Some words have emerged repeatedly lately in different settings and with different people, but the words include seeds, harvest, planting, germination.  “You have planted your seeds, now let them grow.” I also read a chapter from Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way, which I haven’t held in my hand for years, but resurrected because I asked to join a study group.  The theme of the chapter is about recovering a sense of autonomy and it sums up so much about my life lessons recently.

I had the unique experience and privilege of an Akashic records reading last month and I wrote down as much of the reading as I could.  My questions, as they have been so often in my life, included “Am I where I am supposed to be right now? Am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing?”  Those questions felt unanswered for so long, that I stopped asking for some time. I began moving ahead jaggedly and backward and ahead, not really asking for help, and not getting as skilled as one might, for lack of wanting to ask for help.  Because we make ourselves better when we ask for help. When we are in community with trusted others. Because asking for help demands courage and vulnerability, which I couldn’t afford to muster.

I chose opportunities to hone what came natural to me, and I think I’m fortunate that what comes natural is kindness, listening, supporting.  While I haven’t been willing to reflect that back into my own eyes very often, if at all, I have to believe that at least faking it, projecting goodness–if that is what it was–even if it isn’t coming from a place of self-love, at least offers some redemption when the realization comes:  Self Love Is The Heart. We can’t authentically share whole-hearted loving goodness with others until we hold and nurture it in our own hearts first.

The questions came up again.  The answers: I am there for a reason.  I am the right person for the job.  Strong, sturdy, capable. Trust that it is right.  More Soil to till. More Seeds to plant and crops to tend.  Until the work is finished. No matter how I approach this job, it is supposed to be. Trust my training and experience.  I am good at what I do. Growth and change, hang your hat on that. Those who put me there know I have the capacity for growth and I am up for it. Approach with a sense of knowing I have what it takes. Consult myself a bit more.

I have taken the stance of novice throughout my life, with the thought that others know better than I do.  Self-doubt, hesitation and ambivalence have been my travel companions, but that gorgeous brown haired little girl inside has been persistent and nudged me along with her delicate hands.  She whispered invitations to come play, so I took art classes, sometimes she made forts with the sheets in my bed when I couldn’t budge at the end of a week. She has been skilled at playing hide and seek, and I have been a frequently unwilling playmate, leaving her behind to wait.  

New territory–this is to be expected.  It is to my benefit to put myself in that person’s shoes to see what they need at that time to help build a bridge.  Shock someone out of their way of perceiving the world with compassionate statements and a sense of shared experience.  Engagement. There are new ideas I haven’t tapped into yet. More I can do in its infancy and early stages. More changes that are less drastic, but more research.  Tending.

I frequently pause when people ask me if I like my new job.  I pause, tongue tied every time and it isn’t that I dislike it.  I feel really alive. I started out with great hesitation, not accepting my worthiness to be a leader, but as I have allowed self-doubt and ambivalence to fall away like tired leaves from a branch, new growth has unfurled toward the sun.  A lot of new growth, and some sturdy foliage there too, if I am to continue with this metaphor.

I shared with a learning circle today, my seemingly disconnected parts–mosaic art, clinical training, family systems training, yoga teacher training (that actually doesn’t look so bad as it felt written in words!) but as I said it aloud my spidery inner critic began grumbling about what a scatter-brain I am.  Without the improved force-field of self-care that I have been engaging in this Fall, yoga, meditation, choices to nurture myself, that spiny critic may have sent me back inside yet again.

Fear not, however because my reading also told me this: This requires creativity–rather than segmenting art and work, include it and apply it into your leadership role.  Opportunity to bring creativity into your workplace. Your approach–a blend of linear and creative. It may not be art specifically, but creativity. Apply the creative mind and processes to the work I’m doing.

To my little brown haired inner girl, I’ll jump in the leaves with you this year! In retreat yesterday, Sarah Avant Stover led us in a prayer and this I said for you, especially, “May you be filled with joy.  May you be happy and loved. May you be safe.”

An important memory from my twenties is having seen a Ginkgo tree for the first time, anchored in my memory by a defining experience of independence and capable adulting.  The Ginkgo leaf has been a symbol of capacity and openness. It is now an image that my children also hold special, because they have seen and heard me point out Ginkgo trees wherever we go. It seems fitting to reflect back to that beginning of adulthood and know that I had a sense of being rooted in some self-love even then.  

The trees are shedding their leaves now.  Gorgeous hues of gold, auburn and green drift and float to blanket the ground, preparing to serve in a new role of fuel and rebirth beyond the dormancy of winter.  The Ginkgo trees are now gold and they shed their leaves too. I’m letting go of some stuff. I feel lighter, more capable. Growth and change. Hang your hat on that.

A recent disagreement with my daughter helped me to notice this part of me in a more honest way.  She wanted to go to the beach with her girlfriend after practice finished at school.  That meant it would be after dark.  I was uncomfortable with it, as I know the beach closes before dark and usually the only thing going on at the beach after hours is a healthy dose of nothing good.  I couldn’t give her an explanation she could accept for my “no” answer;”  I could only say I wasn’t comfortable with the whole situation.  She was angry and the silent treatment ensued.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust my 15-year-old daughter, although I know that seems naive.  I really wasn’t that worried about what would be happening on the beach either.  I was worried about breaking the rules.

In a later discussion about this, my daughter told me, “I know you want to be that hippie-happy-go-lucky mom that questions society and makes controversial choices with her head held high, but deep down, you just can’t do it.”  So prescient and wise, that girl is.

Little Miss Perfect has been a major protector of me throughout my lifetime.  Critical thinking did not come naturally for me, and furthermore, challenging authority was risky business for this highly sensitive person.  Coping with an unpredictable emotional parent, I honed the skill of making safe choices, whenever I was alert to them.  I was hyper-vigilant about following the rules, resulting in my dad calling me “a model child.”

This also extended to “being perfect” at school, getting good grades, making sure my teachers loved me.  I stayed out of gossip, didn’t pass notes in class, turned in my homework and extra credit when the opportunity presented itself.  I was that kid, “miss goodie goodie.”  I prescribed to paternalism without ever considering a downside.  Self righteousness defended any alienation that I experienced and my mom taught me to “kill ‘em with kindness,” so few of my peers were ever annoyed with me for too long because at least I was nice to them.

To the credit of some other more authentic part of me, I was attracted to kids who had the twinkle of “fuck it” in their eyes.  I was too afraid to go along with them most of the time, but I listened to what they had to say with curiosity, wondered about what gave them the courage to face the consequences of their defiance.   Admired their bravery.  Even if I wasn’t following their lead necessarily, I was taking notes, tucking away their wisdom–because they were so smart in their anti-social way– in a place I could refer back to sometime.

Differentiation happened a little more slowly for me than it does for many.  I came to understand my own identity, my privilege, appreciate the injustices suffered by so many of my brothers and sisters. I understand that my play-it-safe-condition can even contribute to and perpetuate injustice. It means that fear still motivates the suppression of indignation and outrage, speaking out and acting out in ways that would be risky–even if it is the right thing to do.

Bear with me in this thought, as it isn’t grounded necessarily in a studied discipline, but I think pain and trauma manifests behavior as if on two sides of a coin.  On one side self-preservation is motivated by fear, cringing and playing it safe (Little Miss Perfect); the other side is motivated by defiance, radical questioning and brazen disregard for the pain and alienation that may ensue (Betty Friedan, Dian Fossey, Rosa Parks, Georgia O’Keefe, insert other brave ones here.)  Both sides of the coin suffer, spinning and turning in the confusion.  It can be hard to see straight with all of that spinning, but there are moments of clarity, for some anyway.  Duality is so interesting.

I know Miss Perfect has had the best of intentions.  She also has a lot of power.  She has been a guiding force for a really long time, but I know I don’t need her anymore.  She doesn’t step aside easily as she is self-righteous as hell. There is even a way in which she influences my efforts to be an advocate for social and racial justice–my thinking becomes wrapped up in how I can be the “perfect” advocate.  Dialogue that involves speaking up becomes a dance of “one-up” instead and I trip over my own indignant judgement.

So, I’m working on it.  While becoming a parent wasn’t done with a great deal of critical thinking or intention on my part, I have to say the privilege of raising children has really helped raise me.  I’ve made all kinds of mistakes and I often wonder who is getting more out of all of this, me or them?  I have enjoyed the Mom-part of me, the one who loves, cares, grins and giggles, smells the wonder of freshly washed baby hair and skin, holds, caresses and tucks the sheets in at bed time.  She is also completely insane, but those are some of her good points.  

Last year I started taking a facilitator training for the Open Studio Process (we like to call it OSP) through the Open Studio Project, a non-profit arts organization in Evanston.  The idea of the work there is that 1. Anyone can create art, 2. The process of creating art can be cathartic and information giving and 3. It isn’t about the final product—it is all about the process.  I’ll be sharing more about this in future posts in case it interests you.

A motivator for me in starting a blogging effort is to build a sense of discipline into a practice of creative process.  That’s a mouthful.  There is this part of me that likes to sabotage my goals and dreams that starts like this, “I wish I was more like her, or I wish I could do “X” on a more regular basis.”  My little Sabine the Saboteur allows me not to take responsibility for my inaction and ambivalence when my wishes don’t come true.  She says to me, “you’re just so busy,” or “you’re so tired, and wouldn’t another 30 minutes of sleep be so much nicer than anything else?”  She is a two-faced, manipulative, controlling little be-atch because she wispers these soft little nothings to me, soothes and comforts, but ultimately gets her way, which is to keep things exactly the way they are.  I don’t change.  Sabine likes homeostasis—she doesn’t really like Penelope either, because even though she isn’t the most intimidating force, she’s younger and more peppy than Sabine.

So, I have this thought that if I’m writing to you out there in the blogosphere, my process efforts won’t feel as much like a practice to her.  It will feel responsive, I’m writing a letter to good people—it suits that service Part of me—which is a different story to explore someday.  I will write more about what I mean when I reference parts too–I’ll tell you all about it.  I hope to include bits of art that I make in my process along the way too and I might even figure out how to create a page with a little gallery.  Below is a little diddle that I dreamed up last night after this book came in the mail!  Newest fad for Sabine to sooth away, or is it?

Lesson #1 (sort of, as usual with me I did my own interpretation of the lesson) from the Book, “One Zentangle A Day,” by Beckah Krahula.