Don't Be Duped

It's a heavy revelation when you realize you’ve been duped into living someone else’s goals or plans. Realizing you’ve been tricked into thinking that their life is your life is a real eye-opener. Some people never figure it out and live their entire lives fulfilled only to the point that the other person manipulates them into believing is a full life. How terrible.

Fiendish Jones and the Need for Permission

Earlier this morning I was just feeding my Frenchie Rufus and doing some cleaning and rearranging in the kitchen when (to me) a profound and probably obvious thought occurred to me. 

I've been operating in my new apartment space with a sort of unconscious need for permission from some nebulous "persona" out there. Even something as simple as where I'm putting the toaster on the countertop became a battle for permission. What if "someone" doesn't like it there? What if they don't approve of my choice of toaster color? What if they criticize my choices?! And on and on it went.

In the moment where I realized fully what I was doing to myself a name came to me as if someone opened my head and plopped it right into my brain. Fiendish Jones. He's basically Snidely Whiplash (for those of you not old enough to remember the cartoon Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties Snidely was Dudley's arch nemesis.) He's the voice that lurks just out of range of my consciousness that criticizes every decision I make. He has a top hat and cape and a long mustache that he twirls as he laughs manically at mentally cornering me yet again. I've constantly found myself asking his permission for just about everything I do.

I didn't even realize until this morning I was operating under this kind of imaginary criticism. Now that I know this, now that I've moved from ignorance to knowledge, from knowing to embracing, I understand that I don't need to seek or be that needy for permission about anything.

What a revelation.

Perspectives and Pigeon Holes

I love the way a trip can give a person perspective. It's like a reverse microscope. The further one gets away from “life back home,” the details of that life come finer, more intricate, not fuzzier. One can see the individual parts of that life and how they all interact with one another.

That said, I’ve been feeling some anxiety lately. I'm starting nursing school in the fall of this year, and it's been causing a nebulous churning inside me. It’s an uneasiness I’ve been having difficulty identifying and getting my brain around. My recent weekend getaway to San Francisco helped me get perspective though, and I realized some things about myself that helped.

One, I’m a pigeon-holer. I like everything in its own neat, little, organized cubby hole. And if it’s not, that’s where anxiety takes root for me. Facets of a task or some aspect of my life just “hanging out there” unorganized or unassigned to some schedule or framework I’ve devised in my head makes me nervous. Two, I realized I’m not afraid of or nervous about tackling and comprehending the academic aspects of nursing school. I have no doubt or concern about that what so ever.

And there’s where the perspective comes in. Being away from my "home self" for a while, I was able to see my nebulous worry from afar which helped me to observe it objectively and identify its parts. The uneasiness wasn’t the academic challenges ahead. It was the almost impossible schedule I’d created in my head. I was so focused on the how of it all. I kept fretting over how will all the parts of my life (work, school, social, relationships, etc.) interact and fit together. I was so focused on that that I lost sight of appreciating the moment and staying present. My anxiety was stealing my joy and sense of accomplishments thus far in getting to where I'm at.

I realized I can only address what’s in front of me. The parts out of my control are just that, out of my control. The future can’t be organized or pigeon-holed. I can prepare for the future in the here and now, definitely. There is nothing wrong with that. I cannot, however, control my future. Coming to this revelation, understanding that and giving up the senseless frustration of trying to control the future was a revelation and another major step in my growth.

If You Want To Eat Apples Stop Buying Oranges

I had a huge (at least to me) revelation at about 4-something this morning, that magic time when the mind isn't cluttered with the garbage of input from the day just yet. I’ve been getting frustrated with my goals lately. Then it hit me this morning. They’ve been misdirected. If you want to eat apples, stop buying oranges. That sounds pretty simple but it was a big reveal to me. I’ve been doing that with certain things.
Example: I’ve been wanting to lose some weight, but I haven’t been working out with weight loss in mind. Nor have I been eating with that in mind. So you can imagine the frustration with a goal in mind and the actions not being in line with that goal. It was a pretty liberating notion to come to.

It was a fascinating mindset that's carried me through the day so far and its "application" has been resonating with shocking clarity in several areas. It's making for a clarity and sense of purpose that doesn't center around that unconscious, sneaky people-pleasing mentality I struggle with. As selfish as it might sound this is all about me, my happiness, my presence, my mindfulness, and my serenity. Not the superficial kind, but the kind that you feel bubbling up from very deep places inside.

More to come...

Ego

Recently I had an incident that I recoiled from. Someone had offered to help me with a situation. I had to stop and think about it for a bit. Why did I get defensive at the offer of assistance. This morning at the gym it became clear to me. What I found was that my ego was getting in the way. It wouldn't let me admit that this was something that I could use advice and assistance with. It was too proud, which led to deeper stubbornness. 

Realizing this was another giant leap in my path of mindfulness and nonattachment. I became aware of, and fascinated, by the process of recognizing ego and its clever ways of keeping me stagnant in old thinking and behavior. Once I stripped away the hard outer shell ego had constructed I was able to see the truth of things. The situation then became immediately understood.
Some lessons come with time, patience, and hard work/attention. And more times than not, they come in eye-opening flashes of revelation and understanding. It made me grasp more fully the workings of the ego and its defensiveness and insecurity.