A breath of fresh air

“As we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people the permission to do the same.” ~Nelson Mandela

 

Today, in anticipation of Spring, I bought a pretty pink skirt. It’s lovely and has a subtle floral print. It makes me happy just looking at it.

Why this got me thinking about Facebook and other social media, I am not sure, but I realized that when we share the small, joyous moments of our lives with our friends and family, it makes everyone’s life a little nicer and lightens the burdens of all involved. It’s like a breath of fresh air. And I believe it is possible to do it without bragging, I’ve seen it. There are some lovely people on my Facebook friends list and on Twitter who make my life nicer just knowing they are out there.

My whole goal with Facebook and especially Twitter is to share my joy with the world. I do it because I have been blessed with a particular way of looking at the world, and the ability to write fairly well. And fairly concisely as it turns out, though I am certain my blog posts beg to differ. My point is, I have come to a place in my life where I fully understand that both my broad-minded perspective and my writing skills are gifts and the best way I can honor those gifts is to share them.

By choosing to be a leader in this way, by giving yourself permission to be authentic, to be vulnerable, to share your open heart, and to love freely and unconditionally, you literally invite others to do likewise. If you cultivate good qualities in yourself through prayer, meditation, and spiritual discipline, you can share those with others through the way you treat them. They will see a glimpse of their own holiness in you and their lives will be made better. It gives people hope to see someone earnest on their spiritual path. Mine may not be the prettiest display of spiritual work, but nobody would ever accuse me of not trying, that much I know. And if it helps anyone to look at my example and know that we’re all just doing the best we can, then what I’m doing is worthwhile.

The small number of people whose lives I have touched have made every risk I take in sharing myself through writing totally worth it.

I love seeing the light shine on Facebook and Twitter. More and more I see people posting positive, uplifting messages to share with the people they love.

If you go around loving and accepting people, just as they are, you know what you get? A lot of happy people who feel safe around you. It’s beautiful.

Kinda like a pretty, pink skirt and the promise of Spring.

Quality connections

When people follow me on Twitter, I usually follow them back. The only time I don’t is when it looks like it is a bot. Those are pretty easy to recognize because it’s usually a very sexy looking woman with zero tweets.

This post may very well be another installment in Cheryl’s Weird Way of Looking at the World, but there are some things about social networking that perplex me. Certain phenomena that I have noticed as I observe the world.

It would probably be good to give my ideas of what things like Twitter and Facebook are to me. Facebook seems like a place to connect with people you actually know in person, friends and family, while Twitter feels like a place to connect with new people of similar temperament.

Twitter seems more like hanging out in a coffee shop as opposed to the big family picnic that is Facebook. I have never met most of the people I follow on Twitter. And for me that means I am more free to be myself. These are people who have no preconceived notions about who I am or what I should be doing.

This Twitter/Facebook thing makes me think of this Bible verse: “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and among his own relatives and in his own household.” Mark 6:3-5  Jesus had been traveling and doing miracles and great things, but when he came to his hometown, he could do very few small miracles. The people of his town saw him as just that carpenter kid whose parents live down the road. They thought he was thinking pretty highly of himself and they became angry. He was doing something different than was expected of him.

People who think they know us do not like it when we act in ways they do not expect. When we have expectations of each other, life is an emotional roller coaster.

So in the Jesus analogy, Facebook is my hometown. The people there have definite ideas about me and I don’t impact them much because of it. Anything I say or do has to penetrate the wall of projected ideas and opinions…and that’s not always easy. So I find myself a little constrained on Facebook. That is not the case with Twitter or this blog.

When I am writing anywhere besides Facebook, I feel free to be myself. Judgmental family and friends put a damper on open communication. Not that I never judge, I clearly have opinions on where my family is coming from.

As I follow new people on Twitter, I get a lot of requests to also be friends on Facebook. Usually from people who are selling or promoting something. I get such an odd vibe from people who are constantly trying to drum up new contacts and increase their number of online friends. To me, it has an air of desperation about it. A definite Amway marketing feel. It’s off putting.

It doesn’t bother me in general that there are people on Twitter who are selling stuff. I can put up with that. There is a core group of people I follow who are absolutely precious to me. Their words and intentions help me stay positive. In a way, though I have never met most of them, they feel more like family than my flesh and bone relatives. These are kindred spirits, one of the great joys of life. A lot of these people are not selling anything and are just happy to connect with like minded others. They seem to be genuinely glad to share wisdom with others…free of charge.

A while ago I read a quote that said something to the effect that Twitter makes you love people you don’t even know and Facebook makes you hate your own family and friends. There is a curious truth to that. My experience is not that extreme, but I have seen the radiant beauty of total strangers on Twitter at the same time as witnessing arrogant and offensive behavior by Facebook friends I actually know in person.

This is partially why Facebook friend requests from strangers unnerve me a bit. It’s like inviting someone to join my obnoxious, opinionated, judgmental family.

The other reason is that the action of declaring a total stranger a friend, which in the grand scheme of things I support fully, redfines the word friend as I have understood it. I don’t like seeing this happen. I don’t like seeing online connections replace real human ones. Our worth as people is not determined by how many Facebook friends we have, or how many Twitter followers. The benefit is not in the numbers, it is in the quality of the connections that are made. While it seems possible that establishing a rapport with someone over Twitter could lead to a friendship that leads to a Facebook connection, asking too early is like being too eager on a first date.

A couple of years ago I met someone with whom I felt a very strong instant connection. Shortly after we met, after we’d seen each other a couple of times, I sent him a text message saying it seemed we had a lot in common and asking if he would like to be friends and hang out and talk sometimes. He responded saying that he appreciated the offer, but that he didn’t feel like he had room in his life for another friend at that time. It was one of the most honest, straightforward things anyone has ever said to me and I respected him for it. I understood right away where he was coming from. Relationships take time and energy if they are to be of high quality. That is just not possible with more than a few people at a time. It’s fine to have many acquaintances, but having 2 or 3 people who are close to be devoted to is about what most people can comfortably handle.

While I am fortunate to have people in my life who care that I care about, I have no close friends right now. Not the kind you see and talk to regularly. I’m connecting with a few people at work, but there is no way to know if those connections will last. I have tended to drift in and out of lives. I have short, intense relationships. The fact that I was married 18 years, notwithstanding. The actual relationship had deteriorated many years before I left.

The past couple of years has been the only time in my life I have been alone like this. It’s been the most eye opening thing I have ever experienced. Figuring out who I am without the influence of others. I better understand my strengths and weaknesses now and I do not need validation to be okay. I’m human, I still like validation, I just don’t need it to feel worthwhile anymore.

My hope is that the period of introspection will help improve the quality of all my connections going forward.

In the meanwhile I wish the multi-level marketing types would quit trying to get to me over Facebook. It’s not going to happen. There is a shallowness in the world of sales and marketing (and performers, actually) that does not interest me at all. A way of looking at people trying to find ways to use them for one’s own personal gain. For the rest of the time I have left in this body I wish to make real, deep connections with people who share the desire of making the world a better place by looking deeply at our fellow humans and seeing true beauty. I do not desire illusory connections in which there is no real interest in the other person. To me that seems like a living hell where one acquires relationships with no intention of maintaining them. Relationship clutter. It’s like people hoarders. I don’t want to exist at the back of someone’s metaphorical refrigerator, covered in mold or under a pile of old newspapers. Nobody does.

It feels like I will soon be able to manage a few friendships again. I finally know who I am. Or rather, I finally know who and what I am not, which makes it a lot easier to be genuine and removes the need for a façade.

Consider the freedom of not needing anyone for anything. It means you get to love people just because you do and for no other motive.

It’s time to celebrate real connection and stop settling for an illusion.

Endings

Yesterday was a day of endings for me.  Not in huge, life altering ways, just in the small ways that happen to most of us most of the time.  I finished dog/house sitting, watched the finale of the Oprah show, and watched the finale of American Idol.  The great thing is, I learned something from all of them.

The dog sitting showed me how wonderful it is to be home and how it’s not the amount of stuff that makes a home comfortable, it’s the energy that we bring to our homes that make them welcoming and inviting places to be.

The people I house sit for have a lot of stuff.  Their drive to accumulate stuff feels like fear to me.  Fear of not having enough things I guess.  And guess is all I can do.

This all came to the forefront when I arrived last week at their house to find a note, much like the notes they always leave with contact information and instructions.  This time however, the note contained an admonishment about using coasters, highlighted in yellow.  Further, there was a sticky note folded into a small tent shape on the actual table where the coaster incident had taken place that said COASTERS!, just like that, all caps with an exclamation point.

My mind went through a gamut of thoughts and feelings about this.  Including: incredulity, offense, defense, anger and judgment.  I suppose it could be argued that I am still judging by making note of these things.  However, I do have a point and plan to get to it any time now.  But this next bit is not it.

In the four years I have been taking care of their dog and house, I have never left a mess of any kind.  When they return from a trip their house is as clean or cleaner than when they left.  I’ve never broken anything and despite their invitation to help myself to anything in the fridge, I always replace anything I eat or drink.  I guess I’m saying that I am a pretty good house sitter.  I house sat for one of my law professors for a couple of years and also for the former career counselor from my law school.  These are all people who live in nice houses with nice things in them and I have always taken very good care of their stuff.

Okay, now on to my point.  Obviously I was bothered by the way the coaster incident was handled and how it felt like I was given no benefit of the doubt as to my apparent carelessness.  That’s okay.  I can be more careful in the future.  The point of this part of my post is that it is glorious to be home.  I live in a condo.  It’s old, it creaks, and I don’t have very much stuff.  And the stuff I have is not worth very much money.  But my home is every bit as comfortable, if not more so, than their house filled with things so important that they are worth getting angry at someone whose conscientious nature should be apparent after four years of not making mistakes.  My home is comfortable and welcoming, not because of the things in it, but because of the love that is in it and the people who inhabit it.

While I was house sitting, I couldn’t take a bath.  Their water heater is not capable of producing enough hot water to fill their relatively shallow tub.  This morning I soaked in a hot bubble bath in my lovely not-so-shallow tub with a seemingly endless supply of hot water.  It was glorious and I was so grateful for it.

I may not have very much in the way of material possessions, but I have everything I need and most importantly, I have enough.

“To know you have enough is to be rich.” ~Tao Te Ching

When I got home I decided to watch the final Oprah show because Oprah has been a light on my path for such a long time and I wanted to see that chapter of my life–the chapter that had the Oprah show for inspiration–close gently and with gratitude.

In her typical no-nonsense fashion, Oprah taught me a couple of things in her farewell.  One is actually something I am well aware of: All people, without exception, want to be validated.  They want to know that they are seen and heard and above all, that they matter.  I once heard a preacher say that we all have a desire to be known.  I think Oprah goes further and recognizes that we all want to be known and we all want to be loved, just as we are.  The world we live in is a harsh one at times, but every once in a while we meet someone who sees us truly and finds beautiful what they see.  This is the most healing thing on earth in my opinion.  It is wonderful to know that God loves us just as we are, but the truth in my opinion is that God is manifest in each and every one of us, so to know the unconditional love of God, we have to give it to each other…and ourselves.

This brings me to the final lesson I got from the Oprah show: There is a difference between believing that you deserve happiness and believing that you are worthy of it.  This one hit me like a ton of bricks.  I have been wondering, a lot recently, why I so often find myself almost successful.  I know I deserve success.  Heaven knows I have worked hard enough.  But somehow things that seem beyond my control keep popping up just in time to make most of my life struggle with very little reward. A good deal of my struggle is trying to convince myself that I am enough–good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, educated enough, kind enough, compassionate enough–in short, worthy.  And I never have truly gotten to that place where I have been able to ease up on myself and know that, as Oprah said yesterday, I am worthy because I was born.

All I can do with this revelation is be willing to accept myself and to know that I am enough, just as I am.  There is no magic formula that I can apply to work toward this knowledge, I just have to keep telling myself it is so and do it with a willing and open heart.

I am…and that is sufficient.

The final lesson I learned last night was from American Idol of all things.  This is the first season I have watched and last night the contestant that I did not want to win, won.  I checked Twitter at the end of the east coast broadcast and knew the winner before watching it here on the west coast.  All I could think was ugh, I don’t want him to win, I want Lauren to win.  American Idol did something really right last night in my opinion.  They made the entire finale a celebration of all the contestants, not just the winner.  The part that was about who won was a mere couple of minutes of the entire two-hour show.  The lesson was: They all won and they all deserved to win.  Anyone who is working toward their passion, following their bliss, is a winner.  The specific example I love most is James Durbin, the 22-year-old who a year ago was a struggling young dad who could barely afford diapers for his baby.  Last night he was on stage with Judas Priest.  It was a privilege to watch this kid’s dream come true.

Yesterday was the culmination of a rough week for me.  Expensive car repairs with more to come, wounded pride over a freaking coaster of all things, and the ever present question I carry in my heart: How can I, one person with so little, make a positive impact in this world?   The answer to that last one, I hope, is the words you are reading now.

I feel good; I am here, now; and I am willing.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury,pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

~St. Francis of Assisi

Restless

I’m nearly convinced I’m not normal, that I never will be and that it means I might be pretty lonely the rest of my life.  It’s not that I’ve ever been normal, but up until recently I was more willing to pretend.

The thing is, I actually long to make connections, but there is a part of me that will not let feelings out.  I was just on Twitter and there is a group of (mostly) females who refer to each other as doll and say I love you publicly.  When I see that I cringe.  And it’s not because I think they shouldn’t do it.  I think they should do it, unless they don’t really mean it.

As one for whom the words I love you do not come easily, I wonder what people actually mean when they say it, especially in a most casual way, like on Twitter.  The specific tweet I am talking about sounded very sincere and sweet and I believe that the person meant it.  I know nothing of the friendship between the people involved, it just felt real and sincere when I read it.  It made me want to be that kind of person…a kind of person I’m not sure I am even capable of being.

The only reason this saddens me is it’s not that I lack the feelings and emotions, I only lack the words and the ability to express.  I have such genuine good feelings toward most people most of the time, but I am ill equipped to make them known.

I may have stirred up this dilemma for myself because I have been feeling uninspired.  It’s like now that some of the pressure is off and it looks like I have this financial crisis under control, I don’t know what to do with myself.  And yet, I don’t want to live from crisis to crisis, so I need to find something constructive to do with the energy that was taken up by worry and anxiety.

All I have wanted to do is sleep.  I’m getting up early, but I have been wanting to take naps almost every day.  I don’t always do it because napping makes me feel guilty, but I have wanted to.

Today I finally realized that I’m not focusing because I don’t have anything to worry about, so I made a commitment to work on positive forward momentum.

There are many things I can do that will bring good to my life and the lives of others.  And there are people who are not my children who might be interested in knowing that I love them.  So maybe I’ll work on that.

Bittersweet memories

Mother’s day is a hard day for me.  I have been estranged from most of my family for the past 5 years or so, but mostly from my parents.  I get pretty quiet on Facebook and Twitter on Mother’s day.  Father’s day is going to be the same way.

People gush about their moms and I am happy for them, but having lived the life I have lived, I understand that not everyone can celebrate some of these holidays the way most can.

It’s not that I do not forgive my mother for the abusive conditions I grew up in.  I do, but that doesn’t change what happened.  My mother was more mentally and emotionally abusive, while my dad was physically abusive and violent.  My mother facilitated his behavior by doing and saying nothing while he took out what now seems like generations of violent anger on my siblings and me.  My mother used to even provoke him to the point where he would hurt us in response to her complaints.

Our abusive home was somewhat atypical in that my dad never laid a hand on my mom.  And honestly, I’m grateful that he didn’t.  I can’t even imagine how much more painful my memories would be if I had watched my mother being hurt on top of what my brothers and sisters and I went through.

I’ve had difficulty reconciling my parents’ behavior and though I know as surely as I know anything that they did their best, I have real difficulty when I remember the coldness with which they dealt with us.  It wasn’t like some stories I have heard about drunken parents who yelled and hit and lost control of their faculties.  To me that sort of sheds light on the pain that the abuser is struggling with inside themselves.

My parents were cold and calculating.  My dad never raised his voice and I remember being unable to look him in the eyes because of the lack of compassion and caring behind them.  My mother had a tone of total disgust that she used regularly toward her kids.

Neither of my parents drank alcohol or used drugs.  Not that I wish they would have, but we didn’t even have that to point to as a reason for the irrationality of their cruelty.

I’m not writing about this to ruin Mother’s day for anyone, in fact I hope that anybody who would be upset by reading this would stop and do something else.  Part of what made me want to write is a Facebook status one of my dear friends put up.  It read: “A special Mother’s Day hug to all of you who, like me, have complicated and tragic relationships with your mothers.”  This person is a judge on our state’s second highest court.  She and I have talked at length about how painful it can be to be somewhat accomplished and the assumptions that people make about family support being behind it.  I let her know how much I appreciate her for being a truth teller.

The thing is, telling the truth about child abuse does not mean people do not love or forgive their parents.  It just is what it is.  And for some reason there is so much shame in it that it makes people either remain silent or make up stories to cover the truth.  That’s unfortunate because it’s hard enough to come to terms with these things without the pressure of knowing that most people are so uncomfortable with such topics they wish you’d just keep it to yourself.

The other thing that encouraged me to write this post was a tweet by Michael Moore, the filmmaker, about Mother’s day memories he shared over Twitter and those shared by his followers.  He tweeted: “But some of u have written that yr childhood was not so pleasant, even abusive. It hurt 2 read these & 2 realize this is not a happy day 4 u.”  I thought this was an amazingly sensitive way to acknowledge the people who had the courage to speak up on this day.

So now that I have gotten that out, I wish to acknowledge that my own children have brought tremendous healing into my life and have made Mother’s day joyous again.  Every Mother’s day I have this amazing sense of gratitude for the privilege of being a part of their lives.  They are the best people I know and to know that I had anything to do with how wonderful they have turned out is truly humbling.  I try to let them know every day how honored I am that I get to be a part of their lives.

I am happy for all the people in the world who had mothers who loved them and made sure they knew they were loved.  While I didn’t personally experience that myself, I am grateful that at some point in my development I realized that is how it ought to be and that the realization came soon enough for my children to grow up knowing they are loved and cherished.  I have not been a perfect parent by any stretch of the imagination, but I did put a stop to the cycle of violence that went back through generations of my family.

Disconnected

I haven’t felt like writing much lately.  I’m not sure if it’s because of the cold I’m finally starting to get over or what, but I haven’t felt inspired to do much of anything that I would consider productive.  At least in the online sense.  I don’t have much to say on Twitter or Facebook and everything I have tried to write for this blog the past few days has ended up in the trash or the draft folder.  All I have been doing is looking for work and trying not to panic about the miracle it’s going to take to get out of this hole I find myself in.

I finally have a job interview coming up, which makes me very happy.  It’s not glamorous or even permanent, but it will get me out of the stressful situation I have been in for the past few months.  I’m very grateful that someone was able to look beyond how much education and experience I have and understand that I am willing to do any job, I just need money.  I’ve had a growing frustration with government recently.  Not on the large scale, but on the local scale.  Oregon still has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country and there are jobs available at every level of our government, but I am not getting interviews or even acknowledgments most of the time.  It seems to me that any person collecting unemployment who wishes not to be or is eligible for social services, but prefers to work, should be given priority for those jobs, but that’s not how it’s happening.

Things are going the right direction, but I still have to work at not worrying.  It’s really hard facing such uncertainty with kids depending on me.  I’m trying to handle all of this as gracefully as I can so they can see that it’s possible to remain calm regardless of what is going on.  It’s a lot of pressure.  I don’t want to let them down and I wish to be a good example.  In some ways I have been, but I am starting to recognize some of my weaknesses as a parent.  Still, I’m doing my best and I have a plan.  As things unfold it will become more clear, but I have a general idea of how things need to happen.  Right now I just need to raise money.  Too bad it’s illegal to sell a kidney…

I’m looking forward to getting past this financial roadblock I have been dealing with.  I’m also looking forward to having a job to go to and meeting new people.  I’ve been isolated for so long now and I really want to be social again.

Hopefully I will start feeling more connected again soon.  Feeling like an island is not that much fun.

Positive

Recently I was asked how I stay positive.  I actually wrote an entire post about the things I do that help me stay positive, but I realized that none of it actually matters on the days I let fear rule my life.

This morning I woke up to an anxiety attack.  That happens to me sometimes.  Before I even really have a chance to think, my heart and mind are racing.  It is now mid-afternoon and I’m finally starting to calm down.

It’s sometimes hard to take the steps necessary to stay positive when I’m not even sure what the problem is.  I mean, on the surface it’s obvious.  My kids are now living with me and I do not have a job.  Three weeks ago I was supporting only myself and didn’t know how I was going to make it without a job and now I have two more people depending on me.

This morning I woke up in a panic about how to pay the rent next month.  All day I have had to talk myself out of this mindset.  There are still 21 days left in this month.  If I can find even a temp job right away I should be able to earn enough to cover our rent and basic expenses.  But I don’t have a job right now, so the only way I can avoid worrying is to have faith that everything will happen as it is supposed to and that we will be fine.  While I know deep down it is true, much like meditation I have to keep bringing my mind back to the truth.

As I was telling my kids today, worrying about something that might happen in 21 days is a waste of energy.  Because if the first of next month comes and I don’t have the money to pay the rent, worrying about it now just means I have given myself three extra weeks of worry.  If the first comes and I do have the money to pay rent then I will have worried for nothing.

I just need to stay in the present where everything is fine.  Right now, our bills are paid and we have plenty of everything we need.  I have no reason to believe tomorrow will be different.  A lot can happen in one day.  I have sent my resume off to some promising job leads and to some temp agencies, something good is bound to come sooner or later, hopefully sooner.

As for staying positive, I do a lot of things to keep myself optimistic in the face of uncertainty.  One of the biggest is surrounding myself with people who are positive and avoiding people who are not.  Twitter has been one of the most amazing gifts that way.  The people I follow on Twitter are such bright lights.  They have helped me keep my head up by posting positive, uplifting tweets. My Twitter family has helped me through some dark moments recently.  I have been inspired to be a better person and to keep trying to contribute positively.  I feel very fortunate to have found all these wonderful people from all over the world.

If I had to name one thing that helps me stay positive no matter what is going on around me, it would be gratitude.  If I’m alive and breathing, there is hope and something to be grateful for.  And for the ability to recognize that, I am supremely grateful.

Grateful thanks for all the good wishes I have received.

Blessings.

Cheryl

Dirty spirituality

Writing is therapeutic.  Most people who feel compelled to write understand this.  Sharing one’s writing with the world is another matter entirely.  That is why I am challenging myself to post at least two blogs, of any length, each week.

Overall, this blog is meant to be about spirituality and I beleive it is.  However, my approach is less in-your-face advice and instruction as it is observations gleaned from my life and the lives of others.  And it will include both things that uplift and inspire me and things that annoy and peeve me. It is my hope that others with good intentions and lots of questions will benefit from the ways in which I grapple with spiritual stuff.  So with that, here we go:

I’m a happy girl.  Anyone who knows me well enough to actually get me knows this.  Those who know me well also know that I am intimately acquainted with my dark side.  In my case, the light always wins, but the darkness demands its day in court.  Rightfully so in my opinion.

Something I have noticed lo these many weeks of using Twitter is that many of the people I consider positive or spiritual tweeters never post anything personal or neutral, let alone negative.  There is a part of me that agrees with this because I believe it is in my best interest to spend as much time thinking positively as I can.  However, for me, darkness needs to be acknowledged before it can be released.

The question might be: Must I acknowledge my darkness publicly?  One could argue that if I want people to pay attention to the positive message I wish to promote, that I need to push only that message.  That’s the thing, I feel like I’m doing that.  We all walk a unique spiritual path and mine includes revealing how very real and human a person can be at the same time as being spiritual and wildly idealistic from the world’s perspective.

Sometimes I feel like I see a bigger picture than many people.  Of course the people I encounter most frequently are normal people getting through the day-to-day grind of living on this planet at this time in history.  Although I comfort myself frequently with their books, I don’t hang out with people like Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay.  Not that I wouldn’t, it would be a privilege to call either of them a personal friend.  My point is, I live in the world of people who struggle.  And for me, struggle is the process of reconciling the darkness with the light I know deep down is there.

That is not to suggest that people who succeed in the world of self-help and spirituality do not struggle.  Everyone has moments when things don’t make sense and it is necessary to dig deep to find the knowing place.  I am suggesting that it might not be as much work to get to that place if some of the basics like financial security and stability are present.

That said, I don’t think people with few resources and little stability need to worry.  Worry helps nothing, ever.  All it does is add fear to whatever one is already dealing with.  However, opportunities to worry do seem to present themselves more frequently to people who are faced with things like job loss, health concerns and financial challenges.  And I am here to acknowledge that it takes self-discipline to stay positive in the face of these things.

I believe every struggle is a spiritual struggle.  I also think people are encouraged when they find out they are not alone when they are teetering at the edge of the pit of despair.

This is why I write about the days when I feel less than motivated spiritually or when I discover some way that I have been undermining my own success.  I write to bring awareness to the things that threaten to trip me up on my spiritual path, to encourage my fellow humans and to call out my demons.  Experience has taught me that demons respond to being called by name.

Today’s issue is a form of self-imposed martyrdom from which I am trying to break free.  If I had a dollar for every time someone has told me to stop being so hard on myself…well, let’s just say I would be very excited to have that money.

Recently this martyrdom scenario played out with me being annoyed at a friend for criticizing me constantly.  I’ll be honest, this person drives me nuts sometimes.  He regularly points out things about me…for my own good.  But it doesn’t feel like it’s for my good, it feels like it’s for the satisfaction of his ego.  I don’t think I’m wrong about that, but recently, in the middle of writing a long e-mail rant telling said friend how much his behavior bothers me, the inner voice chimed in.

It actually happened in the form of an argument with myself in my head that went something like this:

Me: I get so tired of being criticized by the people who call themselves my friends.  I have been having this experience over and over my entire life.  Why do I keep attracting people who are so critical?  And why do I seem to attract people who are critical of others (me) while largely remaining silent about their own shortcomings?

Inner voice: Why should you expect to attract anything other than people who criticize when you criticize yourself so mercilessly? Remember, people are mirrors.

And that is the thing with the inner voice of wisdom.  Whenever I start to really whine, it can shut me up with a sentence or two. The inner voice is great, but it does tend to ruin a carefully planned pity party.

So, I abandoned the e-mail rant and decided to deal with my issue.  Now I am examining how I set people up to criticize me and asking myself what I’m getting from this.  I’ll get back to you when I have figured it out.

I feel like I need to jump to the ultimate point of this post.  Our experiences in life are a direct reflection of how we think about ourselves.  I feel criticized because I am self-critical.  This is why I believe it’s important to gain mastery over the mind.

Another example of this self-fulfilling prophetic thinking is how I spent a good deal of my life thinking of myself as a person who struggles and overcomes obstacles, which actually doesn’t sound bad on the surface.  In fact, I have overcome many obstacles and achieved more than I might have if I hadn’t held that thought.  However, as I mature spiritually, I realize that continuing to think of myself that way is only going to bring more struggle and obstacles to overcome.

These realizations about struggle, difficulties and critical people are the reason I am working with affirmations…and writing this blog.  If I tell others that they are beautiful, perfect, glorious beings while thinking differently of myself, how can I expect anyone to believe me?  One of my main goals is to help people see their beauty and experience love and self-forgiveness.  It seems important to include myself in the process.

I often say that I never meet people who need help seeing their flaws, but I have met many who need help seeing their beauty.  That also applies to me.  So if people really want to help me, saying something uplifting and positive would be a great way to do that.  Or even just stop criticizing.  I’m trying to stop beating myself up, I’m not looking for someone to do it for me.

Spirituality, like childbirth, is a messy process, but worth the effort.  We should help each other give birth to the best that is in each one of us.

Cheryl