MoxieLife

Taming My Inner Monster

This weekend, for my whole life really, I have struggled with being generous of spirit. My inclination is to tighten up in a ball, fix my eyes until they are steely and purse my lips really tight. To not give in. To not be nice. To not be generous with my words or actions.

I know. You aren't like that. You are perfectly filled with love and grace. You give and give and give.

At least I think you do because I compare myself to the imaginary you all the time. I figure everyone else is easily loving. Easily able to accept that others get more then they do. Easily able to share in someone else's good fortune.

Not me. I'm a meany.

But I don't want to be. Really.

I want to be loving and kind and filled with generous words of spirit - and mean it.

I really do want you to be happy, successful, filled with joy and all the things that make you happy. It just takes me a minute to get there.

What happens is like a quick monster overcomes my heart and I feel myself tense up into a knot as it grabs all the kind words out of my throat and stuffs them in to my belly. My fists clench into tight balls and I stop breathing as I press my lips tighter and tighter together. My eyes go into slits as they zero in on the target.

If I can just take one breath, I can move through that feeling into something else. Sometimes it takes just a moment and I remind myself what I really want for others - not the stinginess that swells inside. Other times it takes months, maybe even years.

It is why I sit and why I write. I journal to process all of that. To get it out on paper. To move past it. I sit in mediation, however badly, to do the same thing. My mind wanders off to relive the painful moment or the why not me moment and then I remind myself and go back to my breath. It is all a process.

Sometimes it is easier, sometimes not, but at least I am trying. So, if I, at first, seem cold or distant I am probably taming my inner monster. Give me a minute... I'll come around.

Book Review: Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The first few chapters of this book I didn't think I was going to be able to finish. Seriously, heroin. Really? I have known people addicted to heroin and I am sure that it is something that people wanting to self-destruct do, but this seemed the most far reaching of ideas.

I digress, her mom dies, she sleeps around - a lot, she divorces -see the sleeping around, she meets a guy who hooks her up with heroin - again I'm a bit incredulous, she shoots her mom's horse and sometime in there she decides to hike the Pacific Crest Trail.

Now, that is why I picked up the darn book in the first place.

Hiking the PCT is something I have always imagined myself doing. It is in my far off fantasy life. It is what I want to do when I have 3 extra months - and money to cover them. It is a dream.

So, reading a first hand, albeit 20 year break, look at what it takes a solo woman hiker to do the trail is what drew me in and kept me reading. Her memory, journals and letters to past PCT hikers brings the entire experience alive. It is fresh, it is grueling, and it is a rock this world for women adventure. Great fun to live vicariously through Cheryl... despite the heroin thing.

She is just about my age, I think, and walked it in her early 20's - when the trail was fairly new - and I am so glad that she took the time to share her adventure. She is triumphant and we get to experience a little of that with her.

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Please Pull Over

Yesterday I had a lovely afternoon with my daughter and was driving home. I realized half way home, it's an hour away, that I had to pee. I also realized that the person ahead was driving 30 in a 55. Yes, it's curvy. Yes, the roads are narrow. Here's the thing though, if you have 6 or more cars behind you, you should pull over.

I'm probably behind you and I seriously have to pee.

Four New Things in My Life

Now that I am back in the swing of things I am diving into life with gusto - like a Tropicana commercial or a Ford Truck (yes, I came of age on television and it is my most often thought of cultural reference). With that I am trying the following things:

• Just Get Up: This is the most fought thing in my life. Getting up when I don't have to. I have always gotten up to meet a deadline, get to a meeting, go to work and if I don't have a schedule I will just wait to get up until I actually have to. So, say 8:45 instead of 7AM. The idea of having a relaxing morning is not something I grew up with or am used to. But I am trying it. I am getting up the 2nd time the dog says something. He first goes out at 6:15 and I let him out - I COULD get up then, but I don't. I get back into bed. I get up when I let him back in. This is new and although I feel fine I went to bed at 9:30 last night, so there is that.
• 20/20/20: So, now that I have these hours before I really have to get to work I am doing a new routine. 20 minutes of sitting meditation, 20 minutes of writing and 20 minutes of movement. I figure I will try this for 20 days. I am on day 2... so far so good.
• MyFitnessPal.com: A friend posted that she needed to lose 10 pounds on Facebook because her doctor said she did. Another friend of hers commented that she uses MyFitnessPal the app and online site to keep track of her food diary, exercise and water intake. I have 30 pounds to lose. 30. Which to me is a big number and I figured if her friend who has lost 30 pounds did it this way I could try it too. It doesn't cost anything, but it is a bit of an obsessive way to live. Yesterday if I had just not had the Vivani dark chocolate my day would have been perfect - but,well, I wanted chocolate.
• Chips Ahoy: No, not the cookies (I hate those cookies). Chips. I love chips. Spefically corn tortilla chips. I eat them every single day with salsa. Fresh salsa. I love it. It is crunchy and salty goodness. But really, they should be called "Fried Food for Fatty Mc Fat Fats". Seriously. They are just as bad a fried chicken, doughnuts, and all other amazingly tasting fried things that are bad for you. Tortilla Chips = Fried Food. And the serving size is 7. 7 chips. Come on. Who is going to eat 7 tortilla chips. So, I am looking for an alternative - or I have to give them up and that makes me sad.

What's new in your world?

Starting Again

After a month long pity party I am back. That is all I can call it. A month where I sulked, brooded, railed and was sad over a stupid rejection. I stopped writing, I stopped sitting, I stopped - sure if you know me you think I was busy (projects, travel, cooking, etc.), but this work - the work of writing and reflection went out the window, but I am back.

That is what happens to me when I am overcome by emotion. I don't really want to explore it in that moment on the page. I don't really want to sit with it. I don't even really want to talk about it.

I want it to just boil and brew in my heart.

Then I get over it.

Really.

So, now I start again. Aren't we always starting again?

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