Picture copyright Taylor Ellwood 2020
8-22-2020 I started reading Beyond Victim Consciousness today. It had been recommended by a friend and given recent events, I felt like it would be useful to take a look and see what might be applicable to myself. My first impression is that some of the perspectives the author shares reminds me of the Adlerian psychology espoused in The Courage to be Disliked, namely that you choose the perception you have as opposed to how trauma defines. I don’t fully agree with that perspective, but I also recognize how much my own trauma can become an excuse, which really isn’t useful, if I’m going to own my choices and the consequences of them. In that sense the perspective I bring to an event defines that event subjectively. And it is all to easy to use a given perception to justify your actions, choices, blamelessness or blame, so I’m really sitting with that. I’ll be curious to see how the rest of this book can inform my journey forward, as well as what I learn from the past.
8-23-2020 I read some more of Beyond Victim Consciousness tonight. Victim consciousness wants to be right, wants to protest, wants to control, wants to make others as we are and when they refuse we become angry and punish them. An internally focused perspective wants peace and accepts the situation as it is, recognizing that the perspective you apply to the situation dictates the experience of the situation.
I’ve certainly experienced victim consciousness, but I’ve also experience an internally focused perspective. And I’ve decided that I am going to choose the latter and if I’m exhibiting the former, than I need to own it and take responsibility and make changes. And I did exhibit the former with my job. I chose the perspective of being a victim, instead of choosing a different perspective that could help me. Even recent events display something similar. I could have made different choices, but I chose to allow myself to be a victim, right up until I realized that I was letting circumstances dictate my choices instead of choosing to defy my circumstances. Now I am defying my circumstances by calling out the very perceptions and behaviors that need to change. And instead of continuing to validate myself externally, I am going to keep working on the internal satisfaction, because if I’m unhappy, it is in part because I am reinforcing that unhappiness with my perceptions instead of addressing the root issue like I ought to.
On a different note, did the full sphere of art and qi gong routine today and I felt like the SOA was purer and more focused, whilst the qi gong served to further help me release what I would otherwise be storing in myself. I’m letting go of the need to control and embracing the moment as it is. That has been the lesson again and again the last few years and I am learning it in subtle gradations, but I am learning it and embodying it.
8-24-2020 I feel so fragile, so fractured by recent events. Yet I called it in. I’m responsible for the state I’m in right now. So I’m just taking care of myself and trying to be gentle and loving. The other day I talked with my friend Erik and he told me that I had a few cycles in my charts, including Saturn and Chiron and that those two cycles in particular highlighted specific stresses and pressures in regards to relationships and other matters and it helped me situate what was going on in context to that.
On a different note, I’ve noticed that my belly is more muscular and flatter because of the Taoist practices. I’m fitting into clothes more easily and I like how I feel physically. My changes in diet also seem to be helping. I’m not eating as much and I’m choosing carefully what I eat.
8-25-2020 I’m continuing to process matters. I’m feeling a lot of guilt, but I’m trying to step back and take as objective a perspective as I can with everything. I can safely say the majority of recent events is on me, and I’m doing the best I can to take responsibility. I’m also doing my best to work through it instead of storing it, but there’s some things you have to carry and do your best to come to terms with in your own time and space and there’s no easy way to do it quickly.
8-26-2020 I read an article today on boundaries and it made me realize how I had let my own boundaries become compromised. I ended up getting sucked into a situation where I was trying to solve someone else’s problem and it spiraled out of control, because I didn’t assert my own boundaries. Yet ironically the situation made me realize how I wasn’t asserting my boundaries in other parts of my life, so perhaps it served me well to really force me to see how problematic my own boundaries or lack thereof is.
8-27-2020 The path to clarity is found by simply being called out and recognizing one’s own fallibility. To have the resultant focus and clarity feels good. I can be myself again and move forward on my path.
8-28-2020 I had a deeper realization around connection and decided that connection is the element I’m going to work with for next year. What I really want is to have a healthier relationship with connection. I feel disconnected from myself, so how can I have a healthy connection with anyone else, if I don’t have it with myself? I need to work with the feeling of connection and disconnection and come to a better relationship with it.
9-2-2020 I’ve been so thrown off by recent events good and bad and I didn’t take a break when I needed to. I’m taking it slow now, not really doing much magic or qi gong or writing (other than what I’m writing here). I know I just need to slow down and chill out.
I am reading Beyond Victim Consciousness and she says that our thoughts and feelings, as opposed to external events determine our actions and reactions and that our feelings our a reaction to our thought about something, as opposed to the actual thing. When I think about, it makes sense. The seed of this situation and really any other is found in the thoughts and emotions and when I examine my own I see a narrative that’s set me up to lead to this very situation. And what she suggests is using those feelings to check in and adjust to what’s going on internally, instead of fixating on the external event. In my case, I’ve let my thoughts and feelings about the external situation dictate my response instead of examining them in relationship to what’s really happening within.
Another point she made is that victim consciousness is about living a constricted life and I really resonated with that because I’ve felt constrained and limited. I haven’t necessarily let my truest self out. I haven’t necessarily trusted myself enough to be fully honest or present with myself, let alone anyone else. I’ve let my perceptions of situations constrain me, instead of really examining them carefully and then speaking my truth.
9-4-2020 The biggest takeaway from all of this realizing that for me the best way to make decisions is slowly. I need time to think things out, look at all the angles. When I make fast decisions, they’re impulsive based more on emotion than anything else and when I look at all the blow ups in my life, they’re impulsive blowups, decisions made fast because I felt cornered or had to get away or whatever else. Whereas if I slow down and think things out, I usually make the right call. I even see this process with my books. The books seems to come out fast, but it’s only because I’ve been thinking through the material for years before I even write it.
9-7-2020 Spent yesterday and today at Hood River. I felt the presence of She Who Watches so strongly and she made it very clear to me: This is your home, This is your place, not some far away area that will never really know you. This is the land that calls to you and speaks your name. This is the place of your earthly residence. Message received loud and clear. and a good reminder to me that this really is my place. How I could have doubted that…I never will again.
9-8-2020 Did the sphere of Art and qi gong practice today. I’d taken a bit of a break, but decided today I was ready for it again and when I did the work I just focused on being in the experience, doing nothing else, in any other way. It felt good and I think for a while I’m just going to let that be the focus of the work. Sometimes it is enough to just be the experience and let that be its own teacher and right now that feels good to me.
9-10-2020 I had a dream of a checklist and on the checklist was all the mistakes I had made in my life. I woke up and told my partner about it and just recognized it was the guilt I’ve been feeling around recent decisions I made. I can’t undo those decisions. I can learn from them and I am learning from them.
9-12-2020 In meditation today Bruce Frantzis pointed out that you can’t undo or change your past mistakes. All you can do is learn from them. Wise point and one I’m carrying forward with how I communicate. Instead of holding back out of fear of what will happen when I communicate, I’m speaking up and working through things transparently with my partner. I wish it hadn’t taken recent events to get us to this point, but I’m grateful we are communicating better than we ever have.
9-13-2020 I had a realization today when my partner noted that sometimes I didn’t seem to know where I wanted to be. I meditated on that observation and remembered when I was 10, and had been asked where I wanted to live. Did I want to live with my mom or my dad? It was a tough decision for a 10 year old to make and I vacillated a lot. Finally my step mom told me I was living with my dad. But what stood out to me about that experience is how for a brief moment I had a feeling of power when I had previously not felt that way. And it made me realize than when I don’t feel like I have power in a situation, when it feels like I’m not given a voice or respect or anything else along those lines, that’s when I pull away and try to get that power. I need a better way, a way where I communicate more clearly about what I want and what I’m feeling. Fortunately we’re figuring that out together.
9-14-2020 Knowing one’s place is a good thing, especially if one is given that place by another who understands the needs of a person. My partner has given me a place, a new place, one where I can just focus on her and on the work I am called to do. The resultant focus is quite liberating. I didn’t realize how much I needed that focus or to express my deepest desire. And while this is also something she wants, she’s made it clear to me that its also about protecting my creativity and the work I’m called to do. And I feel that through every vibration of my being.
9-15-2020 It’s fascinating for me to realize that no matter what happened, I would have found a way to land on my feet. It may not have been the most optimal solution or path, but somehow or another I would come out ahead. But the path I’m on is much better now, with an alignment and purpose that is focusing me much more on the work that needs to be done because everything else is focused on my partner as it should be through the new relationship dynamic we’ve chosen.
I’m learning Heaven and Earth and it folds right into Bend the Bow. I’m finding that everything I’ve previously learned seamlessly feeds into what I’m learning now, yet what I’m learning now feeds into and enhances my understanding of what’s been learned before. It’s a truly fascinating process.
9-16-2020 My partner and I are discovering things about each other we never were open about before. And in the process I’m also rediscovering and recognizing just how much she loves me and how she supports me. One thing she has repeatedly said to me is how important it is to protect my creativity, to make sure I am doing the work I’ve been called to do. And I feel like despite the madness of the last month, my creativity has come through intact and if anything I find myself focused in a way I previously haven’t been. Having the right support people in place and the right systems in place is as important as anything else and I feel like I have that.
9-20-2020 I’m finding that Heaven and Earth stabilizes Bending the Bow. It really illustrates that there is a definite order through which to learn these things. I’m also recognizing how all of it folds into Gods Playing in the Clouds, which makes me appreciate even further the opportunity to learn these skills.
I’m also recognizing just how deeply I’ve hurt some people because of what’s happened in the last month. It makes me feel sad and upset, and it also illustrates further why I really need to recognize the impact of my choices, the full consequences of which aren’t just confined to me, but also the people around me. At the same time, in some ways I am seeing the relationships in an honest light. There is no dissembling, no pretend, and so in seeing the relationships in that way there is a liberation of sorts.
In The Courage to be Disliked, the author makes an interesting point, that we make up the flaws of other people to avoid interpersonal relationships with people. We use those flaws to justify why we can’t be in that relationship or why we have to try and control the person. It helped me really see situations in a different light, because it helps me see how I create excuses when it comes to my relationships with other people. Conversely being with someone you love allows you to behave very freely, to be yourself and to appreciate that person being themselves, without the need to control and restrict the person.