…before you can change them.
I was presented this notion many years ago and am considering it as I ponder with eyes wide open this evening.
I am considering how we delude ourselves and often decide to ‘not face the music,’ (a quite interesting expression). Why would someone NOT want to face the music? Because they don’t want to hear? Ahhh, maybe that’s it….thinking out loud….
I digress…
If I were a lazy person, and decided I wanted to not be so lazy, I would have to first admit and realize the truth about myself….that I was indeed lazy.
Well, I’m not lazy, so I can face THAT music.
Another favorite thought of mine relates here as well, ‘how you do anything, is how you do everything.’ If I’m a lazy sycophant at work, chances are, I’m a lazy sycophant at home. Maybe.
Well, laziness isn’t my issue, but I have others!…and come on, we all do, or why are we on planet earth for heaven’s sake. (Curious expression, ‘for heaven’s sake’, I can’t BEGIN to fathom where THAT one came from….enlighten me please if you know. Maybe because heaven is so cool, we should do things, for heaven’s sake…because it is HEAVEN).
I’m all over the board tonight.
(The ‘board’….imagine being from another country coming here….how would you know what things mean??)
Back to my premise….making things what they are…my inestimable mother had a practice which she shared with me. I remember her conversation with me most clearly. In her loving and sincere, caring tone she told me,
‘Honey, we all have issues, things we are working through. That’s life and that’s good. But imagine you have a filing cabinet and it is FILLED with the many ‘issues’ you contemplate. Imagine just taking one of the issue files out of your filing cabinet a day. And one by one, you will solve your mysteries, conquer your fears, learn to master who you are and why you were brought here.’
She was wise in so many ways. (Funny too, hysterical in moments….roll off the sofa laughing sort of mom. Gooolly where is Kitty Vogel now? That lovely Romanesque nose, those pretty hazel eyes. Playing cards in ‘heaven’ I was told, for heaven’s sake, well, and her own, she loved playing cards!
Allow me to dream a moment here. To have just an hour with her again, sharing her wisdom and her love for me, playing cards to watch her laugh and smile. (She ALWAYS beat me at both scrabble and rummy). If not physically, in spirit, (truly) she was in each audience where I performed, her face appeared in each scary new endeavor I had, giving me courage. SHE was a champion of rare cut.
I do however sense her always in the ether, but in the flesh was sooooo much better. I am a spiritual being, of course, having this often peevish human experience and I like to touch things, to hug my friends, to feel the fur on my kitty Lester’s back, the warmth of hot tea going down my throat and how my flannel sheets feel when I crawl inside them each night, better yet next to someone I find scrumptious. I like all my senses. I relish parts of being human.
Other parts honestly suck, but I understand the need for it all.
But….making things what they are. It’s empowering to ‘face the music,’ to OWN in a sense where you are. With no shame, no embarrassment, (as that’s just other people’s judgements which we shame ourselves with). But, to admit you are out of shape and want to be fit, is a first step toward change. If you are messy and want to be a tidy fellow, well, knowing the truth about yourself is a great first step. It’s good, it’s real, it’s bold.
I like bold!
To know that you only tell half the truth and want to be more transparent, ahhh, good to know.
Or sitting with your grief, your discontent, your anxiousness. One must move ‘through’ where we are to get to another place, as there is NO other way. There are no short cuts to getting rich, becoming fit, healthy or moving through ‘things’ until you simply make them what they are, feel it all, (no numbing out now) and tra laaaa, you will find yourself somewhere new. And truly, each step for me is ultimately ALWAYS better. I like better!
I like that….growth, a new day, a new, better perhaps, way of being, or living, a new hairstyle, (always fun), new food, new travel, new adventure, new comrades to share your journey, new ways to be loving, of course.
If you are unhappy and want to find happiness, you need first admit where you are and then look within yourself, not outside yourself, for solutions. Where might I change things in my life. Do I need new friends, a new job, a new mate, a better me?
Oh good heavens, I’m preaching to the choir, honestly, (Curious expression as well, I guess the choir has heard it ALL!)
Carolyn Myss wrote a book I’ve mentioned before and which I found quite revealing, amazing really. It’s called, ‘Anatomy of the Spirit’. In this book, Ms. Myss discusses how physical ailments arrive in our lives when we are not living in tandem with where our spirits, our souls need to be. She chronicles the lives of many people who once they made significant life changes, how their ailment disappeared as they moved into the right life for them.
They admitted, ‘fessed up’ to where they were, and in making that real and conscious, they could change things.
I am undergoing GREAT shifts in my life…and I feel it has been long in coming, (though I always feel that…I’m a little impatient….ooooh…..okay, I hear guffaws of laughter from all reaches of the Universe…, I’m probably VERY impatient). I am willing to ‘face the music’ and I hope that this music in time will be something uproariously grand and that a large ballroom or field is involved with partners in every corner to dance with as I am over-ready, over-done, perhaps undone and ready to go. I’m ready to go.
Evening thoughts by a Georgia fire in the woods.
BB Webb