Engaged

Engaged

Growing up is exciting. It’s messy, it’s interesting. The opportunities that we get to learn stuff, to practice stuff, to stretch our edges, are unpredictable and fascinating. Each step we take brings us benefits, treats, and treasure for the taking. Everyone of us has stuff to learn, stuff to let go of, stuff to accept. Each of us has our own unique set of thos things, and each of us goes at our own pace.

Why do I like to engage? What makes me want to connect? How do I choose to be curious?

Growing up can be challenging. We encounter experiences inside us that feel like an impenetrable wall, or a huge block, or situations where we feel like we sabotage ourselves every time it comes up. Those walls will come down, the blocks will melt away, the sabotage will cease when we address them in certain ways, and there are many ways, but address them we must if we want to be free. Sometimes we can deal with those things ourselves, but it is often of greater benefit to us to find a good teacher to help us.

Why would I choose to evolve? What makes me want to grow? How do I expand my life?

When I choose to engage with you, things happen. You shake up my existance. You have a different way of seeing stuff, even if we are very much alike. When I choose to engage with a community, my neighborhood, or religious group, there are that many more different ways to see things, that many more opportunities to see things a new way. You may introduce me to new activities, new foods, new adventures. This will shake me up. Sometimes it will make me uncomfortable, sometimes it will change my life for the better. Sometimes it will do both. I won’t know until I try it.

Before I chose to connect with you, I stayed to myself. My life felt safe and predictable. Turned out that safe felt kind of like hiding, predictable was actually kind of boring. As I reached out, I felt different. I felt like I came up into the sunshine. For years I had activities I used to distract myself, or to make the time pass, but when I started to engage, I started to have fun. You taught me how to do new stuff, you brought me to activities I had never tried.

The way I best engage is when I relax in my body, my feelings, and thoughts. Engaging is a natural result of living my natural life, and I get there by letting go, by relaxing, by choosing easy.

Engaging with you also opens me up to receiving, to asking for help. When I engage, this becomes a bit of an equation, that is, being part of a community or relationship means that I will both give and receive, and if I have trouble with one or the other of those, I will have ample opportunities to learn how to do it better.

It also gives me opportunities for helping you. When I help you, as a parent, partner, or friend, or as a volunteer for my community or in some other way, my life gets that much bigger. I can practice compassion, empathy, and opening my heart. Perhaps it is a way for me to practice being generous with my time, or resources, knowledge, or spirit. Perhaps it is a way for me to appreciate my own life. Perhaps I feel like I am giving back.

How have I changed from feeling disconnected to engaging with life?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserves 07212014

Hopping on the Proud Cloud

Hopping on the Proud Cloud

One thing I like to do that really helps as I grow up is to look back and see where I’ve come from. Twelve Step groups use this technique and call it “Telling Your Story.” Sometimes, when we are moving through a rough patch, it can feel like we’ve made no progress at all ever, and it’s always been like this. Looking back can really help.

These days, I feel pretty great most of the time. It seems miraculous to me, but it’s really just the predictable result from the work I’ve done. There have been times when my home was plastered with reminders on sticky notes, Creative Questions cards tucked everywhere, rubber bands on my wrist.

I sought out teachers, always finding the perfect teacher at the perfect time. Sometimes it took a few tries, but then they would be fantastic, and I would emerge from their tutelage happier and wiser.

I didn’t always like it, what they wanted me to try. I didn’t always do it. Sometimes I was a little bit kicky and screamy about it. But the bottom line was this.

I wanted to be happy. I didn’t know what that even meant, but I wanted it. I thought it was the opposite of suffering, self-loathing, and self-abuse, if I thought about it at all. But I felt like I would do almost anything to get there.

We get so good at pretending that things are alright, that we are alright, that our relationships and work and families are alright. It takes a ton of energy to pretend that. We talk a good game, and people may suspect, but they don’t know for sure how bad it is.

Why do we keep it a secret? (That is a bad creative question, just for the record.)

Sometimes we feel ashamed, or scared. We think it’s no one else’s business. Sometimes we tell ourselves that everything is fine, and we choose to believe it even though we are in a bad situation. We convince ourselves that everything is normal and fine.

And we hate ourselves. Or at least act like we hate ourselves. Or we try to act like we don’t hate ourselves, and end up feeling like we are going crazy. And going crazy seems kind of attractive, especially if it means a few weeks in a hospital being taken care of by someone who is nice to us.

We don’t want anyone to know what it’s really like, and so we pull back a little, or push harder, and either way people end up not wanting to be around us very much. And that seems kind of good because then there aren’t as many people to convince that things are okay.

And then we decide we’ve had enough. And we get help. There are so many people, and agencies, and services, and healing modalities, that want you to be happy and healthy, that want to help you climb out of that smelly pit of your life and back into the fresh air and sunshine. Why do I choose to be happy? What makes me choose to take care of me? How do I make room for joy in my life?

When I take this step, when I seriously address the crap in my life with a competent, trustworthy helper, things get better. I can take better care of me, and of you, and all the yous that matter to me.

How have I changed from wanting to hide to being proud of myself?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2013 all rights reserved. 09302013