Eat Fruit, Be Happy!

I know it's been a ridiculously long time since I posted on this blog - ridiculous and outrageous things have been happening. It's been wonderful, actually, but is calling for a change - a change in identity, a change in blogging, a change for the better, a change for the best.

The purpose of this post today is to let my blog followers know that as of midnight on July 1, 2009, this blog will be no more. I will export and archive the posts (in case there were any so thrilling that you want to see them again!) and delete the blog! This is an exciting step for me, because the other purpose of this post is to direct you to my new blog:

http://eatfruitbehappy.blogspot.com/

I'm very excited about this and all of my new endeavors, and I hope to see you there!!

With love,

rebeccaj

Another Energy Healing

I had another session with my energy healer today. It was blow-your-socks-off intense. He kept apologizing afterwards, saying he may have gone too far, but since I was doing such a good job of it, why not keep going? Fine by me, that's how I go too.

So after my session, I was wiped out but exhilarated, and now it's almost 1am and I can't sleep. I'm so full of ideas and inspirations. Trying to figure out what I want, and I think I caught a glimpse of it.

A few years ago, I worked for a summer as a raw food chef at a fairly famous raw food retreat. It was an amazing experience, not the least for the fact that I was able to learn a lot about being in a retreat environment. I loved a lot about it, and I had a lot of things that I personally needed to do differently. Since it wasn't my retreat, nothing I could do about those things I needed done differently, so I left.

Tossing and turning tonight, I saw it: my retreat. That's what I want for myself, why not make it for others? A retreat that would combine everything I love: raw food (80-10-10 style, mind you!), yoga, art, music, creativity, meditation, the outdoors, small groups of people gathered for a purpose, camping, hiking, advising, intuitive learning, spiritual growth. The whole bit. All I need for it is a small piece of land! I've wanted this for years. And years. I've glimpsed it in many different configurations, but this is it. Now is the time, and this is the place. It's not just possible. Something might just be being born...

Working at Play

Today's entry may veer into ranting territory, and if it does, I apologize in advance. I'm trying to avoid ranting and trying to stay on the clean edge of my experience, but I am working through something difficult, and I need some help. I welcome and invite comments and insights.

I have a great friend who is a social butterfly. An Intergalactic Pixie, if you will. She is one of the most delightful people I've ever met, and she moves through the world encountering only friends. She knows how to have fun, and relishes doing it. No crowd is too loud, no party too hearty - she flutters in, sprinkles some pixie dust, and flutters out, usually with a few business cards in her pocket of the people she's just met. I'm very blessed to have this friend, and especially blessed that she invites me to join her. I WANT TO!!!

And I don't want to. I am so torn, to the point of rent in two, when it comes to the big, bad dilemma of "Going Out." I have a laundry list of reasons why I can't go out. I actually have a list of 40+ different things that I believe I "need" in order to be able to go out. The list ranges from "I need to eat 'normal' food" all the way to "I need to have the right clothes and accessories" and "I need to know the right places to go." I believe everything from "I need to be invited" all the way to "I need to go out by myself." The ideas are conflicting and contradictory, and while I know, intellectually, that none of them are empirically true, I believe that every single one of them is intrinsically true to my experience.

I'm not agoraphobic, although since losing my job I have spent a great deal of time looking at the world through the viewpoint of my bed, via my computer screen. When I leave the house, my favorite things to do are to go on long walks in the park, to meet friends for lunch, to meet friends for juice, to go to Whole Foods or a coffeehouse (and work on my computer or write in my journal), or to meet up with small groups of friends along with my BF. I love to go out in nature with my BF - we love to go hiking and riding his motorcycle or on a car trip; in the summer we go to the pool. We're very much daytime-hours people. Most of my going out happens during the day.

But I LOVE getting dressed up and going out. I love it. I love going dancing, I just hate crowds and I hate paying a cover and I hate the club scene. I just want to dance to good music. I love seeing live music, if it's good, and not too loud, and not boring cock-rock. I love doing things that are completely absurd, like dressing up in costume for no reason and being in character. It's easier for me to go out in character. But I also love doing hippie things like dancing around a fire. I love going camping. And I love art and theater and all that good stuff.

But when it comes to going out these days, when the call (or text or email invite comes through) I freeze. I absolutely freeze. So much on top of it, the innocent invitation turns into a horrific task, and then what if I don't have a good time on top of it? I can stay home and read and write and learn and have so much fun, even if I'm not interacting with people. But I need people.

Do you see the dilemma? Do you see how it has me torn? I'm such a workaholic - I'm the most workaholic unemployed person you've ever met. Even now, when I'm supposed to be taking a sabbatical to regain my creativity, I have fallen into a workaholic trap of trying to get someone else's project off the ground and feeling like I have to push-push-push to get my own projects off the ground. I haven't done any creative exploration, nor have I done any social interaction (ok, I've done a tiny bit. A teeny-tiny bit.) - I've been working. Because I don't know how to play.

It's exhausting. I want to be an Intergalactic Pixie, too.

More Work

Moving through life through the filter of The Work can cause some pretty incredible awakenings. One of the things Katie says is, whenever you lose something, you can be sure that "you've been spared." Oh, how I love that!!! I can look back at my old life, and rather than feeling this huge hit of a loss, instead I feel this huge joy and love, and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I have been SPARED. All of the things in my old life that were causing me distress and unhappiness - I have been spared. Not that I will never have unhappiness and distress in my life again, but I won't have those. I don't need to deal with those things now. How do I know? Because I've been spared.

I've got other things to do! It's incredible. I'm the most workaholic unemployed person you'll ever meet. I've been working so much. Non-stop. I love it. I'm having so much fun.

I've been noticing an amazing thing in my life lately. I used to never smile. I used to be quite an angry driver. The littlest things would set me off. I was easily angered, although I wasn't "angry." And now, I move through the world with a smile on my face. I can't help it. I go out of my way to make eye contact and smile at people I normally may have avoided. I love smiling at homeless people, at laborers, at random people as I move around the world. It's really exciting to smile at people, and the best thing is when they smile back. It's so cool. And it's not like I'm even TRYING to smile. I just am. I'm just happy. All the time. I might get annoyed for half a second while I'm trying to get online and my wifi is slow, but then I laugh and smile at myself and enjoy the joke - it's so funny that something like slow wifi could ever be a problem.

And then, right on cue, a friend sent me a text - in the middle of this perfect day, a package of goodies arrived at home! Wow! So many choices of amazing blessings, which one to do next? I love it. We've always got so much more than we ever need.

Doing What's Next...

"Doing what's next, without a mental argument, is devotion to God."

WOW.

I love Byron Katie, I love The Work, and I love "A Thousand Names for Joy," the book she wrote with Stephen Mitchell, her husband. It's so powerful, all this stuff, and the more you follow it, the more incredible it gets. So to get to THAT point, to just do what's next, without a mental argument - that's being present. That's being awake. She describes it as "doing the dishes." If the thought arises to do the dishes, you follow the thought. Or you don't. But you don't need to ARGUE with it.

For example, I read that quote, and immediately knew that I wanted to write about it. The thought came up "put that in your blog!" and I thought, "I should do that now." But I noticed instead that I wasn't. What I did was to finish the chapter, and then I easily put the book down and then I wrote about it. Had I kept going back to the "I should do that now" thought while I was reading the rest of the chapter would have kept me from my purpose: to read the chapter. I can have all kinds of ideas about what's next, but until I am doing it, I have no idea what will happen next, and if I argue and debate over what to do next, then I lose.

This has been the theme of my weekend, and I am so glad - AMAZED! even - that here at the end of the weekend I have been handed this gorgeous quote to give me some completion to the lesson.

It's been a big, crazy party-party weekend here in my city. A huge music and film festival has been upon us for the past week, and it's kind of expected that you will go to the free events of the festival and, you know, participate! BF and I had plans to read up on it, make a plan, and get out and go out (we don't go out much; we like to go to bed early and be out during the day), and then suddenly he had to leave town. Defiantly, I boasted to him that I was going to "go out and have fun without you! ha-HA!" But when the time came to go out and have "fun," I had other things I really preferred to be doing, circumstances that made "fun" seem a little not-so-fun. My new, overwhelming exercise routine exhausted me and made walking for hours and standing for hours a little less than preferable. My inspiration to work on my own projects made leaving the house for other purposes seem like a distraction. Essentially, Reality was handing me a nice, normal, quiet weekend at home, while Expectation was taking me out on the town 24-7.

I argued mentally with Reality the whole time. "I should go out." "Everyone is expecting me to go out." "If I don't go out, I'm just a big, dumb loser who doesn't know how to have fun and I totally suck." "I don't have any friends." "I'm lame." Etc. And as Katie says, "when I argue with Reality, I lose. But only all the time." And I kept that argument up! I spent 2 1/2 days arguing with my reality, justifying my reality, making excuses for what I was doing and not doing, and in a lot of ways, I completely missed out on the miracles and amazing experiences that were happening in my life, in my Reality. Reality doesn't change when we argue with it; Reality only changes when it changes.

For example, there were outdoor concerts going on. I had the expectation that I would go to these concerts, because I "should!" Excellent bands, free, not very far from my house so I could walk and not have to park the car, show's over early so not even that late a night. Sounds great! My Story: my legs were in no condition to walk the 2 miles each way and to stand for an hour or so during the show. I wanted to have my dinner, at home, during the peak time of the show, 7pm. I hate crowds when I'm by myself. I could hear the show from my open door. So the expectation and the story battled it out, ferociously, while Reality just continued along in the foreground. I walked as far as my legs could take me. Each time, a friend intervened at just the right moment and gave me direction to turn around and go home. I had exactly what I had for dinner at exactly the right moment. I spent my evening listening with delight to the music coming from my young neighbors in town for the festival (they went out very late, so they kept me entertained until they left!) and working on projects that I enjoyed. With the arguments raging, this seemed like an inadequate way to spend my festival weekend. Without the arguments, it's pretty nice.

As I was walking home yesterday evening, a neighbor around the corner smiled and we said hello. "Enjoying the music?" he asked. I waited for the words to form, and I said, "I'm enjoying not enjoying the music!" He laughed and said he knew exactly what I meant, and we passed a few pleasant words about the virtues of staying away from the crowds. He gave me that moment of validation - that it was OK not to be in festival mode - but I didn't need it. Of course it's OK not to be in festival mode! How could it be anything but OK? It's been perfectly wonderful.

I've been to the park, I've ridden my bike, I've chatted with my neighbors and spent time with a good friend. I've done my laundry and washed (most of) my dishes. I've eaten my good food and enjoyed a few treats. I've received more emails than I can count and participated in my online forum. I've exercised and taken long walks. I've stayed up till 1am writing a business plan that felt as much fun as playing with Barbie's fun house and making up worlds of imagination and seeing its reality as clear as if it were directly in front of me today, all the way down to the colors on the walls. I've made some vlogs and gone to the coffeehouse and took a quick trip across town to upload them at Kinko's. I've petted the kitties and turned the compost. I've slept like a queen. And tonight I even went out with a friend and saw some music, which happened to be amazing (Katzenjammer Kabarett, from Norway. love.), so I DID go to the festival after all! Really, what more could a weekend ask for? Reality is so amazing, it always gives us so much more than we realize, but never more than we can handle.

So the trick, I think I'm learning, is to simply stop arguing with Reality. I will sit here writing this blog until I stop, and it is useless to try and predict when that is going to happen or what else I may do, or what I'm going to do afterwards, or what will make me stop. Will I stop because I'm done, or will I have to get up and go to the bathroom? Maybe I'll get a glass of water, or perhaps I'll suddenly have an urge to clip my toenails. Who could have predicted that itch on my head I just scratched? It's amazing. And it's useless to argue with it. I will do exactly what I am doing until I am doing something else.

That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to make plans or to have ideas of things you would like to do or even "need" to do - I need to wash the dishes, but I'm not going to wash them until I do, and harassing and berating myself while I am doing something else may be fun and entertaining, but it is neither getting the dishes done nor is it adding to the other activity I'm doing. Stay with Reality. Have the thought "I need to do the dishes," and then notice when Reality schedules it for you. Reality is so kind - it always gives us what we need when we need it.

I beleive that Experience is kind as well. Katie doesn't talk much about experience, but I think it's in there. Experience is kind in that I know from my Experience that the dishes will get done. I trust that they will get done because they always have gotten done before. It may be right away, it may be later, but it will happen. So I trust Experience to carry me gently through Reality, giving me reference points for everything I see around me, and adding to my Experience database. Yes, Experience is kind. It's kind of like my "Navi-guessor."

Working Through

I've lately been indulging myself in the luxury of watching Byron Katie's Youtube videos. Last night I discovered some new ones, which was a total treat. I love watching the ones I've already seen, watching them over and over. The Work is so huge. I love it.

I started doing The Work last year in an earnest effort to get myself out of a really difficult place. Initially, the difficulty was an infatuation that never came to fruition. At the time, I had been single for 8 long years. I didn't want to be single anymore, and I tended to greet all new men in my life with a hint of desperation and greed, because they "had to be the one!" Each one simply had to, because it just wasn't possible for it to continue the way it was. Doing the work allowed me to see that not only was it possible for things to continue the way they were, but that there was nothing I could do about it. It also helped me see that I absolutely don't need to be in a relationship, that I don't need anybody to be "The One," and that truly I am the only one I've been waiting for. I reached this place and was able to find a comfortable friendship with this man I was infatuated with, and I was able to maintain my truth that I don't need anybody in a relationship. And then I met my current BF.

When we met, I was in this glorious place of knowing I didn't need him. And now, 7 months later, I am still in this glorious place of knowing that I don't need him. He is the most wonderful man, and I am overflowing with gratitude to have him in my life, and I don't need him. It is so much easier to love someone when you don't think you have to need them.

He doesn't stay at my house every night, and in fact he is going back to his hometown tonight for the weekend (he semi-commutes). Yesterday morning, he was here, and I woke up and rolled over and wrapped myself around him and had an ecstasy of prayer of thankfulness that he was here and enjoyed the deliciousness of breathing with him while he still slept. This morning, he was not here, and I woke up and stretched out and had an ecstasy of prayer of thankfulness that I was alone. I could make a list as long as my arm of how wonderful it is to have him here, and a list equally as long about how wonderful it is to have him away. Both are wonderful, neither is better, I am at Neutral. This is how The Work has helped me have the best relationship of my life.

If he were to leave me and end our relationship, I would, of course, be heartbroken. To quote E.M. Forster, "It isn't possible to love and to part. You will wish that it was... You cannot pull it out of you. I know from experience that the poets are right - Love is Eternal." So if he were to decide that our relationship wasn't working for him and end it, I would most likely be in an ecstasy of sadness, and then, like my experience now with my job I have lost, I would know that he was leaving me so that both of our lives could be even better.

In my life, I have lost so much. I have lost jobs, lovers, friends, family, and pets. I've lost possessions. Each loss has been a hit, and before I knew how to be neutral, before I knew how to do The Work, a loss could be devastating. Devastating in the way that Katie would say, "the world will tell you that you are right," in my grief, in my sorrow. When we experience loss, the world wants us to get upset, really upset, and then do one of two things: get revenge, or get over it. But here's what my experience tells me: I cannot lose anything, because I never had anything. The only thing I "have" is that which I am, which is love. So these things I have lost, these people I have lost - they aren't lost because I still love them! And love always comes back. It always comes back. Maybe it comes back in different forms, maybe it comes back in different ways, but love always comes back. I love all of my ex-boyfriends, whether they know it or not. They are still in my heart, and I can visit with them whenever I want to. So could I do with this beloved BF. Each boyfriend in my life is simply bringing my love back to me. This is the gift of The Work.

There's only one place that I have not been able to use The Work to penetrate, and that is dealing with people I clash with at work. I've tried. I've done pages and pages of worksheets. My last line of work brought me into direct conflict with some of the most difficult personality clashes I've ever experienced (far more difficult than any clashes in a corporate environment, which is ironic). The best I was able to get to using The Work is to just see them as OK, not my problem, and yet being in their presence would still cause me stress (and I know that I caused them stress as well; a conflict takes 2 sides, and I engaged). I'm thankful to be out of the "arena," so to speak, but I know that I'm not done with this kind of Work, and I'm going to have to deal with it again. I can do it, intellectually, I think, but I see this as a huge challenge. Some hard Work ahead.

Self-Care

When I lost my job and got started on this new adventure, one thing that my BF kept saying was "you need to learn how to take care of yourself!" I was, and am, very good at taking care of other people. I'm very interested in taking care of other people, taking care of business, etc., and less interested in taking care of myself. Who would notice?

But of course, taking care of myself is the same thing as taking care of others, because we are all the same. That doesn't mean taking care of myself at your expense - taking food or clothing or resources away from someone else so that I can have what I want doesn't thrill me, and that's why I choose to live as simply as I can.

But what I have been learning is this: until you KNOW that you are taken care of, it is very difficult to take care of yourself. At least, for me it is. Until I knew I had my financial support taken care of, it was difficult for me to relax into being able to take care of myself and do what was right for me. Knowing that I have that now, I am able to.

And I think that it goes back to who I was as a child. I was MONSTROUSLY independent. I was so confident that I was taken care of that I had total faith and confidence that I could absolutely take care of myself. I fed myself, I chose (and made) my own clothing, I would walk home from anywhere in town. I was so secure in the knowledge that my life was provided for. But then I got older and suddenly I had to take care of all of those security issues - I had to buy all of my own clothes, any other sort of amenities that I wanted - and I've had a job of some sort since I was 15 years old. Since then, my whole life has been sort of a race to get the money I need in order to survive so I can do the work I want. In college, my parents made a lot of sacrifices and they gave me a credit card that I maxed out - I had that lovely sense of ignorant bliss that you get for those few years of being in your early 20's - but I still worked for my daily needs, and I always felt like I was on the brink. I rode the whole housing bubble and economic expansion with a constant race for support and money. All I've ever wanted was for someone to take care of me so I wouldn't have to work so hard all the time.

And now I have that - for a moment, at least. It's not about traditional values, although I think there is some merit in having one spouse support the other (not that I have a spouse, mind you!). It's more about wanting and needing to feel that support from God. I am the person who has always wanted a grant so that I could do my creative work. And now I kind of have that, and it feels amazing. I feel so blessed. I'm doing my best not to feel like I have to rush out and "do something" with it.