Getting My Mind to Match

by admin on May 6, 2012

You ever have repetitive thoughts race around your head?  Ha.  Ok so here’re the specifics:  you’re feeling that you aren’t on the same page with someone that is currently important in your life – for an example we will say that you feel that your boss doesn’t like you and is considering firing you.  The various pieces of evidence that make you feel this way keep coming to mind from time to time, and it’s causing you unease.  You push them away, forget about em.  But then on Tuesday, you’re not vigilant and who knows what reminds you of something and you turn it all over again.  Eventually it all builds and you’re freaking out. You’re calling your friends asking for advice.  “Should I say something? Don’t I just wait this out? It’s probably all in my head. Or wait, what if it’s real, what if he really doesn’t like me?”  This sound familiar?

Before you raise the whole “your mind creates your world” banner – or the “when the outer world doesn’t match your inner visions, accept what…”, all that happy self-talk ish. Before we go there, I have something exciting to share:

I, just today, had this very scenario happen, myself.  It’s true.  It had been building for about a week.  I’ll spare all the uneasy drama, but the way through, the way back to right now, the way back to accepting this moment completely and not drifting back to this repetitive stickiness of thought did not end with “I accept this situation so let’s move on and be in the moment.”  It was not pure acceptance, believe me, I tried for a week.  Getting back did begin with acceptance, however.  Before I could get back to now I needed to accept that my feelings were valid.  I also needed to accept that I was afraid of speaking my heart, for I was afraid of what the outcome might be.  I also seemingly needed someone to tell me that I really should be gutsy and tell this person how I feel.  So after consultation, I knew what I needed to do.   But as I began to speak my mind, I realized that as much as I wanted to express myself, I had been just as curious about what this other person felt.  And by bringing attention to our relationship, I was not only able to tell this person that I saw really good prospects for everyone further going after it together, and how I felt we’d both be better for knowing the other’s feedback – I was just as importantly able to get this person’s perspective on what they were seeing and feeling about how things currently existed.

It’s not like I am now at a place where the outside world matches the ideal of what I see it could be.  I am, however, at a place where the outside world knows my truth the best that I can tell it, and I its.  I’m also here knowing more about where I need to continue to grow in my skills of internal understanding and truthtelling.  I’ve learned that lesson best I could for the moment.  That week of unease is over.  Now, what else can you show me?

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Following my heart, in God’s name.

by admin on April 13, 2012

I know many of you may not believe in God.  I know even the title of this post may offput people enough to not read this piece. Before you turn away, first let’s define what we’re talking about.

Not knowing what to believe myself, I started, not too long ago, to do experiments to test my faith.  I put myself out there – with an attempt to have no fear or expectations, striving to love in the way all the prophets have instructed of us, trusting and following the voice within.  When I do these experiments, succeeding to various degrees, I’m amazed at what comes into my life. When I seek to connect on a fundamental level of understanding – at the best part inside of each of us- and find the inspiration inside someone else, I myself am inspired beyond belief, and find my life enriched.  So you can call it God, call it acting towards my own greatest ideals. Whatever.

What I encounter when I do this amazes me, and I like to live an amazed life.  Don’t have to go no deeper than that.

Like today, when I simply pulled my car to the side of the road to ask two men with bikes and a box and a broken umbrella for a light for my cigarette.  One of the men asks me for two cigarettes, one for each of them before either motions that they might have a light.  I myself had been given just the one by someone the day before, so I don’t oblige.  Had he asked for one…  The other man told me he had some Bob Dylan DVDs he could sell me, they were given to him for cleaning out a woman’s garage.   I was only half believing of his story, and I told him so.  He assured me he’s an honest man.  I follow my heart and trust the man, so he grabs the DVDs from his box.

The man did have some great DVDs. Dylan’s Newport Folk Fest, the 1965 England tour “Don’t Look Back”- his last acoustic tour and other documentary footage:  Beatles, Tom Petty.  I feel we had ourselves an honest deal.  I need to go to the ATM and he comes with me.  I tell him I love the words Bob Dylan and the Beatles wrote.  He asks if I’m a singer. I tell him I’m a writer.  He tells me he writes words too.  Words no one has ever heard.

I ask him why he would do such a silly thing.  He told me he wrote the words for God. (And please, give a listen. The story is not the same without his voice, nor is the awesomeness of what transpired complete).

I’m blown away. Blown away – by him and what is happening right now.  And he starts again.

“Life is so short brother, it’s so short.”  God.

He then gets out of the car and plays a tune on his harmonica. Blues.  A love song.  It’s pretty good, and he tells me that it’s one of the songs that he actually does play for the people on the boardwalk.  Then gets back in the car and plays this next song that really isn’t about Popeye that he also plays when he’s out busking for cash.  Give a listen.  The song’s not the most stellar, but the exchange after touched us both:

After we share a whole bunch of heartfelt words for one another, which I both fortunately and unfortunately didn’t record, this is what he left me with.  I think the last words to the first bit are “Together till I die”.

 

Ha. Life. So, that’s one such experiment – and I’ll tell you most every day I’m amazed by something like this – to a lesser or greater degree. Now, I’d love to hear about some of your findings.

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Let that Die

April 3, 2012

Ever been wrecked by the emotions of another?   Spent the night thinking about how you can frame the advice you want to give – what that spoon full of sugar actually is – so that they’ll take your medicine down?  You give the advice and you’re met with such harshness.  ”You think I’m not [...]

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The Beauty of Sorrow

March 30, 2012

The pain of love lost cuts me open. I’d imagine every one of us can relate to the feeling of just wanting to pour everything into a direction that it just doesn’t belong-the grandfather we still want to tell us stories.  The person who passed that we just wish we could have forgiven before they [...]

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Morning musings.

March 5, 2012

There’s a stillness that sits in my breast, waiting patiently for me to seek it, to match its frequency and to find it. The work is to grow into where it feels most right, most like right now.

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Well Fuck

March 4, 2012

Inside my chest there’s a tightness. I have deleted 11 attempts at this blog posts. Eloquent. Funny. One with way too many citations. As long as I remember having an adult mind, I’ve wanted to write publicly and personally.  Novel. Short story. Poetry. Blog. Essay. Inner and outer explorations. What better use for an info-addict [...]

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