A Little More on Family

Thank you for the comments on my last post.  The word 'family' is ripe for connotation, I'm not using the word to convey psychological identification and warm feelings for others.  My noticing of families has more to do with family of man concept.  We are all connected and we need others for all levels of survival.  Whether I buy in to it or not, if I am showing up in a group with regularity and sharing space, I belong to that family even though I may feel separate from others.  Feelings are beside the point which brings me up to what I was thinking about after I signed off last night.

I can give up the idea of being unique.  My favorite knitting blogger (Yarnagogo) just posted her novel writing strategies, she is working on her sixth.  When I started reading her, the blog was the extent of her writing.  I have delusions that I could write books.  And paint capably.  They are just ideas that I have about myself, things that make me stand out from others and flatter my ego.  They are erroneous ideas that I have about myself.  If Icould be those things, I would be working on them.  But I'm not, that's not the path that I've been given.

So, what's good about today is that I'm not a failed anything, I'm who I am.

11 Months

Tomorrow I will pick up a chip. What I have been thinking about lately is that I'm becoming a member of some families.  There is a gathering on Memorial Day Sunday that I would just as soon miss but I have history with these folks and I think that I must go.  AA meetings do not feel like home to me yet but I go anyway, mostly because I care about what is happening even though I do not particularly feel like I belong.

I have a new work situation and watch my reactions to others, I spend more time with the three that I'm seated than with anyone else in my life.  My church counts me as a member whether I like it or not.  There are expectations and I suppose there must be gifts though it is not always clear to me.

The common denominator is me and my attitude with others who are in the same pocket.  Just as in my birth family, I feel different and judgemental.  But, a step at a time, I see that they are my family and I am bound to them.  As someone I know sometimes says, the frozen wall around my heart is beginning to soften.

That's what's good about today.

Change is Strange

Some of the things that I pray for are to have my anxiety and fear abate and that I not be ruled by my ego.  The weird thing is that as those forces rise up and swirl, I feel more confused than ever and do not know whether I am gravitating towards health or away from it.

An essential truth is that with attention to prayer and meditation, I move closer to God instead of further away.  If I feel disconnected and disoriented in my human activities, it is that change is underway and I need to surrender my will.

If I exercise my will in an effort to control my anxiety I feed into a cycle of escalating reactivity that has it's own centrifugal force.  Today, a day at a time, I can pay attention when I notice myself in a circular pattern of avoiding what is really bothering me.

Comments?