Crap

The more I try to write, the harder it becomes, and it's not due to a lack of things to say. For the life of me, I cannot produce anything readable, even a blog post.

Recently, I have been experimenting with radical acceptance. Accepting whatever is, right now, in this moment; simultaneously accepting my shortcomings, while holding an awareness of the need to transform them into something healthier and more workable.

Letting go of my desire to produce something of any value, isn't making the writing process any easier. Neither adding pressure, nor easing up seems to work. So this is the part where radical acceptance comes in. What if I could radically accept that I am in a space where I cannot write, even with the pressure off? This is just what it is right now. Writers get writer's block; it seems to be a fact of life. As I am writing this, I remembered reading somewhere that sometimes you just write crap, and that's okay. Allowing for mistakes, allowing for crap. Okay, so I just experienced a revelation. Maybe I'll just keep on writing crap for a while. Because even if it is unattractive, messy, and completely undesirable to be in the same room with, I still enjoy producing it (crappy writing that is). I don't think that I ever realized that producing unreadable crap could be fulfilling. However, the bottom line is that I love to write. Admittedly, I would rather write something that has all of the vividness of a Chagall painting, and the light yet intoxicating scent of  L'air du Temps perfume. But for now, I will settle for ... crap.

Words

Connecting with words as if they are alive. Words are a fickle friend. When I take a break and then return, I am not met with warmth; no, I am given the cold shoulder. I have to prove my loyalty once again. Some days I wonder if I will ever regain my friend's trust. I usually do. But during a dry spell, I agonize that my dear friend will not forgive my absence this time; leaving me mute and all alone. But this friend of mine doesn't hold a grudge forever, just for a little while I must suffer while my friend withholds its love. Just long enough for me to fill with regret and remorse for having ever left. I want to return. I long to return. Although I know that I will leave again one day.

Confession

I haven't posted in a very long time. There hasn't been anything that I have wanted to say. I haven't wanted to share my inner thoughts and feelings with other people. But right now, in this moment, I feel terribly lonely and empty; two very vulnerable and painful emotions. The last thing that I have wanted to do was to share my vulnerability with other people, since I have always equated vulnerability with rejection.

Maybe I'm being impulsive. However, I know that I need to write; it has been so long. It feels as though I have lost most of my ability to convey anything meaningful. As I am writing these words, I feel the emptiness filling up ever so slightly.

There are so many of you that I want to reach out to, but I hesitate because more than anything, I fear rejection and judgement. I never let my guard down; always on edge; constantly frightened of being hurt.
So much of the time, I am terrified, and this is the way it has always been for me. Sometimes I want to let people know that I'm so scared. I want to be told that it's all okay, that I'm okay and that I am really not the terrible person that I imagine myself to be. I live in a constant state of feeling as though I have done something terribly wrong, and I am just waiting for punishment to come my way. Although if I scan my memory I can't find the terrible thing that I have done. I've made some mistakes, but those things don't make me a bad person. So I carry this kind of shameful feeling with me always. I realize that some of you will judge me for confessing my vulnerability, and quite frankly I'm not sure that my sharing in this way is even appropriate. There are probably better ways to connect, and I may regret this later. But I hurt and I don't want to be in this pain alone.

A Crack at Honesty

It seems that during the past month my desire or need to stay connected with people through the blog and Facebook has dwindled to practically nothing. The realization hit me last week that I don't feel the need to stay connected or validated through my writing. It feels liberating and scary. We go through phases in this life, and I am certainly aware that this is a phase that I am going through. However, the feeling of not looking for approval through writing is a pretty great feeling. That doesn't mean that I have stopped caring what people think of me, unfortunately that nasty habit will die hard. I wouldn't necessarily say that I am on a journey at present, although I suppose we are always on a journey. However, journey implies to me some sort of fun and adventure, and I am not having much fun. I am finding that there is beauty in the darkness and normal does not exist. Perfection is arbitrary. I am not nor have I ever been a model of mental health as much as I may have tried to convince myself of that because seeing the truth of who I am and my flaws was just too painful. So I've spent years finding flaws in others and trying to believe that I really am normal and healthy. I have yet to meet anyone that is normal and yet I have so desperately wanted to be normal and not labeled weird or quirky. I am what I am, whether likable or not. I have spent so much time and energy hiding from myself and the world out of shame and embarrassment. I'm not so interested in coming out of hiding to the world, I just care about being honest and open with myself. I'm not quite sure what that looks like, I just know that the closer that I come to touching it the more I feel myself coming undone. 

My apologies to those blogs that I no longer frequent, I haven't forgotten the writers and I wish them all beautiful things on their journeys.

The Harvard Version of Life

I really appreciate all the support that I received in the comments about my journaling class. To answer some of your questions: I teach journaling and blogging classes at 7:00 pm Thursdays at the Open Mind Center. To register call the center at: 678 243-5074. I don't offer my classes online, however, I have begun to entertain the idea of offering individual online journaling sessions via email. Not quite sure yet how to do that, but I am definitely open to the idea. Also, I recently started offering counseling services at the Open Mind Center, which is pretty exciting as this is a new service that the center is offering.

I recently read an article about the need for life to be challenging so that we don't get bored. The challenges are all there for our growth. Over the past few days I have begun thinking about life as both a game and a school. I had a moment yesterday where I could see it as a game that my husband and I were trying to figure out how to master. When I stepped back and in a sense removed myself from life, my life became fun. The challenges became fun. I was trying to figure out how to play this game. The game is messy, dirty, and heartbreaking at times, but I saw that it was possible for me to lift myself above it all and enjoy the messiness. Because the messy does not define me. I am not the messiness. I am just learning to maneuver the messiness involved in this game.

Life as a school. For the most part I have found adulthood to be one challenge after another; I have not enjoyed meeting those challenges. There has been a lot of struggle. Life hasn't always been easy. Holding the awareness of life as a school I realized that I have not been attending the community college version of life, but more like the Harvard version. I had never really thought of life in terms of easy schools and difficult schools. Maybe the people that are breezing through life are really smart at playing this game, or maybe they are just attending a school with a fairly easy curriculum. I have had some pretty difficult classes, I think that many of them have been AP. I'm pretty sure that I have failed some of them, however, if I was put in an AP class at one of the top schools in the country then there must be an assumption somewhere out there that I am capable of eventually mastering the subject and passing the class. I'm really looking forward to a new semester with new classes and teachers. Some of these classes are really getting old, and some of them I am starting to think I will never pass.

I'm Here

Some people have wondered where I've been, as it seems that I have disappeared from the blogging world. So I wanted to let you all know that I am alive and well, but still not very interested in the blog. I have very little to say that would be of interest to anyone.

Update: I have made great progress toward getting my associates license for counseling. My application will be reviewed by the Georgia Composite Board next Friday, so if all goes well I should have my Associate Professional Counselor license within a couple of weeks. I did a lot of work in a very short amount of time to get to this place. Now I have to find clients, and that task feels a bit overwhelming at present. My energy is quite low, and I don't think that I am putting out the kind of energy that I need to put out to draw clients to me. So I'm frustrated. I know that I need to be patient, I just really like to see results and results don't always happen over night.

Right now I am sitting at the Open Mind Center, typing this blog entry when I should be giving my Journaling Class; however, it's hard to give a class without students. I have this great class to offer; I've seen its transformative powers. However, the trick is to get other people enthusiastic about something as basic as writing. I think that people are looking for "magic" and quick fixes, and they underestimate the power of pen and paper because it is so fundamental and basic. However, processing your "stuff" through the means of pen and paper works amazingly quickly and gives fast results, and it's empowering because the healing is coming from within the writer. Yes, it helps to have me there guiding the students, but ultimately the writer has the answers within themselves, and they have the key that will reveal those answers.

I am so happy to reconnect with you all. Thank you for remembering me, and for supporting me along my journey.  My apologies to all of the blogs that I have been neglecting lately. Although I'm not responding to your posts, my thoughts are with you and I send you wishes for continued success and happiness.

Much love

Happiness

Yesterday was all about happiness for me. The weather in Georgia was a perfect 69 and sunny. It was the type of day when all of life seems to come together and make sense, and the sense that I made out of it was that all that has ever mattered was and is experiencing life in the Moment. Not living in past or future, just the here and now.

I took a beautiful and joyful three mile walk while listening to some of my favorite songs. Music has a way of lifting me out of any kind of funk I might find myself in and setting me back down into my heart.

When my husband came home from work, I was making dinner and listening to James Taylor Radio on Pandora. He and I ended up sitting on the couch talking and listening to music for a couple of hours. It sounds so simple and basic, yet it was such sweet and perfect joy. Every song was fantastic. Life was good.

Happiness is all about perspective. My father always told my sister and I that a person is as happy as they want to be. That really drove me crazy when he said that, but he was right. Yesterday I chose to be happy.

Happy music: