Fear,fear,fear

Confronting what frightens me is so important to do.I have had some issues that have stumped me in ways that have made me feel incapable of acting. In the end, a decision was always called for. Sometimes the issue turned into slow going. But they eventually came to an end. Going through the whole thing felt like agony. But there was no giggle room towards the solution. Now, I feel differently about the unknown. The unknown is out there...it is always a series of variables that have to be looked at. My poison has seemed to be about money. I have felt so many times an impotence brought upon by situations beyond my control and recently, someone wanting to make my life difficult, quite deliberately to advance themselves. I do not want to feel dazzled by this issue anymore. I choose to think my way out of this illusion once and for all. A fear, any fear can be paralyzing. Mine certainly felt that way. I would put effort into solving the dilemna I was facing. I would give it the good old try, and then bam, I would feel like someone or a whole universe seemed to be conspiring to make certain that my one step forward would be preceded by eleven steps back. Many times, I took it on the chin, or shrugged off the situation. I didn't want to believe that what was happening was possible. Surely, a bit of positive thinking, a good nights sleep...a new strategy...a knocking down and a new plan would help me? Surely?!? The conclusion that I come to now is based on looking at the way other people I know handle their poison. I have observed what we have in common. A big thing we have is the mythologizing of the problem. It is almost romantic, stating the issue in bold parentheses.We speak about the poison enough to have the answer inside the problem, laying nakedly out in the open...yet, somehow, we are completely blind to the answer? Why? Sometimes the answer is something we just do not want to hear or to do. The answer may be to leave the situation. But we are unwilling to start all over again. Sometimes the answer is to start afresh with no hindrance from the people who assisted in the creation of the problem to begin with. But, again, that sounds impossible...we are too old, too set in our ways...we see no way for this to work without pain. The known is safer than the unknown. Sometimes, the point is t yank off the plaster, set yourself a task, take one tentative step, then take another and plan for the next step and don't look back. Keep taking the steps. yes, your cold sweating. Yes, you feel faint and nauseous. Yes, you want to scream. Take the step anyway. That is how I see things now. Take the step...the alternative is not worth the risk.

Confidence

There is nothing like having the right information at your disposal to make decisions. There is nothing like turning around old ways of thinking when you can think critically on a matter and realize that the only thing you got wrong was that your thoughts were outmoded. There is nothing like seeing that whatever it is you can dream is more than just possible. It is a wonderful thing when you come to the realization that you don't have to listen to anyone with their tales of woe and fear as the only way. I spend a great deal of time establishing a sense of confidence in others. Sometimes when I am speaking, I would like to hear myself saying it back to me, so that I can go out into the world feeling as stoked as I know I have just made others feel. I have been a product of my own mis-conceptions about life and about people. I have had to accept my own past ways of seeing and thinking for what they are.Once you stop asking permission and start following your own dreams and yearnings...when you start knowing that there is nothing wrong in taking your own temperature, and going with your hunches and speaking out when you don't feel that that something serves you....the power behind that is amazing! When finally you can say without flinching or fawning that you know what...I want to experience this, this and this. I don't want to experience that. Also, when you can say to yourself, you know what...this is how I want to do this...and some of it may work and you may make a slip up on the way, but you still make a decision and press on...now that is golden. Every step I make where I am making it for my good, is a great step forward.

delight, delovely

Some friends I know are on the radio now, speaking about business and Art. This ends a week of so many yummy talks and lots and lots of looking at work of all types. Some of the work has been my own. I was tempted to go buy some materials this afternoon. But I held back, because I have real, serious stuff to complete for a deadline. But, what I shall do shall be quick sketches. In the past I have been dismayed when Friday comes around and I have not achieved anything creative . But only this week, I realized that I am always thinking of making and doing, and I am now giving myself the opportunity to start things...no matter what, start my things. I am eyeing the dining room table or this table that I use like its my home. I spend a great deal of time at it. Instead of being concerned, I am very excited that everything shall happen in time.

Over the last few days some things have happened so quickly that I have not really been able to table some time just to focus my thoughts. One of the things is confronting my over sentimentality. I ruminate on things sometimes, it's not a bad thing, but it does keep me in place at times. Now that I am looking at it more critically, I think that I should set some parameters about how long I should stew on something that I am feeling. That sounds a bit odd here, I know, because in some ways, how can logic transcend the need to heal from something? Equally though, how long is it healthy to go over and over certain things in ones mind? I think I spent at least fifteen years with Frequent Flyer somewhere in my heart, holding a torch for him. It is so easy to feel disgust with myself. If I look at it baldly, I can state that part of my reason for doing this was because it felt safe to do so. It did not cost me anything to indulge a bit of flirtation. So it lasted on and on, and as I always write, I thank someone who snapped me out of it about five years ago. But it took what happened last year to drive the message home. Then, yesterday, speaking to The Towers, one moment we were communicating, the next, he sounded eerily like my ex-husband. It scared the shit out of me! I got the creeps! It woke me the fuck up! What the hell am I manifesting? Why is this happening? Questions started pouring into my consciousness at rapid speed. I needed to distance myself as fast as I could. Now, I have written here that I have missed my ex-husband at times. However, there is a great deal that I certainly do not miss...and I know for a fact, that the only way in hell that I would ever consider getting back with him, is if he changed so dramatically that I was changed by it as well. That sort of thing only happens in novels. The first argument we would have would break me. It would be hard to allow any old patterns, even with promises to work on it. I see that that would be the case when I interact with him now, and I hear myself speak. Perhaps one day soon I might write about that specifically, because now that I know that I attracted my ex-husband AGAIN, I am very challenged by that. I assume that "you attract what you are"so, I am...aggressive,power driven,emotionally stunted, socially awkward,selfish and callous?!? Waw! That's a lot of negatives. Those traits loom to the fore that I take issue with. So, according to the law of attraction, I attract what I observe most, and I attract what I am, that is why I am repelled by it. That is hard to swallow, so I shall take these bitter pills one at a time. I have had issues with control. I do want to control my life. I can be passive/aggressive. I don't believe that I am emotionally stunted, I find that I feel empathy acutely for others. But, ok, I may be stunted in the area of giving myself emotionally to any man I have encountered after my divorce. I am closed off. That is true. I do not give of myself, not really. I am selfish in that way. Am I callous? Again, also, perhaps I am. I got involved with my ex boyfriend and arrogance led me down that path. I genuinely felt that it would be harmless...a fatal mistake. I did not invest myself emotionally, but he did. I don't know why I ever thought he would not. On the outside, I would never peg myself as all of those things. I don't look that way. But that does not men that I do not have a hard edge. I have always said that I do not want to show the other side of me, because she is damn cold and can be brutal. I now suppose that, if I did not show her, she would manifest anyway. It sounds like I am Schizophrenic, and perhaps I am? As I write, I see that embracing all facets of myself are necessary for my going forward. Attracting more of something I do not enjoy has never been my intention for myself. Yet, this is reality. Nothing is always 100% one way or another way. Everything is about variety. If I want love, I must love. If I want softness, I must display it and so on. I had to systematically become chaos, go through men...discombobulate myself where I didn't like me. I acted against character in order to grow and it was damn scary. I spent so many decades being just a good straight and narrow girl. it felt fucking awful to go against type. I was most fearful of being disliked! Not being able to fix what I broke. It has been damn hard not to feel constant guilt about what I see myself as now. Yet, I know that it is for my best. I have to shift and risk to grow stronger and to achieve the things that I really do want, and I have to do it because good girl kept me pale, pastel, watery....I couldn't find myself there. I was dying every single day by being everything for everyone else. I have written this now, so I can work with this. No more men to distract me from the essence of why they were repeating themselves in my life. I can down the weapons now. I shall continue to write and update myself on my work on this. But for now, I am damn grateful. i have passed a very serious test and I am very glad that I can see beyond what i thought were possibilities to truly something dynamically better...finding myself.

A few creative people have expressed interest in helping me with my work. I have come up with a name to give the project. But now, I realize that I was thinking in too limited a way. The very idea that that is what I was doing has me a bit frightened out of my mind. I don't know how I am going to make it happen? But then, a dear friend of mine gave me a great pep talk. She said that I have been working at this for so very long, I have perfected it, and I do not need any more damn preparation...she said this, because I kept talking about further research. I did not even see that that is always a fallback position for me. The comfort of going over and over the way I want something to look and to be and all the rest of it. She drew up my thinking for me so perfectly that for a moment I wanted to be in her place saying what I wanted to have come from me with such assurance. But then I remembered that so many times, I have seen so easily for her to the point of exasperation. So, I listened harder. My interests are so broad. I'd like to do a project with organic food and drinks for the grocery stores....I'd like to do environmental packaging....I'd like to do contemporary/antique furniture....a men's collection....limited edition bags....Art books...a newspaper...how do I get all of that done with the support of a variety of Artisans and make money? That is what I am not quite seeing? I think that I need to step back and sleep on it, because I know that my answer is in there. It is very possible to do what I just wrote. I was thinking the other day that it would be cool to be considered someone's muse. But "I am my own muse'" I always have been, and that would be a great audacious tagline for the brand that I have already come up with for all of this wonderful stuff that is scaring the bejezuz out of me in a good way. I thin that I might have just gotten part of the idea actually. I have wanted to draw, create and build an Architectural sculpture/Performance/Space where one of a kind things can be sold. That would be a way to "Do iT." I could set up in spaces that are related to the works as well...where I work, my friend's frame shop...a pop-up shop at that. The success of one can lead to other Architectural structures...and everything would be for sale. Including the structures themselves. The whole thing could be like an Olafur Erickson experiment..only it would be about my own creative processes. God, the whole thing is arrogant, audacious and exciting all at the same time. I like the way it is igniting me as I write this. I shall give it some serious, serious thought and see what kind of business plan I can write around it, because it is about making money from this venture. I have done without much for so damn long, it is now time to stop hiding myself under all of my perceived limitations.

My new thing is to focus on me more. I have some goals that I have set for the year that I am determined to see through. The first one being an alternative means of income from the job that I now do. My other work seems to be just as challenged as my day job,so this is the most urgent part to me. Then, I have some personal projects that I must complete. They are exciting. I also have a project that came through my job that I am extremely happy about. I have had to put on the breaks about it though, because I have wanted to follow protocol, as I should. But this weekend I got a call from the person, and I am now at a place where I have to move forward so that the thing will not be stalled and come to nothing. By moving my focus away from the things and people who have caused me so much anxiety, I am doing what I always do best. This is just right for me at this time.

What a week

Hectic, hectic, hectic. But great where growth is concerned. I have learned so much. With the big project I am doing, I have learned to talk out aloud my plans and my misgivings. I have looked at the ways people communicate for power and influence. I have learned how easy it is to be challenged by your own perceptions of things and the immense value of holding your opinion and observing things instead. I have seen how things can turn on a dime. I have seen how one moment ones situation can change from looking up, to looking no different than it did before. It has been a ride indeed. It has helped me to get to know myself better as well. I have been made to step forward and out from behind my own comfort zone. I have had to be swift with my decision making...something that I like, but also something that can sometimes feel overwhelming. I feel anxiety about aspects of this new project, but I can bask in the knowledge that I have the wisdom of others to support my way of seeing and doing. Family are coming in for Carnival and a whole lot of new stuff is being added to the equation on top of all of this very soon. It is a mad house. But I know that as soon as it becomes what it will be, it shall be on to the next thing. Then, amidst all of these things, The Towers has stepped back into my life like nothing has happened. He has been in high spirits as he should be, as the gorgeous images that he sent me of his second house almost finished would attest. But as I have always stated, us as friends will always work. Anything else is awkward. The person that I am concerned about is frequent flyer. Ever since our last conversation in December, we have not spoken. That is extremely unusual and unheard of for us. I will admit here that I really do care about him very much. He matters to me as someone whose best interest at heart I seek. My thoughts go out to him and I hope that whatever storm he may be ridding out, that he will weather it well. He has prooven to be a trooper. If I have lost him for now, I know that we shall pick up sometime, somewhere. Imagine that no contact could sober my real feelings up so sharply? I almost want to laugh. What a week.