Love Thyself as Thy Neighbor Loves Thee

I am an extremely loved person. I have a network of people around me that support me and root for me, in ways that are difficult for me to fathom. The family and friends in my life rally around me with love that is so unconditional and without reservations that it makes my head spin.

Of course all this love doesn’t compensate for the fact that I am not getting love and support from the one person I really really need it.

Myself.

I have talked about it before on this blog that I struggle with loving myself, or even liking myself. It is not an intuitive thing for me. Sure I have moments where I start to grab a hold of an emotion that appears to be a positive self-attitude. And I am not nearly as hard on myself as I once was.

But the truth of the matter is that I still have a lot of work to do. I am discovering how deep this problem goes.  I am discovering that I rely on my various relationships to make up for the love I do not feel for myself. And it does work… for a while anyway. The trouble is that it’s not sustainable. You can’t rely on others to feel a deficit that is inside of you. It has often made me needy and difficult in my relationships.  Sometimes I make poor decisions based on this need to keep people around whether they are toxic or not. And of course this leads to me beating myself up (something that does come extremely intuitively to me) and in turns depends the deficit. It's hard on the good relationships in my life. I lean on people so much that it puts pressure on them. It all becomes so draining.   

I have also have begun to realize that every accomplishment I have achieved, every talent I have, I use as a way to get others approval. If people approve of me, then maybe I will learn to approve of myself.

But it’s never enough.  And I am tired. I am tired of jumping through hoops to seek others affirmation.  I am tired of beating myself up.

So I think the first step is forgiveness. I have to learn to forgive myself for my for all the things that I am ashamed of, the mistakes I have made both real or perceived. It’s hard to love someone that you are carrying resentment and anger towards. I also think that I need to really start thinking about what motivates my behavior. The decisions I make need to start coming from a place of self love and respect.  

So this might be the biggest transition I have ever made. It may be the hardest thing I have ever done, but if I can learn to love myself unconditionally and without reservation, could be the most worthwhile. 

Some Weather We're Having

I was having a conversation with my Uncle about the weather. It doesn’t seem like a topic that would reap profound revelations, but this time it did.

We where discussing the rain storm that California recently was hit with. I told him “I am not a big fan of the rain, but we need it badly so I’m grateful for it”

That got me thinking about my life right now. I think it is fair to say that the last few months have been a bit of storm.  I have been through a series of events that have lead back to square one. Living once again in my hometown, with my parents. Not exactly where I planned to be at this particular juncture of my life.

It has been a hard season. A “when it rains it pours” sort of season. But it was necessary. I needed it. I have learned so much in this storm and I am finally feeling like I am breaking out of a rut that I have been stuck in for the last year.

I have become more determined and focused on what it is that I want for my life. I know that I don’t want to be in this position again. And I know that the reason I am is because I have been too afraid to go after what I want. But that has changed. I am ready to move forward and if that means going after jobs that will lead me on grand adventures to places I have never been then so be it. And if it means taking not-so-awesome jobs for now that will help me to get to that place that I need to go than so be that too.

I have also come to realize that there is really very little room for self-doubt. I have to be brave and take care of myself, and trust that I am capable of a lot more than I give myself credit for.

That said, I have also been reminded once again that I have so many wonderful people in my life. I have had real moments of bitterness, depression, and selfishness during lately. I am not proud of this, but it’s true. I am so very grateful for those of who have reached out to me in my most unlovable moments.  I hope that I can be there for them someday the same way they have been for me.

It’s not exactly all sunshine yet, but the sky is clearing and the rain is slowing down.  I am hopeful for my future, and I am grateful for what this season continues to teach me.

  

2013 in a List

So it’s that time again! It’s 2014, and I thought I would do one of my “Life in a lists” lists, since that seems to becoming my tradition!

So here it is 2013, in no particular order and in all its good, bad, and ugly glory:

1. Saw my first Burlesque Show!

2. Taught ESL for the first time

3. Finished my first year teaching as an Adjunct professor.

4.  Went on many hikes.

5. Drank a glass of wine or two.

6. Lost my thesis weight.

7. Went to a Cake concert.

8. Got laid off.

9.  Kissed a few more frogs (yeah some are still good kissers)

10. Made some amazing new friends.

11. Went to my first Reggie festival.

12. Got my heart broken.

13. Did some babysitting

14. Reconnected with old friends.

15. Leaned hard on the people I love.

16. Wrote a few short stories.

17. Took more dance breaks than I can count

Decisions

I am knee deep in a season of change. I am doing my best to hold it together but I feel a little like I am cracking at the seems. I am making challenging decisions and that always brings on stress, especially when you are as high strung and anxious as I notoriously am.  I was expressing some of my fears about all the variables in my life to a dear friend and this was his response:

“But you have a knack for making good choices, so even though we may not know where the roads heading, it’s certain to be a good one”

I needed to hear this right now.

I know that I need to trust my gut . It will lead me to the right decision, even if it’s not the most popular one. That’s okay, I’ve been judged for my choices before. But one thing I have learned is that at the end of the day you got to do you, and live your own truth, even when it is not easy.

Sometimes we have to break a little, to crack the cocoon when it no longer fits, to make way to become something more beautiful.  It can be a painful process, but it is one that is worth it in the end.

Attracting the Good Stuff

Been thinking a lot about the law of attraction lately.  It always seemed like kind of a hippy dippy concept to me that really had no validity. But I’m sort of warming up to the idea of it these days.

This could be because my current circumstances are less than desirable. I did go through a spell recently where I worried, a lot (more so than usual) and it seems a great deal of what I worried about has indeed manifested, and not in my favor.

So I have decided its time for shift in perspective.  I want things to change in my life, and maybe I am the key. Maybe if I focus on all the wonderful people and things I have in my life, and will the positive changes I desire, then I will see a difference.

I don’t know if this will work. But its worth a shot. Whatever I am doing now is not working. So now I am making the effort to be mindful of all the things that I have to grateful for and to visualize the positive future I wish to have.

If nothing else it will elevate my mood, and that to me, is worth it. 

Plot Twist

I am in transition again.

I have been saying for a while that my life needed a plot twist, and boy did I get one.  It has been over a year since I have graduated with my MFA and I have found myself in the sad but common role of cliché.  I have spent the past year taking part time teaching jobs where I can get them, and doing my best to stay afloat, and keep my bills paid.

What I have not been doing is living my truth, and pushing myself to live up to my potential. But it didn’t matter because I was surviving, and surviving was better than nothing.

And that’s when the plot twist happens. Through a series of unfortunate events that I will not go into here, I currently find myself jobless. This is not where I wanted to be. It is scary and uncomfortable, and my future is so uncertain that it is enough to make my head spin.

But if I am completely honest, I needed this wake up call. It’s made me really look at the choices I’ve been making, and it has lead me to really evaluate who I am.  I needed this to push me to grow. At the end of the day I am an artist after all, and isn’t this the way an artists story suppose to sound? My dream is to make a living in a way that is creative and fulfilling to my soul. I am not sure how exactly or what it will look like, but I know now is the best time to figure it out. Now is the time to find a way to do what I was designed to do whatever that is. If that means I have sell some coffee or shoes to get to where I am destine to be then so be it.

I would be lying if I said I was not scared about my future, but I know that people believe in me, so I am going to believe too. And honestly what’s life without a few curve balls, what’s a story without a few plot twists?

As my dear friend Evan put it “Jennafer this is just a chapter of your story, not the whole book” And he is absolutely right. 

And Holding...

I know that I have been incredibly quite for a while. This is because this girl in transit has been stuck in a holding pattern. I feel as though I am stuck again, in those slumps I seem to dip into from time to time.

I have no good excuse for this. The simple truth is that I allowed old demons that have come knocking at my door to come and stay awhile, let them get comfortable.  They whisper in my ear until I forget how truly strong I am, I forget my accomplishments and I start to fear the steps I need to take to obtain the dreams so dear to my heart.

In fact, I begin to believe that I don’t deserve to dream.

It’s painful to admit this. It’s embarrassing. There is so much in my life to be grateful for. There are so many beautiful people who share their lives with mine.  There are so many things that I have accomplished and experiences that I have had, and continue to have that make the tapestry of my life richer than words can express. So it is with a lot of shame that I admit how ungrateful, petty and even yes depressed I have become again.

My hope is that by giving this emotions form, by expressing them here as I have so often have done in the past, they will loose the power they have when I keep them locked inside me.  

My hope is that by writing this I will lighten my load enough to get out of this holding pattern, and be in transit once again.