I have been a bit trapped in my head lately. With a tight fog wrapped around my thoughts, I have spent hours laying down begging for it to break. I know what I am supposed to do. I know what I want to do. I think…
Part of the fog’s heaviness was due to this weird guilt I have as a parent, pursuing a dream instead of spending all of my time and energy supporting my daughters. I even wonder if I am supposed to be master minding the musicians in my family. Am I supposed to channel all of this fire I have to lifting up others?
There is this weight of expectation and my tendency to get so excited about my projects that I talk about them and talk about them and live them through this talking and then I feel crippled at night, wondering if I will end up late in life, as that person who had all these great ideas and never did anything… but she had so much potential.
I feel challenged by what emboldens me. I hesitate to fully own the fact I feel called to bring attention to Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the intuitive voice, etc… This radical self awareness that changed my life I see absent in the lives of people clinging and stuck. Which helps me realize: if I am stuck, if I am clinging…. perhaps its time for that radical self awareness that has changed my life before…
I realize all of my fears. And the pressure. I recognize the daunting nature of creative thinking and being too much, mis understood, out of scope, beyond budget… I am not in corporate anymore.
Even with having a book complete, I think: “what a failure”, “you did not try hard enough”, “there is so much more to do”. And I realize… Erin, be gentle with yourself. You did a big thing. You made something exist. Now you raise it. Babies are not born Teenagers, Teenagers are not Grown Up.
I feel crazy sometimes with Apple Tree Magic and Yoga Underground and Frozen Spaghetti – and why do I have this ongoing theme in my life with so many names? Even my actual legal name… I was one thing before, and another before that… Four different names, so many instagram handles, am I certifiable nonsense?
But, see, here is the teaching – the practical truth – only the mind can make something a bad thing. Universally bad things are bad because, universally, most people qualify them as such. Yet I get to choose my thinking. I get to choose if I am a disaster or if I am unfolding.
I get stuck creatively when I wonder what to let go of – it halts me in my steps. And, again, the next teaching – the next practical truth – the right step is only one step and it is obvious. If I keep the names, I will know when it is time to let them go because it will be clear. If I hesitate, just wait. They need to be there so I know when they should go… and why…
I am continually balancing self trust with critical thinking. I am continually wondering if I should have continued to play it safe: get a paycheck, have good benefits, take a couple of weeks off a year to write. Then mornings come, mornings like this one – where I remember the math that when things equal hard add “work” and get to it. Get to it. Get to it.
I have an ambitious day today, but – everything I want to do is something I know how to do. I have the full support of my husband, my mother and my self. I know better than to question timing – and this knowing better will ground me today. It especially helps me when I feel like I am doing this all too late in life. As it could only be now that I have what I have to mix in and produce the art… the words.
I have always written rhymes and told stories. I have always sang songs and enjoyed cleaning the bathrooms and the floors. I have always found joy in making others laugh or think, in perfectly wild circles of friends around a table – meeting each other for the first or second time; always open to trying something new with themselves. Because those people are my audience: the ones who like to think differently than yesterday.
The ones who feel a problem in their life and look for the meaning, the silver lining, the option to open a window.
Curious for the abstract in the practical and the practically abstract… that is what I do. It is what made me a good analyst.
Yet this digging into the data and bringing up something wild is also why I believe I never got promoted beyond a certain point in the corporate world because the thinking – it was way out there, it was experimental and I was always thinking way faster than I was talking and I was talking way fast… But the great news is that, in this world? The one I am in now? I am the only one that has to understand myself and I don’t even have to say anything to get there. I don’t need to make myself a deck. I just need to act on impulse, grounding myself in my spiritual practices that will make this all work in the end. As that is the core belief.
So – get pumped: I am promoting myself to Chief Strategist of my life.
It makes good sense to do so…
We have a lot of fun ahead of us, you see.
I just need to keep believing and you – you need to read. :)
Frozen Spaghetti 