Roxanne Darling

My Journal

I enjoy collaborating, helping others, bouncing ideas, having access to others, learning from others. It’s a recurring self-examination about the balance of outflow vs inflow. Historically, I volunteer and support others way more than vice versa.

Right now, I am doing free consulting for a friend’s business, for a niece’s business, and also volunteering at a photo gallery. I also support 2 nonprofit organizations. The time varies, which keeps the question, did you do too much for others?, as a moving target. My consciousness just can’t rest on a solid answer. Especially when the pleasure I get from the activities weighs in. Yes, I enjoy this and it’s easy for me to do, and for now, I am creating distinct value for others.

Meanwhile, there is me. And my art. My writing. My rest. My reading. My own damn marketing. I say “damn marketing” because i have such a complicated relationship with marketing. But I don’t want to get distracted as it’s a small part of the discussion here right now.

How do I want to allocate my time?

Am I getting ‘juice’ from other people’s projects to avoid the fear of not being successful if I apply myself to my own projects? What is this strange energetic gulf between doing for others and doing for myself?

It is so easy to look at others’ businesses and see a clear path. And then to see results. For myself, the list is so long, the list of possibilities and things I want to do, it is so long. And I’m having a hard time getting started. I am doing lots of things around the periphery. I am definitely preparing the space and place to make art. The memoir is not happening, though I get pieces and parts from these daily writing exercise. Sometimes I remember to copy paste into Scrivener, sometimes I’m in a hurry and I skip it. I worry in the back of my mind about lost words.

I’ve written over 40,000 words since starting 750words.com. That could have been a book! But it isn’t. And really, it’s silly to think every word should be saved and used for big points and big profits.

It seems so appealing to my left brain self to ‘JUST make a calendar and divy it all up with pre-set time slots and voila! Problem solved.’

But that disavows the importance of the energy in me, my work, my process. It works for a week or so then I take a trip, or get depressed, or have visitors, or, or or.

What if I just cut off the world some more? What if I budgeted myself more precisely and more selfishly? What if what if what if, my personality type just loves that question.

But me, I, I really don’t like the openendedness right now, in this moment. That feels like kid energy, critic easing her way in gently, to say, “Just do the damn work, dammit!”

:-)

Sure. Yeah. Today I am booked up - conf call with niece for 90 minutes, then time to eat, then finish the sewing projects I have open and splayed across the living room table.

So, maybe tomorrow.

My to do list just gets longer and longer. On the other hand, I’ve got nothing to lose. I’ll keep at it tomorrow. Right now, I’ve done my writing practice. Yay me. I learned cool stuff in the photo gallery today. Yay me. I’ve done my research for niece phone call. Yay me. I’ve gotten to have some collaboration energy and I am having solitary energy. Yay me.

I’ve learned about some actors who went 10 years without working. Jeezus!

For now, chop wood and carry water, Rox. It’s cool. Yay me.

Oops.I need 125 more words to make my 750!

It is really hard to trust the process and break out of all the many forms of hierarchical thinking. To live each day, each hour, each BREATH as if this is the only now. As if I don’t need to know what this thing we call the future holds. At its root, on its face, in its core, this idea is the most radical one I am aware of. Some days are easier than others. Today, I have followed the flow, had some regrets about spending an hour. On Twitter and reading news instead of writing, drawing, or reading. Clearly, I am still clinging to a hierarchical notion that some activities are better, more worthy, more important, than others.

I call bullshit on that. (Haha, for like the thousandth time.) Well, at least I did remember again. Yay me.

My Journal

I bought an integrated keyboard and case for my iPad this weekend. Net positive results - I am getting more things done that I want to do by being able to have this with me along with the ergnomic comforts it provides. It’s a funny thing - having these devices and learning how to wrangle them to support me rather than following their demands (via the apps) to serve others.

It feels empowering to do some research, make a decision, and decide to like something even when it’s not perfect. How would I improve it? I would magically make it lighter somehow, though that might require bending the laws of physics. I actually chose the one with the slimmest profile, since that is important to me. Bonus points for having a holder for my Pencil. I have barely learned to use it - mostly because it’s never with me when the mood strikes.

LOL, so I imagine i’ll stare it at for some amount of time and then pull it out of the case and start using it. :-)

Which brings me to the topic of time. It’s something I’ve been stressed out about for so long. For years, I was one of those people who lived by the mistaken mantra that “I don’t have enough time.” It was a hyper loop of self-perpetuating stress. My partner got so sick of hearing it, that he inadvertently helped me break free from it. Speaking honestly here, though, as this is my own damn journal, with nothing to prove, it took me several years to banish the words and the thought and the energy from my world. That shit was not easy! That inner voice was hanging on tight, “But! It’s true! Look at all your lists! And the clock!”

Being a mostly rational human being, I had to figure out ways to get around her “facts.”

So I employed a non-rational yet often very effective technique of ignoring the so-called facts and giving the energy the priority.

“I may not have all the time I want, but this mantra of time poverty does not feel good and I don’t think it helps me be any more effective or efficient. It’s a damn bummer, even for me too, all the so-called facts notwithstanding!

So this idea of our mindset being the result of what we tell ourselves - it’s commonly shared now in the media I consume. I buy it 100%. And still, the inner critic hijacks my mind way too often still. I accept this right now as a factoid regarding how hard it is to change the unconscious programming that’s been around for generations. Still, I want to better at it. So I continue one day at a time, one assignment at a time.

And my relationship really is the “proving grounds” for this right now. I like this idea of having a place out in the desert where I can push the limits, see what’s possible, not to “prove”something in the normal use of that words, but to push and prod and create proofs of concepts to verify and validate my ideas. To do a lot of “if this, then what” testing and poking and prodding.

There’s so much energy around the phrase, “Ok, well prove it.”The Skeptics’ Mantra. I’m not interested in proving anything to anyone anymore - at least that is my conscious belief, my goal, the item on my board to which I strive. Doesn’t mean I’m perfect at it; it on;Lynn means I claimed that as a belief. My earlier life was a steady string of “prove its” and in high school I was very interested in becoming a lawyer. I had the smarts, I definitely had the “fight”, and I was deeply connected to ideas about justice and fairness.

Fortunately, a spring break vacation in the Bahamas with my best friend and her family literally dunked my head in the water on that idea and I chose a different college and a different profession: marine biology. There was this beautiful part of life I discovered and i lurched toward beauty and away from feeling responsible for fixing the world’s many ills.

Mind you, I still, almost 50 years later, still find the world sitting on my shoulders, despite decades of being disinvited. It’s hard, changing and letting go of these ingrained and entrained belief systems with which I incarnated.

I have so much more power and authority than my critic can possibly understand. As does everyone, I believe. Not that it matters. Unless you or “others” want it too.

I'm really happy about noticing the shift in my writing since being here. I've written about 35,000+  words so far, which seems like a lot. But whatever it takes, is good with me, to find a more authentic voice of mine. For who I am now.

One thing that is obvious is that I use so-called swear words some. I have used them most of my life in private conversations, but, always avoided them in public writing and public talks, conversations. I do respect my audiences and there are times when fuck or goddam is not energetically appropriate. I am aware of and LOVE the power of words – that power is often over-looked. At the same time, there is me. And who I am. This writing, here and now, is for me. I don't imagine anyone is even reading it. But if you are, you've opted in - no one hired me to be here and make people feel good or educated about anything.

I have struggled a lot growing up with the pressure to be the daughter my parents wanted and expected and created. I incorporated so much of their intentions into my being. I've written many times before about my extreme codependency, my desire to please and be of use and to not make waves. These habits really reinforced the parent protocols. So much so, that a lot of it became unconsciously embedded in my psyche, in my actions, in my thoughts.

I suppose this is a similar process for many growing, For me, though, I believe the parent protocols were especially intense. As were my desires and my own goals. As is my current desire to be free of their influence without rejecting the parts I like. So that's meant I've been involved in this 40+ year process of turning over every stone in my path, to ask: Is this me or is this someone else's version of me? To be honest, my ease at incorporating the parent protocols led me to adopt all kinds of other people's protocols.

it was my default: What do you want and how do you want it? I aim to please! Much of this led me to be a well-loved consultant. Funny, though, how it suffered from the law of diminishing returns in personal relationships. This is the codependent's dilemma: you spend so much energy making others' happy that when you can't do that or choose not to do it now and then or expect reciprocity, well, the shit hits the fan. And it sprays all over. The codependent will often do the cleanup. But these bags of poop ferment into foul resentments.

So now I swear in public. It's part of who I am. I love the word fuck and being a body-aware and body-positive person, I'm not offended by the things the body does or the things it produces.

:-)

Shit. Fuck. Poop. Piss.

Where does goddammit fit into this lexicon? It's not body-related on the surface. My first response is that religion failed me and is a construct I don't buy into. I was raised Catholic. Though imagine this: my mom was Catholic and my father was not. I did got to Catholic schools through 9th grade. They taught religiously that non-Catholics would not go to Heaven. At best, they might make it to Limbo.

"So, umm, that includes my father?" I don't recall ever asking that question. I do recall having my knuckles rapped by a yard stick plenty of times. I repressed then finally recalled the years my father molested me. So, maybe he doesn't belong in this place called Heaven. Of course, now, I don't believe in Heaven and Hell, but they sure were powerful ideas that circled my head continuously, in place of a halo, as I was a child in Catholic school.

I suppose it's good news that I repressed so much. From this current perspective, knowing what I know about my fear of authority, desire to please, avoidance of wave-making, how could I possibly have done anything but forget the night time abuse in time to go to school each morning. I actually consider it an amazing skill Now to move my attention onto things that matter. I'm proud of having really developed my Ignoring Muscle, so I can preserve my energy, my sanity, my life force.

So here's my transitional take: nothing is bad or good. It's all about the energy, it's about context. It's about here and now. It's about self-preservation and doing whatever it takes, for that. I've never thought it was bad for me to hide the incest, to erase my unpleasant memories, to highlight and emphasize my happy memories. My co-dependence and people-pleasing gave me something concrete to focus on so my brain didn't have room to think about the horrors. Oh, the horrors. Closets are quite useful in this context and I'm glad I didn't have to deal with them as a young girl. I've been much better suited to deal with it as an adult.

To those who complain about adulting, I say this: Adulting for me has been a serious of painful yet liberating experiences that have resulted in more joy than I thought was possible. I don't want to go back to childhood.

(from my personal journal)

Hi.

My eyes are itchy and hurting, my vision a little blurry, my nose is irritated and my throat is itchy and yes, my allergies are a bitch right now. I am writing for the first time and the new studio. A few distractions and not the ideal ergonomic thing yet. (Not to self, order a comfortable and adjustable height stool pronto!) And yet, Here I Am. yay for me! (Second note to self. How nice to give your self credit out loud. It's for you. Good job, Rox!)

I am here today with a question: what color should I dye my hair, if any? I have an appointment today and I am confused on the topic. Here are the issues swimming around in the swampy space of my awareness:

There is blonde-shaming happening these days.

There was a large screen shot of over 20 fox news hosts all with blond hair and a lot of makeup and I have this long standing challenge of looking like a newscaster than I can't seem to escape. That is not who I am, dammit!

There is the trope of the rich white woman - which I have actually integrated successfully I believe. That is an accurate descriptor of me - I can accept that and define it for myself on my own terms. Is there a disproportionate share of blondes in that group? Perhaps. I don't know for sure.

I am now claiming my space as an An Artist. I have official permission from the inside out to just be me and if that means a little weird, or a lot weird, so be it.

My natural state as a child was blonde. My natural state Now is dark brown with reddish hints when I am in the sun.

I have no conscious attachment to needing to be "natural."

I am just starting to get a few gray hairs - barely visible.

I love the look of all silver - alas, I am nowhere near that just yet.

I don't like the look of 'aging' brown with gray roots. There is a dullness, an absence of life force that I feel when I see that look - more so on women with longer hair than on men. It just looks normal on men. It's not easy to write those words. But still, this is what is true for me right now. Of course, I do not judge any woman who wants to go au natural at this stage of life – in fact, I admire it in many ways. I am preferential to more sparkle.

Can I ignore the blonde stereotypes and stay blonde - though my hair at the moment is about half and half, to be truthful. I  have the blonde near my face, with some dark brown natural near my face, too.

On the surface, "do what you want, Rox, and ignore everyone else out there!" are words that I accept and that I believe.

But in typing the above notes, a few things energetically grabbed my attention. "blonde as a child" - well, I am a grown woman and I don't need or want to be who I was 60 years ago. It feels like some sort of unnecessary justification for staying blonde that I don't need or want.

Underneath it all is that I want to be seen as who I am, not as who I pretended to be for so long. Built in is this thing of other people seeing me. OK, that's a little problematic. What do I care? Why don't I just look the way I want to look? How I look and how I feel are interconnected in all kinds of ways. That's a big topic! I work diligently to stay a certain weight, to keep my posture upright, to be fit, to be thin - yes, thin - because all those things help me Feel Better and feel More Like Me. I know there is this whole side story about feeding into mainstream culture. About thinness being problematic in and of itself, But in true Hierarchy vs Transition game theory, all these hypocritical and contradictory constructs are here to Play With not to take seriously over here in my Transition.

In my transition in consciousness, I can do anything I want for any reason or for no reason.

I forgot to mention that I actually like coloring my hair in different ways - but - I also love swimming several times a week (in chlorine pools) so that means spending money on fancy dyes is usually a waste – it washes out in a week or less.

OK, so time is about up for this exercise. What is my bottom line? What do I think I'll tell the stylist in a few hours?

For now, I like how I look with the contrast of dark natural brown with a "shock" of blonde near my face. I don't see a need to change at this moment. My cut is edgy – so I have that. And I am Not Trying to Prove Anything to Anyone. That is the main thing here I want to take away. It's none of my business if people are confused by my appearance. It's none of my business if people see something in me that they think means something that is not me.

I want my energy to be clean, clear. free of discrepancies. FREE OF MY OWN DISCREPANCIES without a care in the world for anyone else’s! So much of the feminist movement is about being true to oneself, and finally, letting others have their own opinions, triggers, judgments, etc, for themselves. None of my business. For now, I'm in the partly blonde section of the giant hologram, because it makes me happy when I see myself. It may still be fed by the neuroses of my past or the culture, but again, this is who I am for now. There is nothing wrong with me, on the soul level. I can change my mind anytime. Mostly, I want to "set it and forget it" as fussing over my hair is not something I enjoy. I am a wash and go girl! No blow dryer, no styling, just give me a cut that doesn't require fuss and a little color and I'm actually quite happy.

(from my personal journal)

Ugh. Writing. Practice, I know how important and useful it is FOR ME and yet, I feel this way at times like I imagine others feels about exercising. Only doing it because I feel I should.

Of course, this is highly irrational and illogical as I fancy myself a Writer and more so because I have at least two books I want to write. I did manage to write two already – a 180-page fitness training manual and a body esteem affirmation book. They are from two decades ago. My memory tells me I enjoyed the process each time. I am wondering what is different now. Why do I have so much resistance?

Perhaps I could blame it on social media and that distraction thing, the wanting instant rewards thing, and then there is the FEAR. I am afraid of my topics. Topic one is a memoir aka personal story of my transition in consciousness. Just writing that sentence, it seems easier. What the hell is that about? The stuff in that topic is insane by many standards. It includes my incest, my mental illness, my working with extraterrestrials as coaches for 25 years. I mean, come on. Am i right?

And yet, that is what I enjoy thinking about, and writing about, when I make the time. There is this gap between what I think others think about my topics and the sheer joy and confidence I now have in my life story. So perhaps isolation is the secret. Sequester myself away from the world a bit and not let in any of that group mind stuff. I am serious, now. How much does it (if at all) affect me?

There is so much ENERGY coded into words and hence all the conversation about "everything." What is proper, what is not, what is science, what is not, what is believable, what is not. OMG the list goes on and on, and it's not binary – it's a fucking spectrum that includes every viewpoint between those binary endpoints.

I am so close, I think. The desire and the drive have been building. I did manage to put out an ebook a few years ago – a nine page teaser. Looking back now, though, I spent so much time on the look and feel of it. I think I am still a little brainwashed about making things so pretty. Starting with myself, LOL, that I don't go deep enough into the ideas, the words. Same with my podcast.

I love beauty. I'm not ashamed of that. It is a part of my experience. And yet it was hijacked (like so many aspects of me) and put into service for goals and protocols that are not my protocols. They were my parents' goals. And my parents were deep into the hierarchy. They played a great game – facing all the typical challenges and extracting themselves from a life of poverty and smallness in North Carolina to becoming world travelers of incredible sophistication and glamour and edification. I'm so glad they did! I imagine I would have been even more miserable living in Charlotte, surrounded by racism and phony politeness. I went to boarding school in a little town in NC for one year, Red Springs, and it was both an eye-opening experience as well as my first real practice in getting comfortable being an outsider.

I was one of two "Yankees." Yes, that's the first label. Me and one person from Chicago (my family was living in Michigan at the time.) This was a major count against me. Southerners were still hanging together against "The Northerners" in 1968, one hundred years after the Civil War. You might laugh, but think about your own personal relationships. Do you remember or spend emotional energy on the people you dumped or left? Or do you remember the scars much more painfully when you were the one who lost? Who was left? Who was rejected or placed less than first? It seems to be part of "human nature."

They lost. They still think of their fellow citizens from above the Mason-Dixie line as enemies. And now it's all coming back with a vengeance, right? Some are shocked; I'm not. I mean, after all, I have my own family members with racism in the veins. I've had my OWN conscious and unconscious bias to expose and dispose. Given my history, likely not done yet.

Fortunately, though, I had a striking experience the first day of boarding school. It's a template for how negative things that happened in my life, leading to very positive , even formative, things.

It was 1968. In American History class, we were talking about civil rights, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I raised some generic point about 'all men are created equal' and the class went ballistic. Alice, I recall, a lovely young woman who fits that 'lily white' description, eventually had to leave the room - she was nauseous at the idea of socializing with black people. She was fine having them as trusted servants, though.

That was that and I realized, OK, it's going to be a long nine months for me. These people are fine with the segregation and having the 'coloreds' serve them. Next class was PE. I walked into the gym – keep in mind only about 6 minutes had passed. The girls were huddled in a corner. They pointed at me, and one brave soul shouted, "There she is. There's the nigger lover."

And that's all I remember. I shut down. I went on autopilot. I was used to having these horrid experiences pressed upon me and I saw no escape, only surrender. Not surrender to their ideas or their friendships. Just the kind of surrender where you do whatever the fuck you have to, to get through This Moment, in the everlasting hope that there might be a redeeming moment coming up next, sometime sooner than later.

They drew a line in the sand, well, in the gym, for me that day. It clarified my thinking on the topic. I would do whatever it took to not be a racist white woman from the South. I would embrace all people. I would invite the weird, the outcast, the underdog, into my world as best I could to keep the Perfection Protocols from consuming me.

Good morning, dear self. I hear your confusion about scheduling and getting things done.

Perhaps you can consider that after years of "failing" to have a repetitive, go-to game plan, you may be trying to exit the hierarchical thinking around the topic of setting and meeting goals? Perhaps you can face the confusion you've felt around the pro-corporate notions of productivity and planning and the wishy washy woo woo "soul's purpose" nonsense? Can you see how those two seemingly opposite ideas have been serving as boundary markers to keep you inside the matrix of good-bad, right-wrong and out of reach of the unlimited freedom to whatever you want that is your default premise as the divine incarnate walking the earth, playing with limits and boundaries, space and time?

The new age seems like a step forward out of the harsh rules of past traditions, but it isn't. It may be the ultimate pinnacle of contortion to keep you inside the unconscious corral. It's not your liberation, no matter the flowery promises of ascension and enlightenment.You are already an ascended master, whatever that is. As soon as you remember your divinity, you are enlightened. You are everything over in the realm of the unlimited, and here, in the realm of limits, you are playing with being separate, with being a tiny part of something really huge. Tiny is not a measure of value or worth, it's merely a relative measurement of your you-ness in co-existence with all the other unlimited divine souls who are also here playing with limits and boundaries.

You can play with being an ascended master, you can play with being a piece of slime, you can play with following whatever rules you want or you can play with breaking whatever rules you want. Since this is a realm of limits and boundaries, there may well be consequences to your choices. And, you are the divine, backed up with a 100% guarantee of support from the universe, so you can handle those consequences. We suggest it's easier to handle those consequences when you remember your divinity.

We've said, and you've read, over and over, all there is, is Now. The past is a memory that doesn't exist now. The future, it doesn't exist either.

What if you lived you entire life never being in the present? Taking the idea to the extreme here - what if your waking thoughts were in the the pretend past and the pretend future? What would you have missed? We see that you are feeling anxious with this line of questioning. Yes, it's a little pokey. On the other hand, you are far enough into your Transition that you want to break through another collective of unconscious beliefs.

You're Capricorn - that gift of organization and structure and determination can be used in Transition ways instead of the Hierarchical ways. You've read enough books on goal-setting. on steps to this or that, on how other people get stuff done. But now you are so hungry to discover how do you get things done? What things do you want to get done? You say the universe is 100% for you and 0% against you. And yet. How easy is it to not strike out each day and occupy the present? And instead to occupy the things you thought yesterday or last week that you should do today? And oh, the irony, how stuff actually doesn't get done. The things you *think* you want to do, they keep getting pushed aside in favor of expediting what there is to do Now.

Why on earth should you feel guilty for doing laundry and unpacking boxes from your move and checking in on Twitter to see if anyone's indicted yet? Why do you make it harder to do the other things you want (learn new software, edit your photographs, write poems for your photos, make your doodles, etc) by creating a hierarchy of what's important? And then being somewhat irrational about ascribing things to important or not important?

What IS important, is to be here now. To trust that even if you never tweeted again or never made another piece of art or never helped another person or pet, that you are still the divine. You are still OK. There are no expectations on you other than the ones you put on yourself and the ones you allow other people to put on you.

You've made huge progress in all this. We see you as the wild Capricorn, the mountain goat who lives by choice on the edge of steep mountains, where there are risks and "views to die for." This requires skill - you have it in abundance; it requires paying attention - you are mastering that with so much consciousness now instead of worry; and it is fed by desire to be here now - something you desire so much, we know, it sometimes frightens you.

Those tears are good. It's a good time fro you to soften into kindness, into a mundane form of reverence for who you are and why you're here and what that means for you right now.

(And this very minute, the doorbell rang, and my new camera just arrived. yay! A new way to see me and see my world.)

(my journal)

Back in the swing of things. yay for me. Not in a great mood yet, though I am working on it. So let's find the topic du jour. First, praise. I stuck to my plan yesterday about reducing time on social media. It was a definite win. Felt like I accomplished more on my lists and spent less time worrying about politics. It's a curious paradox that I don't want to talk about it (not give it any more air time or thought space) yet I am fascinated by observing it. So it's a curious case of FOMO, right? No need to put out the fires or start new ones. Just want to track them so I am aware of what's going on. Of course, I will know, I suspect, when big shit hits the fan. So I'm sticking with the "fascinated" part of things - that I suspect have a dose of safety issues in the mix.

So I meanwhile have all these tasks in my Todoist that are being ignored. I put them there because I want to do them or at some point they are required to be done. Those are different things, naturally. One of them is from January - 8 months ago. Several others are from 4-5 months ago. Some are a month old. Some get put on there with seemingly plenty adequate future dates, and those too are past due. I am still, apparently, quite confused in my present self about what my future self will want to be doing or should be doing.

Wild Thought: What if I stopped making lists and just did things as I thought of them?

First response: Hey, but what about the really important things that need to be done...

Hold off, if they are really important won't I remember to do them?

Umm, yeah, good question. OK, I just deleted two of them. One is not yet relevant if I'm honest with myself and the other will be handled by my financial advisor. The others are things I put there to give me ideas for when I have a block of time and am not sure what to do. Mind you, I rarely have those blocks of time. So these items sit there and I feel guilty. So they are going to move over to a wish list of some sort, not a to do list. Just changing the language is helpful already.

Taking The Transition literally can be quite the exercise in consciousness. I move in and out of 'taking it seriously' or as Ava would say, "How willing am I to let this be real?" In theory, super real, baby! Bring it on! In practice, ummm, I'll put that off til later. Or, well, I could do that but really, it's ok, I can keep doing things as I used to do them.

Don't upset the apple cart is 1) a strange metaphor for me since I didn't grow up on an apple farm, and 2) so damn fear-based for often no reason. Other than, the reason of don't upset the status quo. The status quo is so deeply embedded in my psyche - and out there in the world, too - that I'm a little amazed thinking about it now. I see the tide I am swimming against, anyone of us is swimming against, when thinking new ideas or wanting new things (by things, I mean feelings, experiences, relationships. policies, etc).

Group mind. Group think. Group talk. Group action. On the one hand, it's so powerful, yeah, I know. How do I play with that power? How do I use it or ignore it on a case by case basis instead of being swept up in it unconsciously or not tapping into, unconsciously?

*** Consciousness is everything. Such a helper, such a shortcut. Such a friend. And some days, such effort. But instantly I remember that I chose to come here, chose to incarnate and walk the earth, playing with limits and boundaries, space and time. So of course consciousness takes effort. But it's like a primary effort - like a primary number - other efforts flow from it. It's a base. It's a respite. It gives strength even as it requires effort. It gives clarity, even as it demands courage. It rewards even as it asks for nothing.

It's pretty cool, really. I like it. I would not be here without it. And that is my Truth for now.

Welcome to the Better Late Than Never Entry!

But, is that actually true?

My goal for today is to sort out radical self-acceptance from the self-awareness I have of feeling distracted, scattered, unable to do the things I (think I) want to do — all resting on a base of "none of this matters."

I know, it doesn't. I am well-immersed in the belief that I am the divine incarnate, walking the earth, playing with limits and boundaries, space and time. On one hand, that seems to take all self-criticism off the table.

But I think there's a substantial space between that and "why can't I do the things I want to do?"

First, I am understanding that I have an addiction to technology and social media. So I'm going to examine it along the lens of having had food addictions and eating disorders. When I was bulimic, I could gorge, and then throw up. Pleasure, then the removal of the evidence, and no risk of weight gain. Of course, retching feels wretched to my body and to my psychology. Partly I suppose as I was judging myself so harshly. I did not have radical self-acceptance at that time.

Plus, I had the knowledge that this is not a long term sustainable habit for me. It does cause some damage to the body. And the shame. OMG the shame I felt. At my darkest, I was throwing gorging and vomiting 6-8 times a day. But who cares, now. I raise the point because getting over an eating addiction doesn't work with the "just say no" abstinence plan. Eating is required to live.

Using technology / social media is sort of in that space. I still work for clients and that works is done via internet and social media tools. And like food, I enjoy it, too, and don't want to abandon it altogether.

So how do I handle this addiction? I've noticed, that like dieting, I can be on a productive path for a while. I stopped bringing my phone to bed. I took Facebook off my phone a couple years ago. I took Twitter off my phone about a year ago. I still have Instagram. I turned off all notifications over a year ago. On paper, looks like I could earn an A- or B+ in social media addiction management, right?

But I also have an iPad. Oops. No Facebook on there. (It's easy, I really despise Facebook right now. I only check it for business pages. I think there are a destructive, dishonest company. I feel guilty even using it still. And yes, Instagram. Ugh.)

So back to my point. I am escaping to the iPad many times a day, time flying by, it's the damn scrolling thing. Or looking in the browser. Being obsessed (no need for an adjective qualifier) with politics. Wanting to launch my 8th career - STOP - I don't like those words.

Interruption: I am now an artist. I want to make art. I have so many ideas, apps I want to learn, tools I want to master. (Photography, drawing, painting) and of course I have my long-standing writing projects. Writing often feels like forest bathing for me - I settle into this energy space that I find really comforting. I am not "launching" anything. I do not want to think of my art as a "career." I want to break all those corporate words, and more so, those corporate ideas, out of my head, out of my body, out of my consciousness. They can just be clouds passing by.

So what if I want to share my art online? That is a very simple thing. I can do it on my own terms, my own time, which includes not doing it at all.

I have enough money to live on. I can relax now. I can be me. I want to be me. I don't want to be anyone else.

Maybe writing is my ground, my most direct reflection of myself and my desires in the present moment. Putting things out there in words is clarifying and the mirroring is so powerful for me. Maybe 750 words is too much. What can I do to commit myself to writing every morning, and whoop - every evening too! That sounds awesome. Here. Now.

New goals. News: Twitter, NYT, WaPo, NPR, etc. While getting dressed. 10 minutes after writing and before working on stuff for the day. 10 minutes after lunch. 5 minutes end of the day. 5 minutes at bedtime. That adds up to 30 minutes. Long form articles > saved for Reading Time. That means setting up Pocket.

Pocket: 15 -20 minutes a day.

Reading: as in Books. Start with 15 minutes a day, and increase to 30. Kindle on iPad is OK. Though aim to actually try and hold a paper book when available.

Now, for the killer. No device in bed. Leave them all downstairs.  OK to put an iPod next to the bed if I want music to help me sleep. I've been having a lot of yucky dreams and twitching a lot in my sleep. I hope this helps. I think my sleep mate would really appreciate it if I could settle into sweet dreams again. He's had to leave the bed several times this week.

And because I am a nerd, who really loves me and wants this to improve, I'm going to make a checklist for compliance. Bye!

I took a vacation day last Friday, then was working on the move all day Saturday and Sunday.

"All day."

True and not true. Could I have found time to write? yes, I could have. I thought about first thing yesterday but I decided to swim - instead - as I had designated a small portion of my day for personal time and for self-care.

I blame codependency once again.

(That meme I started a few days ago for myself, really has some legs on it! More like tentacles. More like a voracious entangled root system that grow without sustenance. It has access to some sort of ancient dehydrated grains that exist only in the ether but nonetheless that still exist.

They keep feeding the beast of codependency in me and I keep playing a child's version of whackamole.

Time to up my game. Bring in the big guns! The adult consciousness. The soul consciousness.

Starting list:

Notice when I think people are being too selfish. Deconstruct it for the energy, and don't worry about well or weakly they parsed the words. What's the underlying sentiment? Examine that.

Practice being selfish. Use your usual method for acquiring a new habit: start with small things, random things, things that you actually don't care that much about but that energetically are carrying on the codependency heritage. Because, that, you really do care about.

Announce yourself. It's where you like to be on the kindness spectrum.

Maybe turn it into an art project. Make a t-shirt with a message. Let's try some out here:

"Recovering Codependent. Please keep your distance."

"On a Codependent Cleanse - expect unexpected responses!"

"Current Mood: Codependent No More!"

"Codependency is an invisible and silent killer."

"Interdependence > Independence > Codependence. For Me, For Now."

"Stand back! I'm a Recovering Codependent!"

"Codependency may seem nice and cute but it's not. More liking cunning and vicious, if left to its own devices."

"My bark is worse than my bite - says Codependency in a rare moment of truth-telling." #WordsHavePower

"When I'm in the codependence zone, my silence to you may be screaming in me."

"Two Codependents walk into a bar full of pain and confusion. They leave full of drinks and self-righteousness. No, you didn't miss the joke. It's not funny. It's sad."

"I'm codependent, you're codependent, everyone's codependent. So why the hell aren't we happy, being busy trying to make others happy?"

"Codependency: making yourself miserable while trying make others happy."

Thank you! The muse did her thing right here. Yes, I'll start with a thread on Twitter. Then I'll turn this into an art project. I can see a room full of canvases in my mind already and some sort of participation so people can let go of their own codependencies, if they want. Maybe use a digital screen and submission form. 100% anonymous of course with the answers randomized.

And now I am actually feeling happy! I love these ideas. I love how this page of insight came from a morning of misery and mourning. I love the Universe and love knowing that it is 100% for me, 0% against me.

I also think I'm might get a tattoo of one of my doodles. I am changing my attitude on tattoos. I used to be quite curious and interested. Then I got very turned off with the exuberance and abundance of them all around me - where I live is part of the deal. And then there was the challenge of what to tattoo and where?

I am loving my doodles SO MUCH. And now I imagine them as skin art. And I have no issue putting one on my back or my belly - all the pain notwithstanding.

Anyways, no decision made, just entertaining thoughts. (I used entertaining as a verb and a pronoun. Clever, Rox!)

I want to complete the 100 doodles project first. And then I can decide if one of them wants to be on me for the rest of my life. Oooh. So final!

I feel about done here today. But I'm at 685 words and I don't get the green x of satisfaction and completion unless I push to 750.

Am I indulging my codependence (wanting to get praise and acknowledgement from outside myself???) or am I committing to a goal I set for myself? It can easily be seen both ways.

In situations like this, I am going to make a call and claim it as coming from conscious me.

How fast can I write? I have a 20-minute window of opportunity. If only my typing were not so crappy. Oh well.

On the surface, another shitty day. The president calling the press the enemy of the people. So far, 5 journalists are shot dead at their workplace. It's wet and raining. I can't find my swim fins for the trip I'm taking today to another island. My pits are sweating and yet my feet are damp cold. Even my body is miserable and confused.

Yes, I see the absurdity of discussing fucking murder in the same paragraph as my cold feet. And yet, this is where I am right now. I feel powerless to stop the crazies with guns. I don't pray per se but goddammit I am banking a lot of my hope reserves on Robert Mueller.

It's really useful to see the final days of GOP hypocrisy. I am one of those pollyanna who always give people the benefit of the doubt waaaay past the time they might deserve it.

This includes my partner.

That could be comedy, in the right tone of voice.

But sadly, it just ads to the puddle of self-pity and malcontent in which I am sitting at this current moment.

I think it's acceptable to be this irrational. Murder and cold feet irrational. Life is not this fucking orderly place solidly built on an objective foundation of good and bad, right and wrong.

That is merely a framework, a construct, that a lot of people buy into, over and over again.

In fact, everything here is subjective and personal and subject to one's history and experience. You have receptors open to receiving murder calls or you don't. You are wired for some sort of sense of fairness, or largely not Of course, this can and does change on a case by case basis.

Things can get pretty binary if you zoom into tight enough, and allow each moment of time to have its own vote.

It's when we zoom out and out and out and cling to the pretend security of binary thinking.

Safety is an inside job. It's enhanced by paying attention. It's enhanced even more, ten times more, by being really radical about not holding anyone else responsible for your situation. The amount of compromise and ignoring and codepending is huge. We don't let it weigh in, often enough, in my opinion. We blame blame blame others as a way to not feel my own existential confusion and pain.

In the moment, I make a decision, based on the available information.

Later, from a different vantage point, being in a different mood, or whatever, it can look like a bad tradeoff or a brilliant choice. There's no way around it. Things are not fixed in time, they actually change over time. Something that feels so ungodly awful can and often does create silver linings.

NONE OF THIS FUCKING MATTERS. I write it, I believe it, even if I don't especially feel it. That's OK, too. This is Mind over Matter, time, mother fuckers!

You can tell how I am outta fucks to give today. I rarely swear in public. I am happy to swear in private. Life goes on. Fuck the fucking mother fuckers who like torturing others.

I can't even get that sentence typed, though, and I realize each of us can be a torturer in different ways. Very easily in emotional and intellectual ways, if not the physical ways. Easier still if the definition of the word is expanded and not taken so literally specific in the way it was done at Abu Ghraib.

I know, it's not as if there isn't enough self-loathing in the world then you (meaning, me) go and write all this downer shit.

Well, at least I don't think you have to change anything because I don't buy the earn or learn your way back to god nonsense.

You are the divine, I am the divine, all the murderers and the republicans are the divine too. Innate rights. Across the board, even if they don't want to honor them in courts of law.

I will honor them. And I will raise them one, all Westworld-ish, and say each human here can do as she pleases and manage the consequences. The rules of these games have been changing right before our eyes for decades. It had to get this "bad" before many awards it, or felt it, or wanted to do something about changing it.

Or not. Because none of this matters, way out at the end of the day when everyone is dead. Back to the dream.

OK, daily habits are hard for me right now.

Once again, I blame codependency. (See writing from a few days ago.) Left to myself and to my "own devices" I think I would write and doodle everyday. But I live with someone. And I have clients. And the politics are really disturbing to me right now. And we are selling our house - with a lot of stuff to dispose of. And we are buying a different house in another state.

So yes, there is stress.

This is when you know how strong you are. And how resilient your relationships are.

LOL, or aren't.

THIS MUST BE PERFECT OTHERWISE IT WOULDN'T BE HAPPENING.

I acquired that mantra about 4 years ago and it's a powerful, winning idea. For me. It reminds me that none of this matters, in the long run, in the big picture.

I RELEASE ALL OF MY EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENTS TO...

That's another one I love. Keep unplugging, letting go, assuming everything is fluid and not fixed.  Try not to get upset at things as they will be changing any moment.

It's hard to write right now. I have this kind of energy that is seemingly in two states at once. I am outwardly calm. Inwardly calm too. You are reading my thoughts - I'm not ranting, I'm not raving like a lot of people are today. I'm fine with that. It's how things move along. But for me, I prefer calm, laser focus, only do what's essential, not get caught up in a bunch of back and forth that have the same ideas, the same words, that have been said over an over.

My heart rate is 63 right now.

They're not bad words - that's not what I'm saying. They are just obvious words in many cases. And many unwindable situations.

I am about stillness until there is a clear call to action.

Still, there is a sort of vague buzz energy in the background. It's a mild pressure to get things done, check things off lists, keep thinking about what I'm forgetting. I think it is kid energy, that thing the buddhists call the monkey mind. The worrier. The one who feels little to no power so attempts to create the illusion of power but existing in a state of "DO SOMETHING!" Or, "so something, goddammit! This is all awful. I don't like it. It's really uncomfortable so please, can't you change something, change anything, so I can stop worrying so much?"

So yeah. Laser focus. Be still until there is a clear call to action. Yes, this will irritate some people. That's OK, haha, unless I want to scramble around and then regret it and have to once again blame codependency!

I'm looking at a piece of artwork a little girl made for me a few years ago. She drew a rather complex heart filled with rows of cloud patterns in a rainbow of colors. The words say:

    This is my futer. What is your's?     The world is awsm     you are awsm.     Everything is awsm.

Then a drawing of the earth in blue and green or ocean and land.

How awsm is that?!? I love it. It makes me feel good.

LOL, the children are our future.

The pressure has dissipated quite a bit. It was so vague, so abstract, so easy for the monkey to pretend it wasn't really there. When it was. She is good at hiding. I am good at spotting her. It is a continuous game of hide and seek. She wants to control me and tell me what to do and at the same time she wants to be invisible and pretend that her ideas are mine, somehow.

Nope!

I am not opposed to listening now and then, but I don't want her making any decisions. I would be willing to listen more I imagine if she identified herself accurately instead of masquerading as me. She is who I was, not who I am. We are related, we share a history. We have very different goals. We share many dreams and wishes. Yeah, it's a lot to keep track of!

I'm up to it. I'm a lover of consciousness. That's my main interest in this lifetime. I believe I've had many before, I tend to assume I'll have more later.

For now, serve me up as much self-awareness and self-acceptance as I can take. Load me up! I got nothing to prove. Just lots to play.

This must be perfect otherwise it wouldn't be happening.

I saw a comment on Twitter the other day - something to the extent of "if I am online, I am outraged by all the insanity. But if I stay offline, is my silence contributing to it?"

I can relate.

I am a bit pissy right now just from 5 minutes of Twitter. I do not want to regurgitate all that has already been said. I seek original thinking and more so, I seek Transitional thinking.

Thinking that starts with, This is all a game.

A part of my brain thinks - don't go online. Stay away from the news. You can be safe without it. You are definitely happier without it. You can have a say in creating your own reality and you don't have to be up to date on the latest slurs, insults, policy hijacks, etc.

When and if things turn the tide, you will know about it.

It is OK that millions of people are consumed by this and are following it closely. You are not a slacker, Roxanne, if you want to make art outside of it. If you want to do things in your life that serve you first. That is one of the responsibilities of each human - to take care of yourself first.

All of this guilt you are feeling is coming from the sirens of the Hierarchy. They want you to feel scared, to feel weak, to feel lost, to feel powerless.

But you know, you aren't powerless.

It's all about the energy. You can change your world and even other worlds by your own intentions, your own actions. Even your non-actions. Withdrawing your attention is one of the most powerful things you can do. You are feeling more clearly where the line is between:

This is wild! I want to watch and see what's happening! I want to support those efforts I believe in!

versus

OMG it's a shit show day in and day out and I feel angry when I read about it. I feel sad. I feel powerless. I feel guilty.

Those latter things are not very useful, FOR YOU, Roxanne. You are more of a lover than a fighter. Self-awareness. Self-knowledge. Self-understanding. Self-acceptance. Those are the tools in your box - use them and use them some more.

This is a holographic ecosystem in which you live. You can be a voice for calm, for cheer, for optimism, for insight - and first you must talk to yourself in these ways.

Your self-care - put it front and center, reactivate it every hour.

Some people love arguing. Some people love uncovering. Some people love fabricating stories.

Who are you? What do you want, Roxanne?

How willing are you to let this be real?

Is the universe 100% for you or do you think it is less? These times, these times when things are maddening and confusing and upsetting, this is when you get to face that belief front and center.

-----

Yes, this is my Transition. Thank you for the reminders. I dint it funny and ironic that most of my life I was an outsider, pretending to be an insider. I am still wanting to fit it, after all this time rebelling. Such a classic conflict of discrepancies.

I don't need to fit it. Just because I am interested in people and their stuff from time to time does not mean I have to bend myself into twisted painful shapes to have them like me.

Imagine if I didn't worry if anyone liked me? Including my partner? God knows how much of my life I have used up trying to make him happy, conforming to his neuroses to create the illusion of calm and connectedness in my life.

Yes, it's a tough time right now to be facing all this. But of course, I am facing it because it is a tough time. Yeah, like that popular quotes, tough times show you who you are. At least, who you are in the tough times. I want to draw on the person I am, in the not so tough times. And bring her over to these tough times now.

Keep on digging for what will make me happy. How to support myself. How to create an environment that supports me and my desires, my process. That is my job. I like that job, too. I am prepared to work hard at it or slack at it, as the situation calls.

"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." G. K. Chesterton

Don't get stressed or stopped by perfection. Take whatever messy 'yeses' come your way, Rox.