01/17/2019

Letitia Baldridge once said ” Tea time is a chance to slow down, pull back and appreciate our surroundings.”

A few months ago, my therapist asked me whether I see through any of my various projects, because she didn’t see a lot of follow through in my life. I reflected on how I finished my degree and a few years back when I was in trouble with my student loans, I managed to get them out of their defaulted status… What I realized is that without a very serious, external motivating factor, I really don’t complete anything I set out to complete. I was able to complete my degree because my self worth has always been tied to having a career and by proxy a degree. As for my student loans, I was able to get them out of a default status, because have you tried owing the U.S. government money? Yeah, they’ll destroy your life if you let them.

What I realized was that I had so many things I wanted to try, goals I wanted to accomplish, and projects to complete that I wound up so overwhelmed that I just wouldn’t do anything. This realization allowed me to stop and really plot out the things I wanted to do this year. I brought my list down from like “2 dozen goals” to maybe 6 items which include: 4 purchases (2 big, 2 small); 1 class (which is apart of the purchases, so this is overlapped); and 3 daily goals. I created a separate list of things I’d like to try, but there is no huge emphasis on definitely doing and 1 rule… the only rule for 2019 I have is not to buy any books until I read the 40 I own that I’ve never read before.

While I usually read at least one book a week, we are almost done with the third week of 2019, and I’m currently reading my third book. Now this sounds like I’m on target, but my reading average has to do with fictional books and the books currently stacked in my kitchen are a combination of fiction, classical lit, historical fiction, political, history, biographies and self help. I’m not sure my standard of one book a week will apply here and that terrifies me, because I really want to finish these books this year. The thought that I cannot, really freaks me out.

This self pressure, combined with a couple of other reoccurring/ obsessive thoughts about the class I want to take (which really may be the last year possible to take it in the location I want with the instructor I want) has brought my thinking pattern of panicked defeat to the forefront of my mind. Nothing on my vision board or to try list is life or death. The world won’t stop spinning if I don’t read all 40 of these books by year end. Yet my mind is absolutely freaking out that I won’t be successful and that I will have wasted yet another year of life.

11/17/2019

Forgive me, WordPress, for I have been silent. The last half of this year has had some interesting twists and turns, many that as they were occurring I could not openly share about and therefore remained silent instead. Now that, that is all done, and I don’t even feel the need to share all of that nonsense, I have yet to figure out the direction of this blog. So tonight, we skip figuring out the direction of this blog and I’ll share something I have figured out.

I have been in graduate school since August, which though it has only been three months, feels like it’s been a lifetime. August 31st at 0400 my two dogs, mother and a loaded car left Florida beginning on 21ish hour drive to New England. Since then, it’s been me and these two lovely dachshunds doing our best to adapt to life in New England.

New England is quite new to me. The topography, the climate, the wardrobe needed, even the accent is different. We’ve had two snow flurries in the last couple of weeks and that was confusing at first because I missed the “snow” part and came out to a fine white powder coating parts of the ground. A native New Englander doubled over in laughter when I asked if what I was looking at was snow. I’ve found the locals to be quite lovely in helping me prepare for winter once they understand I’m a born and bred Floridan and am quite far out of my element.

All this change though has allowed something to occur that I didn’t exactly expect- my PTSD has reared it’s head and challenged me to face and heal the next layer of trauma I’ve experienced in my life.

When I think of trauma, I think of a spiral stair case. You heal it in layers, which means that you may feel you’ve healed something, but maybe there is another layer to heal at a later date, which you are not consciously aware of at the time. Like you take the stair case one step at a time, you are healing your trauma one layer at a time. Which stair you are on depends greatly on what you’ve healed in the past. My darling analytical brain would love to quantify which stair I am on at this time.

March 27, 2019

Procrastinating work by scrolling through Twitter, I came across a tweet that reads “When the person who matters most in your life confirms that you are a loser and a waste of life, that’s pretty heartbreaking and there’s not much point in going on.” This tweet elicits so much emotion in me. On one hand, I feel for this person’s pain. On the other hand, I want to shake them and say “WAKE UP!”

Many of us do this, we value other people’s feelings and thoughts above our own. We are taught, incorrectly, that other people’s opinions and thoughts are more important than our own. We are sold love stories of other halves and we are sold stories that mold us into what society expects of us. Basically, we are dogs being trained through both positive and negative reinforcement through out our lives to place others before ourselves. I’m not sure if there is a good time or place for these teachings, but I am certain, that once we are adults we can start to shed some of the bull shit.

When it comes to what others think of us, it’s not any of our damn business. What is our business is what we think of ourselves. The most important person in our life should be our selves, so if we find our selves thinking in terms that we are losers or a waste of life, we can change our thinking. If we are placing other people’s opinions about ourselves, higher than our opinions of ourselves, then we can change the importance we are placing on perspectives outside of our own.

March 2019

My world has been this strange sort of balance for about 6 months now, where directions used to be up, now seems to be down and vice versa. This period has been marked by the most turmoil I have ever experienced and the most peace I have ever felt. Things I thought I knew now under review look so far away, almost as if I am seeing them by using a telescope the wrong way.

It’s hard to believe that I have been experiencing all this change over the last six months because it feels like it has been many years instead of several months. This period has been absolutely exhausting too, because I no longer have the strength to beat my feelings into some isolated area, I am having to experience them like never before. I am trying to learn the thoughts in my head and experience them and guide them to come from a place of loving kindness instead of fear.

There are moments that I feel I could burst from happiness, but then there are moments I feel liked I could drown in my sorrow.

Note from 12/30/2019- In an effort to clean up the drafts sections of my blog, I’ve decided to revisit some old posts and share when they are from, but probably not add to them. So the above was started March 4, 2019

With Love,

E.R.A.

There is this voice

Speaking in the back of my head 

And though she whispers 

Her echo is loud. 

Broken she tells me

Over and over and over again 

Repeatedly making her message sink further in 

Leaving me frozen and cold 

Unable to move 

Frozen in most movement 

Yet time is not

And with time I remember the truth

She is wrong, I always know 

I am not broken

Never have been, never will be

I watch the voice bounce around my head 

Observing in curious wonderment 

And let my inner child do her magic

Together we twist away from the voice

Smiling at it, for the voice must need love 

Grinning and giggling at the voice

She falls silent 

Until it is her time to speak again.

With Love,

ERA

That energy was stuck

And when you asked why

The truth of my need to hide

Made me begin to cry.

That truth left you angry

And with a fierce love in your eyes

You demanded that I remember

That I no longer hide.

That hiding from the world

And hiding from you

Was hiding from me.

E.R.A.

Today I was mulling over an action I took and I was so worried about how I looked making that decision. As if I have any control over people’s perceptions. Ha.

In my current professional role, perception is everything. My team and I are tasked in making other colleagues aware that perception is what matters. Recently, I was leading a training on microaggressions and part of the conversation with the employees was that ultimately you can mean something as a joke, but if another colleague is offended, it’s their perception and not your intent that matters. I highlight this not to debate microaggressions or perception vs intent, but to point out that my immersion in this role really makes sense as to why I’m so concerned with perception.

What I learned in my mulling is that I get so caught up worrying how others will perceive me or my actions that often times I fail to act at all and subsequently don’t live very authentically. My goal, my number one goal, for as long as I can remember, is to live a loved based life. Meaning my decisions and actions come from a place of heartfelt love. My agonizing over how others will perceive me, is completely fear based. I have, for the most part, inadvertently rejected myself for so long that, I assume others will as well.

So today, when I made a decision out of heartfelt love for a person I both know and don’t know, I was consumed with fear and worry of what that person’s perception will be. The thing is, that person’s, or any person’s perceptions of me or my actions are none of my business. When coming from love you will never go wrong. Our perceptions are a reflection of our own baggage. So people’s perception is not on us. The thing that we can do to safeguard us from giving off negative perceptions, is to come from a place of love and compassion.

With that I let the worry go.

Love, E.R.A.