Ties That Bind

Ties That Bind

I am a gregarious introvert. I have taught myself to be sociable and love it. At the same time, I still recharge alone. In the olden days, I believed that engagement with you was exhausting. I believed that engaging with you was dangerous. In fact, I had this very icky split inside of desperately wanting attention, and being terrified of being noticed for fear of being raged on. Heh. Not very comfy, I must say.

Why do I like to engage? What makes me choose to connect? How do I feel included?

As I began to get some help, to find some good teachers, I found that I could better determine if connecting with you was a good idea for me. I found that it became easier and easier, and it was nicer and nicer. For one thing, I stopped feeling lonely.

Now, I have made a distinction for myself between lonely and lonesome. When I feel lonesome, I can fix that by going where there are people and having some interactions, like at a coffee shop. When I am lonely, I need to reconnect with me. This distinction was life-changing for me. I thought that the black-hole feeling of lonely inside was somehow your fault, that if you loved me correctly the hole would disappear. Hoo, boy. I was so wrong. I am the only one who can close that hole, and I have to do it by engaging with me, by caring about me, by loving and valuing me my own self.

As I get better at connecting with myself, caring about me, I get better at connecting with you. I worry less about you paying attention to me and enjoy paying attention to you. I enjoy collaborating with you more, I enjoy working as a team more.

As I get better at connecting with myself, my curiosity is engaged. I find myself interested in what I think, what I believe of the world, how I perceive stuff, and how I could change those things to make my life nicer. I get curious about how I feel about stuff. About how I make things harder for myself, and how I make things easier for me.

My curiosity about you grows, too. How do you see things? I am fascinated by how differently we may process stuff even when we are so close. It helps me to remember that my way isn’t the only way. By really listening to you, I learn so much. I become more compassionate. I find it easier to love! How fun is that! And by loving more easily, it is easier for me to feel it come back to me. Well. That is delightful.

As I get better at connecting, other cool things happen. I start to feel like I am involved, I feel a sense of belonging. Oh, my. That was almost overwhelming, as that feeling in me grew. Feeling disenfranchised was so sad. And when I feel involved, I feel like my contributions are worthwhile, and I feel satisfied! Holy buckets!

Here’s the really nice thing. Our natural lives are available to us all the time. Living my natural life is effortless because I go with the flow. I am peaceful because I trust that I can manage, that things go my way, that I am capable, competent and strong. I am productive because I am choosing well for myself. I feel connected and engaged naturally and with an open heart. Compassion for you and me is just there. I am satisfied even while I am finding ways to make my life more fun.

How have I changed from shunning connection to embracing engagement?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2015 all rights reserved 08272015

Divine? Is That You?

Divine? Is That You?

Who am I? Why am I here? How do I fit in? Why is there suffering in the world? Why is there inequality? Is there something more than this? What is faith? What i

Do you ever wonder about stuff like that? How do you feel when you think about those questions?

We have beliefs that cover myriad topics, from whether to drink tea to whether God exists. We like to think they are our own beliefs, and we certainly own them, but so many of them have to do with how we were raised, and even who raised us.

As small children we look to our adults for guidance. We pay a lot of attention to what they do, not so much to what they say, at least to us. We tend to adopt their beliefs around politics and religion. Sometime we rebel against those, but there is always an influence one way or another.

Why am I spiritual? What makes me look at my life? How do I choose?

Sometimes we feel an emptiness inside. For me, some of that went away when I connected with myself. I call that emptiness “lonely.” When I am lonesome, I can go to a coffee shop or other public place, have a chat, and the lonesome goes away. When I am lonely, I need to pay some kind attention to me.

Sometimes that emptiness is a spiritual hunger. Some of us find food for that hunger in religion. Even just being in a religious structure like a temple or church will feed us. Or the music or art, or the prayers. Some of us find the opposite to be true, and we feel emptier in those places, in those activities.

We may try to force it. I know I sure did. Those things just didn’t work for me. AA came closer. I liked the idea of an undefined Higher Power, one that was personal to me. I knew a man who considered his Higher Power to be the knob on his front door, which led him either to the bar and misery or to people who understood him and helped him find comfort and sanity.

Some of the people I knew thought of others as their Higher Powers. Some considered museums as their place to connect within, to find their answers.

For me, the connection comes with nature. Even my little bit of urban jungle will do that. Watering my plants at the office, examining a bug up close, or a lovely stone. My spiritual life is about connecting with aliveness. Making music with friends does it for me, too, music of many different kinds. Intimate conversations, certain kinds of encounters with strangers, time with my cats, or pet snails, or creatures outside. Creating stuff does it, too, food, art, socks.

I connect with the sacred in many aspects of my daily life. I do that by relaxing, taking a moment to get present, to be aware, to really breathe up good air deep into my lungs and to let it out and do it again. When I relax, I connect with my aliveness.

Over and over we have the experience that relaxing about stuff is a huge part of living a nice life. Practicing in little bits where we can during the day makes it easier and easier to relax when we are doing other stuff. Remembering to take nice deep breaths, remembering to uncurl our toes, unclench our butts or bellies, soften our shoulders, stretch our jaws, let our thoughts wander to a place of tranquility. These little exercises help us integrate a feeling of relaxation that makes it so much easier to get to when we need it.

How have I changed from feeling lost to connecting with my spirituality?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 07302014

Secrets, Intimacy, and Trust

Secrets, Intimacy, and Trust

What does being intimate mean to you? I was so intimidated by that word. Physical intimacy was easy, but emotional intimacy? I couldn’t get my head wrapped around the concept. I had the feeling that exposing my feelings, my thoughts, my very self, that I would end up flayed. Not very encouraging. I was so sad that I had failed at intimacy.

I chalked it up on the side of Stuff I Can’t Do, and went on with my rather lonely life. I was in a couple 12 step groups at the time, and working on step 4, I took a moral inventory of myself as fearlessly as I could, then told a chaplain what I had done, and how I felt about it. I felt a little better. I found a sponsor and told her secrets. I felt a little lighter.

I told my secrets and shared the attendant feelings. And as I uncovered more secrets, I told those. My secrets, not yours. I made some kind friends, I found a wonderful therapist (my eighth, if you were wondering) and told my therapist everything, and I had a ton of secrets in my life, and I told my dear friends a lot. Little by little I turned my poisonous secrets into something benign. Little by little I integrated the traumas I had kept hidden. Little by little, I cleaned out my emotional basement. Lonely is often a result of a crowded emotional basement, and so I found myself feeling less lonely. (I define lonely as disconnected from ourselves, and lonesome as disconnected from others.)

Why am I intimate? What makes me connect? How do I engage?

One of the answers I get for all three of those questions is, I trust.

I sure wasn’t good at it, but I had to start somewhere; I was great at trusting the wrong people. So I went to professional people who seemed like they would have being trustworthy in their job descriptions. Babysteps. We want to move forward, but we don’t want to go too far too fast. If we scare ourselves, we will often just stop.

I didn’t trust me, I didn’t trust my gut, and I sure didn’t trust my judgment. And as I told my secret stories, and felt my feelings with someone, that started to shift.

Why am I soft? How do I enjoy feeling vulnerable? What makes me drop my defences?

I will say, I am not always running around defenceless. I am not always soft and vulnerable, but I am more often way more often than I used to be. I also have a lot of trustworthy friends now. I also know that I feel easier when I am vulnerable. I trust me, I trust that I can cope, I trust the universe will provide what I need to take care of me.

I enjoy a bunch of intimate friendships. I am good at them. Intimacy is now easy and pretty much second nature. I appreciate it as part of my natural life, but also as one of the paths to my natural life.

I now have a personal rule, namely, I have no secrets of my own. The secrets others tell me aren’t mine to tell, but my secrets get told to any one of several people. Sometimes I tell all of them. It keeps crap out of my emotional basement, it keeps me feeling fresh and light.

How have I changed from feeling isolated and lonely to feeling connected and close?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05042014

Have you found your trustworthy people to tell your secrets to?

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