Being my own audience
Over the past day or so, I’ve gotten back to clarity about my focus for writing the Shift Diaries. I remembered that I wanted them to be a way to collect Shift-related information that interests me and helps me be clear and feel good – FOR ME. I wanted to put out there all the helpful hints, tips, tricks, and methods I want to remember to use, and my thoughts about what works and doesn’t work when I’m trying to apply information about this Shifty way of living – FOR ME. I wanted it all to be FOR ME — what I like, what I think is fun, what I find interesting and useful. I assumed that others would like that, too, but I so quickly fell into, “There’s an audience, so you can’t do this in the loose, spontaneous, jumping all over the place style that you use to talk with Anne in your e-mails.”
So, I’m going to play with the Shift Diaries this weekend and see how I do now that I’m refocused on my original intent for this expression. I’m ready to have fun with it, which means I need to stay alert for those automatic responses that say, “Make this writing perfect or BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN.” And I need to remember that this moment of clarity about my intention for doing the Shift Diaries is a choice I stay clear about in each moment, not something that now opens the way to have fun with this once and for all.
Anne K. told me she has an upcoming Elias session, and I noticed I felt mildly envious. But this led to noticing that I’ve chosen to make Elias sessions off limits (such amusements have not been in my budget for a couple of years now) “purposefully,” as Elias would say, since I prefer the “I did it all by myself” approach to almost everything I do.
When I do things myself, I get really clear about how things work, and that is my intent. The “do it yourself” approach to the Shift material, as much of a struggle as it’s been, has led to genuine, experiential understanding of so many concepts that I was formerly sure I understood. Of course, I’ve had many moments when I would have preferred access to a more direct helping hand, so to speak, but I’ve even come to understand that this desired sense of being helped is also up to me to generate and allow. As usual, it seems to be a matter of trusting and assuming that I’m always being helped, and acknowledging and appreciating that, instead of getting fixated on some victimy sense that I’m struggling all alone. When I stop my mental shrieking, “Help me! Help me! Please, help me!” and simply turn my attention to, “I’m always being helped. I simply need to recognize that,” I immediately relax, and that is always helpful,
If I had an Elias session at this point, I’d probably be focused like a little kid on getting validation for how much I’ve accomplished in the “movement and widening” areas over the past three years, “Have I moved a whole lot, Elias? Huh? Huh? Have I? Am I much wider? Am I? Huh? Have I done good? Huh? Have I? Am I doing much better at noticing and recognizing and all that stuff? Huh?”
Of course, Elias reminds us how important it is that we validate and acknowledge ourselves, so I’ll do some “do it yourself” validating and pat myself on the head and say, “You are SO MUCH WIDER! You’re doing so much better!”
Speaking of doing things myself and not concerning myself with an audience, I just recognized another area where that theme is playing out in my life in imagery is associated with my cats.
My favorite cat, Skyler, the one that died in 2002, was a symbol of the death of me, as the self that I had known myself to be sickened and died during that time of trouble and trauma. (As I wrote that, I saw a spot of blue – perhaps a little validating communication from Elias.)
Skyler’s death represented the death of the me I was familiar with and my old familiar way of being – not that it was “bad,” but I counted on that way of being to make my way in the world, and my desire to move into new ways seemed to require leaving the old me behind.
Skyler represented the best aspects of me. I could tell who would like my natural exuberant energy by who liked Skyler. Tellingly, my mother did not like him, just as she’s not comfortable around me when I’m “full of myself.” I’m not singled out in this regard. My mother reflects traditional Calvinist beliefs toward anyone feeling self-assured — those old time religious beliefs that feeling good about yourself is prideful, and pride goeth before a fall.
Skyler was bold and out there, intense, warm, and open. When the doorbell rang, he went to the door expectantly, because he truly enjoyed new people and he just knew they were going to like him. Skyler felt great about himself and he had no doubt others would feel great about him, too. I lost that sense of myself, along with my sweet boy, during this transition. And, like everything else I loved that I stripped away during that time, Skyler’s death, along with the death of my own self-confidence, seemed necessary to motivate this intense exploration and inspire my difficult journey to a new way of being.
Kirby, one of the cats I got to “replace” Skyler, does not seem to be as obviously “special” as Skyler was, but he is marked with an unusual diamond on one shoulder. That led to his whole name being Kirby Norbu, which is a joke related to a woman I knew in Sonoma who named her dog, “Bijoux, that means jewel in French.” I swear she said it that exact way every time, so the dog’s name sounded like Bijoux-that-means-jewel-in-French. So, I named Kirby “Kirby Norbu-that-means-jewel-in-Tibetan,” partly as a joke only my friend Pam and I would appreciate, but partly to acknowledge that this diamond marks him as special.
While Skyler was out there and comfortable with an audience of strangers (like I am – like I was), Kirby is shy around strangers, which means his special charms and sweetness and cuteness are only revealed to me. Just as I’m the only audience for Kirby’s uniquely special qualities, I see that I now must be my own, and often only, audience, acknowledging and appreciating my special qualities, and recognizing and validating my own sense of accomplishment. This transition has turned me from looking outside myself for validation and acknowledgement, as I did for so long, to looking for it where it’s been hidden all this time, inside me.