Writing Your Own Damn Story

Since the end of last year, I’ve been on a quest to simplify. I’d realized that my physical environment and day-to-day habits had gotten a bit too hectic and crowded, so I wanted to streamline.

I donated/gifted a lot of stuff, I repainted my dark blue living room a beautiful light-filled color, I streamlined my goals, took a break from blogging, and even have managed to (mostly) be less possessive about friendships (ie let them flow in and out without grasping).

It has been a breath of fresh air.

But, I forgot to clean out one major thing: my brain, my thinking and my constant quest to need to ‘understand’ everything, or at the very least to give my experiences a label.

I’m sure that most of us ‘seekers’ have the same bookshelf filled with volumes on spirituality, meditation, angels, Tolle, Osho, shamanism, Sufis, mystics, Toltecs, Buddha, tantra, chakras, and many, many more.

Am I forgetting anyone???

At a core level, these books have been such a gift – I’ve had countless insights reading them. I’m very grateful for this. But at a certain point, they are just a point of departure, and it’s time to move beyond them, to have real-life experiences, and to decipher things for ourselves, in our own unique way.

Though my physical space is clear, the ‘problem’ for me is that I haven’t stopped filling my brain with trying to define everything around me. And guess what? My head is exhausted and is completely cluttered.

When we rely on other people’s definitions, there is a filter between us and the experience. We are seeking to gain understanding and purity – to get to the Source. But in putting a label, or someone else’s definition, we are diminishing the purity of the experience that we sought from the very beginning.

For some reason, for some of us, there is great comfort in having some perception that we either ‘understand’ something or can at least define it. When something happens in your life and you can connect it to some ancient teaching, there is a sense of comfort or relief.

Why?

It’s like being comfortable with too much physical clutter in your house. It’s a barrier. It defines you. There is fear in letting it go, as though you will cease to exist. I keep re-reading the same books as a means to know myself more, but in at a certain point, continually referring back to them is more about fear of sitting with the (beautiful) emptiness, fully trusting what I already know, and finding my own way.

When we finish school (whatever level) there is a trust that you have at least enough basic knowledge to go out into the world, and that whatever you don’t know, you’ll figure out. I’ve been reading these books for years. I’ve re-read them. They have been read.

It’s like I’ve taken a sailing course (five times), I have the boat, I have the compass, I have the ropes (and even the life jacket – two of them – just in case), but I’m afraid to fully go out there and experience the water for myself.

In the back of my mind I’m thinking: Columbus would do it this way. Magellan would do it that way.

But how would I do it? Not that I even need to tell anyone my experience, I’d just be happy to have the experience without needing to put a label, qualification or story to it. Just be. What if the ocean is sometimes clear and serene and the next day it is one big fucking storm. Is that ok? Is that ‘normal’? Of course it is! Just look out in nature where these cycles happen every day and you don’t see a whale or dolphin batting an eye.

And so I’ve realized that I got rid of physical stuff and emotional stuff over the past few months, but I’m still defining my experiences through other’s traditions, perceptions or teachings.

I’m holding onto the books and the teachings like a pair of old pants that I don’t want to put in the thrift store pile. Noooooo! What if I need those one day?

But what if I’m just me, as I am with no need to define?

The one who has green juice for breakfast and a cupcake for dinner. The one who could care less about driving an old car but who likes to buy a pair of really nice shoes a couple times a year. The one who doesn’t speak to her own mother (I’m working on this) but whose friends know they can call any time day or night with a problem and I’ll be there.

I don’t see this book on my shelf because it lives in my heart. We each have our own book. No one can see it, but it has a lot of information for us if we trust its wisdom. It’s here every day, but sometimes I keep looking outside, the way perhaps other people define themselves by the car they drive, how skinny they are or their job title.

For many of us labels provide comfort, and continual spiritual seeking is still grasping and labeling and defining if you aren’t fully comfortable just being who you are. There is a place for this, but there is also taking it too far.

So today I’m taking another leap. I’ve already cleaned out the house, and many other things, and I’m leaping to a space of not seeking or needing to know.

Guess what I’ll be doing instead?

That’s right…just living this sometimes mundane, mostly extraordinarily magical life…with no need to define.

Peaceful, pale-colored living room where I won't be re-reading the same book.

A little more happy…or at least a little less crappy

I always feel bad when I see someone I care about having a hard time. It could be about work, or a relationship, or parenthood, or maybe they feel bad about nothing in particular – they just feel bad.

I’m not one of those people who thinks, “well, it sucks to be you.” For better or worse, I sometimes feel other people’s discomfort as if it were my own. Which is probably why I wish I knew how to make them feel better, or at least help them gain some perspective. If I can help ease some of their discomfort, I suppose it helps ease my own as well. Unfortunately, I don’t have a magic wand, so sometimes all I (or any of us) can do is lend an ear, and say a little prayer for them to figure things out.

People say misery loves company. But I don’t necessarily think that’s true. I think that when we’re down, what we need most is to reach out to someone who is in a good place, to help us get through. I’ve been so blessed through the years to have friends and a husband who have stood by me through it all. They sat back and supported me, letting me find my own way with things.

I am by no means the poster child for happiness. I’ve had some really dark days, months and years. And in hindsight, it was those times that helped me get to where I am right now – which is, on most days, reasonably happy. Those challenges made me sit down and really define myself and everything I wanted in my life. It was time consuming and painful, but definitely worth it in the end. I still have my sad or annoying days, but luckily, those times tend to pass much more quickly after I figured a few things out.

What’s the ‘secret’?

There is no secret. It’s making a choice to be happy, or at the very least to acknowledge that your life is the way it is because of the choices you’ve made, or the beliefs you have. Once I figured this out, I could change the things I didn’t like, and make peace with the things I couldn’t change. (Sounds like a Hallmark card/serenity prayer…but it’s true).

Here are a few things I’ve figured out after years of therapy and reading tons of books. Maybe these things will work for you, or at least spark some thought on what’s true for you:

1. An acceptance of What Is. There is how you want things to go, and there is the reality of how things will go regardless of weather you like it or not. It’s not personal. Sometimes things work in your favor, sometimes they don’t. This is life.

2. Focus on what is positive and IS working. There will always be things you don’t like. We don’t have ‘mail order’ lives where you get to send away for things to happen exactly as you want them. If you have a few good friends, a decent job, a nice place to live and food to eat, you are way ahead of a lot of people.

3. The grass is not greener. At all. That’s our mind/ego/shitty committee messing with us. It’s the ego’s job to never be satisfied (just ask advertisers, or Eckhart Tolle). The ego rears its head in all forms: money, beauty, fame, success, work – you name it. If you learn to realize that ALL things suck at one point or another, you can make peace with the things you don’t like, and hopefully really appreciate it when things work out as you like. This leads me to…

4. Try not to have high expectations. This one was hard for me. I’d think, “Well, I have high expectations for myself, why shouldn’t I expect the same of others.” This is not how life works, unfortunately, but as soon as I figured this out, I felt a lot less stressed out when others didn’t do things how I thought they should. Who made me in charge, anyway? How you see the world is not how others see it. It’s shocking but true, and I struggled with this one for a long time.

5. I guess there’s one last one which is: Try to find the good in others. I know that sounds really hippie and granola, but it’s true. The fact is that most people really are doing their best, and if they aren’t, then why bother focusing on that anyway? I have a friend who never remembers my birthday, but who would drive 200 miles to come help me if I needed it. Sometimes when I question if I want to keep sending her a card on her birthday (since I never get one in return), I realize that type of thinking is really not helpful, and is actually quite bitchy. The point is that she’s got my back when it really matters.

Who has your back when it really matters? Those are your true friends. And what makes you happy? That’s what you should be doing…today. These are things to focus on.

Misery can be a cycle, or identity. It can be hard to get out of (I’m speaking from personal experience). It allows us to focus on what others are doing that we don’t like, instead of really looking at ourselves and perhaps the things we wish we were doing, but maybe are too afraid to try. A girl in college once said that if you point a finger at someone else, you’ve got three pointing at yourself. It’s a pretty cheesy saying, but there’s truth there. Blaming a situation or someone else is a form of giving your power away. It’s putting your own life and happiness on hold until something changes. And guess what, it’s not going to change, you need to.

I am in no way trying to be a soap box speaker on how to make things cotton candy and rainbows. Just someone who has gone through a lot and felt inspired, for whatever reason, to share what I’ve learned along the way.

Sending love to whoever may need it at this very moment.