. The positive word that came up (the emotion I feel before a sinus infection) was RELIABLE. The negative emotion (during and after a sinus infection) was INADEQUATE. Phew. There’s a can of worms. The last two years, which have been full of medical tests (that have basically said I’m healthy as a horse), have been filled with my trying to decide whether or not me and my body are reliable or inadequate.

The jury’s still out.

In truth, inadequacy is a pervasive emotion for me. Recently I blogged about my feeling like not enough, and I suppose this is the same thing. There’s a scene in Mr. Holland’s Opus when a former student of Mr. Holland’s, now a grownup, is shutting down Mr. Holland’s music program due to budget cuts. He says, “We’re doing the best we can, Mr. Holland,” and Mr. Holland yells, “Your best is not good enough!” Both of these characters are firmly entrenched in my psyche, the part of me that says, “Dammit, I’m doing everything I know to do,” and the part that is always demanding more. You know, The Perfectionist. The Hard Ass.

The one who’s real fun at parties.

This afternoon I read Transforming Fate into Destiny: A New Dialogue with Your Soul by Robert Ohotto. It’s glorious. Read it and give it to all your friends for Christmas. But really. In a New Age/Self-Help culture that claims you can manifest or have whatever you want, this book is a breath of fresh air. Robert explains that, yes, we can create magnificent things in our lives. Each of us is more powerful than we give ourselves credit for. However, each of us also came into this life understanding that there would be certain limitations (or boundaries, I love a good boundary), so we have to work within those fated guidelines.

For example, no matter what I put on my vision board, I’m never going to be the first female President of the United States. (Crap.) Because I’m a man. Likewise, I’ll never be straight (sorry, ladies), be six-foot-two (dang), look or sing like Zac Efron (dang again), or have different parents. Because my sexuality, height, looks, and parents have already been decided. And so have yours.

So get over it.

Now, what I do with what’s already been decided, that’s a different story. As I understand it, if I do nothing but sit on the couch every day and eat bonbons, that’s my choice. However, in choosing to not be an active, conscious participant in my life, not only will I not mature, but I’ll also feel as if my life is out of my control. Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will run you life and you will call it fate.” Robert says, “If you don’t access direction from within, your life will be directed from without.” (Oh snap.) However, if I choose or anyone chooses to do The Hard Work and grow the eff up, well, now we’re cooking with gas. My therapist says her job is to support me in reaching my highest potential, and your highest potential is another way of talking about your destiny. What’s actually possible for YOU? Not that guy over there, but you. What, exactly, is inside you that’s eager, waiting, and willing to be born?

This, of course, is the million dollar question, and only the gods and your soul have the answer.

Also–fair warning–because all things worth having require sacrifice (of your time, talents, and ego), should you choose to pursue your highest potential, some days are really gonna suck.

I still recommend it.

Getting back to my chiropractor’s weird ways, I repeat, they’re only weird because they’re not conventional. It’s becoming more in vogue to discuss the mind-body-soul connection, but in my experience, it’s mostly lip service. I mean, when I get a headache, give me a Tylenol. And yet I know there’s more to it. This is what I’ve run into hundreds of times along The Path. This is what you’ll run into when reaching for your highest potential or working to transform your fate into destiny. You’ll know there’s more inside you that’s wanting to come out. But because your path is different from everyone else’s, it will feel weird, you’ll question it, and you’ll feel inadequate.

Keep going. You are not alone. Your best is good enough.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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If another's perspective, another's story about you is kinder than the one you're telling yourself, surely that's a story worth listening to.

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Scrooge McDuck and the Second Deadly Sin (Blog #850)

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Today while cleaning I listened to two one-and-a-half-hour lectures about spiritual alchemy and a one-hour podcast/interview about grief. Then I went to dinner and read Caroline Myss’s Defy Gravity for two hours (I’m on a Myss kick lately), then came back to where I’m house sitting and read it for an hour more. And whereas I’d intended to finish the entire book tonight, my body and this blog said no. We’re too tired, we have too much to do. So whatever, that’ll just be one more book I’ve started and “need” to finish. I say need in quotation marks because as my therapist often says, “You don’t NEED to do anything. You could stay at home and eat bonbons all day if you wanted to.”

Whenever she says this, I squirm in my seat.

Like the rest of America, I’m hung up on being productive.

In Defy Gravity Caroline says that of the personal healings she’s aware of, the healings haven’t come about as a result of the mind-body connection. Rather, they’ve come about as a result of the mind-body-SOUL connection, since, she says, your rational mind doesn’t have the power to heal you but your irrational soul (your spirit) does. If you’re a follower of Caroline’s work, this is why she talks about the healing power of forgiveness and how it will never make sense to your mind (your ego). It will however, make sense to your soul.

In discussing soul work and mysticism, Caroline associates each of the seven deadly sins, as well as the seven graces (gifts of the spirit) with the seven main chakras of the physical body. For example, the first (root) chakra is located at the base of your spine and is linked to one’s fear of and need for survival. It’s our connection to THE TRIBE, as in, What will THEY think? As such, according to Caroline, the deadly sin of the first chakra is pride, which is “rooted” in the fear of being humiliated. The grace for this downfall? Reverence.

As I understand it, a grace is something you can seek out and ask for, but it’s not something you can make happen. Likewise, it’s not something you can reason yourself around to with your mind because–again–a grace comes from or is at least given to the soul. It has an effect on your mind, but that’s not its home. And whereas it’s easy to think of a grace as something fantastic and spectacular that marches into your life like a Christmas parade, more often than not, it’s not. For example, the day I asked a counselor friend of mine for a recommendation for a therapist and he gave me my therapist’s name, that was a HUMONGOUS grace. Of course, I didn’t know it then. I just jotted down the number and off I went. It took time for me to realize how “lucky” I was to be introduced to that one person, how my much life would change for the better.

Back to the seven deadly sins, the one that’s on my mind tonight is greed, which Caroline links to the second chakra, our center of relationships–to other people, to money, to sex. Rightly so, I think, some yoga practitioners refer to the second charka, which is located at the level of your sex organs, as the emotional junkyard. Personally, I’m not afraid to say I have a lot of issues there–both emotional and physical. Anyway, it felt like a bit of a slap in the face when I read that greed is the potential driver behind the issues in my second chakra, since I don’t picture myself as a Scrooge McDuck. But one way Caroline describes greed is having the thought or feeling that “there’s not enough.”

Well, okay, fine, you got me there.

For me, the idea of “not enough” is deeply engrained and ever present. I could blame this on my particular life circumstances, but the truth is, scarcity is embedded in our culture. Just look at any form of advertising. All of it’s built around the idea that we don’t have enough–beauty, wealth, friends, or vacation time. Many spiritual books subtly (and not so subtly) convey the idea that we don’t have enough spirituality. Where I personally feel the most scarcity (or a greed for more) is in my finances and my knowledge-base. This is why I’m constantly listening to lectures, constantly reading. Granted, I enjoy these things thoroughly, but underneath it all is a fear that I don’t have enough of whatever it is and, therefore, need more of it. Personally, I think most of our ugly inclinations (seven deadly sins) have fear at their base.

Caroline says the grace we need to counteract greed (or the fear of scarcity if that’s easier for you to swallow) is piety, humility, or devotion to God. As I understand this, this grace puts us in touch with another quality of the second chakra–creativity. This is important because–and I can speak to this personally–our creative energy is a limitless flow of resources. Said another way, our creativity is abundant, anything but scarce. I’ve experienced this firsthand in writing every day for 850 days. Never once has my creative well run dry. Likewise, I’ve experienced instant creativity on the dance floor, especially when I’m in the moment and not thinking about what others think of me. This, I think, is where piety or humility comes in. Whenever I’m trying to impress someone, whenever I think, I’m hot shit, my creativity shuts down.

I’ve said before that I often feel or believe that good things happen to other people but not to me. Now, I can logically tell you that’s not true, but our feelings and beliefs are rarely logical. Anyway, my therapist says this is a dumb belief. “Good things happen to everybody,” she says. “If the Kardashians can make money, so can you.” Once while discussing this topic I said, “I guess it’s another way of feeling like I’m special–because I’m the exception to the rule.”

“Well, yeah,” she said, “but special in a real dumb way.”

Like I frequently do in our sessions, I laughed out loud when she said this. Why? Because it’s true. It is dumb to think good things happen to others but not to you. It’s another form of scarcity. Likewise, it’s dumb to think you live in a “not enough” universe when you’ve been taken care of and had more than enough you’re entire life. Like, how many pairs of shoes do you have? And yet you only have two feet. If you really get this point, you’ll laugh out loud too. This, I think, is another way grace comes to us, through those moments when we really see ourselves and how ridiculous we can be. Scrooge McDuck had so much gold that he could swim in it, and yet he wanted more. We have everything we have (we have enough, we are enough), and yet we want more.

Talk about funny.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

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No emotion is ever truly buried.

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Snap! The Job’s a Game (Blog #838)

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This morning I watched a (ten minute) video by intuitive Robert Ohotto in which he suggested something he calls the I Don’t Give a Shit (IDGAS) Detox. The basic concept is that for a week or two you stop giving a shit about whatever it is you give a shit about. If you want to take it a step further, you write down your reactions to not giving a shit. Like, That felt nice to not give a shit about what other people think about my hair, or Maybe I should have given a shit about that noise my car was making–because now it’s broken down on the side of the road. As I understand it, the IDGAS Detox is designed to alert you to how you spend your mental and emotional energy.

Which, incidentally, you only have so much of.

I’ve thought about this a lot today, about not giving a shit. And whereas I’ll spare you all the specific incidents to which I’ve applied the wisdom of IDGAS–or, truth be told, IDGAF–I will include a short list of things I think we could all care less about. Here we go–what’s happening on Facebook, what anyone else is doing (period), whether or not someone else calls or texts you back, what other people think about anything about you, how you compare to others, and (take this one however you like) whether or not you can still get into the same pants you could in high school.

That’s a sex joke, Mom.

As I’ve thought about these things today I’ve realized I spend a lot of time worrying or being concerned about things that really don’t matter. And not that any of this is unusual or directly harmful, but it does affect exactly how much joy I experience from moment to moment, and all that adds up. Robert suggests the IDGAS Detox if you’re feeling exhausted, and I think that’s his point. If you’re getting enough sleep every night and still find yourself tired, it may be because you’re wearing yourself out with all your mental gymnastics. The ones that sound like, Everyone else has it better than I do. They’re so much richer, smarter, and more talented than I am. Or vice versa.

Give it a rest, Nancy.

Give it an IDGAS rest.

This afternoon I saw a chiropractor, a friend of mine, who uses a lot of unconventional (weird) techniques. I’m all about this sort of thing, the mind-body connection. Hell, I’m all about whatever works. My neck and shoulder have been bothering me for over six months now, so at this point I’ll try anything. Well, get this shit. When I walked in the majority of my back was, in his terms, “locked up.” In my terms, it was tense and inflexible. Thirty minutes later, it was much, much better. It was like something had let go. The best part? My friend didn’t have to crack or twist anything or do anything dramatic. Rather–and this is the weird part–he communicated with my unconscious (through muscle testing) to find out WHY my body was so uptight.

Like, “What’s your deal, Lucille?”

One of the tenants of this approach is that for each physical problem, there will be a mental/emotional component. In other words, in most cases, our bodily aches and pains don’t come out of nowhere. And whereas for me it’s tempting to think my neck and shoulder pain have to do strictly with my car accident two years ago and the fact that I’ve been doing a lot of manual labor lately, that’s a bit like thinking an appleseed can flourish into a full-grown apple tree by simply sitting on your coffee table. Of course it can’t. It needs dirt, water, and sunshine. What I’m saying is that for a physical problem to manifest (turn from a seed to a tree) in your body, it needs a particular environment in which to do so. Simply put, your thoughts and emotions are a huge part of that environment.

The good news about this: if you change the environment, you change what’s able to grow there.

According to my friend (and my unconscious), the emotion that’s related to my neck and shoulder pain is jealousy. “It’s probably not a romantic jealousy,” my friend said. Now, maybe this sounds like a bunch of crap. If so, that’s okay. I’ve thought so in similar situations in the past. But today I couldn’t truthfully say, “WHO ME? Jealous?” So instead I said, “I know exactly what kind of jealousy it is–it’s professional. It’s the thought that other people are succeeding at what they want to do and I’m not.”

“So it’s not really about all that manual labor,” my friend said.

“Well, that plays in because I don’t deep-down want to be doing all that manual labor,” I said. “I want to make the money, but I’d rather make it doing something I love.”

This wanting/not wanting, of course, is a recipe for tension both internally and externally.

With my friend’s approach, for each negative emotion that comes up, there’s also a positive one to balance it out or help remedy the situation. In my case, that emotion was delight. As an exercise, you could think jealous thoughts for a minute and see how that feels, then think thoughts of delight and see how that feels. For me, delight feels one hundred times better. When I think of things that delight me, I feel less constriction and more expansion. Freer. This is what I’ve been trying to do since this afternoon. Outwardly the rest of my day was typical–I read a book, mowed my parents’ lawn, took a shower, and began writing. But rather than adopting an attitude of pressure or obligation, I adopted one of fun and enjoyment. One of delight.

As Mary Poppins says, “In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun. You find the fun, and–snap!–the job’s a game.”

Getting back to the IDGAS Detox, I think it’s an excellent tool to use for transforming a negative emotion into a positive one. For example, whenever I’ve been tempted this afternoon and evening to be jealous of another person’s body, work, or body of work, I’ve thought, I don’t give a shit what anyone else is doing. Likewise, I’ve thought, I don’t give a shit if I read as much today as I did yesterday. I don’t give a shit if I mow the lawn perfectly. Consequently, I’ve experienced more joy. (There, that wasn’t so hard.) At the same time–and this is the real gem–I’ve freed up a good bit of mental/emotional energy that, rather than using on things I don’t like, I can now use on things I do. Because I DO give a shit about writing, I DO give a shit about dancing, and I DO give a shit about reaching my highest potential, and these things require A LOT of energy.

My final thought about all this is that when pirate ships are caught in a storm and are “going down,” the crew throws everything overboard that isn’t absolutely necessary–cargo, supplies, anyone who’s not pulling their weight. (Sorry, Petey.) Free of the extra baggage, the ship can now stay afloat. After the storm passes, it can even sail quicker than it did before. This is what discarding negative thoughts and emotions can do for you. This is what discarding negative relationships–with friends, technology, and even your own body–can do for you. It can lighten you up. It can get you to where you’re going faster.

It can turn a job into a game.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"I believe we're all courageous, and I believe that no one is alone."