I’m back

Hopefully I mean that in more than one sense of the word. Firstly, I am back home and back at work after over three weeks off. First was the ten day Vipassana retreat, then five days of Christmas mayhem, then off to Tasmania for 9 days.

Secondly, I think I am back to normal Whatever that may mean. My last few posts have been maudlin and self obsessed (ok I am normally pretty self obsessed I admit). It is strange that I should have felt that way when I was on holiday and as soon as I’m back into normality I improve.

I really put it down to the anti-allergy medication I resorted to taking my whole time in Tasmania. It really did tend to zonk me out and displace me.  I was having to take more and more tablets, as my body got used to the medication, just to keep the allergy symptoms at bay. Now the effects are wearing off and I feel myself returning to a more natural state.

It was bliss to get home yesterday and to sleep in my own bed last night. I was happy during the Vipassana retreat despite it being hard, painful work. I was happy during the five day break catching up with friends and family. It was only during the Tasmania trip that I fell back into my old depressed habits. I have decided to blame the medication.

This morning I woke at 6am to meditate for an hour before going for my usual walk. I think I actually dozed upright for an hour rather than meditating but the intent was there. From tomorrow I will try going for my walk first and then meditating, hoping I will be awake then. I am back into my normal healthy eating regime after a wonderful time of letting my standards slip (I was on holiday after all!) And work isn’t so bad. I like the people very much and so what if it is boring. It is where I find myself so there must be something for me to gain from the experience. Lessons to be learnt, the biggest of which is acceptance.

I have been given the most marvelous gift – a practical technique to use to learn equanimity and acceptance. A tool to help me become peaceful and contented and happy within myself. A tool to help me develop love for all and compassion for the world. It takes time and practice to make full use of this tool. I am talking about the Vipassana meditation. It won’t work unless I practise every day. So that is what I aim to do. I think I keep waiting for some miracle to hand me perfect happiness on a plate, once and for all. Logically, I know this is ridiculous but some part of me half expects it. Don’t most of us want the rewards without the effort?

If I don’t grasp this opportunity and use this technique – one that has been tried, tested and proven by millions of people – then I am cheating myself (and the world in actual fact).

Today at work, acceptance has been the order of the day. Accept the role I am in, accept the work I am given gracefully. Today at home, accept that I am alone - gracefully. But also be appreciative and thankful for what I do have.

The retreat may have only been ten days but I think it has had some impact on me. It has been hard to see as life since then hasn’t been normal. I did notice a calmness amongst the mayhem of post christmas shopping and I did notice my thoughts stilling momentarily once or twice. Otherwise life has been out of kilter so changes are not noticeable. Now back into my normal routine it will be interesting to view the impact the ten days had. It is only the beginning though, without daily practise the effects will wear off and I’ll be back to square one.

And I haven’t forgotten about Floria Aemilia whose story I want to write. Only now I am becoming just as interested in St Augustine’s side of the story. So I have some research to do there. I want to let it grow organically – let the characters tell me their sides of the story so I can do justice to them both. The story is still with me and I hope it will one day externalise into a film or a book.

Today acceptance is quite easy. The test will be when I next face some sort of challenge – how will I react? How quickly will I regain equilibrium? Those are the tests that will show how much I really am learning and progressing.

What is love anyway?

Ok so I found out that love was my primary requirement in a relationship. But just what is love anyway? It is a slippery little sucker really. I looked up various definitions and they vary quite a lot. So I decided to define for myself what I consider love to be. After all, that is the only definition that really matters to me. So how did I define love? I spent a long time on this before refining it down to the following characteristics. This doesn’t include that mysterious, indefinable something that love really is – but I know that when I feel it. I was more inclined to come up with almost a list of behaviours that I can measure future experiences against:

• Connection – soul, mind, heart, body, interdependence
• Understanding – empathy, compassion
• Acceptance – non judgemental, freedom to be self
• Wanting what is best for the other

There are other things I want in a relationship such as commitment, intimacy and passion, but to me they are separate entities and not part of love itself. You can have all without love and you can love without any.

I believe I have experienced giving love in the above way but haven’t as yet received it. In a relationship context it has to be two way for me – it isn’t enough for one to love in the above manner and the other not. If both love as above, then both will get their needs respected and met where possible. I stress that this applies to my life only, I wouldn’t want to be seen to be giving a definitive account.  After all everyone is different, each couple is different. You may read the above definition and go, nup, not what I have or want at all. But, for now, this is what I am on the lookout for.

I’d “love” to read your definitions of love. How does love manifest in your life? What are the qualities and characteristics you have or want?

Primary values

A friend took me through an exercise yesterday supposedly designed to uncover your primary value or main driver in the area of family, work and relationships. Mine came out as follows:

Family: acceptance

Work: team

Relationship: love

Apparently ‘love’ is actually not all that commonly identified as the prime value for a relationship. The friend who took me through this for instance, identified ‘presence’ as her key value. Presence in the sense of someone being there and being attentive toward her. Another friend of mine, who hasn’t done the exercise, I believe would come up with ‘creativity’ or ‘working together’ as a core value. Others choose companionship, security, wanting a family, intimacy etc. But for me it is love. I was actually pleased because that result was actually congruent with what my conscious mind says is my prime value.

For work, the thing I value most is working in a team in a cooperative, collaborative manner. I love it when that happens – which is quite often in my current job. That side of it I love but it isn’t always there because we tend to work on disparate projects. Only when we all focus on the same project at the same time (eg coming up to a release) does that magical ‘buzz’ happen. Then I feel alive.

Acceptance was my key value for family. And I do feel accepted within my family no matter how ‘different’ I might be from them sometimes. I don’t think they always understand me but they accept and support me regardless. That is a very great blessing. I know I can count on them whenever I need to. They won’t let me down.

So really I have little to complain of. I have a wonderful, accepting family. I work with an incredible team of people who do cooperate and collaborate really well and with good humour. I don’t have a love relationship as yet but that will come in time.

Time to count my blessings

Meaningless

For the past few weeks my life has seemed meaningless. One of those phases we go through sometimes.

Everything I hear, see, read, watch seems to point to the same thing at this time. Don’t try to overlay your assumptions, worldview and mental models on life. Instead, observe without judgement. Don’t attempt to find meaning through analysis or thinking. Allow meaning to emerge spontaneously (or not) over time.

Given all this, perhaps it is ok that life is meaningless. So long as I don’t attempt to ‘fix’ this situation and instead just observe.

Now

For a couple of weeks I did quite a good job of watching, accepting and letting go of each thought and emotion that arose. I felt quite calm and centred but I also cried and laughed as emotions flowed through.

Then two days ago, my ego, or whatever you want to call it, went on the attack. It seems to me that it was feeling threatened by my refusal to engage and feed it with my usual dramas. So it threw all its guns at me. Panic, fear, despair. Suddenly my whole world seemed completely meaningless. I certainly hooked on and engaged in the battle. It lasted a day and then I managed to accept what was going on and gently disidentify.

The despair I felt was directed to my work life, not at all linked to my love life. I have no expectations in my love life right now so it is not affected by emotional swings. I still have expectations about my career that just aren’t being met and so it provides an avenue for angst. I also panic about my financial situation if I examine it too closely. A single income only guaranteed for the next six months (I’m a contractor) and a huge mortgage. But why was I worrying? Money has never been an issue for me. Enough comes in for me to get by. Always.

Fear only grabs you when you attach it to the past or the future. If you are in the moment then fear has nothing to latch onto. (Unless you are facing a dangerous animal or situation at that time )

Living in the moment. Such a simple idea. Such a difficult task.

Distraction

I’ve never thought of writing as distraction before but it is dawning on me now that it may be exactly that in my case. It has always helped me make sense of my world but I have to admit that I step outside of things and observe them when I write.

This time I think I have to try to stop from distracting. I need to surrender into whatever is coming up for me – mentally, emotionally or physically – and let it flow through me. I have many thoughts and emotions coming up right now. I have aches in my back around the shoulder blades where I always carry tension and emotion.

The way I’ve been living my life does not work for me or give me the outcomes I want. I have to do things differently and that also includes not doing certain things. Like distracting myself instead of facing what is coming up for me head on. I’m realising the extent to which I’ve lied to myself. I’ve been living in denial.

I am not beating myself up about this – just accepting it. I have a quiet motivation to try to live differently – it isn’t a ‘raring to go’ enthusiasm but more of an acceptance that I have to just go through this to come out the other side into the sun again.

My sadness is deep but I also have that sense of empowerment from making the decision and saying the words to end things. This is a first. I’ve let things fizzle out in the past without any real closure.

I wanted to say what is going on for me. I may or may not blog much in the near future. We will see. But I can’t use it to distract myself whenever things get rough as I usually do. If I’m not here I’ll be sitting gazing out my window at the trees and the birds. Dealing with things. Quietly.

Friday evening

Friday evening at home. A good day today. Everyone at work was in a frisky mood and we spent time being very mature and professional this morning, throwing squeeze balls at each other and attempting to knock a football off the partition. I can be quite silly at times and I was even called a ratbag by a colleague Who moi?

Twice I found myself in the tea room with B and we seemed to fall back into our chatty, flirty style with each other. We keep edging around the topic of relationships with each other which is quite interesting. Today it was comments on rich, aging men who take up with much younger women – B assured me he wasn’t interested in young bimbos (not that he is exactly aging I have to say – he’s only in his late 30s). I assured him I wasn’t interested in rich men particularly (although I have no real aversion to a man having money I must say )

Not much planned for the weekend. Another massage tomorrow and then perhaps another movie. Nothing for Sunday except perhaps I might take myself on a bushwalk. Another quiet, potentially slow weekend. Where have all my friends gone lately I wonder? Next weekend I’m seeing P and another friend wants to catch up (same day I think).

Acceptance. That is where I am at. Next week Saturn crosses my Ascendant (that is pretty significant – only happens every 29 years). I am having a guided meditation to try to make the most of the opportunities.

Thursday nights I still go to my study/meditation class and I’m quite amazed now at the sorts of things that come through sometimes. I had a voice saying to me the other night, they are not all connected yet. So last night I asked who was not connected. Turns out it is the team of people I am to work with on the physical plane – and there are 17 of them. Then I was told how to attempt to connect them up! Cool stuff. I love it. I have been yearning for my ‘team’, my ‘group’, my ‘ashramic colleagues’ for quite a while now. The ones with whom I am going to find and manifest my purpose. When I think of this aloneness I often feel I realise it isn’t just, deep down, the desire for a partner, it is also the desire for my group.

So now I’m going to post this and then go and read Esoteric Psychology Volume II by Alice Bailey. I love the way it explains the stages as we grow and evolve, and I like to try to pinpoint the stage I am at – then everything makes sense. I think I am making inner progress but often it isn’t reflected in the outer world. Then I read up on it and find that what I experience is often a sign that things ARE moving and shaking.

Cycles

Life goes through cycles. It ebbs and flows. Right now, here in Australia, spring is about to burst forth. Many plants are now getting signs of new growth after lying dormant for months. Yesterday my friend’s dog died, no doubt some puppy was born somewhere to compensate.

My life has swung from the flow of a month ago into an ebb tide right now. Amazing how quickly it can change. If I charted my moods and experiences over this year alone, since I started blogging, the cycles would be clear.

I awoke this morning, Saturday, knowing I had absolutely nothing planned for the entire weekend. It has been a long time since this has happened and it filled me with a sense of sadness, bereftness and dread. Alone again. For two whole days. I guess it is because I need to focus on something without being distracted by company. But I am just so tired of aloneness – I have always spent so much time alone and it feels unnatural to me now. I still need time to myself being a bit of a loner by nature, but so much of it is wearing me down.

Outside winter is not relinquishing without a fight. Grey, overcast skies with rain to come. I lay meditating in bed for ages this morning. Reaffirming my commitment to soul work and trying to get in touch with what I need to do – what job is waiting for me. For now I think it is my paid job – things are moving there in a direction that feels right for me.

The last two mornings (workdays) when I’ve been in a hurry I’ve logged on to find loads of comments posted – 19 one morning. I love that. I didn’t have much time to read or respond to them. This morning, with all the time in the world (two whole days in fact) there is not a single comment posted. Bizarre isn’t it?

I’ve brought some work home with me to do – I am out of the office two days next week on a training course so wanted to get some things covered before I go. My mum rang a while ago (she knows my friend and her dog and wanted to see how things were). She invited me to go there for dinner tonight so I will do that even though I was there for dinner last weekend. I have booked a massage for early this afternoon and then I think I will go see a movie – Edge of Love. Tomorrow nothing is planned but I see that the Painted Veil is still showing at one cinema (I thought it had finished) so I may go to see that. Its not on until 4.10pm though.

As you see, I don’t take well to the ebb cycles and I try to fill them with things. Keep busy, distract myself. Maybe I should just spend the two days staring out the window to see what comes up in my psyche. I am feeling sadness about Aggie, and through memories about Shadow. And I lay there remembering what sort of month September was for me last year. I moved into this house in mid September, P declared himself a few days later and I was on top of the world – new house, new relationship. His birthday party was in that time we were together and I had the time of my life. By the end of the month the relationship had morphed back into friendship and I was devastated. Then it was the first anniversary of Shadow’s death and P took me to the sea for my beautiful bittersweet day. September has always been an eventful month for me – I always move house in September for some reason – not intentionally.

So I am not looking forward to the memories associated with this month. P hasn’t emailed me since last Sunday – he is again in pull away mode after the romance he poured on me a month ago.  His life is so busy and full at the moment in contrast to my own. I feel a twinge of jealousy. I feel left out. If he’d been brave enough we’d have been a couple for nearly a year now, and I too would be preparing for the party and planning presents. I resent that he took that away from me. I don’t normally but right now I feel excluded from a significant place in anyone’s life. I’m so sick of it.

And the excitement caused by B’s interest has long ebbed too. We hardly said two words to each other all week – and that was mostly yesterday when I was feeling extremely sad about Aggie. I told him about it and he murmured some platitudes but didn’t really seem interested. And I just couldn’t be bothered with him somehow. I feel so fickle and shallow sometimes – needing all this external attention just to feel good. I knew that it wouldn’t last – I knew that P’s interest would diminish again as I’ve seen it too many times. And B has not been the same since the evening he followed me to Bunnings. From that time on he’s pulled right back too. Pathetic creature that I am, I am left craving the attention of at least one of them and they both pull away together. Why is that? They were both hot on my heels together and now have turned away together. I just wish I could have bottled that last week of July so I could relive it whenever I wanted. I’ve never felt so good in my entire life!

But as always, this low will pass and things will look up again. Yesterday I had an amazing experience as I sat by the lake eating lunch. A magpie came up and sat on the bench really close to me. She/he was looking me straight in the eye and then she began warbling her beautiful song. It is my favourite sound of the Australian bush – the magpie – I love them. She faced me as she sang and again looked me in the eye. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. I find so much healing and pleasure in nature. They accept the natural ebbs and flows of life and don’t try to force things. I need to learn to be more like them, more accepting of where I am in life.

I am alone and need to accept that instead of struggling against the idea so much.

Prayer

I tried something different last night. Usually I meditate for an hour in the evening. I sat down to do this, but decided at the last minute to pray instead. The session did end up an hour long and I did some spontaneous meditation within it but I didn’t do the normal routine.

I can’t remember ever really praying. It has never been part of my upbringing. My mother had a very hell-fire and damnation type upbringing so she and my dad left us free to develop our own belief system growing up. I’ve always tended more toward visualisation which is more of a meditative technique.

Last night it just felt right to pray. I wasn’t even sure who to pray to. God? That is a bit of a foreign term to me but isn’t that who one prays to? I guess I am loosely a Christian by birth (if anything) but have always been more interested in Buddhism. So praying to Mary or Jesus didn’t seem appropriate. (as an aside I do believe in the Christ, just as I believe in Buddha – they are brothers).

Eventually I prayed to the Solar Angel that is my soul. I prayed for the things I want and need in my life. I didn’t bargain or beg. I stated my wishes whilst accepting that it wasn’t my decision to make as to whether my wishes were granted. I’ll admit, I asked them to send me Tom – soon. I didn’t pray for P to change or for us to end up together. That is not where I am at. I didn’t pray for a new job or a change to this one. I prayed for the ability to accept. I prayed to be happy. I asked for the strength to continue on even when things seemed bleak.

After the prayer/meditation finished I realised that I had asked for what I wanted (ask and ye shall receive). Something I don’t usually do – I usually either go into demand mode or I ‘give up’. Or I make a case or try to bargain (give me this and I’ll do that…) So I asked for help, guidance, support and love. Then I realised that I also had to really let it all go. I asked, now I need to let go of those wants and needs, and accept the outcome.

Lying in bed I visualised all these aspects of my life as balloons, the strings of which I was clutching tightly in my hand. One balloon was P. One was Tom. Another was a challenging, creative job. The meditation group was another balloon. One by one I visualised letting them go. Do you know, they all bobbed up and down a bit but they didn’t actually float off – they hung around me still. And the “Tom” balloon floated toward me even more. I don’t know what it means but I just stopped clutching those strings and trying to pull them toward me.

As I drifted off to sleep I suddenly saw this face in my mind. A twinkly eyed smiling male face. It just filled me with joy and warmth. I don’t know if it was “Tom” but whoever it was I liked him

This morning I feel acceptance again. I don’t feel good – on a scale of 1-10 my emotional state is probably around a 4. But I don’t feel anxious at the moment. I didn’t feel the need to visualise Tom this morning (by the way I also keep getting the name Roger popping in my head – how jolly. No crying today.

Letting go (detachment) is the hardest lesson I have ever dealt with. It really is a life lesson for me and I keep getting tested over and over. I have worked consciously on it for about 5 years now. It is when I cling that I am unhappy. Letting go, going with the flow of life is the best way for me. I find I get in my own way when I attach myself to outcomes and people. (Scorpio moon is not good at detachment). It is exactly why I was born with a Scorpio moon – because I need to learn detachment. And in the area of love I ‘attach’ and cling the most. Because I always have this feeling that I’ll never again meet anyone as wonderful and special as the man of the moment. I don’t meet them often – but they do turn up now and again. If one isn’t right, for whatever reason, I have to detach and move on. How much energy is wasted clinging to the sinking life raft, struggling to keep it afloat by sheer willpower, instead of swimming blind to find a solid and secure boat?

I don’t know if my prayers will be answered. I can’t dwell on it for too long. Thy will not my will be done. Whatever will be, will be. I’m not sure how long it will be before I am back clutching for those damn balloons though!!

Worse

Despair

Where did it come from?

Futility

Desolation

Hopelessness

Dissatisfaction

Will things ever change?

What must I do?

What must I not do?

Why?

Why again?

Why now?

Don’t question

Accept

Hang in the fire

Suffer

Suffer

Suffer

Always… always… suffer

Let it go…

And so fade away…

A special man

Last night was another wonderful time spent with P. He came around after work and we spent a lovely time together. I think you know by now that I really like this man

Snuggled up next to him while he had a little sleep, I gazed at his face. My feelings for him are deep and strong and yet I still don’t feel that I am in love with him. And I am glad about that. I think if I fell in love with him again then I may want something more from him – I’d want to see him more often perhaps. I don’t know – all I know is I really like the setup we have.

It is unconventional. We’ve seen each other three times in two months (of course I was overseas for some of that time too). We live an hour’s drive apart from each other and lead busy lives – him especially. But when we do come together our attention is totally focussed on each other. So the hours we do spend in each others company become very special and precious to me.

And things seem to stay fresh and exciting. It is very passionate and tender when we do come together; I suppose we are still in the exploratory stage. I want this to continue and yet I expect nothing.  I accept what we have and just revel in it. I don’t care what others may think.

I have found a very special and beautiful man to have as a good friend. And for now, a lover as well. That is enough. I feel very lucky.