Personal House Rules

I think often we have unspoken rules about how we want to conduct our lives. It can be confusing for someone to automatically know that -you-should-take-your-shoes-off-when-you-come-inside-the-door.  Then when the person doesn’t quickly act in the way we are expecting, we are confronted with a choice. We  let the new person know the expectations directly or we sadly can  stay silent and be upset that they didn’t do it right.

This is the same thing that we do with the rules of self, we expect  that everyone will know how to we want to live our lives, what works and what doesn’t, how to treat us, what our boundaries are, and the very best way to show us love. This is mind reading  at its best. It is all so obvious to us.

I have a saying that I use with clients a lot “If it is obvious, then you need to say it out loud.” We are so accustomed to our own mind and beliefs that it seems a given, but if it is that ingrained within us that means it is pretty important. Hence, saying our ideas, expectations, and  boundaries out loud not only makes sense but also creates a much more open dynamic.

The approach of letting others know what your personal house are allows everyone to have a framework of interaction. You get to avoid a lot of the messy parts of stepping on each other’s toes.  Everyone decides if the structure is workable and provides an understanding of the boundaries. It sound so simple but that is exactly what we so often miss, stating that which seems like a default to our own system.

I really love the idea of putting your house rules out for everyone to see  (physically like photo above or state directly). Consider wearing your expectations with a badge of honor that you want others to know about from the start. Be proud of who you are and what you want from yourself and others!

The Beauty of Not Knowing

There seems to be a lot of pressure on knowing  in our culture.  One somehow has to have it all figured out and already 100% knowledgable about everything. This is so perplexing. Why would you want to have nothing left to learn? Wouldn’t it be terribly boring if you had nothing to challenge you, push you, or help you grow?

Sure there are instances where having as much knowledge as possible is best for a given situation. However, the general expectation that a person should know every word in the dictionary, have read every book already, or remember be up on every current detail, seems a bit much.

What is wrong with not knowing? What about the sheer pleasure of learning, exploring, or discovering something new? We love that scientists are curious and interested in creating that which has never conceived of previously, yet when it is the rest of us a negative slant appears.

Imagine  you are having a conversation and someone responds to something you say with, “Oh I haven’t heard about that. ” And then follows with various questions about the topic. Do you really consider someone who is interested in learning dumb, stupid, or foolish? The answer of course is … most likely you would enjoy that the person was eager to hear what you had to say and wanted to understand. Then why would you be so concerned if you did the same thing?

Most of us enjoy sharing information when asked and rarely negatively judge another for asking for more information.  The critical self talk actually strangles our ability to do the very thing we are hoping we are projecting (wanting to already know). How are you ever going to learn it if you claim you already know it all already?

You know what it is like when you can sense that someone is pretending to know what you are talking about when they obviously do not.  You wonder why they are pretending. You wonder why they are so afraid to ask or not know. It is in that moment that the  negative judgement of the person often arises. Again the very thing we often fear, happens only when we pretend to already know it all.

There is so much to be gained by asking questions, not knowing, and allowing others to teach you.  It can be a beautiful thing to share the connection of expanding your knowledge in the presence of another person. Be brave and admit to someone today that you don’t know and feel proud of yourself for doing so!

Sick System Identification

 

Often times  people who have experienced trauma and/or abuse get into predictable patterns.  After trauma the mind has to find a way to “become okay” with what has happened otherwise it will just shut down. Hence,the brain will  select, edit, and delete ideas and emotions as necessary to move forward.  From this perspective, it becomes clearer that they will associate interactions with other people in a similar way that they did during the negative experiences.  The mind wires together in a way that creates a system of unhealthy actions and response together with love and care. It is as if the mind got confused along the way (which it did typically based on the abusive situation) and started thinking that being in an interaction that is chaotic and/or manipulative is the way affection is shown.  The how and why this pattern was created makes sense _and_ being able to identify its parts is a crucial part to changing towards healthy dynamics.

There are many therapeutic approaches to working to shift these patterns, but I haven’t often seen a discussion of this within regular conversation. Issendai has thoughtfully expressed how the trauma mind-set can create relationships that are unhealthy. She puts a concrete perspective on what the attributes are that contribute to what she calls a _sick system_.  In reading her thoughts, I would ask you to remember that a person can both create these dynamics directly or respond to them..   One can see they have been in relationships where they were treated in a negatively manipulative way and/or understand they tend to create elements of this pattern in their life.  The point is to look at the patterns and work to shift them into something that is stronger and healthier.

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Sick Systems by Issendai

So you want to keep your lover or your employee close. Bound to you, even. You have a few options. You could be the best lover they’ve ever had, kind, charming, thoughtful, competent, witty, and a tiger in bed. You could be the best workplace they’ve ever had, with challenging work, rewards for talent, initiative, and professional development, an excellent work/life balance, and good pay. But both of those options demand a lot from you. Besides, your lover (or employee) will stay only as long as they want to under those systems, and you want to keep them even when they doesn’t want to stay. How do you pin them to your side, irrevocably and permanently.
You create a sick system.

A sick system has four basic rules:

Rule 1: Keep them too busy to think. Thinking is dangerous. If people can stop and think about their situation logically, they might realize how crazy things are.

Rule 2: Keep them tired. Exhaustion is the perfect defense against any good thinking that might slip through. Fixing the system requires change, and change requires effort, and effort requires energy that just isn’t there. No energy, and your lover’s dangerous epiphany is converted into nothing but a couple of boring fights.

This is also a corollary to keeping them too busy to think. Of course you can’t turn off anyone’s thought processes completely—but you can keep them too tired to do any original thinking. The decision center in the brain tires out just like a muscle, and when it’s exhausted, people start making certain predictable types of logic mistakes. Found a system based on those mistakes, and you’re golden.

Rule 3: Keep them emotionally involved. Make them love you if you can, or if you’re a company, foster a company culture of extreme loyalty. Otherwise, tie their success to yours, so if you do well, they do well, and if you fail, they fail. If you’re working in an industry where failure isn’t a possibility (the government, utilities), establish a status system where workers do better or worse based on seniority.

Also note that if you set up a system in which personal loyalty and devotion are proof of your lover’s worthiness as a person, you can make people love you. Or at least think they love you. In fact, any combination of intermittent rewards plus too much exhaustion to consider other alternatives will induce people to think they love you, even if they hate you as well.

Rule 4: Reward intermittently. Intermittent gratification is the most addictive kind there is. If you know the lever will always produce a pellet, you’ll push it only as often as you need a pellet. If you know it never produces a pellet, you’ll stop pushing. But if the lever sometimes produces a pellet and sometimes doesn’t, you’ll keep pushing forever, even if you have more than enough pellets (because what if there’s a dry run and you have no pellets at all?). It’s the motivation behind gambling, collectible cards, most video games, the Internet itself, and relationships with crazy people.

How do you do all this? It’s incredibly easy:

Keep the crises rolling. Incompetence is a great way to do this: If the office system routinely works badly or the controlling partner routinely makes major mistakes, you’re guaranteed ongoing crises. Poor money management works well, too. So does being in an industry where the clients are guaranteed to be volatile and flaky, or preferring friends who are themselves in perpetual crisis. You can also institutionalize regular crises: Workers in the Sea Org, the elite wing of Scientology, must exceed the previous week’s production every single week or face serious penalties. Because this is impossible, it guarantees regular crises as the deadline approaches.

Regular crises perform two functions: They keep people too busy to think, and they provide intermittent reinforcement. After all, sometimes you win—and when you’ve mostly lost, a taste of success is addictive.

But why wouldn’t people eventually realize that the crises are a permanent state of affairs? Because you’ve explained them away with an explanation that gives them hope.

Things will be better when… I get a new job. I’m mean to you now because I’m so stressed, but I’m sure that will go away when I’m not working at this awful place.

The production schedule is crazy because the client is nuts. We just need to get through this cycle, then we’ll have a new client, and they’ll be much better.

She has a bad temper because she just started with a new therapist. She’ll be better when she settles in.

Now, the first person isn’t actually looking for a job. (They’re too stressed to fill out applications.) The second industry always has another crazy client, because all the clients are crazy. (Or better yet, because the company is set up to destroy the workflow and make the client look crazy.) The third person has been with her “new” therapist for a year. (But not for three years! Or five!) But the explanation sounds plausible, and every now and then the person has a good day or a production cycle goes smoothly. Intermittent reinforcement + hope = “Someday it will always be like this.” Perpetual crises mean the person is too tired to notice that it has never been like this for long.

Keep real rewards distant. The rewards in “Things will be better when…” are usually nonrewards—things will go back to being what they should be when the magical thing happens. Real rewards—happiness, prosperity, career advancement, a new house, children—are far in the distance. They look like they’re on the schedule, but there’s nothing in the To Do column. For example, everything will be better when we move to our own house in the country… but there’s nothing in savings for the house, no plan to save, no house picked out, not even a region of the country settled upon. Or everything will be better when she gets a new job, but she’s not applying anywhere, she’s not checking the classifieds, she has no skills that would get her a new job, she has no concrete plans to learn skills, and she doesn’t know what type of new job she wants to take. Companies have a harder time holding out on rewards, but endlessly delayed raises and promotions, workplace upgrades that are talked about but never get enough budget, and training programs that are canceled for lack of money work well.

Establish one small semi-occasional success. This should be a daily task with a stake attached and a variable chance of success. For example, you need to take your meds at just the right time. Too early and you’re logy the next morning and late to work, too late and you’re insomniac and keep your partner up until you go to sleep, too anything and you develop nausea that interrupts your meal schedule and sets your precariously balanced blood sugar to swinging, sparking tantrums and weeping fits. It’s your partner’s job to get you to take your meds at just the right time. Each time she finds an ideal time, it becomes a point of contention—you’re always busy at that time, or you’re not at home, or you eat too early or too late so the ideal time shifts or vanishes entirely. But every so often you take your meds at just the right time and everything works perfectly, and then your partner gets a jolt of success and the hope that you’ve reached a turning point.

Chop up their time. Perpetually interrupt them with meetings, visits from supervisors, bells and whistles and time clocks and hourly deadlines. Or if you’re partners, be glued to them at the hip, demand their attention at short intervals throughout the day (and make it clear that they aren’t allowed to do the same with you), establish certain essential tasks that you won’t do and then demand that they do them for you, establish certain essential tasks that they aren’t allowed to do for themselves and demand that they rely on you to do it for them (and then do it slowly or badly or on your own schedule). Make sure they have barely enough time to manage both the crisis of the moment and the task of the moment; and if you can’t tire them out physically, drain them emotionally.

Enmesh your success with theirs. Company towns are great at this. Everything, from the workers’ personal social standing to the selection of groceries at the store, depends upon how well they do their jobs and how well the company as a whole is doing. Less enveloping companies try to tie their workers’ self-perceptions in with the public’s perception of their brand. People do it by entangling their successes and failures with their partners’, even when they shouldn’t be entangled. A full-grown adult should be able to take his meds without his partner’s help, and there’s only so much anyone can do to make someone eat at the right time and swallow their pills, but he still puts the responsibility for managing his meds squarely on her shoulders. The classic maneuver is to blame all your bad moods on your partner: If they weren’t so _______ or if they did ______ right, you wouldn’t be so stressed/angry/foul-tempered.

Keep everything on the edge. Make sure there’s never quite enough money, or time, or goods, or status, or anything else people might want. Insufficiency makes sick systems self-perpetuating, because if there’s never enough ______ to fix the system, and never enough time to think of a better solution, everyone has to work on all six cylinders just to keep the system from collapsing.

All of these things work together to make a workplace or a  relationship addictive. You’re run off your feet putting out fires and keeping things going, your own world will collapse if you stop, and every so often you succeed for a moment and create something bigger than yourself. Things will get better soon. You can’t stop believing that. If you stop believing, you won’t be able to go on, and you can’t not go on because everything you have and everything you are is tied into making this thing work. You can’t see any way out because there are always all these things stopping you, and you could try this thing but that would take time and money, and you don’t have either, and you’ve been told that you’ll get both eventually when that other thing happens, and pushing won’t make that thing happen so it’s better to keep your head down and wait. After a while the stress and panic feel normal, so when you’re not riding the edge, you feel twitchy because you know that the lull doesn’t mean things are better, it means you’re not aware yet of what’s going wrong. And the system or the partner always, always obliges with a new crisis.

Eventually you’re so crazy that you can’t interact with anyone who isn’t equally crazy. Normal people have either fled, or told you once too often that you’re being stupid and you need to leave. So now you’ve lost all your reality checks. You’re surrounded by people who also live in the crazy and can’t see a way out. You spend your time telling one another that it’s too bad, but that’s how it is, there’s no fixing it, and everything will get better when ______ happens. If anyone does get a little better and says, “Hey, guys, this is crazy, we can all stop now,” they’ve become a stuck cog in the machine. They quickly realize that there’s nothing they can do, and they pull out, leaving you alone with your crazy friends.

Finally you think it’s ordinary.

You fantasize about being suicidal enough to kill yourself. But that’s not all that bad, because you don’t think that way all the time, and you’re not actually trying to kill yourself. You just wish something would come along and make you dead.

One day you hit rock bottom. Maybe you want so badly to die that stepping out of the sick system looks like a good way to commit suicide, or maybe you’re so depressed that you no longer care. Maybe you catch on before then, and realize, as you’re standing there with the pill in your hand and your partner too busy on WoW to swallow it, that this is crazier than crazy and it’s time to make it stop. Maybe the system makes a mistake, and you look at the pattern of people who got promotions and realize that you will never, never qualify for your promised promotion.

Or maybe a door opens, and something magical happens. The position you’ve dreamed of opens up. The school you want to go to offers a new scholarship for people just like you—and the person who runs the scholarship tells you confidentially that with your qualifications, you’re a shoo-in. Your granduncle dies and leaves you $100,000. You can have exactly what you want—if you walk away from the system you’re enmeshed in.

If you step away, two things happen, one after the other:

PANIC! HORROR! THE SKY IS FALLING! I’VE LOST EVERYTHING I EVER HAD AND I’LL NEVER GET IT BACK AGAIN! There’s not enough stress, something is wrong, something horrible is happening and I’m not there stopping it, oh god what is my ex-boyfriend doing and can I save him from a safe distance? I’m responsible! I have to call the office and make sure they’re okay! I have to make sure everything I left was okay, because it would all fall down without me and now I’m not there and it’s falling down and all those innocent people are being hurt and I have to stop it!

…I feel so much better now.

It’s all gone, like someone stopped pounding me in the head with a hammer. I didn’t even know the hammer was there. Why did I let someone pound me in a hammer all that time? What in hell was I thinking? Why did I think any of that made sense?

Once you’re out of the system, it makes no sense at all. None of the carrots they dangled before you mean anything, and you start to truly comprehend just how much stress you were under. You see things you never would have believed while you were in the system. And the relief is greater than you ever could have imagined while you were enmeshed.

From Impostor Syndrome to Authenticity

Apparently just about every conference in the universe needs to be held back to back weekends in April. Okay, I’m obviously exggerating! However,  doing three  presentations on differing topics, for vastly opposite audiences, in numerous locations can make me a bit anxious and dramatic.

This isn’t anything new. We all experience a variety of emotions when we are to present in front of others. It can be a conference, a meeting, or friendly group but the nerves are similar in large part to a reaction to our self worth and the expectation of others.

I’m not a person that gets stage fright. However, I do experience some features of impostor syndrome.  Don’t know what that is? I’ll break it down for you, basically the person feels like a fraud. The individual is fearful that they are fooling themselves and others into believing they are as strong in an area, when they really are not.  Apply self doubt to a work situation and you got the making of some awesome Wizard-of-Ozness… pull back the curtain and boom all is revealed.

Everyone I know begins to experience insecurity before they present. It is natural to wonder if you are going to explain things correctly, be interesting, or well received. We are social creatures and we want to be thought of positively. However, much we tell ourselves that everyone experiences fears of being judged we cant’ seem to shake the notion that it is just us.

And this fact is normal as well. We project all sorts of qualities and defeciets on to other people. We generalize and categorize others on a daily basis. It is a requirement for humans to judge safety. Hence, it is also natural to be concerned that others will think of us as unworthy.

We get stuck in a spiral of feeling  inferior, incompetence, and fearful.  What are we to do in these situations? I have the answer… although I admit you probably won’t like it. For that matter, I don’t like the answer it. But the truth still remains… the best way to deal with these feelings is to acknowledge them as real, put them into context, and express them.

Yeah, I know.  It is so much easier with our illusions of control that we just have a step by step approach to conquering all. Yet, that is kind of the point. This isnt’ about conquering. It is about being authentic with yourself.  If you know you are scared… don’t push it away. Realize that you are having the emotion, understand that it is natural and normal and understandable that you have these feelings, and then share them. It really is the last one that gets at us..isn’t it?

Why would we share the exact thing we are fearful that people will find out about us?  Well, first off you take away the power the situation holds by pretending. You acknowledge the truth and it will set you free… or some such saying states.  And then when you allow yourself to normalize the situation you come to a contextual understanding of how common the feelings are… and again the power that fear holds over you begins to diminish. Finally, when you express to someone else what is really going on, you and others start to realize how to support one another rather than pretend.

We all know that we get scared but why don’t we talk about it? We are afraid we will appear weak or judged yet if the emotion is really no big deal like we pretend then it wouldn’t be a problem to mention it. Ah, logic is sound but emotions are tricky. Wouldn’t you rather just be who you are and be honest about what is going on? Wouldn’t you rather a world around you that didn’t pretend but instead acknowledged human nature as it really is?

I know that I’m nervous about if I’m going to present well at conferences. I know that people are going to judge me, my ideas, and my style. I know this is natural and I know that I want to live an authentic life rather than pretend. So that means I might mess up, people may dislike me, and that is just part of the process. However, it also means I might do really well and people may enjoy what I have to say. There is a wide variety of options but beyond all else I know that I’m not a fraud because I’m direct about who I am. With that comes a strong sense of self and what more could any one of us ask for in such situations?

So you are welcome to join me at the next convention where I’ll be presenting twice at SINSation in Leather in Chicago on April 2nd and 3rd.

The Power Of Vulnerability

Dr. Brene Brown studies human connection — our ability to empathize, belong, love. In a poignant, funny talk at TED, she shares a deep insight from her research on vulnerability, courage, authenticity, and shame.

Speak Your Truth

A friend of mine recently stopped me in my tracks by making an important point. She explained that while she was  learning to share her thoughts and feelings with other people… that she was finding it was difficult to speak her truth to herself.

I took a long deep breath.  It is amazing when you can express yourself to others, but what about unflinching self honesty?  We are usually so outwardly focused with what others in our life will think or feel in response to what we share. We are fearful others will judge us (read: leave us in some way) and we don’t want that reality. We often tailor much of we say as a way to manage others. As we come to understand we can handle ourselves and the reactions of others , we find a new ability to interact in authentic ways. That is however, about dealing with ourselves in regards to others.

What about being able to do the same with your feelings about yourself? We spend a lot of energy trying to “not be” a certain way. There is a tremendous amount of effort put into changing who we are but what if all that pushing isn’t getting us where we want to be? What if it is so negative focused?

It can be a really rough proposition to sit with the reality that you might really be a brilliant sometimes,  that it is possible that sometimes you really are beautifully creative, and even more dramatic is that sometimes you really and truly might be an amazingly great person.  When we have those thoughts and feelings, we often create a defense to them… even if that defense is to think we are “always” something negative.

Not wanting to see the good is just as harmful as not wanting to see the areas we need to strengthen.  Hence, if you are ready to speak the truth … allow yourself the time to have your thoughts and feelings where you do not judge them as negative or positive.  They simply are what they are right now. Sometimes they are more and sometimes they are less. There is rarely an absolute in regards to ideas and emotions. We are complex creatures and things move and shift.

It is okay to acknowledge that you are “sometimes” all sorts of things. It is a part of you, not all of you, and to embrace that truth and share it with yourself. I assure you it can help you in all directions.

There is a “sometimes” in just about every context… just like “sometimes” you can allow yourself to be honest with yourself… even if it might include sometimes accepting the positive things about yourself too!

Bill Zeller’s Truth and Choice

A client sent me an email about Bill Zeller’s suicide note before it had spread across the net. I opened the link and read the heart wrenching letter of person expressing so clearly the pain of past abuse, which so many of us have had to live through. I wanted to hide away, curl up, and cry.  I know the emotions that Zeller explores… I have felt them deep within my being… I know the hurt feeling of being so alone with only terrible thoughts to comfort. I was touched to read such honesty, scared by the realness, and also sure that as a therapist, these words were important for others to read.

I’m not alone in this process… hundreds if not thousands have experienced this reaction after reading Zeller’s letter. And I think that Joel Johnson said it very well in his intro to reprinting the thoughts and feelings of Zeller.

But as someone who has had similar experiences in my own life, I want to say to anyone else who feels the way Zeller felt: You can’t escape your past. Not completely. But you can deal with it. You can contextualize it. You can learn how to prepare for the times when you feel like it’s not even on your radar and then it totally broadsides you.

And you can talk to people. You really can!

I don’t pretend to have all the answers nor have one right way to understand the choice to live or die. I honor that each person finds their own way. However, I will say that there is something hugely important about the idea that when you feel so lost, alone, and stuck within pain… it can feel nearly impossible to talk about it.  There are so many fears of being judged as broken/bad/wrong/or sick. When you are inside yourself with suchanguish, the energy that is required to open up can be overwhelming.

Yet, that is just the point. We have the ability to deeply color our perception of the world around us.  Our thoughts impact our emotions and when we focus so directly on the pain the context around us becomes dark.  Hearing, seeing, and feeling other perceptions help our brains to take in alternative data points. We move beyond the creation of our self image and include perspectives.  With this, it becomes possible to experience something other than the sadness.

Talking with another person isn’t going to be a magic “fix” to the pain. However,  it does provide a crucial leverage piece to break the pattern that can keep us lost within it.

I encourage you to read Bill Zeller’s letter in full (as per his request) be aware that it could be triggering:

The Agonizing Last Words of Bill Zeller

And remember that you really can talk to someone… anyone!

Choosing your life…

For many years I (Bronnie) worked in palliative care. My patients were those who had gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the most common five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along the way, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as a result.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice.  They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

Real Words of Truth

Chris Fisher usually talks about funny stuff… and his sarcastic approach makes me smirk.

Yet sometimes… when you aren’t looking… he will write some really powerful words of wisdom.

I wanted to share some of his work because I found it inspiring.

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feeling slightly
adrift and very unsure of my own thoughts, possible paths,
options that are presenting themselves, in some cases quite
aggressively.

some words lately, touched me, a lot more than expected. how
much suppression had really been going on within me? but more
importantly should they matter as much, those words. i’m fully
aware that i want things from other people that are often simply
too much for them, too much to give, too much to share, too much
to risk, on ME. this doesn’t inhibit my wants or requirements in
any manner.

still lacking a solid foundation leaves me feeling completely and
totally unworthy of the attentions that get directed in my way.
yet as said above, my lust for them doesn’t fade. how do i trust
another when my own self trust is so very low. oh, there are of
course things i won’t do, a growing list of them it seems. yet
my attention can be so transient, so fickle.

lately i find myself missing a certain period of my life, where
there was a solid foundation, not for that reason, but for the
other things that were around. yet now with the hindsight one
gains from experience and age i can see how thin the veneer
was, the blankets being used to comfort, warm, my internal
cold emotional disposition. i was extremely present. was so
very available, to quite a few people.

yet there was a level of disconnection. that barrier has been
shattered within me. the problem is, after spending nearly an

entire life with these

barriers up, the deconstruction of them has left me wanting.
not just a usual amount, but like a child, who has discovered
a new favourite person, food, joy, laugh, moment. i want so
very much more of it and can’t honestly understand why i
should settle for less.

so here i sit wanting it all from someone else, ready to give
it all back. it’s just i’m so very clumsy at this engagement.
i’ve done so many years of together, many years of alone now,
and my preference is definitely towards the former.

realizing of course that not everyone else is at this point
is hard for me. or may ever be at this point. but i’m tired of
pretending i want less. this is my ONE life, and simply, this
is one area i refuse to compromise in, ever, again.