A Crack at Honesty

It seems that during the past month my desire or need to stay connected with people through the blog and Facebook has dwindled to practically nothing. The realization hit me last week that I don't feel the need to stay connected or validated through my writing. It feels liberating and scary. We go through phases in this life, and I am certainly aware that this is a phase that I am going through. However, the feeling of not looking for approval through writing is a pretty great feeling. That doesn't mean that I have stopped caring what people think of me, unfortunately that nasty habit will die hard. I wouldn't necessarily say that I am on a journey at present, although I suppose we are always on a journey. However, journey implies to me some sort of fun and adventure, and I am not having much fun. I am finding that there is beauty in the darkness and normal does not exist. Perfection is arbitrary. I am not nor have I ever been a model of mental health as much as I may have tried to convince myself of that because seeing the truth of who I am and my flaws was just too painful. So I've spent years finding flaws in others and trying to believe that I really am normal and healthy. I have yet to meet anyone that is normal and yet I have so desperately wanted to be normal and not labeled weird or quirky. I am what I am, whether likable or not. I have spent so much time and energy hiding from myself and the world out of shame and embarrassment. I'm not so interested in coming out of hiding to the world, I just care about being honest and open with myself. I'm not quite sure what that looks like, I just know that the closer that I come to touching it the more I feel myself coming undone. 

My apologies to those blogs that I no longer frequent, I haven't forgotten the writers and I wish them all beautiful things on their journeys.

The Harvard Version of Life

I really appreciate all the support that I received in the comments about my journaling class. To answer some of your questions: I teach journaling and blogging classes at 7:00 pm Thursdays at the Open Mind Center. To register call the center at: 678 243-5074. I don't offer my classes online, however, I have begun to entertain the idea of offering individual online journaling sessions via email. Not quite sure yet how to do that, but I am definitely open to the idea. Also, I recently started offering counseling services at the Open Mind Center, which is pretty exciting as this is a new service that the center is offering.

I recently read an article about the need for life to be challenging so that we don't get bored. The challenges are all there for our growth. Over the past few days I have begun thinking about life as both a game and a school. I had a moment yesterday where I could see it as a game that my husband and I were trying to figure out how to master. When I stepped back and in a sense removed myself from life, my life became fun. The challenges became fun. I was trying to figure out how to play this game. The game is messy, dirty, and heartbreaking at times, but I saw that it was possible for me to lift myself above it all and enjoy the messiness. Because the messy does not define me. I am not the messiness. I am just learning to maneuver the messiness involved in this game.

Life as a school. For the most part I have found adulthood to be one challenge after another; I have not enjoyed meeting those challenges. There has been a lot of struggle. Life hasn't always been easy. Holding the awareness of life as a school I realized that I have not been attending the community college version of life, but more like the Harvard version. I had never really thought of life in terms of easy schools and difficult schools. Maybe the people that are breezing through life are really smart at playing this game, or maybe they are just attending a school with a fairly easy curriculum. I have had some pretty difficult classes, I think that many of them have been AP. I'm pretty sure that I have failed some of them, however, if I was put in an AP class at one of the top schools in the country then there must be an assumption somewhere out there that I am capable of eventually mastering the subject and passing the class. I'm really looking forward to a new semester with new classes and teachers. Some of these classes are really getting old, and some of them I am starting to think I will never pass.

I'm Here

Some people have wondered where I've been, as it seems that I have disappeared from the blogging world. So I wanted to let you all know that I am alive and well, but still not very interested in the blog. I have very little to say that would be of interest to anyone.

Update: I have made great progress toward getting my associates license for counseling. My application will be reviewed by the Georgia Composite Board next Friday, so if all goes well I should have my Associate Professional Counselor license within a couple of weeks. I did a lot of work in a very short amount of time to get to this place. Now I have to find clients, and that task feels a bit overwhelming at present. My energy is quite low, and I don't think that I am putting out the kind of energy that I need to put out to draw clients to me. So I'm frustrated. I know that I need to be patient, I just really like to see results and results don't always happen over night.

Right now I am sitting at the Open Mind Center, typing this blog entry when I should be giving my Journaling Class; however, it's hard to give a class without students. I have this great class to offer; I've seen its transformative powers. However, the trick is to get other people enthusiastic about something as basic as writing. I think that people are looking for "magic" and quick fixes, and they underestimate the power of pen and paper because it is so fundamental and basic. However, processing your "stuff" through the means of pen and paper works amazingly quickly and gives fast results, and it's empowering because the healing is coming from within the writer. Yes, it helps to have me there guiding the students, but ultimately the writer has the answers within themselves, and they have the key that will reveal those answers.

I am so happy to reconnect with you all. Thank you for remembering me, and for supporting me along my journey.  My apologies to all of the blogs that I have been neglecting lately. Although I'm not responding to your posts, my thoughts are with you and I send you wishes for continued success and happiness.

Much love

Happiness

Yesterday was all about happiness for me. The weather in Georgia was a perfect 69 and sunny. It was the type of day when all of life seems to come together and make sense, and the sense that I made out of it was that all that has ever mattered was and is experiencing life in the Moment. Not living in past or future, just the here and now.

I took a beautiful and joyful three mile walk while listening to some of my favorite songs. Music has a way of lifting me out of any kind of funk I might find myself in and setting me back down into my heart.

When my husband came home from work, I was making dinner and listening to James Taylor Radio on Pandora. He and I ended up sitting on the couch talking and listening to music for a couple of hours. It sounds so simple and basic, yet it was such sweet and perfect joy. Every song was fantastic. Life was good.

Happiness is all about perspective. My father always told my sister and I that a person is as happy as they want to be. That really drove me crazy when he said that, but he was right. Yesterday I chose to be happy.

Happy music:

 

Stuff and Nonsense

If you would have told me four weeks ago that I would soon be sitting in a therapist's office attending clinical supervision because I had decided to be a therapist after all, I think I would have thought you were crazy. Or if I happened to believe that what you were telling me was true, then I think I might have become severely depressed. Because this is not the vision that I had of my life. This is not the direction that I planned to be heading. Not only would I have been sad, I would have been furious at the turn of events. I had planned to write; or attempt to write; or fantasize about writing. But use the degree that I spent so much time and effort to achieve, never. Yet this morning I was sitting in a therapist's office attending clinical supervision, and I must confess that it was surreal. What the hell was I doing there?

Something feels different; I kind of feel more grown up. It's sort of like I have opened the door to having a career, and it looks as though I am in control. I realize that control is an illusion, however, I don't know a better way to put this than that it feels as though I am not at someone's mercy. I can choose the hours that I see clients, and I like that. However, I have no control over whether or not my imaginary clients will materialize into flesh and blood people that want to become my real counseling clients. Perhaps I am becoming a more balanced person. Maybe my life doesn't have to be all or nothing, maybe I can be creative and a therapist, or a creative therapist.

This is completely not what I planned to write about if I wrote anything at all. What I really wanted to write about was how ambivalent I feel about Facebook and blogging and technology. But I got off track. I once again find myself somewhat at peace with FB. I go through phases where I feel so disgusted with having the ability to share with a group of friends and acquaintances my most meaningless and random thoughts or even my bathroom habits if I was so inclined. In those moments of virtual doubt and confusion, I wish that I could be alone in a jungle with just me and an antelope or two, sans iPhone. I ask myself if it really matters if I have friends or if I am in touch with anyone. In those moments I am perfectly happy with myself, my little family, and my humble life, and feel no need to let any of you know about my receding gums, or that my roots are growing in too fast, or that I just can't seem to get my arms in shape at this stage in my life.

I'm back in the game for the moment, and I'm enjoying it.

The Next Chapter

I suppose that lately I haven't been making any great observations about life, so I haven't had much to say. However, it seems that my life is moving in an unexpected direction since I started the blog and that is something to talk about. It is an amazing process that I am going through and  I'm not certain where I will end up. In October I would have never imagined that five months later I would be filling out paperwork to become a Licensed Professional Counselor. I was so opposed to going back into the counseling field, and a large part of that was due to having worked in clinical settings which I found particularly difficult. In a weeks time I have my paperwork almost complete; I found a wonderful clinical supervisor, and most importantly I will be offering counseling at the Open Mind Center, which is a healthy and relaxing environment that is not a clinical setting. If licensure meant that I would have to work at a mental health agency, then I have to admit that the whole process would not be worth it to me. I don't care enough about being licensed to put myself in a situation in which it would be a daily struggle for me to maintain my sanity.

Another wonderful thing that has happened has been my writing for the online women's magazine Ask Miss A. It's exciting to go to interesting places and interview interesting people. My daughter and I had press passes for Tuesday night to attend Burn the Floor at the Fox Theatre. A few months ago I would never have imagined that I would be getting press passes in the near future or anytime in the future. The whole evening was such a delicious treat for us, and I feel so much gratitude for being presented with the opportunity to attend.

Even with these happy and unexpected occurrences in my life, I still feel incredibly ungrounded most of the time. I feel as though I am neither here nor there, and I find that feeling to be more than a little unsettling. However, when I think about the changes in my life, I definitely feel that I am being guided by an invisible force and that I am loved. There is the doubting part of me that I can never seem to shake free from, however, there is another part of me that is comforted in the subtle experience that my life is headed somewhere and it could be somewhere good, somewhere that I may not have imagined, which makes it all the more exciting. Although I don't fully understand it right now, I believe that I am entering into the next chapter of my life and that it has the potential of being quite a powerful and liberating experience. 

Pen, Paper, and Process

Yesterday morning while waiting for a workshop to begin on Counseling Supervision from an Existential Perspective, I picked up my pen and began writing in my journal. I hadn't attended any kind of counseling workshop during the past year and a half, and I was feeling a little unsettled about being there and returning to a world that I had left behind. The room was freezing; there were depressing overhead lights; I was hungry, and there was a tightness in my stomach that would not go away. However, when I picked up the pen and started to write it felt like I had tapped into some sort of salvation. I needed the thoughts and feelings to come out of me and land on the page. It gave me comfort, the comfort that I have not been turning to this past month, but it was still there waiting for me to pick up my pen and return to myself.

For much of the day after leaving the workshop, I felt disoriented, as if I was disconnected from people and life. Later in the day I remembered that I felt the same way after my mother's death. The anniversary of my mother's death was the day before. I was right back in the disconnected feeling, the whole world had turned upside down.

Last night I gave a blogging class at the Open Mind Center. Two dynamic and insightful women attended my class, and as usually happens when I give a class at OMC I felt that I was given a gift by the participants presence there. Being with them brought me back to reality. We had insightful and lively discussions, and in the end we returned to the message that writing has the ability to connect us to our selves on a deeper level and to give back to the world around us even if only one person is reading what we have written.

Today I feel encouraged at the prospect of giving more classes and the hope that more people will come to value the process of journaling and maintaining a blog. Mostly, I feel a sense of relief to find that pen, paper, and process are still waiting for me despite my neglect and inattention.