3-27-16 What's said in a moment of reaction should always be questioned because it was said in a moment of reaction. It's said with the heat of emotion, which shouldn't be ignored, but you want to question it as well. Acknowledge the emotion, but don't let the emotion define the context so much that something is missed. Not easy work to do in a situation where there's a lot of reaction. However it's necessary work that can save you and other people a lot of grief. And if you do say something in reaction or hear someone say something as a reaction give yourself and/or that person the benefit of the doubt, because chances are what's being expressed is just the service level of what needs to be expressed.
3-28-16 It's so easy to take someone for granted and when you do that it's really because you're so caught up in your own narrative that you aren't seeing the person but instead your seeing your narrative about that person. When you recognize that its time to admit it and still that narrative. Focus on really being open and present to the person instead of just making assumptions. When you do that you'll stop taking the person for granted.
3-29-16 In doing stillness work around appreciation, I realized how much appreciation is about respect and acknowledgement and that if you don't feel those things, it can cause a lot of resentment to build, which creates stagnancy in the relationships you have with people. When I was growing up, I was taught to express appreciation for everything and always made a point to thank people for the things they did for me. I think its a good behavior to have, but it also can bring up some feelings of not being appreciated when you aren't thanked for what you do or share.
4-2-16 I'm reading the Magical Universe of William S. Burroughs, which is a magical biography of the writer. I think I'll write a post in greater detail about my own magical experiences with Burroughs, but in reading the book its gotten me reflecting on how I'm coming full circle with my writing, coming back to what really inspired me as a writer. I'm leaving the dead weight of academia behind and I'm glad I'm doing that because there was a time where I was rather concerned that academia had killed my writing. But that didn't happen. And in reading Burroughs and reading about him, I feel like I'm reconnecting to a perspective as a writer that is experimental and pushes limits...which is part of what writing should be.
4-6-16 Today when I did my stillness work I sat with a feeling of comparison, specifically how I compare myself to other people and how that comparison sometimes creates more internal conflict than really needs to exist. I'm trying to launch my latest class and its been a bit of a flop. I had these high expectations, because I'd taken this class and learned some new skills, so when things didn't turn out quite the way I hoped I started going into that spiral of comparing myself to others. So I just sat with that today and really felt it and recognized how so much of that narrative goes back to things said to me by people over the years. People who I thought would be supportive, but weren't supportive in the way I needed. I told Kat last some of these feelings and she just told me she believed in me. She's been the only person who's consistently told me that and shown it in actions. Having that kind of support, that kind of belief is so precious.
4-7-16 Today Bune and I had a heart to heart conversation. He told me something I really needed to hear: Nothing is deserved, everything is earned. I'm going to actually turn that into a sigil for myself, but he made the point that my writing is how I will earn anything so I have to put my heart and soul, my effort into it if I want to manifest something. And he's right. The last couple of days have been hard but they have also been gifts for me from the universe and I am taking the lessons to heart.
4-9-16 Funny how you read or encounter something wen you need it the most, though as Burroughs put it there is no such thing as coincidence in a magical universe. I'm reading the Business of Wanting More and the author talks about how the lack of fulfillment can be traced to certain basic needs. In my case, its a need for acceptance and connection. I have had trouble connecting to people in a meaningful way and I've not often felt accepted. And those two needs play a big role in what drives me. As the author points out though when you direct the fulfillment of those needs externally, you can never get enough. You become an addict. Thus why people become workaholics, alcoholics, or consumeraholics, among other things. It all goes back to trying to fill up that sense of emptiness, but underneath the emptiness is the narrative of acceptance and connection. Yet if I can't accept myself can I really expect anyone else to or even if I encounter it, can I recognize it? The same applies to connection. So a lot there to sit with and work with. In a way, in choosing to launch JOY, what really happened is that the universe called me out. Tough love.
4-14-16 The last few days I've been rethinking my process on launching classes. Once I got over the disappointment I was feeling I stilled myself and took a hard look at what I was trying to do and how I was doing it. I had to allow myself to feel what I felt, but I couldn't myself become attached to it. There is a difference between feeling something and dwelling on it. I felt the disappointment and then I looked at what happened, so that I could figure out what I could do differently. That's what you do...you look at your process, figure out what works and what doesn't and make changes accordingly.
4-17-16 Burroughs talked about writing the Ugly Spirit out of him. It was something I always identified with. I guess I would call my ugly spirit, the inner asshole. It's that perpetual feeling of dissatisfaction, emptiness and rage that I've grappled with throughout my life. Over the last decade I've painfully managed to come to a somewhat better relationship with it, but its an ongoing work. I suppose the elemental balancing work is, in some ways, really just this ongoing work with this aspect of myself. I look back over the years and I do see this progression and change on my part. But it hasn't been easy for people in my life, let alone myself.
I think we all have an inner asshole or ugly spirit or whatever else you want to call it. Some people work with it or struggle with it and other people just wear it openly and delude themselves into thinking they don't have it. Not everyone's inner asshole shows up in the same way, but they all want to sabotage the person they are part of. And the only thing you can really do is figure out how to work with in a way that actually helps you as a person and addresses what has created the inner asshole.
4-19-16 I had an interesting realization about connection today. On the one hand I want it and on the other hand I'm afraid of it, or maybe its better to say I'm afraid of too much of it. The rationale behind that is that too much connection is letting someone too close, so close they can hurt me and I'm rather protective about that. Something to sit with further as I continue my stillness work.
4-21-16 Kat brought something up yesterday. She suggested that I needed to stop trying to dissolve that part of me I considered the inner asshole. I needed to work with it differently. So I'm going to give it a try and she's going to work with me on it. I've never really trusted someone to work with me in that way, but I trust her because our experiences in the early part of our lives have been similar. She knows me and understands the damage, just as I know her and understand the damage. We understand each other and so I'm going to give her approach a try and see what happens.