“How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world.”
― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

Illumination:

On terra firma, driving around a big city, sometimes the over stimulated brain sputters, “Good grief, there are SO many people!!!”

But up above the earth, flying through the dark night…when you once again see the sparkling lights of civilization below… the grateful heart often sighs, “~Thank you~”

You’re locked in a room with your greatest fear. Describe what’s in the room:

What is an excellent “W” question… however, my greatest fear would be who is in the room with me. And the answer, strangely enough, is me.

My greatest fear would be to find myself locked in a room with a hellish, unrelenting loop playing out, my own version of Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol,”  narrated by an empty, unfulfilled, cowed and shriveled future embodiment of myself.  The unspeakable torment of no escape from confronting my own pain filled eyes boring the question into my deepest soul, over and over again, “Why? Why didn’t you truly live?”

But, as with Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge… I have, within me, the ability to change this scenario. I am living and breathing today and I am not in that room. It is not too late.

What is your greatest fear? Do you, ultimately, have power over it…or it over you?

Yes. My first photo challenge, ever, and I am submitting a grainy, less than perfect cell phone photograph. It’s a picture (in case you can’t make it out) of my darkened flat screen television. The manufacturer will probably be pleased you can’t read their logo. But it represents two interrelated New Year resolutions:

Resolved: I watch less; I participate more. I’m turning off manufactured, artificial, air brushed life and I’m turning on fun, scary, delicious, problematic, painful, joyous, outrageous real life.  Genuine people. Actual opportunities.

Resolved: I embrace imperfection; fear does not hold me back. Waiting until I can do something perfectly (as in waiting until I take a perfectly composed, perfectly exposed picture) means I waste opportunities to experience new things in life and I lose, sometimes forever, a unique chance to feel, to test my beliefs, to grow and to learn new things about myself, other people, other cultures, our planet.

What a difference a year can make. One year ago, to the day, I felt the fear and I did it anyway. I Googled WordPress and I opened an account. I started a blog.  Twelve short months?…but hundreds and hundreds of tiny baby steps, most of them imperceptible to a casual observer’s eye. I’m not looking back to see where I was, I’m absolutely savoring where I am. And I’m looking forward, with excitement!, at where I’m going.

Best wishes to WordPress and all my fellow bloggers

for a happy, healthy, and joyous 2013

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/weekly-photo-challenge-resolved/

Filed under: gratitude, joy rising, mindfulness, Weekly Photo Challenge Tagged: postaday ]]> http://pencilpilot.com/2013/01/05/weekly-photo-challenge-resolved/feed/ 6 pencilpilot flatscreen tv http://pencilpilot.com/2013/01/02/781/ http://pencilpilot.com/2013/01/02/781/#comments Wed, 02 Jan 2013 08:00:36 +0000 pencil pilot http://pencilpilot.com/?p=781 ]]> Daily Prompt: Stroke of Midnight

Where were you last night when 2012 turned into 2013? Is that where you’d wanted to be?

Last night, at the stroke of midnight? I was in a contented state of mind. It was definitely where I had wanted to be…for more years than I think I’d previously realized.

My daughter and several of her friends with special needs gathered at a friend’s home for a New Year’s Eve party. A few of us parents were lucky enough to have been invited to stay – on the fringes, anyway. Continual friendly banter and peals of laughter filled the air all night long. There was great food, music, dancing, a hysterical game of charades, and over 300 party poppers set off outside, around a glowing fire pit.

Observing my daughter and friends having such a blast, as well as my sharing in the party atmosphere with the other parents made me feel happy, feel contented down to my toes.

One year ago I was on the precipice of finalizing my divorce. There was a tiny glimmer of light just beginning to be evident in the dark tunnel I’d been in for two years. I was weary, but I had hope.  This New Year’s Eve was hope realized.

I’m going to sidestep addressing the original food issue, here.  But what occurred to me yesterday is that there needs to be a five second rule about thought contamination.

Sometimes a really odd (or distressing…or disgusting, or…) thought comes into one’s mind and you don’t know WHERE it came from, but you don’t want it circling around up there. It’s just… weird. Or wrong. Or just plain awful, in some way.  And you generally have no idea, whatsoever, where it came from. Even worse… sometimes, you do.

I’m going to try a new perspective. If I stop… recognize it for what it is, a random fluttering, from wherever, and not something I truly hope for, embrace, believe in… and I immediately send it back on its way?… then I am not contaminated by it. Such a thought doesn’t have to cause any more distress or take up even one more second of my time.

This is my new thought “five second rule” :  There’s NO bad karma attached to a random, unsettling thought that pops into my head, uninvited, if I immediately sweep it right back out of my mind again.

What do you think about a Five And Gone Rule?

In actuality, however, Sheldon is just being himself. He’s not trying to be… trying.

I wish it were Sheldon’s intellect with which I (could in my wildest dreams) identify…but, unfortunately, it’s his OCD traits, instead. They drive him — or rather they drive his friends — nearly crazy. Yep!  Been there, done that.  :-(

So. I accidentally hit “publish” on my previous post, before I intended to publish. I had not proofed the post for the third time (or eighteenth? I can’t remember).  I had definitely not proofed it to the “Nth degree” as my dad would sometimes say. My dad, you see, was kind of a Sheldon, too.

After publishing, I reread my post.  As I started reading, 3 errors immediately leaped out at me.

And. they. are. driving. me   … absolutely crazy. It’s an itch that starts to spread, consuming like a raging wildfire… taking over every thought. A voice starts chanting, “I can’t stand it!!!! I can’t stand it!!!! I can’t stand it!!!!”

But, I can.

And, I will.

I’m going to intentionally let them be.  That may not make sense to anyone else out there but me. But I’m trying HARD to learn the places, the activities, the times when I need to let ‘good enough’ be… enough.

Perfectionism. OCD. Call it what you will. It inhibits productivity. Beyond that, it demolishes self esteem, it steals away joy …it obliterates internal peace.

To any of you reading this, those of you who similarly struggle… my heart is with you. I think there are a LOT of us out there, suffering the same. And, very often, causing others to suffer, right along with us.

So, I say with each baby step we take towards breaking free of the old “tapes” playing in our heads, we lift our glasses and say, clearly and proudly to ourselves, in the mirror:

I do the best that I can. And that is good enough.

On July 4th, my daughter, my dog, and I had just gone through the McDonald’s drive thru and had turned onto a busy, six lane road. We were driving along and I decided (with my driver’s seat controls) to roll up my daughter’s window the five or six inches it was open. It’s a two door car, the window quite long, and I didn’t want my dog to manage to get her entire head through it. I pulled up on the window lever, the window started to go up and all of the sudden a loud crash…. the entire window instantaneously shattered inward. The glass landed all over my daughter’s lap, the area space between the seat and the door, and on the back seat and floor.

The loud noise, the glass falling inward… my daughter and I had shrieked, at the same time, same octave. My first thought was… what??? WHAT??? A bullet? A wrist rocket? My daughter, still holding the McDonald’s bag in her hand, was completely in shock…staring at me with eyes and mouth wide open. She said, “mom, the glass is going to cut me!”  I told my daughter to stay still, that it was going to be ok, that auto glass isn’t like regular glass. I immediately began looking for room to change lanes so that I could pull over and get off the road. All around us, cars still driving along as though nothing happened.

Once we parked, I helped my daughter carefully get out of the car, then flipped the seat forward and took my dog out. I searched the car and found… nothing but glass. I mentally retraced our path, replaying the scenario, over and over. We had been en route to see a fireworks show and, soon, one of my girlfriends arrived that we had been headed to meet for the fireworks show.

We all just stared at the mess, completely dumbfounded… my daughter and I still shaking and trying hard to calm ourselves.

Making a long story short (no, there’s no hope at this point), I used a shop vac at a nearby gas station to vacuum the bulk of the glass from my car. My friend drove my daughter and my dog back to my place, so they didn’t have to sit in seats that still, no matter the vacuuming, had glass on them. I parked in my spot at my apartment, emptied the glove box of all my personal belongings, taped plastic over my window, locked the car (in theory), went back to my apartment and hoped for the best. The next day I called my insurance and a glass technician with a mobile glass company came and replaced the window. Much as I wanted to attach logic and cause, etc, to the situation… there really was none. The technician gave me an explanation that “sometimes, widows just do that.” Dust can accumulates in the tracks and yadda yadda and then yadda yadda…I don’t know all other factors. But, the end result is: sometimes windows shatter in the blink of an eye, no warning.

Yesterday — nearly two months later — I was turning into my apartment complex and started to roll up the passenger window in my car. I realize that my shoulders were rising, muscles tensing. Part of me still steels myself against the possibility, each time now, rolling up the window, that it will come crashing down again.

But I reminded myself that I have driven <mumble mumble> many years and alllll those years… no window has ever shattered like that in any of my cars before. Nor in any of my parents’ cars. Or my friends’ cars. And the list goes on. Not too many people have ever even heard of such a thing happening. Let alone the fact I’ve never known anyone else that actually had it happen to them.

So, I figure the percentages are with me. And that’s how I need to proceed…that needs to be my focus if I am to not drive around with either the widows always rolled up… or not have internal dread and quivering start, every time I go to roll up a widow that I was brave enough to roll down.

And the life lesson hit me, immediately after (as it so, so often does)…and thus I subject share it with you here.

I have let fear — fear of many other types — also inhibit me, particularly lately, as I travel in the no-man’s-land (pun intended) that is post divorce.  In real and practical ways, I am living life like it’s a widow that has shattered and now, at any moment, will shatter again.

Even if I go as far as to say that I *have* lived through some shattering widows in my life (which can be debatable, depending on our definition in this metaphor)… regardless, I have always, always, ALWAYS cleaned them up, and gone on about my life. Just as I did with the car widow.

I am not flaunting or taunting fate. I am not begging the universe to “bring it on!”  By no means. But I realize that sometimes… metaphorical ‘widows’ just shatter in the blink of an eye, no warning. And, when they do, resilient people clean up the glass, usually seek help, get it taken care of the best they can… and then they get on with life again.

Resilient people…healthy people… think about and focus on the percentages. They act in accordance with the 99% of times that things go right, not crawl under a rock, terrified and unwilling to face the 1% of times that they don’t. They practice each day… they are polishing their courage, each and every day they get out there and do their best.

You didn’t cause this.

You cannot cure this.

You cannot control this.

It’s tough to break the old habits of my ‘sacrificial helping’ that seemed to give me my identity, my self esteem. But I more easily recognize, now I have more quiet,  more distance, that my enabling is neither sacrificial nor actually helpful for anyone on the receiving end.

It takes practice…and more practice…and more. But I’m truly beginning to understand…to feel without pain and to embrace, my separateness. It is freeing, as I finally breathe in and more fully comprehend, I’m actually only responsible for and in control of, myself.

I have read the words for years. And years. There was no magic, no pill, not even a divorce, that could instantly unlock the door that let the reality of those words become more than just words. Time. Distance. Self examination.

My self esteem is never higher than when I break free from those old habits and DARE to believe in and behave in new and different ways that affirm this new emerging me: healthy, capable, caring, empowering.

In spending quiet time in such a beautiful setting, I became contemplative (as writers often do) and I weighed the evidence before me:  Same bush, same sunshine, same moisture… but each bush is covered in berries that are in all different stages of ripening. The berries seem to set on at about the same time, but each ripens at its own speed, even on the same plant, even on the very same branch.

At any given time, late June to early August, one can find some berries ripe and ready!…bursting with deep purple hued, softly plump little drupelets, while others are green or reddish in color, firm to the touch (and really really tart! if tasted, I might add).

People are like that, don’t you think?  Same age, similar environments. Sometimes originate from the very same “vine” even… but different ripening schedules.

I’m giving up trying to figure out how/why some folks seem to progress faster or slower than others to that mature, purple hued glow.

I’m striving for mindfulness, for acceptance – of others, of myself.

We ripen on our own schedule.

This wouldn’t be a problem, per se, because we strive for improvement, not perfection, in Special Olympics.  But my daughter hadn’t had this problem last year. Or the year before that. Etc. So everyone wanted to know… “What gives??”

If last practice is to be believed… it was tennis shoes that were too tight. Although mom had repeatedly asked her about the shoes her dad bought her (without her being present)…she had assured me “they’re FINE!!!”   “Mom….they FIT, okaaaayyyyyy!!!??”

We are trying to streamline the “back and forth” process for her transitioning, weekly, from one home to the other. So this past week, we decided to go buy her another pair of tennis shoes so she can have a pair at each home.  So, off we went… in search of that awesome pair of tennis shoes, without an awesome price tag.

We found a clearance pair (hallelujah!), which she wore to golf practice Monday. The results were nothing short of amazing.  It turns out, all those coaching admonitions for her to “put her weight more forward on her feet” (both sports) were not going to happen in tennies that were too tight.

We had missed this simple, but critical, factor.  Sometimes your “swing” in life isn’t about your arms …or the club …or bat.

In looking at my situation this week, facing my problems head on, I have elected to start at the proverbial bottom.  Am I taking care of my “feet?”  In other words… am I well grounded? Am I practicing healthy spiritual, physical and emotional habits which give me foundation and balance? Am I doing those things which will help me put my weight more forward, and result in a better “swing” ????

How about you? ….do you have any too tight tennis shoes that you might be overlooking?