FALL, FEAR AND FREEDOM

Every Fall is a roller coaster for me. The highs include the pleasures of  leafy beauty, crisp air, apple picking, pumpkin carving and the many lovely  memories of fantastic Halloween parades, wild decorations, magnificent holiday feasts, and perfect true blue days with starry cold nights.

On the downside, through the years I have grieved many losses in the fall, especially in the past few years including the sudden passing of my long time BFF last September. In the past few months a local musician that I have known many years, a friend from the coffeehouse I frequent and a friend that started out at a client.
So fall also triggers my fears, it pokes me in tender places and reminds me of the empty places in my heart that once were filled with the sounds and smiles of people who have passed.

Since Fall is the time of transition as we head towards the darkness and silence of Winter, this reminder of what is good, and precious is welcome.  With the grieving comes a certain freedom, a permission to live fully, celebrate with glee and to love fiercely. The reminder that any day someone we love can be gone,  or maybe our own sudden passing will interrupt our plans...can be exactly the motivation we need to set aside what we pretend is important and attend to what is ACTUALLY important.

In any case, when the leaves turn it's a good time to reclaim that freedom we had in childhood...to play in the leaves, dress up, enjoy our friends and play full on.

May Fall shower you with a bountiful harvest of pleasure and freedom to be exactly who you are.

BLINDED BY BELIEF

We get into trouble when our idea of how we want someone to be bangs hard against the reality of how they actually are.  If we won’t let go of our vision of ‘how they could/should be’ long enough to know the person in front of us, we create an illusion of a relationship based on a version of the person we’ve invented.  Marriages fall apart, businesses col­lapse, and parents and children stop speaking when the demands of our illusions are in conflict with reality.  In this case, we have idealized the person, believing that they can (and should) think, feel and/or act the way we want them to.  This can be lethal for relationships, since love, intimacy and friendship require acceptance to survive.  We cannot accept what we refuse to see. 

Another problem with this behavior, is that if we canonize someone, and invest in a label (hero, good guy) that makes us revere them, we become blind to their flaws, faults and deceptions- even if we’re talking self-deceptions. This isn’t smart.  This leads to blindly following someone's lead even when your own gut tells you it's a bad idea. 

The other extreme of belief is when we demonize people by believing that a label we’ve attached sums up the totality of who/how/what they are. This is a dangerous and divisive practice which can (and often does) lead to violence.

When we label people, we are cutting ourselves off from the possibility of experiencing the actual person in front of us.  We are surmising that whatever that label represents holds more reality than anything else about the person. We do not look, nor can we see beyond the confines of our labels, unless we make an effort to look past the belief to the whole person.

When we reduce people to a single idea, whether it’s  hypocrite, liar, bitch, just a woman, a cheater... or invest in labels like libtard, gay, troll, or worse- the result is to create an immediate disconnect. Rather than a person with a life story, family, talents , problems and fears before us, we reduce them to a less-than, inferior, sub-humans worthy of our disdain.

 Labels are road signs that tell the world that we are the ‘True Believer’ and the one labeled is the “infidel”.  Domestic violence, murder, slavery, religious persecution, sexism, racism and war are the inevitable results of this toxic labeling. We see it ALL over social media.

If you only see others through the lens of your label, you will find nothing good in them. You will overlook, repurpose and reinterpret their words and actions to live down to your expectations.  

 Yes there are people who are ignorant, delusional,  violent , dangerously misinformed, and others who are seriously mentally ill - unable to be trusted.   Even so, demonizing someone based on a single factor- -Muslim, black, gay, female, Republican, Liberal, Mexican….is a dangerous practice that cuts us off from reality, from compassion, from solutions and from our own humanity. 

We developed empathy and compassion as a species because they are tools for our survival, our evolutionary development that helps us thrive- not merely survive. Please, I urge you, look beyond the label.  Look at your own Belief Blindness and push yourself to take a deeper more honest look at people, including yourself. Together we can resolve issues and build a better world.  To do so, we have to tackle the issues we face as humans sharing this planet, rather than positioning ourselves against each other. 

EMBRACING YOUR WIGGY WHEEL

We are all a little off, odd, even hinky in our individual ways. We each try to hide from others those peculiar idiosyncratic thoughts, beliefs and behaviors that we imagine might put people off, and may cause us not to be liked, accepted or loved.  This hiding does not serve us in any way, in fact, the cultural ‘norm’ that has us trying to protect our ‘image’ and strive (uselessly) to look ‘good’, is sabotage of the worst kind.

 We are each like a shopping cart with a wiggy-wheel!  Granted, some of us have wheels that wobble, squeak and drag more than others, but we ALL have them…and we’re all trying to go in a reasonably straightish line down the aisles of life without smashing through the displays or running each other over. That requires our attention, and there will be some mishaps along the way because life is messy. It’s sometimes peppered with the adventures we have while careening at breakneck speed through some part of life only half aware (if that)  what we’re doing. We flail, we crash, our wiggy wheel catches on a lover or a stranger and down we go. We forgive, hug, cry, laugh, make love, fight and do all the other messy things life offers.  And it’s all all right. We carry on.

If we embrace our seeming strangeness, and allow ourselves to not only accept, but have fun with the way our wheel squeals or pulls to the left, then something wonderful happens.   We reveal ourselves. Others get to know us. They put their guard down and we get to know them too. Ahhh. Intimacy. Not judgment and rejection. Acceptance and good humored alliance. What we were taught about image, political correctness, being  careful, and hiding our weirdness was ALL wrong information.  The more we reveal ourselves, the easier time we have navigating through this glorious marvel we call life. When we pull to the right and someone pulls to the left we know how to adjust. It’s when we try to hide how we are, then conflict and attempting to avoid conflict (which never works) becomes our lifestyle.

So relax. Squeak on. Let others know the ways in which you are jiggy and wiggy. Invite others to be straight with you too. Embrace that within yourself and others which makes us human, related, and kind.

A CHAT WITH ME, MYSELF & I

You talk to yourself, right? Of course you do. Have you ever wondered which self is doing the talking, and which self is listening? Here’s something I’ve noticed about the 3 Selves I know myself to be.  You'll recognize your own Selves, too...
 

First, there’s little Me. The small self that is chock full of worries and fears, shoulds and judgments, self-criticism and Victim thinking. This is likely to be a ghost of our childhood, infected with whatever dysfunctional family virus has neither been faced nor accepted. It’s generally a pain in the ass, and gets our attention wandering away from our experience. Wherever we may still be stuck in past fears and resentments fuels this immature, ego driven,  insecure, approval seeking Self.  

This voice can make us feel dissatisfied and anxious even when our health, income and relationships are doing just fine. This self uses the Reasoning Mind to create Reasons that justify everything from our bonehead decisions to delusional expectations. This Voice seduces us to live in our heads. It’s useful for having us investigate potential threats, but it also sees threats behind every door, so, we have to do a Reality Check when this self natters on and on.

Then there’s our Other Self, our "Real" Self…the Person We Know We Could Be…that grand, talented, self-aware Mythic Self.  OurSelves as The King, Queen, Muse, Hero, Heroine or God/Goddess, in the story of our life. This is our Deep Self. Full of insight, courage, humor, creativity, focus…and bearing whatever special talents we happen to possess. This is the warm bright Voice that floods the mind and body with hope, optimism, the pleasure of experience and gratitude for your life. This Self, gifts us with creativity, gut feeling, satisfaction, self-confidence, humor, compassion and acceptance. 

We’re not as accustomed to listening to that Voice.  This Self accesses the Reasoning mind to test, to validate or disprove through experience and inquiry what works for you and what doesn’t.  This Voice encourages us to live experientially in action in the world.

And another Self is the Witness, the I AM- that “Still Small Voice” that observes without judgment all that we do and fail to do, all that we suffer and all that pleasures us…as if the very fact that we exist, that we breathe and AM is enough, no matter what the experience, grand, ugly or somewhere in between. Our Witness spinning yet in infinite stillness...a point of grounding, silence, and Being.

When we are still, we can notice the fears and follies of the Small Self, and instead of being bowled over by them, we can call on our Mythic Self for direction and courage to act. 

When you find yourself  heading down the Rabbit Hole, or about to board the Crazy Train, take a breath, find that moment between inbreath and outbreath when everything is still, and find the Self that is beyond  turmoil and impervious to conflict; the I Am which is the balance point…providing the connection and peace that allows us to live is Joy.