My brain, what goes on in this crazy mind of mine, IS My ART!
For 40 years, I have worked on taming the wacky monkey that is my mind. Today, I realized (finally!!) that what goes on in there is really interesting, at least to me. Minds fascinate me and always have. and guess what? everyone has one! Since taking psychology in University, I have been amazed. If we could hear what was going on in everyone's minds for just a day (very 'What Women Want') it would be pretty frightening and shocking at first, but awesome and refreshing at the same time.
I love life without the filter. I have spent so long and so much energy on trying to keep myself in this safe and 'good' little box of perfect little me. I was so set on perfection, that I went to great lengths to achieve it. I spent my entire childhood never and I mean never ever arguing with my mother (I’m not sure if she remembers it the same way;). I tried to never show emotion or vulnerability in front of my father and brother. I was the nice girl, the good girl, the smart girl, the anorexic girl, the self-controlling girl, the girl with anxiety and OCD. I was the girl with so much willpower and who was so competitive, succeeding at whatever I took on... but this was me allowing my mind to take over and i was ignoring my body. I could run fast and i loved running up hills (who loves running up hills honestly!?) and when my lower back started with the pain, I kept going until I collapsed. I could starve myself and cut absolutely all fat out of my diet regardless of how much my body didn't like it.
i Did, however, learn to listen to my body. Yoga came into my life and taught me to pay attention, to listen to whispers or the screaming, as the case may be, of my body and to stop pushing past its limits with my mind. I learned to love it slowly and am still learning.
Most detrimentally to myself, though, was not listening to my emotions. I ignored myself. I ignored those voices that were with me since the beginning whispering, "life is supposed to be fun" and "this doesn't seem right' and 'is this really all there is' and 'why does this have to hurt so much'. I ignored those voices so good all the way through a 9 year marriage. I ignored them through an 11 year career that I hated mostly every day. I ignored those voices through 30 years of digestive problems which are the poster boy for NOT LISTENING TO YOUR GUT FEELING! I ignored so good all the way to feeling like I didn't know what I was feeling anymore.
Once I realized I had blocked feeling for so long out of fear of hurting again like I had in the past, I tried to allow feeling to come. Through meditation, I started to listen. When you really start to meditate as a practice, there is space... Space to hear. All I heard was.. empty. I started to learn to feel again and at first there was....nothing. Nothing was there, no happy no sad no ups no downs..just nothing. Then I started salsa dancing and I felt passion. I would dance because I could feel something when I danced. I would shut all the lights off, turn on the music, and dance. During this dance I could feel the pain, the betrayal, the sadness, the loss, the grief... but it didn't have to stick. It just came and washed away with the music. Then the passion would come and I would feel filled with energy, filled with joy, filled with Me. This was the only time after my divorce that I really felt whole and alive. So I danced. I danced through 2 years of my life, making new friends and creating a new life that involved me and my 2 children whom I shared with their dad. Even the dog went back and forth. The time I had them, I cherished each moment for us. The time I didn't have them, I cherished each moment for me. All of these moments healed me.
Then I met a man who ignited my heart chakra. He made me feel things that I had been embarrassed to feel. I loved being with him because he worshipped me as the goddess that I was and am. and I did the same with him. We saw the godliness (the Soul) within each other and held each other up to this standard. And I don't mean perfection, no way. I mean the opposite. Reality. We held each other to Authenticity. Authenticity is one of my favourite words. It is one that I would have tattooed on my ass or my forehead maybe if I was inclined or interested in having a tattoo. Luckily, I guess, I am not.
Anyway, I find there is way too little authenticity in the world today and it is THE thing that makes me tick. So these two things, authenticity and sharing my art with the world which is the thoughts in my head. These 2 things, make up my purpose. Being authentic AND screaming (or speaking) that out to the world is my job.
Gabor Mate, in his work with trauma, talks about us trying so hard to ‘fit in’ amd normalize ourselves so as to be accepted by others and be ‘safe’...but what we don’t realize is that the society that we are trying to normalize to is not ‘sane’. It is important for us each to realize the sacredness of Who We Are...and that we are a gift! Realizing this, I am allowing the me-ness to rise within. I slowly, thing by thing, obsession by obsession, fear by fear, am stripping my life of anything unreal, anything inauthentic, anything tight wadded and constricting. This has been so freeing and is the essence of my new joy! Now I feel deeply and sometimes it catches me unaware... Often, I will be driving down the road (always seems to get me while I'm driving) and all of a sudden my heart is so full and joyful that I am a crying mess within seconds and my guts are so full of passion that I feel about to burst if I don't create something fast.
And so here I am...in this beautiful dance with my Soul and sharing it with the world!
