It's In the Cards

At the office holiday party, we had a nice young tarot card reader tucked away in the corner of the bookstore who would do a simple, 3-card reading.  Of course I had to partake! I love that kind of stuff. My position on explorations of the divination kind is that regardless of where the information is coming from, it can all be useful. I don't know if the cards (or the palm readers or the crystal-ball gazers) are really tapping into something otherworldly, but I do know that when I've had my cards read, I've inevitably gotten useful information. This time was no exception.

There were three cards - what to hold on to, what to let go of, and what to look at for the future. I'm not actually clear on how she phrased the position of the third card, but it's not that important.

The first card, that reader said (there was no exchange previous to this except for discussions on how I was to cut the cards) told me that I should hold on to my ability to grasp all the complexities of life, and to help people see and understand those complexities. That was kind of a mind-blower, considering that this ability - and support for it -  is something that keeps coming up again and again in all of the inner work I've been doing for years. It's what I try to do on my blogs. It's something I've struggled with, as I continue to get messages from others that I should just think happy thoughts and be happy and that all this complexifying is just a downer. But the cards said it: don't let go of this ability to see life for what it is - infinitely nuanced and mysterious!

Wonderful! After this last couple of years, getting a divine confidence boost like that was nice.

The second card - what to let go of - pictured the Hermit. Uh oh. "You need to stop spending so much time alone." she said. OK. After the breakup, I went into lockdown mode. I shut myself off from everyone except the people closest to me, and my coworkers, who I see everyday. Granted, I've had a bad cold for about the past week and a half and that's intensified it (I think I fell in love with Netflix Instant Play) but for the past two months, I've really not wanted to be around people. This one both rang true for me and also made me squirm in my chair. What? Leave my safe cave and go back into the fray?

The third card made me laugh. "Now is not a good time to be vulnerable," the tarot lady said. Ha ha! That's a good one. Ha ha. Funny. Wait. What?? "Now isn't the time for intense self-reflection," she continued. Alright, now look, I almost replied, I am the queen of vulnerability. I write a blog about my own depression on a website filled with psychologists. I've written about my most intense, opening, often painful moments, on a public blog, for years. I still use Blogger fer godsakes!! And before that, in a zine. A ZINE!! So how am I supposed to not be vulnerable, to not be intensely self-reflective? It's what I do, it's in my bones. My gravestone will have to have a screen embedded in it so I can update my blog from the Afterlife.

But it all made a kind of sense, and the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. So I told myself that, after I got over this @#$%$ cold, I'd reenter the big, bad, dangerous world and make it my bitch. Errr...sorry, my oyster. That doesn't mean no self-reflection or vulnerability or alone time, but maybe it means taking greater pains to reinvent myself, to try new things, and to let go of the past as much as I can without denying my natural grieving process. To laugh more, to let go of expectations more, and to let the moment in more. To be present with whatever's happening, and to meet the people around me with less in my head and more in my heart.

To that end, I'll be adding some new stuff to this blog, shaking things up a bit, and, at least somewhat, participating in the #Reverb10 meme, which is what I was planning to write about in this post before it got hijacked by this tarot card post. But not tonight, I'm off to meet a friend for a spontaneous drink on a rainy night.

We Survived!

Walking at lunch the other day, off to go do some retail therapy to try and make myself feel better about heartbreak, and wondering why emotional pain can hurt so badly that we sometimes wonder if we'll survive it, I had a thought. I remembered other times I've been in intense pain, even the day before, and how I despaired of making it another minute with this pain, and how I did make it. It seems melodramatic in times when we're doing okay to think of emotional pain as something that can kill you, but I think all of us at one time or another have had moments (or longer) of being in such pain. And in this moment, I wondered how many of us have given ourselves credit for surviving those moments. Yes, perhaps the thought that we will die from heartbreak or disappointment is unrealistic, but in the moment, it can feel like the ultimate reality. When's the last time you stopped and congratulated yourself for getting through those moments, and even getting past them, healing, and moving on?

I went to lunch with a friend a few days ago, and she happened to pick a restaurant where I had gone with an ex- (not the most recent one.) We just happened to sit at the same table he and I had shared. My friend and I had a nice lunch, and it was only that evening that I realized: I had had no twinge whatsoever of pain from that old breakup! I almost texted my friend, but held back, figuring I'd already talked her ear off about this latest ending and she was due for a break. But when I realized that I had moved past that painful time and moved on, and that the old memories no longer haunted me, I got a new shot of faith that I will survive the current time and come out alive, kicking, stronger, and healthier for it.

If you're struggling with emotional pain, despairing that it will never end, remember the old pain and give yourself credit for surviving those times. Give yourself a pat on the back or an ice cream or a new book and congratulate yourself for being so strong, resilient, and courageous that you've made it here!

 On Letting Go

I have to let go. I know that. Even as I grasp this situation, this person, the way someone grasps desperately at leaves of grass as she tumbles off of a cliff, I know that my grasping is only doing damage, and will not help either of us. I've become someone I'm not proud of, someone who lashes out with jealous comments and little snipes to ease the pain of loss. Last night, at a very special event that fills me with pride and joy, I was forced to act easeful, happy, and welcoming in a group of others. I was the hostess, I had to be strong and poised, even though that morning I had been weeping, angry, and desolate. After that night, I knew, my new life would start, one that I had to walk into with the same poise and confidence that I displayed to our guests. As I closed that door behind me after a wonderful evening, carrying with me flowers and compliments and a strong feeling of the love and support of the people around me,  I wanted to cry, I wanted to rage, to be called back and to be told that it was all a mistake, that I didn't have to walk away, that I didn't have to let go. Even as I write this, when a car drives up in front of my house, I look, halfway hoping to see that familiar car. The joy of witnessing something I helped create come to a gorgeous crescendo is still inside of me, as is the feeling of love for someone that will never (hopefully) go away, even if our relationship must change.

I just wrote a blog post for Psychology Today about how accepting the feelings of anxiety and terror that I used to have about driving a car helped me finally get my driver's license at age 36. I realized as I wrote that I can use those same skills now, as I make a new life for myself. I can sit with the loss, the grief, the sadness, and even the hope and the good memories, and still choose to move my life in a direction that supports my values of being a good friend, speaking and acting with compassion, surrounding myself with beauty, supporting creativity in myself and others, and generally living a life of integrity. I realize that, in the recent past, I have not acted in accordance with my values, and that, though it hurts to let go, that letting go will actually help me get back to my valued path. At the event where I helped host, I was able to be there for others, be strong, confident, welcoming, and happy even though I knew that every hour that passed brought me closer to walking out of a door that I never wanted to have to walk out of ever again. If I could do it then, in the midst of people and chaos, music and laughter, I can do it now, in the silence of my house, with the light streaming in and the warm breeze. I can let go of wanting life to be different than it is, and I can wish everyone in my life - past present, future and maybe-future - love and wholeness.

How does One fall in Love With Oneself?

I actually asked my counselor that, when he suggested that I take this time of being single to explore the idea that I am the one I seek: that I am my own Beloved.

We tend to look outside of ourselves for love and validation. All of us do it to some degree or other. I tend to do it balls-out, no-holds-barred, full-on, to a degree that terrifies me and leaves me floundering in a sea of emotion. To say nothing of what it does to my partners or the relationship.

If, then, it's possible to fall in love with myself, to always carry with me that serene knowledge that I am the one that I seek, that I can give myself everything (yes, everything) that I seek in another when I look into his eyes, that means that nothing can derail me emotionally because I will never need someone else so badly that he can break my heart. I can choose to be with someone because I love him, because of his true qualities and not the fantasy qualities I ascribe to him. And I can choose to leave, if that seems like the best decision, without falling apart, because he is not the one who gave me the good feelings I had when I was with him. And I know I will be OK, no matter what, because I can trust that I can provide for myself everything that I need.

That sounds nice. But how do we do this?

Yesterday, I meditated on the fact that I am totally unique in the universe. Think of it! You - we all - are like nothing else that has existed ever before or will exist ever again. There will never be again be a collection and expression of genes, experiences, learning, emotion, and thought that is exactly like you. Even if you were cloned, that person would not be exactly like you because he or she would not have the same exact experiences, and thus would never have the same reactions to life, the same quirks, likes and dislikes, or the same thoughts. The same is true of every being that we meet. Even that bird on a wire is totally unique. There is no other bird exactly like that one.

Have you ever stared into your own eyes in the mirror? I have. Do it sometime. It's fascinating, because, if the eyes are the windows to the soul, you can almost see your own soul while staring into your own eyes. Whenever I doubt that I am a genuinely good soul, I do this exercise. My eyes tell me that I am, even if I do or say things I regret. Do this: find a mirror where the light is good, and just stand for a few moments, looking at your face and into your eyes. What do you see in them? Kindness, sadness, amusement, embarrassment (it might feel kind of silly to be doing this, after all), anger, joy? What does your face tell you? I've been noticing where the wrinkles will be, and that these are the same places they are in my mother's face. Around my lips, and under my eyes. I notice that I purse my lips a lot, and that my face is always active, my expressions pass quickly. What do your eyes tell you about yourself? Mine seem innocent and open sometimes, like I don't understand the meanness that's in the world. This is actually how I feel, a lot of the time. Other times they seem to speak of unseen worlds inside them, characters and stories and ideas and images. Sometimes they are very sad and red, sometimes calm, cool, and serene. Sometimes laughing, sometimes steely. You can tell a lot about yourself from your own eyes.

One night, having no plans, I just hung around in my house, alone, listening to music. On my mantel were several photos of myself with various important people in my life. I sat on my couch as I listened to the music, occasionally singing along, and when I did this, I faced these photos. I was at it for hours that evening, and at the end of the night, I realized I felt an incredible love for this person I had been gazing at for so long. I've always considered myself less than beautiful, but at the end of this night, I realized I was beautiful. It was like after hours of staring into my own face, I had finally seen myself, and liked what I saw.  Perhaps one way to fall in love with ourselves is to have photos around us of our best selves, where we'll see them every day. I have two photos of myself as kids up on my bookshelf. In one, I'm laughing. In the other I'm looking into the camera with an expression of calm and strength. Both of these remind me that those kids are still in me - the joyful one and the calm, strong one.

I don't know the answer to the question I posed above. I don't know how to fall in love with myself, although these things all seem to be good starts. I - we all - can practice looking at ourselves with compassion, even when things are difficult. We can treat ourselves like our own best friends, rather than our own worst enemies. We can care for our bodies and our souls by treating them right. We can treat ourselves like we would a small, dependent child and make sure we always keep ourselves safe, yet at the same time open ourselves up to new, challenging experiences.

I tend to feel resentment when I realize that, truly, I am the only one who can help myself when I'm in trouble. Even if I call my friend or mom or sister for support, at the end of the call, I will hang up and be alone with everything. It hurts. But why, if I'm really the one that I seek? Why is this a situation to resent? I hate sleeping and waking up alone, often dislike coming home to an empty house and to have an evening to kill at the same time that I don't feel like filling my days with empty plans just to fill the time. Maybe this is what I'll work with. Turning the resentment to joy that I have someone like myself that I can count on when things get rough. Enjoying time alone with myself because I am the only one who fully, truly understands me. And who wouldn't want to be with, sleep with, wake up with, do yoga with, be creative with, someone who totally and fully understands and loves them? It would be a dream come true.

And the Sun Shone In

Wow.  Sometimes the light comes from the most unexpected sources. My brain is buzzing with what I've learned, all in the course of one day, and how I went from crushing devastation to strength and bliss within an hour. The details will remain vague because I'm not interested in 'outing' anyone or blaming anyone, so I apologize if the vagueness is irritating. This isn't a tale of woe or of revenge. I'm telling this story for those of you who are in difficult situations, who don't feel like things will ever get better, who are stuck in self-blame or in blaming others for situations that cause you grief and pain. For those of you trapped between love and a hard place. Until last Thursday, I felt trapped, too. And then a light, delivered by a most unlikely fellow traveler,  clicked on.

The story starts with a situation that I've been in for a couple of years. There is love there and also conflict, confusion, and tears. For years I've twisted myself into a pretzel and bent over backwards, forwards, and all ways to make something right that really didn't work for me, with someone who really - at his core - didn't want what I wanted, but that I desperately wanted. I cried over it, despaired over it, ruminated, ate my own heart out, got angry, got desperate, threw things, raged, made accusations, blamed myself, blamed others, lay in bed more than once in a stew of confusion, grief, and loss. God, I wanted this so badly, more than I've ever wanted anything. To get what I wanted, I tried hard to be sweet, forgiving, open, and understanding. I stood by, trying to be patient, absolutely sure that things would change once a certain situation worked itself out. I meditated, envisioned my heart glowing with a white light and enveloping the people in my world. I did magic, blessed charms, burned prayers and sage,  made an altar, did lovingkindness meditation to towards all those involved, prayed for all of us to find joy and happiness in our lives. I even tried to let go, to move forward, to cut the bonds of attachment, but I kept going back. Through it all, what I really wanted, was to possess this thing that seemed to be the answer to all my prayers.

Through the whole thing, I tried so hard to be consistently patient, kind, sweet, and forgiving. I tried to rise above the pettiness and low meanness that popped up around me from time to time. I tried to tell myself I was above the drama, and that it wasn't me, but 'them', that created it.  But no matter what I tried, for some reason, I kept acting badly, kept doing things that filled me with shame and regret. I had rage attacks, for weird reasons that made no sense. I got upset over miniscule things. In my heart, I tried to keep love and kindness and openness ascendant,  but what kept coming out of me was pettiness, jealousy, anger, and judgment. It was so strange, like trying to speak to someone and finding your words coming out as gibberish, even though they're clear as day in your head.

No matter how hard I tried to rationalize this situation and make it OK, no matter how hard I tried to be the model woman, to be wonderful and calm and everyone's friend, it always backfired. People seemed to hate me. They gossiped and sniped and made bizarre accusations. People I had helped and tried to be kind to turned on me. I found myself in a situation I've never known before: surrounded by people where I didn't know who was my enemy and who was my friend. And I thought I deserved it, on some level, because I had behaved badly at certain times. I had lashed out at people, had attacks of anger, fought, wrote ill-considered e-mails, made accusations, snapped at people. So I decided that these people hated me because I was flawed and damaged and had made too many mistakes in their presence. I believed they were right to dislike me.

And I kept on trying to make the situation work for me, to try to be even better and sweeter and nicer and more forgiving, and I started to develop gratitude that someone I cared for still cared for me even though I was so damaged and troubled. I lost so much of my self-respect that I was actually grateful to have what I had - even though it was far from what I wanted and deserved -  rationalizing that nobody else would want me because of my craziness.  And the more I tried to be kind and open, the more the opposite came out of me. In desperation, and hating the needy, untrusting, unbalanced person I had become, I prayed to the Universe to please show me what to do, to show me the path away from all this pain.

The answer came from an unexpected place. One day last week, when I was drenched in pain from things that were happening in my life, I got caught up in a drama, where I made some accusations in an e-mail to someone who had been in my social circle and clearly had some issue with me. I believed wholeheartedly that I was doing the right thing by keeping this person out of our circle, because I believed she had wronged myself and a friend. I tried to make the e-mail sound fairly objective and straightforward, but basically I was acting on the word of someone else who was untrustworthy. Yet another mistake, I thought to myself, after I sent it. Why am I always such a screw-up?

She wrote back, an e-mail steeped in bitterness, hatred, and contempt. She called me horrible names. She accused me of horrible things, and made herself out to be blameless. But most importantly, she told me things about the situation that I was in that, despite the nastiness of her tone in general, I believed as soon as I read them. Though perhaps some of the facts of the letter may not have been true, or may have been distorted, I believed the spirit of it instantly, because it felt true. In my thank-you e-mail to her, I told her she had "bitch-slapped me into reality."

I was stunned, crushed, devastated. The situation was not as I had thought. I saw evidence that someone I thought was my unabashed supporter had said cruel things about me to people we both knew, some who were my friends. Suspicions I had long held but tried to rationalize away seemed true now. Doubts I had had over the years made sense to me now. Feelings I had that I thought were my own craziness now seemed not as crazy. I realized that the two of us had often had exact opposite experiences, even though we were together. Everything fell into place.

I cried in long, choking sobs, with my office door closed, too broken to even think about driving home. I called my best friend and cried to her. And in the middle of the conversation, it was like a someone  poured a soothing balm onto my aching heart, and the pain left me. I felt relieved. I felt free from the situation that had been chaining me down for so long. Though some of my realizations were not very positive about someone I cared for, and some were pretty damning of myself, I felt no anger or self-blame, only release. I walked on air that evening, feeling no bitterness or regret or sadness, only sympathy for all of us in the situation, bemusement at the actions of people I had trusted,  and gladness that I was more free of it than I'd been in 2 years.

But I couldn't figure out why I felt so good. I should have felt crushed, betrayed, angry, bitter, and resentful. But I didn't. I felt like I had been in a twilit room, filled with creeping shadows and half-hidden figures,  and someone had turned on the light. The reason, as near as I can tell, is that the e-mail finally forced me to see what was happening, forced me to let go of a fantasy that I had been holding on to about who I was in the context of this relationship, who the people were around me, and what this situation meant. Everything I had thought was going on, every hope I had clung to, every bitter disappointment I had struggled through, was all based on a fantasy that was never true, that was all created out of a desperate, primal need I had to be wanted, loved, and held. Perhaps realizing that things weren't always as I had thought them - that I had been naive, in a certain sense -  had the effect of banishing all of the assumptions that I had been making for the previous 2 years, and in seeing through the assumptions, I realized the truth: That my fantasies of what had been going on were false, that the pedestal on which I had placed certain people was make-believe, and that even my holier-than-thou beliefs about my own pure motives weren't true. And it freed me. It freed me to see those around me for who they are and not for who I think they are or who I want them to be; it freed me to live a little bit bigger in my own self, without feeling like I need to be different to please others.

And it solved riddles and answered questions I hadn't even known I had asked. Puzzle pieces finally fit together. I had felt so crazy for so long, and all of a sudden I didn't. It all made sense.

A friend suggested that my acting out had been my inner knowing - which knew things weren't quite what they appeared - trying to get my attention. That my intuition had been right all along, and because I tried to ignore it, it kept coming out in these acts of rage, insecurity, and fear. That sounded right to me because, though I've always had a temper and have occasionally overreacted out of anger, I had never acted so badly as I did in this situation. This simply wasn't me. I was a different person in this situation than I was in every other part of my life.

After I received the e-mail, I sent one back thanking her. I felt so grateful to her for pulling the wool from my eyes. Her response to me was to call me a "moron who thinks she's enlightened or something." When I read that, sitting at a patio table on a warm evening, drinking a glass of wine, I had a visceral feeling of the pain that she was in, and I felt an intense sympathy for her. May she - and all of us - be open to the light that comes from unlikely sources, and widens our understanding a little bit.

I now feel like I've found myself again - the person who was lost for almost 2 years - probably even longer. I feel strong enough to put my life back in line with my integrity and values, to go back to self-care, to remember what's important to me, not just what's important to someone else.  I feel like I walked through an underworld and came out of it into the light, like the Chilean miners.

The lessons I'd like to impart from this experience are:

1) Trust your gut, even - especially - when you don't want to.

 2) If you find yourself in a situation where you keep acting in ways that aren't in line with your values or how you usually are, consider that your intuition is trying to force you to take a deeper look at the situation that triggers these behaviors. If you feel like a situation is making you crazy, it probably is; it's probably not you, it's what's happening around you that's the problem.

3) Get to know your own projections, fantasies, and dreams about things in your life that are important to you. Realize when you're making it up - and most of us are making it up a lot of the time.

4) Cultivate open, nonjudgmental awareness as the key to bringing contentment and strength in all areas of life. When you absolutely know the real you, and can be relaxed enough to let others be the real them, without judgment, then you will know peace.

5) If you are struggling and feel that it will never get better, practice this: What if, just for a moment, everything really was OK just exactly how it is? See if you can relax your judgments, expectations, worries, and hopes even just for a split second, and see how it feels. Is it possibly to come from that place of peace and nonjudgment and make the decisions that are right for you?

6) When faced with a difficult decision, go inside and ask for help - from God, from Buddha, from the Universe, from your spirit, from whomever you pray to. Ask them to show you the answer. I did, and everything became clear. 

7) if you, or anyone in your life, thinks they know all the answers, that's a sure sign that they don't.

Namaste, be well, and take good care of yourself!