Human Tendancies

Human Tendancies

An interesting thing has happened. It seems, this week, I have plum run out of things to write about and I feel scared about that. How can I write this week’s Meditation if there ain’t anything in there to write about?

So, in the middle of this, I got an email and a phone call from my best friend who was taking his Sunday morning to read several of my Meditations. He raved about how he felt as he read one Meditation after another and mentioned that he was so moved by them and wondered how I came up with something new each week.

“The ironic thing is,” I said, admitting my humanness, “I still don’t have tomorrow’s Meditation. I have sat down to write it several times this week and nothing will come. I am afraid I have lost my gift…”

He is helping me with the purchase of my first home and has been the brunt of a lot of garbage that I have slung in his direction because I am just so damn scared about my money situation, or the lack thereof. There is only me to rely on for income, no one as back up, no spouse, no partner. Just me. And that fact has loomed so big and darkly in front of me that I have been paralyzed at times. It has really kicked up my story about needing to be in a partnership to be acceptable. A story that only creeps out in moments like these because, for the most part, I am comfortable being on my own.

However, as I have worked through the pre-qualification process, I have been thrown into fits of panic more often than not. Even the good things, the steps that are moving me toward my dream, have sparked fear so big in me that I have been unable to think. And every time I have talked about my pending house purchase, I have said every single time, “I am scared out of my mind.”

Last weekend I said it so many times without even realizing what I was saying. Come late Saturday night, after saying it for the eight-hundredth time, I actually paused mid-sentence and listened to myself.

I am scared out of my mind.

I got curious about that. Scared out of my mind? Perhaps that is exactly where I need to be on this… out of my mind. When I get scared, I have a tendency to crawl right up in my brain and stay there, analyzing and planning for all of the “what ifs” and such. It is a great distraction from my fear and keeps me stuck in the fear and away from that which I really want.

So, this morning I shyly told him about my theory that, through this house purchase and being so scared out of my mind, my words have all seemingly gone out of my mind, as well.

Then he said something that stopped me dead in my tracks, “Write about that, Angie. Write about that fear.”

I realized then that every time I have sat down to write this Meditation I have been avoiding the one thing that needed to be expressed: my fear. I blogged little blurbs about it, but was blocking any full expression of the fear.

Even after talking with him and becoming aware of my behaviors, when I sat down to write this article, the fear got so big that I created all sorts of distractions before really doing it. I did all of my laundry. I got really hungry and went on a frantic and unrequited search for chocolate. I worked on my daughter’s science project with her. I searched the internet for pretty images to add to the still unwritten Meditation.

I followed every one of those distractions and came back to square one where my Meditation was still waiting to be written. I realized that, while this Meditation felt like something I should write, I couldn’t see the value in it for someone else. While it felt important to write it, I wondered if it was only for me. While this fear is big in my face right now, I judged my experiences with this fear as being beneficial only for me. It’s a very similar place in which I have landed regarding my first book.

Since my sole (soul) purpose for writing to touch, inspire and awaken the souls of those who read my words, I sometimes get all squonky about what I should write. I get wrapped up in this sense of over-importance that, somehow me being simply human and writing about that is not enough. My lifelong filter of “not enough” sometimes shows up with stultifying strength and I freeze, giving into it.

Funny. Just this morning, I wrote something to my mentor, Megan Sillito on her blog: “I sure love you for being real and sharing your humanness. It is the one thing, almost above all else, that I cherish about you – your willingness to be human and share about how you sometimes trip yourself up in that process.”

Ye-eah. Ummmm.. Hello, Angie?

I am laughing with myself and realizing that all around me are the people I need to show me exactly what I want to see about myself, yet am sometimes refusing to do so. I am grateful for these amazing people in my life and I am grateful that I am willing to look.

Today I am going to spring into action and go forward. I go forward, knowing that this is radically different for me… to go forward for myself. I commit to being scared out of my mind and going forward anyway, for myself. Maybe you will be moved. Maybe you won’t. All I know is that, for me, I am going forward and completing this Meditation.

I still feel scared AND now I feel happy too! Yay me!