Month: November 2021

Hopes, Dreams, and Expectations

Okay, I confess—I am a little disappointed—a rather uncharacteristic feeling in the face of my usual Pollyanna worldview. Life on my planet is bass-ackwards. I recognize, of course, that my mild disappointment is but a drop in the ocean compared to current world events, but still—it’s my drop, my ocean, my planet. So in the overall scheme of things, my mini-discouragement doesn’t really matter very much, does it? Or does it?

So I ask myself—what is the source of this momentary dismay?

Well, my follow-up appointment on the status of my shattered patella dashed any hope of being sprung from the cumbersome knee mobilizer that I’ve been sleeping with and dragging around behind my walker for the past six weeks. Instead, I was sentenced to another six weeks of same old-same old. Bummer. The good news is that healing is much better than expected, surgery is off the table, and physical therapy can begin next week. Focus on the donut, Julia—not the hole.

Then, the dream of soaring sales of my newly released book, Voices: Who’s in Charge of the Committee in My Head, is—for the moment at least —nothing more than a mere pipe dream, but hope springs eternal. Perhaps reality manifests only when it receives a little help from the dreamer.

At the onset of my first six-week sentence in the Lazygirl, I had high hopes for a miraculous transformation from flawed human persona to heavenly angel with ginormous wings. Apparently, I slept through the first opportunity, so I have been given a second chance. That’s the thing with us humans, I figure. We are given endless second chances and opportunities to move ahead on our way toward miraculous transformation until we figure out how to get it right.

Some of us are simply slow learners. Well, I hope I get it right this time around so that I can be sprung from my knee trap and released back into the wild abandon that lives behind the wheel of my car. Meanwhile, I’ll do my best to do my best. I’ll attend to business, write blogs, dream dreams of healed knees and soaring book sales, and cross stuff off of my list of things to do—all the stuff that I promised myself I’d do during the first six weeks, but didn’t. Man, is that ever a long list.

Well, at least these are the things that I say I will do. But will I? Ah—therein lies the question. Can I be trusted to keep the promises that I make to myself? Have I followed up on my hopes and dreams in the past? If I fail to live up to my own expectations, will I become my own judge and jury, or will I simply become an observer and say, “Huh. Well would you look at that? Maybe there’s a better way to do it in the the next round.”

So again, my inner voice (the noisy one) launches into overdrive with questions that seem to defy answers. Does my disappointment really matter in the overall scheme of things? Do my thoughts and feelings make a difference in the world? Do my hopes, dreams, and expectations have an impact on my life, or on the lives of others? Where is the quiet Voice of Reason that has answers to these mysterious questions when I need It?

Oh, We are here, patiently awaiting your realization that you have wandered away for a spell. We know that you are aware of your wanderings, and that you have allowed distractions to lure you away from your inner being; We know that you feel as if you have disappointed yourself yet again. Your discouragement comes not from outer circumstances, but from within the part of you that yearns to reunite with your True Self. Your salvation will come when you realize that the only way for you to be sprung (to use your word) back into freedom is to reaffirm your commitment to doing those things which you know are in your own best interests, and in the best interests of the world.

In your wanderings, you have temporarily lost sight of your mission and purpose. We encourage you to reignite the flame of expectancy. So dear one, hope your hopes, and dream your dreams, and know that the power and energy of your True Self will fuel their manifestation. Coupled with faith, you cannot fail.  

Know that We love and support you; We stand behind you always; We are ever ready to be the wind beneath your wings as your soar toward the highest and best within yourself. You have as many opportunities as you will ever need to realize your True Self, and we joyfully await your arrival at the ultimate destination of the Soul.

Thank you, dear Friends, for helping me to reconnect with my Self. As I do so, it suddenly occurs to me that my one drop in the ocean does indeed affect the entire ocean. Meanwhile, should I become lost amidst the waves again, I trust that you will come and find me.

If the focus of my mind becomes the reality of my world, then what is it that I wish to manifest? Well for starters, how about an ocean of love?

That sounds like a mighty good place to start, right?

And by the way, I am happy to report that as I come to the end of a newly-written blog, yesterday’s disappointment has morphed into today’s gratitude for second chances. Six more weeks to manifest hopes and dreams. Hallelujah. Ground hog day lives on!

A final note from a reluctant author: self-promotion is the bane of this writer’s existence, but I’m going to do it anyway. After all, how else will hopes and dreams become reality if I’m afraid to give them a little push? So, here goes folks: Please check out my book on Amazon. Voices: Who’s in Charge of the Committee in My Head? For more information, see Something New is on the Way (October 31, 2021). I thank you so much!

 Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Note:  The photo above is courtesy of New Waves of Light, a website designed by anonymous individuals around the world who share the intention of bringing light and love to a world of darkness and chaos. (newwavesoflight.org or NWOL.us)

 

Disorderly Conduct

Today as I wandered around in my disorderly computer files trying to clean out the messes that I have left behind myself over the years, I stumbled upon stuff that I wrote eons ago—stuff that never saw the light of day, stuff that just sits there awaiting some sort of acknowledgement, destination, or deletion. As I look back, these dusty little gems show me where I was then, and where I am now. Today’s discovery, written sometime prior to 2009 is a fine example of my escape from self-terrorism into the happy realm of loving my perfectly imperfect self. Here it is:

I think I am suffering from seasonal hair disorder. You know – the winter blah kind of thing that would make my hair look as if I stuck a finger in a light socket with the electricity turned on?

Not only that, but I have a sneaking suspicion that in an effort to seek good company, the hair disorder gremlins have sent out some clever little scouts that have obligingly returned with the discovery of a personality disorder to add to my list of seasonal dysfunctions.

The hair situation is only a temporary thing, thank goodness, but the personality disorder thing—well, sometimes I think it will never end. Just as I think I have one aspect of myself in order, another flares up to remind me of my imperfection. My current favorites are foot-in-mouth disease, and bad judgment.

On the growing number of occasions when I suffer flare-ups of one disorder or another, my first tendency is to immediately send myself into bouts of self-flagellation in an attempt to beat myself back into my own good graces. This is not a technique that I would recommend to anyone who is trying to make the return trip to sanity.

Once I discover the futility of self-flagellation, I move on to rationalization. “Well, it really wasn’t that bad, was it? I think he’s over reacting just a wee bit. Obviously she misunderstood what I said. If she had been paying closer attention, it wouldn’t have happened at all, right”

The next response to my faux pas is the questioning phase. Why in Heaven’s name did I say such a thing? It just squirted out of my mouth like Ketchup out of a bottle that’s been slapped on the bottom 57 times. I can’t believe I did such a thing. How could I have been so thoughtless?

Oh, my poor aching psyche!

Behavior is not who I am. Bad behavior, good behavior, not who I am. Sometimes I’m the good witch and sometimes I’m the bad witch. I’m the whole witch, both good and bad. Maybe when I learn to love and respect the entirety of myself, I can say goodbye to my disorders. Well, the personality one, at least. The hair disorder may be around for as long as there are winters in my life.

What troubles me about all of this disorder business is that it seems to be happening more frequently. It’s as if the message is becoming more and more urgent. GET IT TOGETHER GIRL! Maybe I’d better pay attention and listen up.

Maybe it’s all that unhealed anger that’s been roiling around inside of me. Maybe I’d better get busy and start tending to myself because if I don’t, those embarrassing foot-in-mouth moments will show up more and more often.

I actually know people who don’t suffer from any of these annoyances. They just don’t get it. “Stop beating up on yourself,” they say. Or, “You’re being a little hard on yourself, don’t you think?” I spoke to such a person over onion soup and a chicken wrap just yesterday. Apparently, some folks simply cannot relate to those of us who haven’t mastered Self-Love 101 yet.

Contrarily, I also know people just like me. The self-flagellation specialists who find any little excuse at all to tell themselves that they were wrong, said something stupid, or committed some unforgivable act. Maybe it’s because like attracts like, but it seems to me that there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them.

Frankly, I think that these guiltless wonders have their nerve. Just who do they think they are, anyway? How dare they just shrug their shoulders and walk away from their mistakes while the rest of us suffer the treachery of our own mind drama?

But you know what? I’ll give myself credit for having the courage to say out loud what so many of us suffer in silence. After all, who wants to admit to walking through life carrying a bag loaded full of personal flaws? It’s a crummy job, but I’ll do it, because by golly, if it gives just one other person hope and the courage to move beyond their self-perceived sins, then it’s all worth it.

Maybe I’ll try to be more like the guiltless ones.

Or, maybe just I’ll choose to be perfectly imperfect.

Or both.

Ah. Living happily within the realm of one’s own good graces is a glorious thing. I highly recommend it.