december (views) 1
57 minutes ago
November 26, 2009
Happy Thanksgiving
November 23, 2009
the simple things
little doggies
choice...the ability to say no
clean laundry
books
the Postal Service...the fun of mailing letters/gifts to friends
warm covers at night
mom's comfort food
organized closets
patience of others and my own
new developing friendships
being open
friends that make me laugh
clean dishes
packing early for a trip
preparation
awareness
calm
November 21, 2009
ॐ नमः शिवाय
Lately when I'm dwooling (the word a friend and I made up to express dwelling too much about things in the past) I quietly say Aum Namah Shivaya (Om Namah Shivaya) to myself. For me this is something that is related to doing aarti growing up and now. As I don't have any religious/Hindu prayer books with me that talk about this I looked online tonight to remind myself of the translation of this Sanskrit mantra and found the following explanation on a few websites. It is always important to consider the source of the information so this may only be one translation of this mantra.
"This mantra has no approximate translation. The sounds related directly to the principles which govern each of the first six chakras on the spine...Earth, water, fire, air, ether...A very rough, non-literal translation could be something like, 'Om and salutations to that which I am capable of becoming.'" (source)
That part that resonated with me is "Om and salutations to that which I am capable of becoming." This lines up well with the impetus behind why I say it and where I'm headed.
Last year when I was having a hard time I used to do aarti as a connection to something from my home and family. In the midst of deep pain lighting agarbati (incense), singing Om Jai Jagdish Hare, and saying the Gayatri Mantra connected me back to my family and their absolute and unconditional love for me. Before this moment I always thought of their love for me as conditional in terms of what they wanted me to be, but in writing this paragraph and thinking about it I see now how unconditional it is and has always been...that no matter what or where I have gone and how that path has diverged from what they wanted they have always followed me along this journey and loved me so much that at times I found it overwhelming. (This is why I write, to discover things like this.) In thinking about this I looked up Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (one of my favorite Hindi films) on YouTube. If you understand Hindi and have a heart you can't watch this scene, hear Lata Mangeshkar's title song and not think of your parents' love for you. Your heart breaks for Shah Rukh Khan and Jaya Bachchan's mother-son connection and Kajol's wish for the blessing she never received from Amitabh Bachchan.
"This mantra has no approximate translation. The sounds related directly to the principles which govern each of the first six chakras on the spine...Earth, water, fire, air, ether...A very rough, non-literal translation could be something like, 'Om and salutations to that which I am capable of becoming.'" (source)
That part that resonated with me is "Om and salutations to that which I am capable of becoming." This lines up well with the impetus behind why I say it and where I'm headed.
Last year when I was having a hard time I used to do aarti as a connection to something from my home and family. In the midst of deep pain lighting agarbati (incense), singing Om Jai Jagdish Hare, and saying the Gayatri Mantra connected me back to my family and their absolute and unconditional love for me. Before this moment I always thought of their love for me as conditional in terms of what they wanted me to be, but in writing this paragraph and thinking about it I see now how unconditional it is and has always been...that no matter what or where I have gone and how that path has diverged from what they wanted they have always followed me along this journey and loved me so much that at times I found it overwhelming. (This is why I write, to discover things like this.) In thinking about this I looked up Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (one of my favorite Hindi films) on YouTube. If you understand Hindi and have a heart you can't watch this scene, hear Lata Mangeshkar's title song and not think of your parents' love for you. Your heart breaks for Shah Rukh Khan and Jaya Bachchan's mother-son connection and Kajol's wish for the blessing she never received from Amitabh Bachchan.
And now for some fun...it is time to bhangra!
November 20, 2009
Instead saw 5 other performers and groups and finally two and a half hours later Panjabi MC starts DJing. Really...at 2am on a work night. I was so tired, but got my second wind only to be deflated because the Jewish rapper guy came back on the stage and started rapping to the bhangra music. It was sad, it was bad and it ended 20 mins later. I want my money back.
November 19, 2009
a very long post that i needed to write for myself
I've been feeling alone lately, a lack of real connection with others. The kind of connection that stands the test of time and tough spots where you know the fabric is sturdy and won't fall apart on a whim. I have this connection with others definitely, but I don't get to interact with any of these people on a daily basis. Every person that fits this category in my life is busy with their lives and/or lives far away. And we chat, talk on the phone, or see one another every few weeks when we can. It is wonderful that I get to have these interactions every few weeks and I cherish them. But on a daily basis as I rebuild my life lately I find I'm really struggling with the lack of real daily connection. Besides my therapist I don't know that anyone really knows what is happening in my daily life.
As it is time to change things up I'm taking some different steps as I've talked about before. This week I starting redo-ing (read: really setting up my apt) in a way that makes it more conducive to having people over. I'm a mess. My apt fluctuates between being anally clean to being really messy. (As I write this I'm sitting next to a large pile of laundry that is overflowing from my laundry bag.) And if what you see outwardly is a reflection of inward stuff then I have to see this as a reflection of inner goings-on and my depression. I bet some readers are thinking this is a word I should not have written in such a public forum. Why? Because I should hide this, because it is a taboo topic, because it makes me seem weak to admit that, because this, because that? Depression is something I think that touches each person's life but this is reserved for another post another time. For me this blog is a place to write out what is going through my head. Writing it out is a form of meditating on something. I've read now on multiple blogs that writing is the new form of prayer or something to that effect. I don't know if that is exactly the case for me, but something about that sentiment resonates. So I bought a bunch of organizational items as well as some small (and pretty) furniture and am slowly changing around my apartment. It is also time to chuck the downsides of technology. Many reasons it is wonderful, etc. But I'm going to stop utilizing it to have ongoing interactions with people who live in the same city as me. In my opinion technology is becoming a substitute for real human interaction and experience. I'm really tired of chatting with someone or exchanging long emails with particular friends catching up on a regular basis when they live in the same city as I do. I'm disappointed that certain people want this type of interaction.
This afternoon I participated in a group coaching call. I normally don't utilize this group to talk about anything I struggle with. I'm more there to see what wisdom I can glean and have in the past provided support. There is an online component to this group that I really like and utilize. I provide thoughts or respond to things people post about their struggles, but I rarely (if ever) have posted openly about something I'm struggling with. This week I participated by completing an exercise that the group has been working on for a few weeks about writing out a list of goals and placing action steps and a timeline to structure goal achievement. Simple idea, not rocket science, done it before. So as I was reading what others wrote about their goals I decided to write up my own list. I didn't post the list in the forum, but instead posted my feelings around doing the exercise and was clearly seeking some feedback/support from the group. Well, I didn't get any. I know people don't look at the site on a daily basis so I guess that is why, although my coach did look at the page and she didn't respond either. So on the call when she checked in with me on how I was doing I blurted out that I had done this exercise, posted my feelings about it online and received no response. So people started asking questions, etc. They were trying to help I know, but I can't explain to them what is going on with me in a few mins on a call, esp. when I'm having a hard time understanding it myself! And that was what I was asking about...that I feel resistance to moving forward on some of the goals. So basically I got defensive and sat there wishing people would move on to some other person and wishing I would have shut up and not bothered opening up. So we spent what felt like a long time on this....which in my opinion while I'm still pissed about it....very little success or real insight was gleaned by me. I gave some examples of the goals I had written and was told by one fellow peer why do you sound like you're in a jail cell when you talk about this? The same person also made an off the cuff comment saying something like I'm glad I'm in a first floor office because after hearing the way you talk about this it makes me want to jump out a window. I plan to address this last comment which I found callous. And for some reason my coach kept asking this particular woman for her thoughts (maybe this other woman was also a coach or her own background had experience that resonated with mine, or something that was never explained). And then as the call was ending someone revisited this topic of my resistance and they spent another 10 minutes asking me questions. This all resulted in me saying ok, ok, ok. I'm going to go back and listen to the recording of the call which is posted on the password-protected site to understand what happened. Afterward I just felt mad. And then my coach posted a note in the forum about how great the conversation around this was and how I received a number of good thoughts and ideas and thanked me for being so open to input. Talk about being completely unaligned (to use a coaching word) in how we viewed the situation. I emailed her to tell her the call angered me and that I need some time for my anger to subside before I could process it. I plan to post something in the forum stating in a brief and tactful manner how I felt about that call.
After this happened I reached out to a friend who as is her history was unable to be there for me and yet did not shy away from instantaneously jumping into her stuff. Why do I keep trying to seek out support in friendships where I'm not going to receive it (at least in this way)? Another friend asked about it, but I didn't want to discuss it and then when I did it got lost in whatever he wanted to discuss. So I gave up. This wouldn't happen with those connections I talked about in the beginning of this post. They would realize that if I reach out and call or if I say that I'm upset that it means something to me, that I'm saying that because I want to talk about it. Maybe this is what My Life in Brown (and White) is referencing lately when she talks about how she finds it hard to make friends at this age. All I know for myself is I'm not getting what I need in the places I'm seeking it and so I need to stop looking for it there and start seeking it in other places because I find I am starting to resent the people that aren't giving it to me and then losing sight of the beautiful things that I do appreciate about them.
--------------------------------
Added a few hours later:
I went back and listened to the call again, took notes, and considered other points of view on how to interpret what I said and how I sounded. Afterward I posted this in our forum. I have replaced my coach's name with "coach."
I have debated on how to respond to this comment Coach posted on the group's wall. As I feel like this could be a situation to learn from I'm going to share my perspective on this call since it is extremely different than hers.
I didn't feel open at all during this call. In fact I felt after opening up that I wish I wouldn't have because since I was unclear of what I needed at the time I was unable to ask for it specifically and therefore received wonderful support from the people on the call that missed the mark for where I am currently at. Coach kept talking about how she felt resistance from me during the call. I felt defensive during the call because I felt a little bit attacked for where people thought I was at or how I was coming off to them in the call. I felt angry after the call ended. After the anger subsided I listened to the call again to see what I could learn.
I think you can hear in my voice from the beginning of my participation that I was struggling. I stated that in what I wrote below and during the call that I was feeling resistance, but was unclear about why I felt this. The feedback I received are practices that are already in my repertoire and what I realize now is that what I needed during that call wasn't a list of practices/exercises to start employing; what I needed was encouragement. I needed someone to get excited about me sharing/talking about my list in a forum of people that I don't know. Sentiments such as "I have never heard anyone less enthusiastic" or "if I weren't on the first floor I would be thinking about jumping right now" which were said by another call participant in response to what I was expressing and how I sounded were not helpful. I find the second statement about "thinking about jumping right now" callous. Personally I don't see how anything about that statement is fruitful. All it teaches me is that another participant had a strong reaction to what I said or how I said it. And after listening to the call I don't believe there is anything so horrific in the way I sounded or the things I said that would warrant a reference to suicide by another participant. So it makes sense to me now that the call upset me.
Had I known I was seeking encouragement on the call I would have asked for it, but I didn't know it was what I needed. All I knew/felt was that I was going to take a step towards putting myself out there and by extension take a step away from resistance. For me to speak up on the call and show and expose that I'm struggling...that is HUGE for me. I guess the only person who would have known this is Coach.
As it is time to change things up I'm taking some different steps as I've talked about before. This week I starting redo-ing (read: really setting up my apt) in a way that makes it more conducive to having people over. I'm a mess. My apt fluctuates between being anally clean to being really messy. (As I write this I'm sitting next to a large pile of laundry that is overflowing from my laundry bag.) And if what you see outwardly is a reflection of inward stuff then I have to see this as a reflection of inner goings-on and my depression. I bet some readers are thinking this is a word I should not have written in such a public forum. Why? Because I should hide this, because it is a taboo topic, because it makes me seem weak to admit that, because this, because that? Depression is something I think that touches each person's life but this is reserved for another post another time. For me this blog is a place to write out what is going through my head. Writing it out is a form of meditating on something. I've read now on multiple blogs that writing is the new form of prayer or something to that effect. I don't know if that is exactly the case for me, but something about that sentiment resonates. So I bought a bunch of organizational items as well as some small (and pretty) furniture and am slowly changing around my apartment. It is also time to chuck the downsides of technology. Many reasons it is wonderful, etc. But I'm going to stop utilizing it to have ongoing interactions with people who live in the same city as me. In my opinion technology is becoming a substitute for real human interaction and experience. I'm really tired of chatting with someone or exchanging long emails with particular friends catching up on a regular basis when they live in the same city as I do. I'm disappointed that certain people want this type of interaction.
This afternoon I participated in a group coaching call. I normally don't utilize this group to talk about anything I struggle with. I'm more there to see what wisdom I can glean and have in the past provided support. There is an online component to this group that I really like and utilize. I provide thoughts or respond to things people post about their struggles, but I rarely (if ever) have posted openly about something I'm struggling with. This week I participated by completing an exercise that the group has been working on for a few weeks about writing out a list of goals and placing action steps and a timeline to structure goal achievement. Simple idea, not rocket science, done it before. So as I was reading what others wrote about their goals I decided to write up my own list. I didn't post the list in the forum, but instead posted my feelings around doing the exercise and was clearly seeking some feedback/support from the group. Well, I didn't get any. I know people don't look at the site on a daily basis so I guess that is why, although my coach did look at the page and she didn't respond either. So on the call when she checked in with me on how I was doing I blurted out that I had done this exercise, posted my feelings about it online and received no response. So people started asking questions, etc. They were trying to help I know, but I can't explain to them what is going on with me in a few mins on a call, esp. when I'm having a hard time understanding it myself! And that was what I was asking about...that I feel resistance to moving forward on some of the goals. So basically I got defensive and sat there wishing people would move on to some other person and wishing I would have shut up and not bothered opening up. So we spent what felt like a long time on this....which in my opinion while I'm still pissed about it....very little success or real insight was gleaned by me. I gave some examples of the goals I had written and was told by one fellow peer why do you sound like you're in a jail cell when you talk about this? The same person also made an off the cuff comment saying something like I'm glad I'm in a first floor office because after hearing the way you talk about this it makes me want to jump out a window. I plan to address this last comment which I found callous. And for some reason my coach kept asking this particular woman for her thoughts (maybe this other woman was also a coach or her own background had experience that resonated with mine, or something that was never explained). And then as the call was ending someone revisited this topic of my resistance and they spent another 10 minutes asking me questions. This all resulted in me saying ok, ok, ok. I'm going to go back and listen to the recording of the call which is posted on the password-protected site to understand what happened. Afterward I just felt mad. And then my coach posted a note in the forum about how great the conversation around this was and how I received a number of good thoughts and ideas and thanked me for being so open to input. Talk about being completely unaligned (to use a coaching word) in how we viewed the situation. I emailed her to tell her the call angered me and that I need some time for my anger to subside before I could process it. I plan to post something in the forum stating in a brief and tactful manner how I felt about that call.
After this happened I reached out to a friend who as is her history was unable to be there for me and yet did not shy away from instantaneously jumping into her stuff. Why do I keep trying to seek out support in friendships where I'm not going to receive it (at least in this way)? Another friend asked about it, but I didn't want to discuss it and then when I did it got lost in whatever he wanted to discuss. So I gave up. This wouldn't happen with those connections I talked about in the beginning of this post. They would realize that if I reach out and call or if I say that I'm upset that it means something to me, that I'm saying that because I want to talk about it. Maybe this is what My Life in Brown (and White) is referencing lately when she talks about how she finds it hard to make friends at this age. All I know for myself is I'm not getting what I need in the places I'm seeking it and so I need to stop looking for it there and start seeking it in other places because I find I am starting to resent the people that aren't giving it to me and then losing sight of the beautiful things that I do appreciate about them.
--------------------------------
Added a few hours later:
I went back and listened to the call again, took notes, and considered other points of view on how to interpret what I said and how I sounded. Afterward I posted this in our forum. I have replaced my coach's name with "coach."
I have debated on how to respond to this comment Coach posted on the group's wall. As I feel like this could be a situation to learn from I'm going to share my perspective on this call since it is extremely different than hers.
I didn't feel open at all during this call. In fact I felt after opening up that I wish I wouldn't have because since I was unclear of what I needed at the time I was unable to ask for it specifically and therefore received wonderful support from the people on the call that missed the mark for where I am currently at. Coach kept talking about how she felt resistance from me during the call. I felt defensive during the call because I felt a little bit attacked for where people thought I was at or how I was coming off to them in the call. I felt angry after the call ended. After the anger subsided I listened to the call again to see what I could learn.
I think you can hear in my voice from the beginning of my participation that I was struggling. I stated that in what I wrote below and during the call that I was feeling resistance, but was unclear about why I felt this. The feedback I received are practices that are already in my repertoire and what I realize now is that what I needed during that call wasn't a list of practices/exercises to start employing; what I needed was encouragement. I needed someone to get excited about me sharing/talking about my list in a forum of people that I don't know. Sentiments such as "I have never heard anyone less enthusiastic" or "if I weren't on the first floor I would be thinking about jumping right now" which were said by another call participant in response to what I was expressing and how I sounded were not helpful. I find the second statement about "thinking about jumping right now" callous. Personally I don't see how anything about that statement is fruitful. All it teaches me is that another participant had a strong reaction to what I said or how I said it. And after listening to the call I don't believe there is anything so horrific in the way I sounded or the things I said that would warrant a reference to suicide by another participant. So it makes sense to me now that the call upset me.
Had I known I was seeking encouragement on the call I would have asked for it, but I didn't know it was what I needed. All I knew/felt was that I was going to take a step towards putting myself out there and by extension take a step away from resistance. For me to speak up on the call and show and expose that I'm struggling...that is HUGE for me. I guess the only person who would have known this is Coach.
November 18, 2009
a little ditty
May love find you at a precious moment
May you unwrap it to find
peals of laughter
sensuality of contours
petal softness
November 17, 2009
There are no more
There are no more Someday I will-s...
The truth is aging is happening
But I know what I want to do in the Somedays
SO DO IT
There are no more Why did she/he do/say this/that-s...
The truth is I don't know why she/he hurt me
But I know the difference between my business, your business and God's/The Universe's business
SO PAY ATTENTION TO MY BUSINESS
There are no more What will my parents think...
The truth is I think differently than them
But I know that in the end they trust and support me and want me to be happy
SO HEED YOUR INTUITION AND BUILD THE LIFE YOU WANT
There are no more What if I can't do it-s...
The truth is there will be some things I cannot do
But I know that I will be able to find the resources I need to get through those things
SO START MOVING
November 16, 2009
the simple things
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I joined Soul Aperture's the simple things project. Her instructions were just place the simple things on your blog that make your heart sing. So here goes...
a good cup of coffee
heart to heart talk with a friend
crossword puzzles
maddie's photographs
a home-cooked meal
cooking with friends
rumi's words
strong smart women friends
light
hanging your feet outside the canoe in the cold water on a hot summer's day
fun, cute, wondrous
I tried writing a poem tonight, but it got all tangled up. So instead I'm sharing another poem with you titled "One Boy Told Me" by Naomi Shihab Nye. If I ever have kids I would love to do this.
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