Cranky Fibro Girl

Harnessing the healing power of snark

What’s Your Word?

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“I remember something that my friend Maria’s husband, Giulio, said to me once. We were sitting in an outdoor cafe, having our conversation practice, and he asked me what I thought of Rome. I told him I really loved the place, of course, but somehow knew it was not my city, not where I’d end up living for the rest of my life. There was something about Rome that didn’t belong to me, and I couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

…Then he went on to explain, in a mixture of English, Italian and hand gestures, that every city has a single word that defines it, that identifies most people who live there. If you could read people’s thoughts as they were passing you on the streets of any given place, you would discover that most of them are thinking the same thought. Whatever that majority thought might be-that is the word of the city. And if your personal word does not match the word of the city, then you don’t really belong there.”

-Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love

I know exactly what she’s talking about.

I’ve visited places that, for no apparent reason have felt just as comfortable as a perfectly broken-in pair of jeans, as well as places that, for no reason I could see, made me feel so uncomfortable that I just wanted to peel off all my skin and flee the planet.

I’m in a very good place right now, and since my environment is such a great match for my word, now I’m really curious as to what exactly that word might be.

I definitely know some words that it is not. I spent many years forcing myself to stay in environments and situations that did not match my word, as apparently I sometimes like to take the extra special bonus course in Learning Things The Hard Way.

I served a tour of duty in BLIND OBEDIENCE.

I did some hard time over in IMAGE AND ILLUSION.

I dabbled in ACADEMIA and BEING A PROFESSIONAL.

I served a sentence as LABORER.

And I spent an inordinate amount of time in the land of VICTIM.

Of course, the fact that I was constantly beaming out a vibration of VICTIM into the Universe meant that I was constantly attracting people into my life to play the accompanying role of VICTIMIZER to my VICTIM. For me this showed up as an endless stream of low-paying, dead-end jobs with horribly abusive female bosses. We’re talking y-e-a-rs here. (I was apparently going for my Ph.D. in Misery and Suffering.)

And then one day, somehow, a little space opened up inside my brain and let in a new thought, which said…maybe…just maybe…it’s me…not them…

That was the first time it had ever occurred to me that if I was in a situation I hated, a situation that kept repeating itself in ever increasing amounts of horror, that maybe, just maybe, I needed to change something within myself, rather than something external.

I think this was a result of September 11th. Looking back now I can see that, because everything about that time was so horribly beyond anything I’d ever imagined was possible, it also opened a space where maybe, just maybe things could also be joyful beyond my imagination.

And so I finally gave my notice to that last, soul-sucking, dead-end job, and the very day I did I went to a workshop where I met my very first coach and began the process of taking responsibility for and creating my own life.

During 2003 and 2004 when I was doing A Course In Miracles (aka, “The Year Where A Giant Hand Reached Inside My Brain, Stirred Everything Up, And Then Turned It Completely Inside Out”), I learned that the woman who scribed the course had had a very similar thing occur to her. She was in a very difficult situation at work, and finally she and her boss (I think) said, “There has to be another way to do this.” And once they opened up that space, the Course was born.

According to the Course a miracle can be defined as “a shift in perception.” And that was what finally happened to me at the beginning of 2002, when I took the first steps down the path to finding my word (which I know, I know, I haven’t gotten to yet, but if I break this long epistle up then I have something to blog about next week too 🙂 )

Creative Rebellion

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So I’ve been up since about 2:30 this morning, dealing with some intestinal issues that can best be described as “explosive”, which means that any tasks that cannot be performed while lying prostrate in the hallway next to the bathroom door so as to reduce my commute time just aren’t happening today.

So in lieu of any kind of keen, thoughtful, penetrating, or insightful post today, instead I share this poem that arrived in my inbox via Jill Badonsky’s monthly e-zine. This issue is about the relationship between creativity and rebellion, and while I don’t have any personal experience in that area-(SNORT! Yeah, okay, I can’t even type that with a straight face.) Ahem, as I was saying, this issue is about the relationship between creativity and rebellion, and since that is a subject which is near and dear to my heart, I really appreciated this poem.

“They’ll”

by Cheryl Denise, from I Saw God Dancing. © Dream Seeker Books, 2005.

They’ll

take your soul
and put it in a suit,
fit you in boxes
under labels,
make you look like the Joneses.

They’ll tell you go a little blonder,
suggest sky-blue
tinted contact lenses,
conceal that birthmark
under your chin.

They’ll urge you to have babies
get fulfilled.
They’ll say marriage is easy,
flowers from Thornhills
are all you need
to keep it together.

They’ll push you to go ahead,
borrow a few more grand,
build a dream house.
Your boys need Nikes,
your girls cheerleading,
and all you need is your job
9 to 5 in the same place.

They’ll order you never to cry
in Southern States,
and never, ever dance
in the rain.

They’ll repeat all the things
your preschool teacher said
in that squeaky too tight voice.

And when you slowly
let them go,
crack your suit,
ooze your soul
in the sun,
when you run through
the woods with your dog,
read poems to swaying cornfields,
pray in tall red oaks,
they’ll whisper
and pretend you’re crazy.

I Definitely Needed To Hear This Today

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Spiritual power molds physical and material conditions, but spiritual power is never in a hurry….Never try to force the door and to go into any condition by force; just wait and you will conserve all the power which will be necessary for you to accomplish your work at the given time. If things do not happen as you want them to happen, know that a better way is being found. Trust, and never forget that the true way is the way of love. Flowers do not force their way with great strife. Flowers open to perfection slowly in the sun….Everything happens at the right moment…. White Eagle

With Friends Like These…

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Last fall I was able to visit with some old friends from my elementary school days who live out in the Pacific Northwest.

They love coffee.

I do not.

But they did turn me onto the deliciousness that is Chai Tea Lattes, for which I am grateful.

As we were talking about getting together again this fall I mentioned how much I’ve been enjoying my (non-coffee) lattes. This was one friend’s response:

“Yes, we are the people who have helped you become the person who today can be forced into doing things through peer pressure.”

My New Addiction (Like I Needed Any More)

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So today I was clicking through the blog posts that appeared on my Blog Rush widget, and I saw one entitled, “I can fill that bowl in six words or less” by Cardiogirl.

She is talking about the site called Free Rice. It’s a vocabulary game, and for each word you define correctly (they give you four choices to pick from) they donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

Word Nerds of the world, UNITE!

I Am Drunk On My Own Power, Mwa ha ha ha ha!

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A few years ago I was a teacher at a small, religious school.

Fortunately for me, the head of the school was unshakably convinced of my secret identity as The Spawn Of The Devil, or else it would’ve been really easy for me to get the big head.

Because what I didn’t know, having no children of my own, is that kids? Are really easily impressed.

For example, one day I was teaching my third graders, and while I was talking to them I was writing on the board without looking at what my hand was doing!

And dude, once I revealed my magical super hero power of Doing Two Different Things At The Same Time, I totally owned the third grade.

So it’s lucky that I live with three cats, cats who are totally shameless and amoral, cats who condescendingly tolerate our presence in their home because we are the only two beings with opposable thumbs who can open the tub of cat food, cats who pee on every single square inch of the bathroom floor EXCEPT the very expensive, state-of-the-art, self-cleaning litter box we purchased especially for them, because it helps keep me humble and grounded.

And I need that kind of real life reality check to balance out days like yesterday, where I once again used my Magical Superhero Powers Of Awesomeness to outwit The 12-Year-Old Boy Who Is Laboring Heavily Under The Delusion That He Can Totally Play Me.

We were once again forced to confront his evil nemesis-Spanish vocabulary words, and once again he decided that the session would yield much better results for him if he could trick me into telling him the answers, rather than looking the words up himself.

We’ve been on the same chapter with the same vocabulary words for an entire month. We’ve had tests and quizzes and homework assignments on all the words related to clothing, and yesterday he still did not know the Spanish word for “clothes” (did I mention that it’s been a month?!), a fact which did not at all make me feel like a failure as a Spanish tutor, or heavily tempt me to become A Person Who Drinks.

So of course, I told him to look it up in the dictionary, and of course he used his super-keen spidey senses to hone in on my super hero weakness by saying, “Why-don’t you know the answer?” (accompanied by a disgusted head shake and heavy exhale) “Yeah, I bet you don’t even know the answer.”

Right.

Do you have any idea how hard it was not to smite him with the razor-sharp edge of my sarcasm? Really. f*&#ing. hard.

But I’m happy to say that I was able to restrain myself, and instead decided to use my powers for good, limiting myself only to saying, “That doesn’t work on girls.”

He was quite surprised to be let in on that little secret of the universe, telling me that, “If I’d said that to a guy, he would’ve told me the answer.”

Well, little one, welcome to my world.

What If We’ve Been Wrong About Soulmates?

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Lately I’ve been having a mad, passionate love affair with the book Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Everything in this book resonated with me, including an enlightening discussion she had on the subject of soul mates.

While spending four months in an ashram in India she meets Richard from Texas, who gives her the following counsel on a relationship she recently ended with someone whom she believed to be her soul mate.

She told him, “…I think the reason it’s so hard for me to get over this guy is because I seriously believed David was my soul mate.”

He replied, “He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. ”

I know exactly what he’s talking about.

I recently had a relationship like this end-not a romantic relationship, but a friendship. And I knew it was exactly this kind of a relationship, because I spent its entire duration having my insides ripped out so that I could examine them in the clear light of day.

Why, you might ask, would anyone willingly spend even one day (much less years) in a constant state of gut-wrenching turmoil?

That is an excellent question and, as it turned out, one of the main lessons I needed to learn in this particular relationship.

Why did I constantly settle for so little?

Why didn’t I think I was deserving of good things?

Why did I continue to give until it hurt me, especially since I got so little in return?

The most interesting thing about all of this was that I don’t think this person had any idea of the role they were playing in my life. Everything that happened was actually between myself and I, inside my own head.

It was like the Universe led me to an internal storage shed I’d forgotten about and said, “OK, it’s time. You need to do something with all of this stuff.”

It was all there for me to stumble over. Every old bit of magical thinking. Every unrealistic expectation. Every story I’d made up in my mind about how I thought relationships “should” be. All the parts of me that believed my happiness depended on what someone else did or didn’t do. Everything in me that thought I had to figure out a way to control other people and change them, so that I could feel better. Every part that was addicted to drama, crisis, and emotional extremes. It was all there, waiting for me to unpack it.

So I did. I opened up each and every mental box and dealt with its contents. I shone a flashlight into all the dark, icky, unattractive corners of my soul and swept out all the cobwebs. I owned my stuff. I did my work.

And then one day, I was ready to let go. I knew it was time, because I was able to release this person with love and gratitude. I truly wished good things for them in their life apart from me. I was done suffering in the same old ways, and was ready for something pleasant and new.

“A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. “