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)

"We were made to love without conditions. That's the packaging we were sent with."

A World Where You Belong (Blog #787)

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For the last two days I’ve been cleaning antique hardware for my friends Todd and Bonnie. This is turning out to be a chore. (I’m scrubbing my brass off.) Not because the work is difficult, but because there’s a lot involved, like running back and forth to the hardware store for supplies. Today I discovered that all the door hinges are not, in fact, solid brass. Rather, they’re brass plated. Or were, since my cleaning them really did scrub their brass off. Now they’re just ugly metal hinges. But never fear, we decided to spray paint them (satin brass). Some of them are drying now. Others are still in a crock pot being heated up–so I can remove the old (white) paint on them then put the new paint on.

A project like this is clearly a damn process. Take the hardware off. Put it in a crock pot. Scrub the paint off. Then either shine it or spray paint it. Put the hardware back on. This evening I bought three different types of screws for putting the hardware back, then got back to the house and realized two of them were the wrong size. Screws too short–story of my life. (That’s a sex joke, Mom.) Anyway, tomorrow I’ll go back to the hardware store and try again. That’s the deal when things are a process–you just keep taking one step at a time until everything is done.

Or until you are.

While working today I listened to a lecture by Stephan Hoeller that said projection is a function of perception. That is, first you perceive or understand something, then you project that perception out into the world. For example, I first understood (mentally) that I needed to spray paint the hinges, then I talked to Todd and Bonnie, then I bought the paint, then I sprayed the hinges. Perception preceded projection. Over the last several years I’ve perceived a number of things in therapy–like, that I needed to set a boundary or have a conversation with someone–then proceeded to project those cognitions into my life and relationships, even on to this blog.

In a lot of New Age and even spiritual material, the world is referred to as a mirror. This isn’t to say that if you witness something horrific on the ten o’clock news that you’re horrific, but it is to say that the way you respond (mentally, emotionally, physically) has a lot to do with you and very little to do with any specific horrific thing you may see. When Donald Trump was elected, I wasn’t thrilled but I wasn’t emotional. Conversely, I had friends who cried. As the fact of the matter was the same for everyone (Donald Trump was elected), and yet there were so many varied responses, I can only logically conclude that those varied responses were due to each individual’s PERCEPTION of what had taken place and what they thought that meant or didn’t mean. My point is that we’re never just responding to what’s “out there,” but rather what’s “in here.”

Another way of saying this is that you don’t see the world as IT IS, but rather AS YOU ARE. Again, if you think the world is a terrible place, that doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person. Scared, frightened, or angry, maybe. My therapist says that if you have unresolved trauma and don’t deal with it consciously, you’ll deal with it unconsciously. “You’ll externalize it,” she said. “You’ll get involved in a bad relationship, become paranoid, or develop a neurosis.” Um, guilty–I’ve done all of the above. When I was a teenager and my dad was in prison, I became a HUGE conspiracy theorist. I despised the government. Looking back, I can see that I was simply overwhelmed and terrified, fearful that what happened to my dad would one day happen to me. But since I either didn’t know how or was unable to experience and give voice to my emotions (my perceptions), they got pushed out on to “the bad guys.” In other words, I wasn’t a scary place, the world was.

Now I think the reverse was true. (I was a scary place. The world was –the world.) Not that ugly things don’t happen in the world (and we all know the government killed JFK), but I know that how I respond to those things absolutely belongs to me. I own my emotions. If I see something horrific and get sad or angry, it’s not because that horrific thing put those emotions into me. No, they were already there. Wayne Dyer used to say that when you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, and–likewise–when you’re squeezed, what’s inside YOU comes out.

What goes down must come up.

Hoeller says that we project our perceptions (my therapist’s word for projection is externalize) in order that we can interact with them. That is, for decades I believed and felt that the world was an unsafe place to live. This, I’m sure, had to do with our house burning down when I was a child, and then, later, Dad’s going to prison. Or maybe it was my being in a car accident. Pick a trauma. The point is that my mind, body, and emotions had definite reactions to those events, but I did everything I could to shove those reactions down and shut them off. This is impossible to do, of course, at least for very long. What goes down must come up. Again, this can happen consciously or unconsciously, but either way–you must interact with what’s inside you.

Like cleaning antique hardware, this is a damn process.

Having walked this trying-to-be-conscious road for a while a now, I’m just gonna say it’s not fun and it’s not easy. That being said, I’d highly suggest dealing with what’s inside you consciously rather than projecting or externalizing it, since that’s even worse. After all, when you’re problem is projected (over there), what can you do about it–other than become a social justice warrior? But if your problem is inside you, now we’re talking. And yet, this is why the work is hard. Looking at what’s inside you requires owning every action and reaction you’ve ever had. It means sitting with thoughts like, I was terrified. I am terrified. I’m oh-so-very scared. But once you do, I promise, the world that used to appear unsafe and frightening will change. It has to–because you did. Because your perceptions, and thus your projections, did. This is The Good News, that if you can perceive and project an unsafe world, you can perceive and project a safe one, a world where you belong.

Quotes from CoCo (Marcus)

"Not knowing what's going to happen next is part of the adventure."