Day 32- A Difficult Story that Ends with Gratitude

Two years ago at this time, I had recently completed an amazing adventure. August 15, 2013 was the last day of a 5 month, 3,000+ mile journey that I made running most of the way across the United States from CA to CT. In Norwalk, CT that day, as I ran into the ocean, I was so happy and relieved to be finished, but I was also suffering immensely. While I was definitely in physical pain, it’s not the physical pain that was really bothering me. It was the mental and emotional pain that was causing the majority of my suffering (and probably causing my physical pain, too). Let me explain. The reason I was suffering so greatly was because I spent the majority of the 5 months on the road denying my own reality and rejecting my feelings and at the end of the 5 months instead of feeling the excitement of what I had accomplished, I mostly felt the weight of what I hadn’t.

You see, by the time I had run to Missouri, I was in a great deal of physical pain. So much so that it was too painful to run. However, instead of accepting this and allowing myself to live this truth, I denied it and secretly hitchhiked and rode in buses and taxis for about 120 miles. I didn’t tell anyone until about 5 or 6 months later when I realized if I didn’t tell the truth, the lie was going to eat me up inside for the rest of my life.

I’ve spent a great deal of time over the last 2 years processing this experience and trying to figure out what lesson I was meant to learn from it. I have wanted to place the blame for my actions outside of myself and it would be easy to do that. However, the more I learn about life, the greater awareness I have that no one else is ever to blame for my how I feel and the decisions I make.

In the blog post I wrote announcing what I had done I said one of the reasons I did it was that “I was so consumed with my goal that I was willing to lie to keep up appearances.” Re-reading that today, I realize that that’s not really the truth. I wasn’t really consumed with my goal. Not finishing when I said I was going to finish wouldn’t really have bothered me all that much. Really what I was consumed with was the story, the drama I had created in my head that rejected the reality of my situation. From day 1 of that experience I was completely unwilling to accept how I was feeling and because of that I created a world of suffering for myself. If I had accepted my feelings and allowed myself to be whatever I was in each moment, I would have made completely different decisions.

As I write about this experience today, I find myself wondering why I’m doing so. Why bring this up?… It’s because I haven’t fully allowed myself to be at peace with what happened. I’m still reliving it in ways and it’s blocking me from truly being in a place of acceptance and power. This experience is part of my journey today because I haven’t allowed it to move through me. I’ve wanted to deny it and I still wish it hadn’t happened the way it did. I have intellectually been trying to figure it out, always wondering “Why?” and thinking I had to learn something from it before I could let it go and that since I was still holding on to it, I must not have learned the deep, profound lesson, yet. In doing all of these things, I have held onto it, instead of letting it run its course.

Today, what I realize is that I don’t have to think about it anymore. There’s nothing to figure out. When a thought of the experience comes to my mind, I’ll change my focus from thinking to feeling and I’ll allow myself to feel whatever feeling arises as a result of the thought. I’ll let the thought be there, too, but I won’t give it my attention. I will feel and be and see where that leads.

The lesson, I know now, is about self acceptance. I have had an opportunity to implement that lesson for as many moments as there have been since the experience happened. But since I haven’t done it, the experience keeps presenting itself and I keep re-living it. The thing is, I really didn’t know what self acceptance meant until these past few days. I didn’t have an inkling of what self acceptance is. Now I have an inkling. I’m so grateful to be where I am in this moment.

Thanks for reading.

Rosalynn

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Day 26- Learning How to “Be”

Oh, the unraveling of the false self…Learning to “be” whatever I am in each moment, truly accepting every aspect of my experience of the moment- I don’t think I’ve ever done that. There are so many layers of rejection and refusal of myself and my experience, for one reason or another. And how can I truly feel the presence of the divine if I am so often busy rejecting who I am and my true experience of the moment, which is an activity of the mind (my false self)? Always doing, doing, doing. Never being. What a distraction. If my mind is creating and shaping my experience, I’m not truly able to connect with the divine source/force within or all around me.  So, I suppose this is another starting point. I feel a very vague sense of direction. I feel for the first time that I am catching a glimpse of what exists underneath all of the layers of false self. It feels elusive at the moment, kind of like a mist that I can’t really see or touch. I feel it though.

I read this article yesterday and it was very helpful: Freedom From Suffering: Feeling Feelings

Thanks for reading.

Rosalynn

Day 24- Taking an Honest, Fearless Look at Myself (Working Toward Self-Acceptance in Each Moment)

Things to accept about myself so that I can take my power back and transmute the energy into something more productive:

1. I have a lack mentality. I think that I don’t have enough of anything- not enough money, not enough time, not enough knowledge, not enough resources, not enough connection with the divine, not enough compassion, not enough generosity, not enough honesty, not enough courage, not enough uniqueness, not enough creativity, not enough confidence, not enough trust, not enough faith, not enough love and acceptance for myself, not enough joy, not enough talent, not enough beauty, not enough love and acceptance of other people, not enough independence, not enough intuition, not enough control, not enough humor…

2. I care a lot about what other people think of me. Pleasing others and proving myself to others is one of the driving forces in my life. I seek approval from others to assure me that I have the qualities I feel I lack.

3. If someone expresses to me that they don’t believe I have one of the qualities I want them to see in me, I suffer a great deal and I feel like a failure because I wasn’t able to convince them of my worth.

4. Most of my actions are motivated by proving myself to others. I don’t know if I do anything for the “right” reasons/with a pure intent. I don’t even know if I know how or what it means to do things that way. I do a lot of things out of guilt or because I think I “should” because I don’t want to make others feel bad (that would mean they would think I’m not a nice person.)

5. Anger that I feel is often related to my feelings of lack. Most of my anger relates to money and time. I get angry when I feel like I’m not in control of my money and when I feel like I’m not in control of my time.

6. I am a controlling and judgmental person. But in a very disguised way. I tend to think I know what’s best for others and when they don’t do what I think is best, I make a judgment about them in my mind. I usually don’t tell them so, though, because I don’t want to be seen as judgmental. I also judge myself quite harshly. My judgment tends to put things into one of two categories: right or wrong. I want to control others into doing what I think is right because I think they’ll be better off, but I often don’t tell them because I don’t want to come across as controlling. It’s mostly with the people I feel closest to that I express my judgment and control.

7. I worry about things I say and do all the time. If I say or do something that I feel in some way causes me to look foolish (un-cool foolish), judgemental, critical of someone else, etc. Then I end up regretting it and wishing I hadn’t said it and wishing I could take it back. I worry that the other person now thinks less of me or that I upset the other person in some way so he/she will now be upset with me.

I’m sure there are more things about myself that I have to bring to the light of day and accept, rather than hide and ignore, but nothing else comes to me at the moment.

I have to remind myself why I am bringing these things to the light of day. It’s not to punish or shame myself for these things, or to feel bad about them. It’s not a confessional. It’s so that when these situations occur, I recognize them and accept them as part of my experience in that moment instead of judging them as wrong. If I judge them as wrong, I lose a great deal of energy and power trying to cover them up or push them away or deny them. This takes me out of the present moment and steals my awareness and connection with the present moment. If I can bring these things into the present moment in a conscious way, notice them, and invite the divine, creative, life force energy to share the moment, I think there’s potential for something productive to happen. I’m not sure what it is, yet. I’ll keep you posted, though.

Thanks for reading.

Rosalynn

Day 23- On lightening Up

Bringing my awareness to my inner blocks has been key in my experience so far. It’s part of a process of freeing myself so that I can have a stronger connection with the divine. Anger, anxiety, fear, stress, doubt, judgment, shame, etc…all of these come in the way of my connection with the Great Creative Life Force of the Universe. They steal my attention and my awareness and make me unconscious. They drag me down with their weight into a world of a lower vibration, of suffering and loneliness. The higher vibration is where my true potential lies. For that I must lighten my load. “Lighthearted”. “Enlightened”. I must be light.

This morning, when I woke up I felt a sense of emptiness. There’s still something major within me that is blocking my connection to the divine reality that surrounds me, that’s a part of me, that I’m connected to. If I were truly feeling connected to the amazing world and to the Great Creative Life Force of the Universe, I don’t think I would feel empty or lonely as often as I do. Would I?

I don’t know what the block is. The other day while I was taking a walk, I started wondering about the serious side I have to me. Nature walks are such a time for meditation for me and my awareness of many things expands a great deal on my walks. Anyway, what I started to become more aware of on this walk is that there’s a seriousness to me that prevents me from being silly, especially around others. Sometimes I’m silly when I’m by myself, but hardly ever around others. I know I’m serious far more frequently than I’m silly and I’d like it to be the other way around. What is the seriousness all about? Is it protecting me from something? I’m sure it is. It’s also preventing me from being completely free. I’m at the point where I feel I’m ready to face whatever the seriousness is protecting me from. I’d rather deal with it and move on. It may be painful to deal with, but that’s ok.

For the moment, however, I suppose I just accept where I am. I accept the emptiness and seriousness. Not accepting is choosing the lower vibration. Acceptance gives me access to the higher vibration. So even in the moment when I feel heavy, I still have a choice to feel heavier or to lighten my load. There’s always an opportunity to lighten up through acceptance of what is. Wishing reality were different than it is: heavy.

It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? It always comes back to the simple act of acceptance of each moment. I’ve been so used to trying to figure out how to change myself but coming at it all wrong. Wishing I were different. That’s really heavy. The concept of acceptance is still sinking in. I just need to keep reminding myself and I know eventually I’ll get there,…or maybe I am there!

Thanks for reading.

Rosalynn