and finds such pleasure there amongst the crowd
she sighs out loud
closes her eyes and stops time for a moment.
And the world moves as she stands still…
There on that busy NYC street
she hears only the beat of her own heart
and not the sound of passing cars
or of people having conversations…
This incredible sensation!
A moment of connection
Such bliss and perfection
If you can only imagine?
How nothing else could matter…
Breathing in that air
and all the splendor there
as she whispers in the breeze
these sweet and gentle words
knowing they can only be felt, and heard
by someone who is listening.
“If only there were a Book of Answers?” a friend of mine asked and lamented as we chatted about our latest life issues.
“What if I make the wrong decision?” “ Am I on the right path?”
We live in a world that desires and many times provides instant gratification, yet our reality is that sometimes we just don’t or can’t have an immediate answer to our important life questions. But, oh how we want one!
If only…
So we weigh the pros and cons, read books, ask our friends, google it, analyze and investigate. Yet, no matter how many logical ways we look at something, still there is that knawing doubt.
“Am I doing the right thing?”
I’ve searched for a logical answer, and my conclusion is that sometimes the answers have to go beyond logic. Sometimes in my now, I have to accept that I just don’t know the answer, and I won’t, not today.
But there is tomorrow.
To do this requires that I step out of the logic of solving anything, and that I step into something else…faith; trust. I’m talking about a feeling that can become a knowing, but it requires a letting go of “not knowing”
I did this the other night right before I went to bed. I was pondering where some of my choices were leading me and if I was headed in the right direction. There were no answers that soothed me. So I layed in bed and said out loud, “ I trust that an answer will come.”
“I trust that I will go from wondering to knowing.”
I woke up the next morning and went about my day and life unfolded.
Within a short time, circumstances and events happened and new information that I did not know the day before came my way. This information brought me clarity and in that moment I no longer wondered, I knew.
The details are really not important.
Whether you believe in God, Source, The Universe, Energy, or something else is not important either. All I am saying is that something happened.
Most important to me, my answer came.
It just took a little faith, trust, and time. This is the message I would like to leave you with. Just in case, you in this moment also have a question you want answered.
3.5 hour wait on line at the NJ DMV due to recent closings. Ridiculous!
Aren’t you angry? It should NOT be like this!
This is how I felt as I stepped to the back of this horrid looking long line and snapped a picture. A police officer was there to inform us of the long wait. I asked if there was a ‘better” day to come.
He replied, “ It’s always like this.”
Some people on line had folding chairs, and seeing this made me even more angry. Why should the wait be so long that you need a chair to sit in?
As I chatted with others, they shared the same sentiment as me. They were really mad, and as the line seemed to only inch forward the frustrations only grew, and time seemed to drag.
I hate waiting, don’t we all?
Waiting for something to change; life shouldn’t be this way! As I type these words I realize that I’m no longer just talking about a long line at the Division of Motor Vehicles. I’m talking about anything and everything in life that isn’t going how I want it to in this moment.
Is there anything in your life not going how you want it to? Yes? Then you can relate.
What gives my body the biggest knot in my stomach or kick in the ass? It’s every time I look at what IS and shout it SHOULD NOT be.
It doesn’t stop me from shouting it shouldn’t be though, I left the motor vehicle completely frustrated yesterday. But, in my frustration I also was aware: the more I shouted it should NOT be, the more frustrated I was. That is a fact.
So here I am in a new day. I realize that there are somethings in my life that might not go the way I want them to today. There are many things in my life that are going great, and yet there are other situations I would like to change. This is what IS for me.
Change will happen, it always does. But no change will come if I stay stuck in what should not be. So I won’t. It comes down to making that choice. Let go of what should not be. Move forward.
Did I mention that yesterday I never did get my license? I did not have enough certified paperwork. It figures! Today I am laughing at this fact. It shouldn’t be so hard to renew your license huh? Yeah, but it is. I’m off to town to get my paperwork and then back to the DMV….minus the pissy mood and knot in my stomach.
Most times, it is a side of ourselves that we don’t really want to, or we simply CAN’T, come to terms with; the side of ourselves that we try to fool.
So instead we reject the phony ones. We feel the need to point out how “two faced” they are.
I know I have. Nothing triggered me more than when someone I interacted with had a falseness about them. I actually took pride in the fact that I could “see right through” a person’s phoniness.
Do you have a phony one in your life?
Do phony people irritate you?
When I feel someone is lying, full of shit, two faced, or being phony with me and this person really irritates me…this is a clue that damn it, there is something in it for me.
If I allow myself to go there, within their phoniness and my irritation is a truth for me. I’ve been phony with myself! I have emotions about them or a situation that I have not been able to really face. Or perhaps I just don’t want to; perhaps I am afraid of what I will see.
As I have become more honest with myself, I see clearly how the phony ones become a mirror for me. What I realize is that the more I am willing to bullshit myself in some way, the more I have people in my face willing to bullshit me. When I start to look at this mirror more clearly, things in my life begin to change.
When it comes to love or any relationship, we all want honesty from the other person and they want honesty from us, right? I say, what about the honesty we have with ourselves?
The more honest I am with myself, the less likely I am to be in a relationship that honestly does not make me truly happy.
Once upon a time, I really felt like I was surrounded by people I just could not trust. Everyone seemed to lie about something.
I don’t feel that way anymore. Mainly because I keep taking that look in the mirror. I trust in myself and how I feel.
This is not to say that I don’t interact with phony people. The thing is…they don’t irritate me in the way they used to.
Actually, I would like to thank them for pointing me to be more truthful with myself….
Facing my emotions with honesty, rather than kidding myself in some way, has been so very freeing.
After viewing my “You Are Enough” video, a friend questioned why I had made it.
Repeating my own words back to me he probed, “You say you lost your self confidence? Really?” The very tone of his question sparked me to reflect further on the subject.
I lost my self confidence? Where did it go? Is it outside of me hiding somewhere under a rock? How the hell do I find it?
I really thought about the essence of what it is to feel something is “lost” There is a certain fragility to this. Confidence becomes fleeting, not constant. You have it, you lose it, you don’t have it at all. You want to get it back. Maybe you’ll never find it.
It can be easy to tell yourself, “Maybe I never had confidence at all!”
If you find yourself questioning your confidence, consider this:
Once upon a time when you were a tiny baby you crawled around on your hands and knees. One day you had the confidence to try to stand. This was within you! One day you had the confidence to take a step. You didn’t care if you cracked your head open on the coffee table either. One day you walked!
You didn’t have to take a class to find your confidence. You couldn’t even read! Confidence has always been within you.
So what happens? I thought about this in regards to my own life, and I realized that somewhere along the line:
Someone disapproved of me
Someone made fun of what I was wearing
Someone made a comment about my appearance
Someone rejected me
Someone told me I wasn’t smart enough
Someone told me my writing wasn’t that great
I think you get the picture here. Somehow our life experiences can make us believe we are not good enough! Life experiences make us believe we need to be more.
Remember though that once upon a time , you were damn proud of yourself for not pooping in your diaper! So was I!
The bulleted list above are some of the bullshit reasons I attach to “losing my confidence” when really what was going on was that these incidences simply triggered my insecurity.
Insecurity is the polarity of confidence. It exists in all of us too, and it is not wrong or bad.
As I accept my insecurity and do not judge it, I can release more of it. My insecurity does not have power over my confidence, neither do the people who trigger that insecurity.
Recognizing and accepting the polarities that exist within me has been so empowering.
It makes me come to see that I never really ever lost my confidence. I just chose to bring out my insecurity more.
And so now my choice is to let my confidence shine!
I do know how attractive, strong, charming, witty, and dynamic of a woman and a human being I am. And I am not afraid to say this out loud!
Somewhere along the line, we’ve all been judged for being “too confident” or for tooting our own horns…. Isn’t that funny? That’s a subject for another blog.
and finds such pleasure there amongst the crowd
