ruts

my bestie asked me to call her hairdresser and schedule an appointment for her after she had to cancel one last minute recently. i said "sure," because i knew that i didn't like doing things like that. she asked me to pretend to be her, which i did. little did i know how poorly this salon takes to cancelling appointments. after chatting with the first woman that answered the phone, i gave information about "myself" to book "my" new appointment. i was then quickly put on hold while a new person came on the phone. the next person to talk to me started by stating "my" full name sternly. i knew "i" was in trouble. and i freaked out.

when i feel strong negative emotions, or when i think others will put negative strong emotions on me, i resist. and i put up cushions and cushions of softness and avoidance to prevent myself from experiencing these things. i was talking about this with someone recently and she asked me why was i so afraid of people being mad at me. i said, without thinking, "i guess it's because someone might be mad at me and not like me any more and leave me."

woah.

so, yeah, what am i actually afraid of? being left.

we can go back to the millions of times i moved as a child to understand what leaving friends behind over and over did to my psyche. or we can examine the two 4 year plus relationships i've had and the break-ups that involved them leaving me and not telling me (yes i'm serious).

or we can simply say "no one likes feeling left; no one likes feeling alone; no one likes feeling lonely."

my ink droplets, following
the path of least resistance 

but the danger i fall into is that i grab onto the path of least resistance. just like water droplets that will find another existing pathway and follow it instead of making their own. that existing pathway is the easiest. so i avoid potentially upsetting someone. i put up cushions so that i don't feel any uneasiness of my own. i try to make everything ok for everyone so that everyone is happy. i follow that already-created-path. because i'm used to it.

i fall into a rut.

but kelli gave me a reminder saturday night. she said we should be like YEA... RESISTANCE... I CAN GROW!!! which is what #miraclesnow and gabby taught me: be grateful for what we can learn from our fears. and it's also what my energy healer told me: when you feel those uncomfortable feelings, take them as a SIGN that you need to change something.

it's the same lesson over and over, but in different words: "don't avoid. feel. do. evolve."

so why do i keep forgetting this lesson? i don't know. (yet.) but i do know that i see lots of my friends forget it. one of my BFFs in yoga the other day PUSHED and pushed through the practice; ignoring body signals and feelings of tiredness. the result was not pretty (crash landing anyone?)... but it was just the physical interpretation of the same lesson. there was no acknowledgement there: it was "nope. gonna ignore that. gonna do what i always do instead."

and when i saw it in yoga, in someone else, i cried. i recognised this for what it was when it wasn't me. but when i do it? shhhhh. avoid. let's not acknowledge that, k? k. thanks.

it's sad when we avoid what we need. when we avoid what we feel. when we avoid what can be an opportunity for more in our lives.

when i was in my marriage, and unhappy, i wasn't going to do anything to change it. i thought "this is where i live now," and i wasn't going to even try. i resigned to it. i used to wish for ANYthing to come along to change the situation for me: even an illness or death. i was desperate for something to get me out of where i was--but i couldn't see a way out on my own.

last week i had a friend express almost that exact same sentiment to me: she said she wished sometimes that a certain person in her life would just drop off the face of the earth. why? because the situation she was in with this person seemed hopeless to her. she didn't know how she was going to get out of it; how she was going to change it; how she could ever be happy.

part of all this is that avoidance. part of it is not wanting to feel those strong things. part of it is being afraid of being alone. and part of it is just being stuck in a rut.

who new ruts could be so fucking heartbreaking?

so?

change the pattern; shake it up:
feel what's happening.
forget about the fears.
react in a new way.
and then: let your heart sparkle;
be glitteringly happy.

that's the plan anyway. xo