Simply Grateful

All my life I have wondered from place to place meeting people after people.   I must admit that I have often taken these experiences and people for granted.  For whatever reason (I call it head up my ass syndrome) I never really stopped to look at what was before me.  –You-.  So this note is for each and everyone one of you that have entered and yes even for those that have exited my life. 

I have come to realize that I am a summation of those interactions.  Each of you has left an indelible mark on my DNA that has come to be known as –Me-.  I have come to the realization that many times I was too busy, too disinterested and yes too distracted to really acknowledge you standing in front of me; caught up in my mind’s games of important. 

So I stand here, simply grateful to all of those who have made their way through my life, impacted me in ways you may never begin to understand.  To all I say thank you.  Thank you for sharing a bit of yourself with me, thank you for holding your place in the world and thank you for simply being you.  

Pandora’s Box

"Feelings", seeing the word on the page it seems quite harmless.  Pulling the letters apart, mixing them up (gnefneisl) these letters hold no meaning to me.  However when I internalize what I think the word "feelings"  means to me, how powerful that word seems.

All my life, I was shown that feelings were a dark, mysterious force in the human existence.  As a child I learned to fear some feelings in “others”.  Anger, resentment, frustration would send me hiding to my favorite hiding spot.  I also learned that what I thought I was feeling was incorrect. (There is nothing to be mad about, you shouldn't cry about that, etc.)  Since I wanted to please, I learned to put my feelings in a box.  And as a child who loved mythology, it was Pandora’s Box.  My Pandora’s Box was a jewel encrusted box made of gold.  She was magnificent and yet what she held inside was both treasure and pain. 

As I grew, I would often place items into my Pandora Box, feelings of my own, love, fear, hate, resentment.  I made regular deposits along the way.  Sometimes I would open this box just for a second to let some of those feelings out.  And they came rushing out with full force.  I learned to fear those emotions. And so they sat and sat and sat. 

Then there came a time, when my box was just too small to hold all I had placed within, and these emotions, so well hidden; came out everywhere I went.  Someone said something to me I didn't like, well I told them.  AT&T commercial, I cried like a baby.  It seemed to me I was no better off feeling these things than I was before not feeling them.  I feared this box even more.  The dark magic is possessed, possessed me.  I was an emotional wreck.

And so the journey to understand this box began.  I noticed how I would completely validate “your” emotions while totally discounting mine.  “You” were justified in your feelings, mine were stupid and senseless.  I also noticed that this box had become quite heavy to carry, in fact too heavy. 

So I sat down with my box.  Looked at it from all angles, examined the rusted locks which kept it closed tight.  And I decided to open it.   

Mind Games

While sadness seemed to rule the day last week, I woke up this morning with a physical feeling of energy swirling in my belly.  What I was able to notice was my mind went to that sensation and asked it, “what is that you are feeling?” My mind immediately said sadness.  Then the observer in me said, “are you sure that is sadness?  Could it be something else?”  My mind stood in stunned silence?  Something else?  Could that be possible?  We have always thought that was sadness… The sensation continued on its own until it was finished.  The mind had no name for it; it was just energy, now undefined.  I had a huge chuckle at the mind games, my mind plays on itself.  Could it really be so simple?