We are only Human after all

The stint of long distance stamina cross country marathon working pumping my limbs toward my goal of paying down my $110,000 reverse dowry (paying for my freedom from marriage) has been a great success. I have buckled down, buckled in, sucked it up, muscled up, stayed the course and bent my back into my airbnb business. As one of the top ten airbnb places in Kelowna, I have been so very grateful for the guests who have stayed with me. Their reviews, their company, their sweet thank yous have filled my life with light.

almost done

I have in a six year period gone from $110,000 in debt from the single check that I had to write in order to buy myself free down to a paltry $6,000 currently. However, the seven days a week of work for 8 months straight , of cleaning, of laundry, of restricting my movements so that I could be available to my guests, of living abstemiously ; of putting as much back into the business and the debt as my adolescent screaming on the inside could manage, has been demanding. There were openings of respite. I have gone on trips; purchased the odd new to me pieces of clothing and allowed frivolous expenditures like flowers for my garden that were not absolutely “necessary.” The unrelenting focus on paying down the debt and keeping my reviews at the Super Host status level has been a success.

Since October 20th I worked seven days a week from February 1st without a day off. And then I remembered  last year in October when I was shaky all over from the daily effort to bend my will, to put on the harness of discipline daily when I said out loud, “I need a break.” And then I fell down the stairs and fractured my wrist.

This year, I said to myself, this year you will stop before you are on your last torn shred of nerve. And so I blocked out all of November. I felt rebellious. I felt naughty. I felt outrageously irresponsible. How could I do that when I had debt left? How could I just ruthlessly cross off the chance to make thousands of dollars before my debt was disappeared.

I see a counsellor once a month and use her as my life coach. I check in with her to articulate what behaviours I am instilling in myself and what areas of wounding still drive my life. She worked with me for three continuous months gently suggestion that I could “let up on myself” before I saw a row of zeros on the debt counter.  I finally said, “I will be free at $10,000 stilll owing.”

But I know my OCD and how it operates. I had set a goal. I had like in the Shawshank Redemption been digging with my tiny  rock hammer to escape the self imposed prison. And I just couldn’t walk away at $10,000. It was so irresponsible.

Today, I sit with $6,000 left on my debt in the month of November. I created this space of time off when I wildly crossed out all the days on  November’s calendar. And with a few days impetuously blanked out in October,  now I am living into 6 continuous days off. It comes home to me exactly how used up I am. I have no urge to travel, to start a new project, to explore the world, or myself.

The focus has been on meditation, sleep, teaching myself how to be a social being in the outside world again. I work out 5 days a week building muscle mass and I wait. I wait for the feeling that some magical glowing pathway will shine up into the gray befogged landscape of the present. I wait for the sense of joy and curiosity to return. I am no longer an indentured slave. I am no longer straining to put down the burden I have incurred by making an unenlightened choice of a mate. I have been buying off my own freedom. But I am tired.

What I find strange is that I had no idea exactly how pervasively exhausting and engaging this last six years has been. Having a purpose and a carefully defined struggle is a wonderful anesthetic. There are few decisions to be made. There are fewer possibilities  of going wrong. The harness is restrictive and comforting.

restrictions

And now, I cool my heels while my body recovers. I abide while I gain confidence that I am ready to deal with the outside world and finally walk toward my bigger dreams. My focus is on opening myself up to possibilities. So many of my delusions around deserving, around the heart hardening concept of toil, the crazily distorted mirrors which have reflected back who I think I am  are about to shift into the sheer joy of taking chances. It is right there in front of me and I am patient with not being quite able to see quite yet.

Autumn: What is happening?

Autumn is a high wire act. The peak performance summer with its heat, 600 forest fires and 4 new guests every day into my home is one end of the wire. The other end is deep winter with its muted sounds, its sentinel plants poking up through the snow, its folding in on itself like a blanket around a reluctant person. In between, there are days that bring motivation. The gray coolness will be cut open with a sun knife and the clouds parted. The heat from the sky available in certain spot light areas.

As people turn up their furnaces, change blankets on the beds, structure new types of exercise into their lives the focus is on preparation.

How fitting it is that in the USA preparation for November 6th is also under way. The tribal disparities in belief systems have never been more virulent. Each side is now in a viral anger against the other. The background orchestral anxiety music is now playing so loudly it is causing a visceral reaction. Something is happening…. but it is impossible to see what it is.

We wait for winter hoping it will not present itself according to the predictions of the Farmer’s Almanac… a fierce and memorable assault. We wait for the election results in the USA with breath held. We wait to see if the disaffection with politicians and governments will fuel the rise of the hard cold presence of the conservatives here in Canada.

Around the world there is a sense that we are only just maintaining our balance in a confusing time.

The work is to know we, each of us, walk alone together. Only the individual can stay in compassion and thereby show others a way of extending kindness. Only the individual can remain committed to healthy practices and thus show others it is possible to disengage from the self destructive distractions presented to us. Trusting our bodies is central. Trusting our in born values is more important than ever. Staying in a “self re-set” state is what past traumatic situations can teach us. The road of history is strewn with the psyches of those who trembled in fear. But those who know how to trust, know we are simply walking between two structures. Autumn turns to winter. Civilizations self destruct. Failing system fail. And now we take a breath. And now we find our balance. We hold onto the balance pole of love and stay focused.

Each passage from one structure of shared reality to another is giving us lessons. We are here to learn. It is a journey. Keep your balance.

You Say Its Your Birthday. 74 and Rollin’

What gates I have passed through? What disasters have I survived? What choices have I made along the way?

The relationships with various men fall away and no longer are visible in my rearview mirror. The monstrous pain and dysfunction of my parents has been removed tediously and laboriously from my green lawn of the present. I went after that deep rooted gnarled old deadness with crowbars, shovels, therapists, ayahuasca, meditation, chanting, writing, performance poetry, reading, seeking teachers. I went after that living deadness taking up space in my life with every tool I had and gladly adapted new tools as I found them.

The near death experiences, the operations, the marriages and divorces, the sobbing into the nest of my fetal position pillows for years, the waking to screaming in the night of visions whose appearance alone re-traumatized me have been part of my journey.

And it all falls away. The forgotten, the shadowy memories, the scars along my body are all then. This day is now. August 20, 1944 I came here to this life.

I am 74. I did it. I survived. I did not succeed the times I feebly tried to kill myself. I did not stay with the light bodies that took me to a beautiful place of ease. I did not become bitter or angry or dress myself daily in the uniform of a victim veteran and go out armed to the teeth on the street.

a step at a time

I have abided. I have learned to abide. As events occur, I simply live them. The moments of joy are not something I plan, or go after. They show up. When I sit with a person and do a channel reading and I see them connect to that thing which has them imprisoned, I feel so grateful. Every single thing. Every single thing in my life has been on purpose. I see that now.

I can help those that seek me out because I understand so much about the unintended accidents of living. It is not because I was skilled or wise that I can sit with others and help. It is because I was so fucking stupid, obdurate and slow to learn that makes me a gifted healer. I can say, “Yep. I did that. And I did it five times. I did it for 20 years.” Immediately others feel better. Immediately others feel hopeful.

They think, “Well hell, it won’t take me THAT long.”

And they are right. It won’t. I am the best bad example they could find. It gives them hope.

Today, I have reached 74 years of age.

I should have died as a child with my broken bones; with my father smothering me with pillows as he violated me. I should have died as a child with my father shooting a gun at our backs as we ran. I should have died as a teenager driving Chuck A Nut drive with a mad man who turned the car lights off and drove down the wrong side of the deep space blackness of night. I should have died when I took the sleeping pills, or when I had cancer, or when my bowel twisted and was about to burst, or when the car was totalled on the mountain highway, or when I hemmorhaged and lost half of the blood in my body and went to the after place.

I could have died when I joined the Peace Corp and changed my mind. My husband and I sat in a bar and watched the live feed of an Eagle Scout shooting into the group from the tower on campus. Among the 11 people killed were the Peace Corp volunteers being sent to raise chickens in India. It was our group. We would have been there.

And what of the doorways that I walked past without even knowing that some choice or movement of fate kept me in the hallway of life? It is unnecessary to know anything.

I have survived. I have grown. I have benefitted from all of the lessons. And once in a while the beautiful deep joy of being on purpose as one who can help others arises.

Today, I am strong, healthy, at peace and so deeply connected to my spirits and the earth. I am grateful for the lessons. I am grateful for my meditation practice. I am astounded at the transformation that my life has been.

What next? Well, it won’t be bland or average… I can tell you that. I came here to get my double PhD about life. I came here to learn.

Moth in a jar

And then the grief comes. And then the smashing into the glass side of the jar comes. And then the understanding that the body needs to be protected comes with the churning frustrations.

The Okanagan summer is unfolding like it has for the last couple of years. Flakes of cancer causing burned trees were landing on my deck last night. The temperature has gone up to 35 to 38 degrees for days on end. And the relentless cleaning, laundry, greeting and waving adieu to people is sending me into a pattern of lower energy. I am trapped by my debt, I say to myself. I am prisoner to a seven day a week job. My low blood pressure leaves me feeling as if I am dragging around dead oxen draped over my shoulders like a mistaken fox stole.

And my practice is being used to inflict yet more sadness upon myself. “You should be….,” I say.

My right eye suddenly became so blurred I could not see out of it. The eye doctor after using five machines and two kinds of drops declared it an “occural incident.”

I have run out of gas; no longer driving on paved road; in the weeds; at my limit. And as is my way, The Overseer is lashing my back. “You have not worked out.”

And so I attempted to move through my list and download new software on my second computer. After four hours of different servings of failure from the possibility menu… I felt bereft. The urge to cry was there but I had the mother voice telling the Overseer that it was stress and now was not a good time. Let it go for now.

I put on the bionic air filter next to my bed, turned on both small air conditioners upstairs and soaked my foot. It isn’t strange at all that after four months of going barefoot on the lawn with joy, yesterday I impaled my arch on a lethal stem of lavender.

My eye pulsed and ached all day. My foot pulsed and ached all day. I coughed what looked like embryos up from my scarred lungs from repeated bouts of pneumonia. And no matter what I tried, I could not load in the software.

Turning to Netflix which is my teddy bear soothing ritual, I watched Ricky Gervais evicerate various people. It was calming. Watching someone else spew out the anger I hold inside myself is quite validating to me.

I know somehow I will solve the growing list of technical dark caves I have walked into. I know somehow I will learn to operate these systems. But yesterday… yesterday I had the urge to shave my head, tear off my clothes and go into a forest with a wooden bowl and a roughly constructed fork and just forage.

The victories were not greeting with fanfare. I didn’t cry myself to sleep. I didn’t eat a bag of cookies. I didn’t buy some outrageous piece of clothing I will never wear and I didn’t work frantically to prove to myself that everything was in my control.

Slowly, slowly, I am learning. Gay Hendricks calls these times of mysterious failures as reaching the upper limit. My airbnb is in the top ten in Kelowna. I am fit and strong. My friendships are blossoming. My blog has gone past the 70 thousand subscribers mark. And my gigantic debt for buying my freedom from a poisonous relationship is whittled down to under the cost of a car now.

It is an upper limit problem and I am practicing patience. The heat does not help me. Pollutants in the air do not create a supportive environment. Waiting it out is the wise decision at this point. And as always, trusting that I am growing even when it feels like I have just been failing. Increments, baby. I say to myself in my loving mother’s voice. Step at a time.

Being human is never a rose garden. Or maybe it is and it just needs judicious tending. Watch out for the thorns.

The Hypnotic Trance

When I think back to what I did yesterday or the day before there is little I can recall. My interpretation of what motions I went through; what I have accomplished I liken to a movie critic addressing a potential audience their construct of the criteria of a good production.

Was it a “successful” day? With the habit of the philosophical mind, I laugh at the possibilities of that word. What is a successful day? If I have kept my plants alive; if I have written a blog; if I have connected with a friend I feel stronger in myself and better about my life. The act of keeping promises to myself is encouraging and helps me to trust myself more implicitly.

Allow

And yet there are always those loose threads of imagining a future fabric that wave in the wind like my Tibetan prayer flags on my back deck. I have so many goals, projects, expectations of perfection flying loose in the air around me, that I can easily feel that I have failed on some level.

The deep discipline is to take myself back to my body. I do a scan of my body and see the areas that are crying out for more attention, for a more loving treatment. A life long pattern of living with pain is not living in wisdom. Something hurts. If this is true, then that is my focus today. The goal is to move through the day paying attention to the signals I am receiving. The body is always first in line. After that, I will attend to my business. Making beds, hanging laundry, cleaning objects, replacing objects can take up to eight hours a day seven days a week.

And then comes paying attention to my protective script. I listen in to see what kind of crops of frustration I am planting in my mind. I stand back and watch the habits of “not enough” ; “not perfect enough” ; “not good enough” being strengthened when I give in to them and let them take over the ground.

speaking my truth

For me, I think the greatest achievement in my life has been understanding that life is a process. I am a process. My dreams are in production. My skills are building because I attend to them and practice them.

Understanding that I cannot always see what my investment actions are totally up to, helps immensely. Every action; every thought; every new lesson is a coin in the bank. And over time, I will see how it pays off. There is no way of knowing how “successful” I am becoming in the moment. But I do know that I trust myself and the universe more fully than I ever have before.

I am barefoot on the ground taking a breath.

Always Now

I remember when I was finding sanctuary in books, my door firmly closed against the exploding rage in the hallway, I was reading a Victorian novel about a short sighted woman. She was in a stone house peering out the tower window but could not see.

the journey out of blindness

Although I had spent my life up to the age of 13 unable to see clearly, my mother had finally understood that I seeing impaired in my distance viewing. The optometrist called my vision bordering on blindness.  When I got glasses I was delighted by the detail in the distant landscape. So the passage in the Victorian novel created in me my first really deep understanding that circumstances can effect how well a person can see the world.

Born in another age, I would continue to be unable to recognize people as I walked toward them. It did not help my introversion that I dare not call out a name because I could not ascertain what the other coming at me was called. I made many mistakes and finally learned to not even attempt to connect. Perhaps some of the extra hot sauce on my introversion was created through the blurred vision circumstance.

visual clarity

In the novel, the townspeople down below in the street thought the woman to be witch like. She was reclusive and constantly staring down at people. They mistook her disability for some configuration of evil.

Although I was only 14, I instantly realized that being born in another era; mistaking other people because of short sightedness (mine or theirs) ; lacking compassion were all possibilities in the birth lottery.

I look back. I look at what I have become. I look at what I might have become. And there are so many pathways spreading out before and in  previous lives.

However,  I can only sit with this particular now.

My work at present is to be more gracious to myself. My harshness; my self-discipline; my complete near sighted focus has served me well. But I am starting to open up to a clearer vision of myself as simply a child born into a life on earth who spends the next 70 years trying to find the ground under my feet.

finding the ground

I have accepted that I cannot see clearly the particulars of this life.

What happened, happened. What will happen is unknown. I walk barefoot in my garden feeding my plants or I sit and cry with the chanting of Krishna Das. I am becoming me.

It is always now.

Why Does It Keep Happening?

I spend my mornings after I have prepared the house for guests seeking wisdom by listening to wonderful teacher. The lesson today is that we have established circuitry of thoughts and feelings.

So the old story is actually embedded in our brains… the neurological patterns that limit our manner of process information comes from our childhood experiences.
The story of losing, anxiety, not enough time, not enough money, fear of damage… are all laid down much like roadways that we run upon.
It is why meditation, mindfulness and writing is so important in order to allow us to first see the old rutted highways.

all about the circuitry

Then like a wise developer of our own lives… we need to understand what the new pathway should look like for us to have a calm, satisfying and compassionate existence:
1. See it clearly. know how your being stuck is just a protective device left over from under the age of seven. The voice you hear in your head is “the protector” that tries to keep you from harm. But now, you are an adult not a child. You in the present are your own best guardian.
2. Be gentle with your stuckness, with that cycling through the same problem again and again. It is for a reason… it is so that you can learn and grow stronger.
3. Be very clear about how you intend to process information in the future:….I will see every moment as this moment and not as something to throw away.
4. Then begin to work with your body… how it works. Be very clear about only attempting baby steps for a new habit. All growth is through creating habits. Habits create new neurological pathways. Be very clear that what you are seeing is basically a lie (a left over story from your past) and set your intention to see the truth about life.
5. Now do the actions that are needed to build the new processing system in your brain without expectation of immediate success. Know it will work. You can change it.
First truth     1. We are each of us perfect. There is nothing wrong with you.
Second truth 2. Your connection to each experience creates your feelings about that experience.
Third truth    3. There is no failure. There is only learning. There is only growing.
Fourth truth  4. Every sadness, every anger, every sense of failure is not about now and never has been. Now…is an open field of exploration; of possibilities; of unlooked for joy.

rebuild the brain

We shut ourselves down… we shut the world down when we turn off the lights and then say it is dark. But we like the feeling. We like the victim. We like the self abuse because we are used to it. Society also rewards us when we sing the victim song. We get attention. People like to feed off of our sadness. They gather around.
We think being miserable somehow protects us from being really, really miserable.
So working on your circuitry and rebuilding your neurons… is the only way out.
It is not something you do after you have sacrificed the goat of hard work; after you have climbed the mountain of martyrdom; after you have gotten everyone in the village to bless you because you are so “nice”.
It is first. Working on your way of processing information is always the only real long term solution to old problems.
You have a relationship with your problems. It is an interaction. Look at them and ask: “why are you here?” “What are you trying to teach me?”

all in the brain

Be gentle with them and with yourself. And draw up a new development plan. Start working on your circuitry. You have everything to gain.

Resting in The Moment

A water strider spreads its legs out and sits still on the surface of water. Its looks belie its capacity for quick, precise mobility. As a child, when I gazed at a water strider. I was taken by it. I became still and observant of our connection. I in my surface of time and shine rested watching it rest. There was a sense of completeness. We both were fully. But neither of us was agitated or in mid undertaking.

It was all riding the surface. The bug was free floating, resting, riding effortlessly the now of place. And I, a busy and electric child, was stilled.

stillness

 

I thought of that today as I hung laundry. I thought of the moments in life when the intense peacefulness of nowness had presented itself to me. I could not tell a story about it, because it is in a field of energy far more vast than narrative. The smallness of what I think exists, opens to something far more numinous. God is that still.

The waterbug is perfectly balanced with the water.

I stop to look at a rose and in its center are three drops of water trapped after the rain. The water is still, resting in the folds of orange petal flesh. The experience of “pulled focus lense” is one I can identify from movies I have seen. Without warning,  the action stops and I see.

It is like that. This sudden understanding of the arresting moment. I am in its thrall. And it is without drama, without shifting emotions, without intellectual engagement.

I breathe with the rose. I feel it breathe into me. The drops of water are impeccable perfection. Three silver globes of reflection curled into the heart of the orange rose.

The waterbug rests impossibly still on the argentate surfaced water.

And I forget myself. And I find myself. And I am destroyed.

What are you teaching me?

I don’t know if it is arrogance or wisdom but when I am out socially, I always come away with lessons about my own behaviour. If a person is aggressive and not good at listening: I ask, “How am I like that? How can I be more open and compassionate?”

How to be a woman… seduction

I watched people “celebrate” last night in an expensive restaurant that was crowded and noisy. Some of the women were in full flirt ” I am available” mode. The groups gathered around tables were mirroring to one another what was “the way to be”. The code is held in rituals that go back for decades.

We learn what to eat; what to say; how to dress; how to wield our sexuality; how to show power or social power. We observe our parents and then our school mates. And as adults we go into a world that is chaotic and confusing. Immediately, we look for where we will “fit in”. We look for social behaviours that are familiar to us.

The young women were circled around tables wearing bodycon dresses, flipping their hair, drinking heavily and as the evening wore on talking more and more loudly and insistently about how someone had victimized them.

tell me how to appear.

I was once again brought up short by the contrast of ideas. The women were broadcasting (pun intended) their economic power by eating at an expensive and well reviewed restaurant. They were wearing clothing that only the securely upper middle class could afford. The shoes were high and demonstrated their commitment to the circus of sexual attraction. Their hair looked like they had just left the trailer to go onto a movie set.

They were ready for any kind of close up you can name.

And yet as the alcohol set in, they energetically “reinstalled” the victim stories. They told of the ex who had gutted them. They stridently took the center of attention to drag the past infliction of an old boss who disrespected them. They told of friends who were ghosting them. And it became louder and louder at all three of the tables.

finding out your unique strength

Because I rarely go out where alcohol is working its black magic, I was a bit shocked. I wondered if men who are well lubricated need to take the floor to do the victim dance?

Somehow, I think not. And I rarely see upper middle class men going out in clothing that shows every mole on their bodies. So why is it that women hold themselves in such low self esteem that they believe that their sexuality is currency? And why is it that women allow other women to practice being defeated, rejected, victimized.

I would love to see a world where there was an instant interjection. Someone at the table just saying, “Mary. Stop living the martyr story. Stop talking about how you can’t get a break. Find your power woman!”

When I got home I was just exhausted by the energy in that space. I stood on the deck and listened to the wind saying nothing at all. And I thought, “What have I learned?”

My vigilance has increased for those times when I am shit talking to myself. I don’t want to be someone who only feels valuable if I have money; who dresses to fit in to some very skewed concept of feminine power; who gets into a biggest losers competition about how weak and damaged I am.

How women got to a place where they so clearly misunderstand the power of authenticity is absolutely clear to me. It has been a difficult and punishing journey through the generations to be a women. But enough is enough. It is time to understand what happened and to simply refuse to play into the “game”. Everyone who is alive has had to rise above challenges. It does not make you more interesting.

learn who you are

The way out is to be Pink or Serena Williams or Tina Fey or Adele but in your own way. Step into your own authenticity, and be “all that”, all that you are. It takes guts. It takes facing the fear and it takes facing a whole shit load of demons. And if for one minute you don’t think these giant spirited women haven’t gone through a process, you are falling for the myth trap of simply letting others tell you who you are.

Where Am I, I?

Since May time has been a bullet train to some outside force decided destination. I have the business to run. And being so much further up the mountain, I have the wisdom to know when the heat of summer arises I need to “cool my jets”.

The thirty minutes break in the afternoon laying under the strange Tardis looking free standing air conditioner is the only thing between me and the type of dementia that would send me clawing off all of my clothing and running into the street yelling, “I don’t understand. I don’t understand.”

Lately the unsolved technological problems have begun to be like a strange purple itchy erruption on my skin. There are so many spots of it and no matter how assiduously I ignore it, it is distracting and irritating.

So I put on my big girl panties, or my old lady drawers or some such metaphor meaning I covered up vulnerable areas carefully, and went after the problems.

I got my new cell phone to connect to my house wifi with the help of only two tech wizards. One referred me to the next one.

Now emboldened, I contacted a second IPower tech. The first one told me to do several things that simply flummoxed me.

I kindly told him, “I have reached my level of optimum frustration. I don’t understand anything you are saying. I am going to go away now.”

Because the opportunity to sell my redbubble.com/people/covitch computer and cell phone products arose. I had to learn to do screen shots, and become more familiar with Pages.

(Notice how I snuck in my Red Bubble store in that paragraph).

So I was like a warrior with two heads in a pile and was ready to kill another enemy freaking frustration. I got the Ipower tech on the line and learned how to empty my cache and cookies. I felt renewed.

At that point my Paypal went down and I don’t even know how I managed to get CPR on that system to get it back on its feet.

Craving more power… I contacted a local video school to ask for a student to solve my WTF is happening when I load my photo booth video clipped to the wonderful intro a friend made for me. The two connected in IMovie.0.0.9 just smush the video blog and it looks like Cybil Shepherd’s scenes in Moonlighting. There is vaseline on the lense.

The sense that there are times of growth and times of maintenance is strong. Learning to attend to new challenges is not something I embrace. My strength is in the super self-discipline of doing what must be done. So, really, when I define myself by what I do or can do, it is erroneous.

I just never know. Very much. At all.