[The Tilda Bear ~ growing by the minute.]

This is going to be another one of those posts that does not end up anything like I thought it would, although due to the fact that I actually have no idea what to write about at the moment I can’t say that is a prediction worth marveling over.  But this is how it has been lately when I sit down to write a blog entry.  I’m not sure what to write, share, reveal, or ponder.  I’m in a weird space.

What happens when you spend most of your life feeling like you have to earn things like love, approval, and affection and then it finally hits you ~ really hits you ~ that this self-imposed pressure to “earn” these things is actually a big waste of time?  What happens when you begin to wonder who you really are after realizing so much of your identity has been wrapped around the belief that nothing you ever did, offered, said, or gave was enough?

What happens then?

In this entry, I wrote of “feeling (like) an astronaut whose connection to the space station was severed, floating off into space…” and that feeling is still with me.  I am still floating, feeling disconnected to so much of what I once held dear, what I once thought I needed and could count on (as well as things I knew I could not count on, but was still attached to.)  This is not necessarily a bad feeling; I do not feel anxiety over these shifts and losses as much as I feel a new kind of freedom from the need to try to hold on to them in order to prove I really value them.  Just because something fed me and served me in one moment does not mean that will stay constant in all ensuing moments.  My love for something or someone is not necessarily diminished just because I acknowledge and honor when my intuition tells me it is time to let go, step back, and release.

Instead of grasping and trying to hold on to something that has run its course (whether I expected it to go that way or not), I feel a deep peace with what is and have no compulsion to try to prevent any kind of ending, closure, evolution, silence, opening, beginning, or stillness.  The performance is over, and I did my best, but the audience is leaving now and it is OK for me to let the curtain remain closed.  I did all I could do, and I can go home.

That is the kind of pressure I have put on myself in so many situations ~ to not only show up, but to perform to the very best of my abilities and beyond, all to try to prove that I was a hard worker, a person deserving of love, a loyal friend, a good person.  I have justified all of this in numerous situations like this:  ”I need to push myself to whatever limits I have in this situation, to prove to myself that I did everything I possibly could to save this relationship, be a good friend, a supportive member of my community, etc.”  But really, I was always trying to prove something to someone else, and once I handed that power over to another person, I was doomed.  If I’m put in a situation where I feel like I have to prove something like this, then that person or situation isn’t worth such intense pushing of my boundaries in the first place.

This is the release I am experiencing, this is the journey I’ve been on.  And the circumstances of my life are very quickly becoming a perfect mirror image of what I am going through inside ~ as of right now, my 2011 calendar is utterly, totally, completely wide open aside from one family wedding and the completion and publication of my next book.  OPEN.  EMPTY.  CLEAR.  This fall my intention has been very focused:  To clear as much as possible off of my plate o’ projects in order to open myself up to not-yet-revealed possibilities, opportunities, and adventures.

As intense as this entry feels ~ as much as I’ve shared about some of my deepest internal struggles ~ what I want you to know more than anything is that this is all nothing but magnificently brilliant as far as I’m concerned.  Everything that has happened this year ~ as difficult as some of these moments have been ~ has been a gift.  Everything. These awakenings, this deep sinking in of the truth of my worth that has so far eluded me (in direct proportion to how hard I was trying to get that approval from someone else) has finally dropped deep into my gut, and I’m ready to hang up my suit of armor, lay down my sword, and put up my feet.  I don’t need to keep pushing against these arbitrary ideals I set for myself, ideals I think will create a certain kind of attention or reaction.  I can simply wake up each day, do my best, and be content with whatever that looks like, for it will change each day, each moment, and in each breath.

“Trying to change ourselves doesn’t work in the long run because we’re resisting our own energy…lasting transformation occurs only when we honor ourselves as the source of wisdom and compassion.  Only when we relate with ourselves without moralizing, without harshness, without deception, can we let go of harmful patterns.” ~Pema Chodron