BOUNDARIES

Set boundaries - Protect your precious time and energy!

An eternal question - who and what is "worth" our time and energy?

If we truly cannot do everything we desire to do, then it follows that we must make choices and prioritize. What do we want to do most. In essence we must make the decision to devote energy towards things. How do we choose? What is important enough?

You MAKE time for the things you want to make time for. That is true. If you decide that something is important to you, then you simply DO it. You don't complain about a lack of time... you create time!!!

Or, perhaps... we make the time we already have MORE PRODUCTIVE. WITHOUT diminishing our marginal utilities! Its about picking up the cues - not saying the words faster :-) And this requires decision making. It requires us to set boundaries so that we do not spend too much energy devoted to things or people that will not produce returns.

I don't think we have to designate it as a "waste" of time- because that is unproductive. It makes us bitter and resentful. They do not waste our time... we merely need to take new measurements, enter that data and reassess what we "know" about people and ourselves.

Then, if we listen to our self, we can make smarter choices based on patterns of experience.

LzOuVnEt,
M

Release

"Have a good cry: Grief is a doorway to your deepest self."

We are taught strength -what humility means, what it means to be strong, fearless, a leader.

We are told that weakness is the opposite of strength and weakness is undesirable.

If you let yourself believe that this "strength" or the illusion thereof is more important than being truthful (with yourself and others), what do you sacrifice? Is it "worth" it?

Do we put ourself in our own way by steering ourselves away from the truth?

Our feelings are REAL. They are an indicator of our thoughts. Bottling them up or ignoring them only creates more lies... it puts distance between our true self and the self we project.

Why is so difficult to own up to our feelings? Why is it so 'inappropriate' to cry, to let go, to release and just FEEL it? Wouldn't this enable us to have a more truthful and honest relationship with ourselves and with others?

Plus it feels so good...like letting the air out of a balloon that is about to burst.. catharsis. The weird thing is - we are in control of how much air gets into the balloon. Sometimes, it is our responsibility to RELEASE enough to keep us from exploding.

Love,
M

52days

One "word" a day. But more than this- one concept. One Idea.
I wish to investigate my abilities to open, listen and perceive without judgment.
In this past week or 10 days I have begun to notice occurrences- certain happenings... a strange and intriguing connection and as I explore this connection my environment begins to align. My thoughts are responding to my feelings and vice versa - I have opened myself to a dialogue with the universe, my universe.. my reality - in search of truthful experience, in search of my self.

I wish to share this with you because I love you. Don't feel obligated to respond, though I would enjoy very much to explore with you. :-)

Love,
M

The Body/Mind Connection

It is thought that the body is run by the mind - even if unconscious.. muscle movement, blood circulation - it is all controlled by signals and receptors. The brain sends a signal to a receptor, and ACTION occurs. We, as an organism, take many of these "actions" for granted. They are involuntary - we merely DO them. Without consciously deciding to breathe, we breathe. We know so little, still, about the brain and all of its abilities.. and yet it is clear that certain actions do not require "knowledge" as we define it. They do not require an acknowledgment from our conscious mind in order to occur. I wonder, then, what else is happening beyond our conscious self... what other messages are we sending?

Is it possible that we can send other messages to our body - like "I love you" or "I need you"? What about a message like, "You are not my priority" - "I do not love you", "you aren't important". Why not? We send these messages to our mind... regardless of whether we "know" it or intend to, we constantly send ourselves such messages. We tell ourselves "you cannot do it" or "you aren't worth it".. "you don't DESERVE it". It is no surprise then that we sometimes walk around feeling... worthless.

I believe we can change this. We can alter the way we speak to ourselves - and all it requires is an awareness, and the desire to change. If I love myself.. if I TRULY love myself, how can I allow myself to treat me with such disrespect? I think, rather, that I can respect myself and love myself and choose to use my thoughts and words in accordance with this - first consciously, and then hopefully subconsciously.

Why, then, can I not do the same with my physical body? The conversation between mind and body is not one-sided...

If the mind sends messages to our body, is it possible that the body also sends messages to our mind? Isn't it possible that physical pain is merely communication - feedback, if you will. Interestingly, we have the same word for an emotional sensation that we do a physical one.. we call it "feeling"... Think about heat. Our brain doesn't decide to feel hot... our body senses the temperature and signals are sent to the brain to interpret as "heat". Your body tells your mind you are hot - then based on the knowledge you possess [experience with heat, physical limitations], you make a decision. Hundreds, Thousands maybe of these decisions are made each day... but what happens if your brain doesn't understand your body's message?

What if the signals cross? Can this happen? Can we confuse a physical feeling with an emotional one? Does our heart really "break" when our emotional HeartBrain is temporarily "hurt"? Is there perhaps such a deep connection between body and mind that a problem in your mind can CREATE physical pain and vice versa?

I think so. I believe this.. I am aware, now, of certain goings-on within myself. A dialogue of sorts - a conversation between my physical body and my emotional body - my "head and my heart" - my body and my mind. Once I chose to listen, to be aware, to answer myself - answer for myself, to myself, BY MYSELF... I opened a whole new realm of potential.

I have the power to ask of myself certain things - needs, wants, etc. I also have the power to SAY NO. Until I can get to the truth through experience, I may not know the answers.. but just being willing to LISTEN is more than I was doing before. It is more than many do in the entirety of their lives.

This is a BIG accomplishment... yet, I am by no means at the end. Discovery is a process - I feel incredibly fortunate that I have been awakened and can now truly begin to seek truth.

My body has been trying to get my attention for years now - I was just too stubborn to listen. I continued to say "I do not love you. You are unworthy of my attention". I realize now. Though it would have been easier to simply "get it" immediately - I would not have learned what I learned. I would not be here... at this place of awareness and possibility.

I am listening... I don't know yet what I am saying to myself -but I willing to find out.. without judgment. Without self-hate or self-incrimination. With LOVE. I can show myself that I love myself by making choices and decisions for both my physical and emotional bodies that are in alignment with my higher-self.. in accordance with my goals, my dreams, my desires.

In this moment I must strengthen my physical self - and what is fascinating to me is that once I slowed down enough to hear myself think, I could also feel myself LIVE. I can feel my body centering - aligning. I can FEEL my body healing...the muscles growing and lengthening, my spine straightening and strengthening. I can feel my body rebuilding itself - piece by piece, cell by cell. And with this new sensation, I gain new perspective - new perceptions.

My mind begins to rebuild itself as well. The dialogue continues...

Meant to Live

"We were meant to live for so much more - have we lost ourselves?

Fumbling his confidence
And wondering why the world has passed him by
Hoping that he's meant for more than arguments

And failed attempts to fly

Dreaming about providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we've been living with our eyes half open
Maybe we're bent and broken

We want more than this world's got to offer
We want more than the wars of our fathers
And everything inside screams for second life"

Thx SF :-)
M

Hypocrisy

I don't intend to deceive myself...
I don't mean to believe a lie - and yet, if I think it is the truth because I've simply never thought to think of it before - is it still a lie?

Does a lie imply knowledge that it is a lie?

If I BELIEVE that I am a unicorn then saying "I'm a unicorn" feels like a statement of truth. However, I am not a unicorn. And telling myself I am is a lie.

What causes me to suddenly realize that not only am I NOT who I thought I was... but I've been lying to myself all these years? Somebody told me, or I implied it, or learned it and I accept it to be truth and believed in it.

I don't know what I believe, truthfully... I think I know what I want to believe. And yet I'm having trouble with the act of believing. Its so concrete. I see "believers" and I envy them because to some extent they have precisely what I want - that faith!

I want to find the balance- those who maintain faith through questioning and not the other way around. Those who can believe and wonder simultaneously.

I talk about decisions and forward momentum and yet I do not decide. I do not move forward.

Or perhaps I am just not moving as fast as I want. I've let this sensation get to me before - let it break into the best parts of me and rip down what I have worked SO HARD to create.

Sometimes we cannot move as quickly as we want. That is a fact. Patience. I must be patient with myself and stop yelling at myself when I need help.

I need help. I need support. I feel like I'm doing this alone. And it isn't because people aren't here - its because I won't let them in. I feel so vulnerable and exposed and I joke about it because that hurts less, right?

I sometimes wish I had a thicker shell. If it wasn't so easy to get under my own skin...
And then I wonder what I would sacrifice in order to obtain this shell... what would I give up?
Is it worth it?

I hear some say that you can make a decision once and then you never have to make it again... I hope this is true... but I am also aware that certain decisions are made daily - even many times a day... I also think it may be that certain decisions may be made once because they are Umbrella Decisions. And these decisions adjust the direction of your journey perhaps, but required many more decisions to be made every day...

I don't want to lie to myself anymore. I want to speak only truth.

Also.

I want to be "happy" about it. So I need to find happiness in truth. I need to find beauty in honesty and appreciate openness, frankness...

And I need to not take it personally.

I may not know the truth at first. I will think about it though.

Will I "know" truth if I see it?

M

I'm sorry

I was wrong.

I am blessed and misfortune is merely an opportunity to change for the better. Adapt. Survive.

It is not a matter of "sucking it up" and moving on. It is, rather, about triage. Assess the situation. Decide how much energy is required to "fix" it and then MOVE.

I may not be able to run or even touch my toes... but my mind and my heart have always moved faster than my body anyway :-)

My body may be limited... but my possibilities are endless.

Perspective

Find some. We all need it... it is one of the things that allows us to connect with others.

Also tact. But that is not the point.

Everything is relative. If you have never broken a single bone in your body and all of the sudden you break your leg... it probably "hurts" more than if you've broken your leg twice already and understand pain differently - intimately.

If you've never broken your leg... you cannot understand what it feels like to break your leg.

You CAN sympathize though.

What is inappropriate, I feel, is to tell someone who broke their leg to suck it up and get over it if you've never experienced the pain associated with learning how to walk again.

Sun, Shell

I often wonder why I chose to go to school in New England.

I'm a sun child.. I need light to breathe. I'm not afraid of the dark - in fact I also think there is much to be gained from the "nighttime" but darkness and "night" are not the same thing. Not necessarily...

If I had KNOWN this about myself.. I would have gone elsewhere.. and yet it was specifically for finding this out that I chose what I did.

I would say %97 of my graduating class stayed in Georgia for college. It was cheaper, I'm sure. And they had the ability to stay close to the people they loved, the people they grew up with... they had the opportunity to avoid seeing certain things, learning certain things - about themselves, about the world, about people and places and things!

I have often looked at them as the "lucky" ones. They seem... happier?

I do not mean to cheapen their happiness by any means, and in fact I'm sure some might say I am jealous. To a certain extent that is true. I moved away - far away. I wanted snow, I wanted to experience people and a place I did not know, could only speculate about. Something I wasn't used to. I had gone to school with the same 100 people since 5th grade - we were locked into our stereotypes. And as long as I stayed with those same people, the less likely it was that I would become who I was.... not just who everyone said I was to them.

I guess you could say I only understood "myself" as an entity defined by my proximity and relationship to others. Perhaps this is only human though... can we ever truly KNOW ourselves - independent of others? Probably not.. we can speculate though.

So here I am. And I have learned things. I love the silence of snow. I love the way the air feels an hour before the snow starts to fall. I love the crispness of lighter air - the smell of lilacs - the way the water in the creek or a lake feels in the few weeks BEFORE everyone else starts swimming... it takes your breath away. I miss the sun when it's gone. It is a physical deprivation. My body feels caged.

Then I have accomplished what I needed to accomplish... I need to find a way to have both - either in once place all year round, or like a bird I must fly south for the winter. Far south... tropical island south.

Hold My Heart

Patience.

A virtue...
Love is patient... and kind, yes? Perhaps.
Good things come to those who wait. Maybe.... depending on who you are, what you want and how long you are willing to wait.

I happen to be one of those people who needs to feel forward momentum to feel good about myself. Otherwise I stagnate... which can make me feel useless or worthless. I can FEEEEL it happening. If I pay attention and listen to myself I can feel it happening and I get frustrated with myself. Which can't possibly help anyone... and yet sometimes my fear breaks into my positivity and I feel... lost.

It passes. I feel a little foolish.
Why am I so hard on myself?

Why is being patient so difficult for me?

I have to be patient with myself and learn to sit still.. without feeling like I'm wasting time. Sometimes you have to be patient...

But its not 'sitting around and waiting' for things to come to me!! Is it?

It seems there is a space- not a line, but a space between the two. It's not a big space and I seem to miss it. I can go straight from one side to the other and not see the middle.

Perhaps this is because I cannot sit still well.

Love,
Michelle