oh, by the way...

Recently a guy I have known for some time asked me out. I was flattered, but said nothing definitive to I'm because I was working at the time, and I really could not focus on that. So he found a moment to ask me again. It will now be a few times that he has asked me. I have been so busy, that it was not until two nights ago, I thought to myself that I have to tell him that I am flattered, but I am not interested in doing that. I was a bit surprised at myself, because, I have known him for several years, and I have been thinking that it would be nice to go out with someone. But when he asked me, my first thought was that I really do not want to go out with a man and be doing it just for kicks. I don't have the time to waste. Why go through all of the dressing up and eating, drinking or dancing at different places...and then there is the unspoken but very serious intention of expecting sex down the mine that I really do not want to give to another man who isn't likely to be interested in a long term relationship. I was struck by the weirdness of all of it. He is asking me out because he has some thoughts that he can't seem to prevent me from seeing, clearly on his mind. I don't think that he is a bad guy from being so transparent. It is just that I ask myself, why? Why would I want to do that now in my life? Of course I would like to meet someone I can be great friends with, truly enjoy talking to, going out with and slowly working my way into something deeply meaningful. I thought that I had done that awhile back, but I was definitely mistaken. This invitation has made me think that I need to decide what I want from a relationship for real, and see how I can make it actually happen. I found that as I was thinking no, I felt the long shadow of all that I have gone through, and that was a big part of the turn off for me. So, there is work for me to do, before I am ready to say yes to whomever decided to ask me in the future.

Easter

It is nearly that time of year when I have to adjust my focus. Things come to an end, and I am now expecting my efforts to pay off in the creation of new projects. I just completed another recommendation for someone, and I was reading it back. Of late, I have been thinking about some of the work that I want to achieve from the standpoint of legacy, yes, but also consolidation. By that I mean, I am approached all of the time to help so many people, I ask myself, what about me? How am I taking all of this support and committing it to myself? One excellent thing did come from my week I must stress. I had an opportunity to spend a few hours without distraction going over why I feel so antsy about my plans, and I concluded that I just need to make a proper plan for my projects and start them. Once I do so, I shall find that I wont feel that way anymore. Also, I now realize that last year I was in the throws of some serious work for deadline,and clearly, there is so much more I would like to be doing. Also, my ex (I mean "Y") just sent me a long letter about our child's report and a few typical comments that usually would have gotten me to respond to every sentence he made almost instantly. This time around, I am not even remotely desirous of doing such a thing. I have my own intentions, and it does not serve me to respond or to let him know what they are. I feel such a relief from this choice that I have to write it here. There are other ways to bell a cat, as the saying goes.

I had to write tonight, because I got home and felt so excited about the way I was feeling. I just feel confident about my decisions.Yesterday I did something that I don't usually do, and that was that I asked myself a question about some of my plans and hopes that usually leaves me stumped. When I am stumped, I usually leave the question alone and I may come back to it. But usually, it would end up being something that I handle in a circular way. I start heaping up a list of why I will have a problem, so it is as though the 'problem' cannot be fixed at all. But because I have been working on having a different mindset, I am finding that I can tackle the things that I used to feel I could not solve. I am able to pull from my ideas and vision for better as a matter of course now, and what I am feeling does not have doubt and skepticism behind it.

the Y

A bit more on the "Y". Tonight, I decided that I shall write a script for myself. The project that I mentioned here a few weeks ago, I got a glimpse of how it can be achieved. I was taking a taxi into town and I saw a very smartly dressed young man with an insulated cooler shaped box on a folded table . He had a bag with metal tongs inside it, and another bag filled with paper bags. he also had a large red umbrella. But it was his tee-shirt that struck me. It said something about entrepreneurs. He was simple, yet striking, and seeing him, and then when I got into town I saw two other people, a man and a woman in the same get up. I thought, ok, this is great! This is a group of people making work for themselves. I loved it. But, I don't want to get offtrack. This is about my plans. I used to cringe when I did this. I would write so many things I wanted to do, and when I could not achieve it, I would be so downcast, to the point where I felt that I should stop making plans. I am so glad that I do not feel that way anymore, plans are an opportunity to stretch yourself. They come freely and that's a great thing. I give myself a year to change my present situation to one of prosperity. I will no longer find myself stalled by my present job. I will achieve the things that I set out to do. I expect to be able to feel freer, happier, relieved that I am seeing myself able to really make decisions because I can do so. I am not waiting for this or that shoe to drop. I embrace my decision to call forth what I see for myself now. Change for the better can happen in a blink of an eye. My focus is now outward and upward. Amen.

A wonderful day

Indeed. Such a great day! My "Y' husband sent me his usual aggressive text yesterday. and then today he went off on a bender. What changed today was the way I responded to him. It was as though as the saying goes, something snapped in me. It was me saying, I am not going to read, or read into the trash that comes out of his mind and onto the screen of my phone. That is HIS belief. His limitation, it is where he chooses to be. What I will not do is entertain it as something that I shall take on or ingest.It was tangible to me as I stated this fact to myself. But something else also happened. I said aloud what I would prefer before I could even vet it. I learned so much this week, I don't even know where to begin. I observed so much. I saw the way people with the perfect tools to succeed, sabotage themselves. i saw the way someone with very little skill could take their naked desire to achieve what they want grab it and succeed. Although nothing that they are doing is properly structured or competently established. I saw the way my colleague uses me and others around him to prop himself up against. We all like to feel whatever it is we need to build our image..in his instance, it is a need to look strong and powerful. In a way, typically male behavior, and so, I watched that , quite aware of what he was doing for his ego's sake. It was interesting, because in the past, I might have felt that I needed to challenge him by counter acting his statements. But as my "Y" did what he did, it was as though what I experienced with my colleague would give me the hint to know that I also did not have to jump at what my "Y" always does. I usually respond, I get riled up, because he is riled up. But this time, I could see his moves. i also imagined that his angry energy was wafting through the phone and i replied to myself aloud, I love you, I wish you well. All is well. I also had to deal with a hustler this week. The person has the traits although they are setting themselves up as an intellectual. I got to see them in full mode. But what happened this week was that, I decided to sit and stay still and give myself a moment to think on my approach to them. I had discussed them enough to draw a belief system around them...which may or may not be 100% true. However, I reminded myself that there is my observation and beliefs. the other persons observations and beliefs and the thing itself. I decided to look at the actual "concern" around what the person was doing as a thing with air around it. pretty much the way Eckhart Tolle says that you are the person observing the person thinking. When I did that, it became easy to be detached. i saw it similarly to the way one would see a bowl with something inside it inside of a larger container filled with water. Seeing that I could isolate the "thing" as separate from my notions or the other persons notions that I had deduced...I then focused on what I wanted to achieve, and no longer on the moves that would be made by the person and by myself. If this is said, then I should say that and so on. This was remarkable for me. I slowed down the chatter in my mind and the only way I can write it, is to say that I got into the flow, and it was from there that i could move forward and cut through whatever it was that it might be or really was...and seek and achieve a different outcome...and this shall help me with the "Y"

there are days and then there are daze

The never ending puzzle that is consciousness will get me every time. There is so much to suppose, deduce, put together and analyze and then when you get somewhere, you are actually nowhere. But yet, I persist. Today it was about expecting coincidences to lead to the next one to be able to say to myself de ja vu. But today, the subtle difference was the connection of a number of other things in the mix. It started with the behavior of one or two people for a presentation. Both people in our great big illusion that is our world, felt so put upon about their lot when actually, they were being handled not only fairly, but beyond helpful, yet they could not, would not see it. The second person going so far as to decide to act, not wanting any help. So she ruined one of her pieces because she would not bend and say, can you assist me with this. Later, I spoke to another person, someone who could not be in the presentation, and the people I just spoke about were upset, finding the person who did not succeed very lucky. The logic was so skewed that I had to have a moment. I had to explain how very bazaar the logic was. But this evening was the ultimate of that whole mishmash of thinking. A conversation with our hairdresser...as always she has some tall very real stories. From her own family and her daily experiences. This time was really a new one. I have never even heard of anything like it. She said that she was awake very early in the morning and looked out of her window because she was hearing something. She looked up to see what it was and saw to her great shock, an airplane flying was below radar. In my country today the news is always bad and violent and scary in the violence. That is all that anyone I know talks about with anxiety and dismay. Here I am, in my country, living in it, part of all of the weirdness of place and space. There are enough challenges to be distracted. I have read all that I can about positive thinking and I have been mindful of how words and actions produce certain outcomes...and perhaps that is all it is. But my mind says, no that is the beginning of the best part because I believe that an answer is afoot. So when my hairdresser talks about a plane and we get into all of the things that we are hearing every single day on the news and making deductions from them...and wondering where we are standing amidst all of this insanity...it becomes a Hmmmmm, moment. too much of this leads to that.Why is weighted, negative content what sticks? It seems. Today the rapid fire of things in the im-material seemed to inform and create the material. So I had to listen and observe what was happening particularly. Now, how could I look at a whole country against a few people I interacted with today? Everything is interconnected and everything is related or relative. The answer is actually so right out there in the open...as old as time. Biblical time that is. In the Garden, so much choice leads to full awareness. Awareness brings pain. The people in the presentation...aware...and pained. Somewhere amidst all that used to work, suddenly nothing is right,nothing works anymore and that is that there is too much illusion, we cannot tell the difference anymore and all that is ever really true is the subtle gossamer currents that show all of us a teeny, tiny way forward. But the current is so damn strong that it is easy to mistake the pull for the pure action. So you as Eckhart Tolle has stated, "You are the person or entity observing the person thinking.

I may not have written it in all of this time, but for years I felt as though my anxiety was at the top of my way of thinking, so although I appeared to anyone observing me to be normal, I think I was never really feeling secure. It has taken a lot of work on my part to be here today where I can make a decision, with all of the boxes not ticked, still needing other things to work out...yet, force, I am not adding a sense of dread to my planning. I used to write that I had plans and lists, and I would even write optimistically about an idea, and then, it would just fizzle. Things would get to a certain degree and then...suddenly, nothing. It would seem like I would be putting so much effort out and yet, some insurmountable thing would stall me. I would listen to other people and I would hear other people making plans and seeing them through. Not that every plan I had fell flat, it was just that those I saw as pivotal to getting me from point A to B seemed to crash and burn. Now, a simple move like, plan, consider, think of my ice and know that it takes just small steps, somehow, that is extremely comforting and nurturing to me right now. A number of incremental things had to come into play for me to finally get here. First of all, there is no 'me' and 'them' where expectations are concerned. One set of rules for the world and another for me. I had to confront exactly what negative things I have been telling myself like a mantra for most of my life. I also am so grateful that I am now so fed up that even if I wanted to fall back into old negative habits, I am not only fed up of what they have wrought, but also tired and bored to be going through the same results that lead nowhere. Infusing my mind with at least one thing that I may not have known before, or a topic that can get my mind shifting...not that I have not been doing that for years...and thank goodness. But in this instance, it was a conscious decision to make new memories. It sounds sort of flippant. You make new memories every day. Indeed, but I also think a lot of the same things every day as well. My self talk is filled with the same old record player views. It is so damn easy to for example think of my "Y" husband...someone recently suggested I call him that instead of "x" and that is quite funny. If I focus on him, I can easily find myself recalling something from our past, or focusing on something he said or did recently. The other day,a friend of mine did this with me as she called to ask my opinion about something. I heard her go into he past and use it to predict her future and i was dismayed at how easily she did it. How can I say that I want this or that, and then go back to having a mindset that prevents my own good? Its like someone saying that they want to lose weight, but they would not check what they eat, change the foods in their refrigerator and pantry, exercise or diet. I cannot say that I want to have a certain degree of success if everything that can stall me is allowed to stump me. Put that way, I can easily find a reason to not progress, but thank god that I have pushed through that feeling many times in my life, so I know that I can succeed as long as I don't keep my focus on the thing that may have yet again hurled itself in my vision to laugh at my plans. I can now say, yes, I see you, meddling with me again, but guess what, that's all your doing, meddling. I have an answer for that, and for thenext one and the next one and the next one coming down the pike. That's how you beat it. You just do.