Okay folks, here's the word of the day. POWER. Yep, I'm starting a new segment and I'm coming out guns blazing. Some days it'll be educational (defenestration anyone?) Other days, it'll be one of those "life influencing" words. And today, the heavy hitter is POWER.
This seemingly obvious word carries with it some heavy concepts. Some are right up front, and some are a little more subdued. But the reality about power is that it is the driving force behind how we relate CHOICE in our lives. And I know, my epiphany blog never called CHOICE the word of the day....but it was....so sue me. Anyway, the word power can mean a host of things, from what comes out of a power plant, to the control being exerted by one object over another. The latter one is the focus of where I am going to take this post from here.
We all have power. Some of us have more than others, say the President, but ultimately we all live in a world where we are power brokers. When we take a position as a subordinate at a company, we give our supervisors the power to direct our energies at certain projects. Likewise, when we take a supervisory role, we are given the power by our bosses to direct the actions of our subordinates to accomplish tasks. It's all power brokering.
Those examples are obviously very simple and straight forward. But I pose this hypothetical to you. You're driving through the mall parking lot, looking for a space and as you are approaching the front, you see one right near the entrance. Your lucky day. As you are pulling toward it, someone slips in the wrong way and takes it from you. Your temper flares and you get angry. Who can blame you? Not me, I assure you. This instinctual reaction to such a flagrant example of flaunting social protocols and safety is not something you can control. But after the surge, you do have a choice. You can:
- Drive on pissed off at the world
- Mutter something under your breath about asses and holes
- Scream at the person
- Wait patiently and then key their car
- Pull a Kathy Bates (assuming you have the insurance)
All the examples above (and a million more) speak to POWER, and your choice of how to take control of the situation. Power will play two roles in this scenario. First, is how any direct action on your part will wrestle control from the other individual. If you key their car for example, you've exerted your POWER onto them and acted as the powerful hammer of the karma Gods. And yeah...I know karma doesn't work that way, but go with me here. Your second influence of POWER comes when you drive away from the situation and where your mind is at. You have the POWER to dictate your own reaction to it. If you just fume, and drive away, you've given the person the POWER to turn your energies negative. If you key their car and drive away laughing...you've wrestled the POWER back to your side because you get to feel like you came out ahead. And no, I'm not advising vandalism as a viable source of retribution. But if it gets your head straight, I won't call the cops. Even if all you do is take 5 deep breaths and wish that said individual be struck by a bus tomorrow. As long as you drive away saying anything along the lines of "I won't let that moron control how I feel for more than the next 3 seconds", congratulations. You've grabbed the POWER by the teeth and yanked it back onto your side.
Above all, remember that you are always a player in the power broker market. You buy, you sell, you trade. It's all give and take. But nothing. I repeat...NOTHING is so satisfying (in the game of power playing) than to look someone in the eye who is trying to take POWER from you, and effortlessly take it right back. An example from my own recent past.
I got some new earrings in a few weeks back. Beautiful abalone plugs that I put in immediately. I had them in for a day or two when I finally ended up interacting with a guy here at work.
"Anyone tell you how pretty you look with those little earrings in?"
What a sentence. Every word drips with sarcasm and an obvious attempt to shame me, thus causing me to abandon my choice of style and thus give him the POWER. There were three ways to go with this. First involves me taking them out because I don't want to feel ashamed. The second is to laugh it off, and get mad inside and hold a grudge. The third is to turn the tables. What did I say?
"Just my wife. She loves them, says they bring out the color in my eyes."
The look on his face was priceless. In one fell swoop I grabbed his whole bully tactic and turned it on his head. Standing there in front of his peers, he was reduced to stuttering and eventual retreat with his tail between his legs. Guess we know who came out ahead in that POWER struggle.
The point is folks, don't give people power over you. And if they try and take it, don't let them. Sure, some situations are designed to take power unilaterally. Boot camp is a good example of one. But even there, with your drill seargeant screaming in your face...you can stand there and smile. I mean a big old $h!t eating grin. As his blood pressure goes up and up and up....and his voice gets louder and louder and louder. Just keep on smiling. He's trying to berate you, to devalue you, ultimately to break you. So don't let him. Don't budge. If he tells you to wipe that smile off your face, do it. But keep smiling in your eyes. He'll see it.
"What are you smiling about?!?!?!"
"Because I'm alive"
<<<EXTRA CREDIT>>>
Okay boys and girls, here is a little assignment for you. I want you to find a local therapist, someone you know would be best. I want you to contact them and tell them you're going to do a little social experiment and you want to know if they have a couple dozen business cards you can have. Tell them that what you're gonna do is the next time you get into a confrontation with someone who is spun to high heaven you're going to calmly back down, tell the other person to relax because you're sorry that you got them so heated, and then hand them the business card and say:
"This guy is a friend of mine, and he's really good at dealing with these sorts of issues...you should give him a call"
And yeah, that's a LOT of effort for something so simple, but if you want the partial credit try this instead...
Using the parking space example, let's try this. Calmly approach the person and inform them that you were waiting for that spot. What if they apologize and say they didn't realize and back out and give it to you? Wouldn't you feel like fricking Superman? More likely scenario is they will give a flippant response. Here's what you're gonna do. Come back with an equally flippant remark. Bait them. If they just walk away you've already won because they are retreating from the confrontation. And guess what? You're Superman. Or, if they actually engage you and get all tweaked by your remark, here's what you say.
"Wow dude. Calm down. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that you were such a miserable person, living in such a shallow world, where this TINY victory is something for you to hang your hat on tonight. Truly. I'm very sorry."
Say all that with a calm, straight face. Don't be shitty or sarcastic. Even better is if you can say it with the air of a person who is genuinely concerned with the state of affairs of their life.
And then........walk away. As they sit there in stunned silence, watching you walk away, your bright red cape flapping in the wind, smile my friends. A big old smile.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Continual Growth (aka the Journey to Acceptance)
I'd love to say that the mind bending weight loss continues and I've reached my goal weight today, but even that might be a bit aggressive. 40 lbs in 3 days? Anyone know a good surgeon? My left leg has got to be at least that. Besides, hopping is good exercise. I'm down to 203.6 lbs so I'm still heading the right way. Wedding is a little over two weeks away. I can break 200 by then. Hell, 3 fiber muffins I could do it in a few hours. I know. Gross.
So today is a personal growth day. And since this journey is about much more than just weight loss, I think I can call it a success. This blog (and my others) are really giving me an outlet. A place to open up and just say things. Almost like an online diary, or a shrink. But unlike those two options I'm forced to not only face my issues privately, but publicly as well. That forces me to really face some things in their entirety. Not that I don't have boundaries that I haven't breached...or may never breach. But a part of personal growth (for me) is about ownership of these things. I liken it to carrying the lesson, not the guilt. "Old" Jim was way to focused on carrying the burden. Almost like I felt I needed to be punished for my failures. But the problem I'm learning is that eventually the burden crushes you. But setting aside the weight doesn't lessen the profundity of the lesson, it just makes it tolerable in the face of life in general. So what I'm learning to do is accept the faults of the past, carry the feeling and the lesson, and stop letting it dominate my perceptions of the future. So when days like today come along, and something hits me, it's important for me to face it head on, and you my dear readers are a crucial part of me coming to grips with it. And all without a $35 co-pay. How sweet of you all.
So today is a personal growth day. And since this journey is about much more than just weight loss, I think I can call it a success. This blog (and my others) are really giving me an outlet. A place to open up and just say things. Almost like an online diary, or a shrink. But unlike those two options I'm forced to not only face my issues privately, but publicly as well. That forces me to really face some things in their entirety. Not that I don't have boundaries that I haven't breached...or may never breach. But a part of personal growth (for me) is about ownership of these things. I liken it to carrying the lesson, not the guilt. "Old" Jim was way to focused on carrying the burden. Almost like I felt I needed to be punished for my failures. But the problem I'm learning is that eventually the burden crushes you. But setting aside the weight doesn't lessen the profundity of the lesson, it just makes it tolerable in the face of life in general. So what I'm learning to do is accept the faults of the past, carry the feeling and the lesson, and stop letting it dominate my perceptions of the future. So when days like today come along, and something hits me, it's important for me to face it head on, and you my dear readers are a crucial part of me coming to grips with it. And all without a $35 co-pay. How sweet of you all.
A Memory ... Change of Pace
So my grandfather was more or less a hero of mine. Not sure why he is a
hero, and not just a wonderful man, but he was that to me. Actually
both my grandfathers were. Loved Grandma Dot with all my heart, but he
and I were different. Maybe it was all the time we spent walking those
beaches. And I do mean a LOT of time. We did a ten mile hike from
(aptly named 10 mile beach) back to the fucking house one day. It took
us all day. We started pretty much at dawn, and didn't get back until
dinner. Honestly, that day was one of my best days ever. Like I was 10
or something, and didn't hate myself, or anything for that matter. I
was pure, and innocent, and truly alive. And we walked, and talked, and
found sea shells, and popped seaweed poppers, and skipped rocks. And
every morning, we'd walk the path from the house to the ocean. The one
that to this day I'm thoroughly convinced that only existed because that
man walked it. It's gone now, well gone and incorporated into the
state park "walk". But he and I. Yeah, WE cut that trail. I could
probably do it with my eyes closed if it weren't overgrown by now.
Around Lake Cleone. Where I caught my first fish. And we took it back
to the house, and cooked it. There wasn't a half a bight of meat on
that little sucker, but he pan fried it for me. So that's my grandpa.
My "namesake". THE Jim Fenolio in my eyes.
So he gets sick one year. Alzheimer's takes him. At first it's not too bad, I mean...just the basics. And some days it's worse than others. But I remember that my grandmother called me one day when I was laid off and she told me that there had been a storm in Ft. Bragg, and some shingles got ripped off. The neighbors told her about it. So she asked if I could go up and fix it. She'd pay, and buy my gas, etc. So I'm thinking, hell yeah. No problem. So I drive over to their house to get the keys and money etc. As I'm walking up to the door, I hear her yelling at him. I never heard that before. EVER. I learned after the fact that as a part of his memory going, he would test himself. He would remember that he would forget things, but not what they were. So he wanted to prove that he could remember. He'd take something, and "hide" it so that he could remember later that day and go get it. Problem is, he'd actually forget where it was. So from her perspective, in addition to dealing with the bad days that he didn't know who the fuck she was, or when he'd get angry, etc. He was hiding shit. Like, the house keys, the car keys, her purse. So I guess the stars aligned for the storm to necessitate me going up, and me going over there, and him having just hidden something else, and her losing it as a result. I knocked, she got quiet, and came to the door. Tears, etc. The whole nine. She looked spent. The first thing she said was, "Can you please take him up there with you?" And I knew, it wasn't go spend time with Pa, or he'd love to go up. It was, get him out of my sight. Thankfully that day he knew who I was so it wasn't hard to convince him to go. If there is a God up there....thank you for that at least.
So we set off, he's lost in his thoughts most of the way through the city and stuff. Finally we get to Cloverdale and we turn into wine country, and then into the mountains, and finally the redwoods. His eyes brighten with every passing mile. We pass a stream where he and I got out to pee one trip. A seemingly trivial moment at the time suddenly thrust into a grandeur of commonality with a memory remembered. He smiles the rest of the way up to the house. Getting out of my old yellow truck, I have to bring his mind back around as he's lost in thought. "Come on grandpa, we're here" He comes back, and a little of the twinkle fades from his eyes. There is still recognition there, and a sense of what I can only call peace, but it was the memory he savored then, not the reality. Reality sucks because in reality he can't remember things...and he knows it. But IN the memory, IN the moment he was washed in the simple perfection of what once was. Or at least this is how it all seemed to me. We take the bags in, he asks me where he's sleeping. I take him down the hall to the master bedroom and it seems like he recognizes it, as well he should. So we get settled, and I run up to the roof real quick to assess how bad it is, how much we need to buy, etc. My amateur (aka Jack and Squat) opinion comes up with a theory and I climb back down to find him in the living room, looking a little lost. Or maybe just trying to recall a memory in full that is dancing just out of reach. "Come on Pa, lets head to the store". It occurs to me as his face screws up to remember what the hell we needed at the store that he doesn't know. But he knows this game. Just go along with it, and everything will be fine. He smiles, and says "Okay". In town, he's more or less mute as he isn't into rocking the boat, like maybe he just wants to get this part over with so we can get back to something familiar and safe.
Arriving back at the house we offload and take the materials and tools around back. I start humping things up, and I ask him to hold the ladder for me. He does, and soon I've got everything up. I intended to take everything to the damaged area, come back down and then get him situated so I could get this done. On my third trip back to the ladder, there is a familiar face looking at me from aside the ladder. And then, the bombshell.
"Can I help?" he asks
I can see his face, every line, every spot, every detail. I will see it until I die. I can hear his voice. Small, and weak. And that's the last thing I can remember. Facing my hero, the man (like my father) who could do anything, an immortal human testament to capability and more fundamentally a man who I could never see myself being elevated to THAT level. Him, lost and scared, helpless and to the core wanting to be the man, not the illness. I'd like to tell you that I said, "Oh yeah grandpa, come on up", or at least "No grandpa, lets get something to drink". My last image of that man, and that trip was this. Period. I don't remember anything past that point about my grandfather. Not a glimpse of the drive home. No memory of fixing the roof. You could tell me that I went to a bar and he fixed the damn thing for all I know. But all these years later I can feel that instant, and every sensation of it. It is fundamental to who I am, in a variety of ways. Not the least of which is the realization that one of two things will happen regarding me, and THAT disease. Either there will be amazing advances in medical science that will keep me from ever becoming a prisoner in my own mind, trapped without an escape. Or I will resurrect Kavorkian and shuffle off this mortal coil a man clear of mind before the day I can't remember my own children. I'll fight just about anything else. I WILL NOT fight that disease. Another change that happened to me that day was that I realized, finally and to the core, that mortality is less about death in a physical sense, but for me in the mental sense.
I remember the Colombo that was always in the drawer at the house. On the back wall of the kitchen, second drawer down right in the middle. Always on the left side of the drawer. The ritual. "Hi Pa, hi Grandma Dot" make a b-line to the bread. We'd watch TV, have dinner, all the routine stuff, and then as the night is winding down, there were ALWAYS the Flintstone Push Pops. I'd usually be asleep when mom and dad showed up. Groggy, I'd be led out of the house to the waiting car. And soon it was another memory. Bookmarked by Colombo and Push Pops. But it was Fort Bragg where we really came alive. Where the sand, and the surf, and the grass were paintings of the backdrop of my childhood. I dream of that walk from ten mile to Ward. Now there's a big ass river in the way. A river that is in reality probably his fault. What? A river that is his fault? Yeah. It was once just a trickle that some days dried up to nothing. And he'd break the dams and let the water flow. Last I checked it was about thirty feet wide at it's smallest, and god only knows how deep. I will venture across one day. Or I'll get swept out to see with the current, but hell. There are worse ways to die. Being pulled out with the tide that I would relentlessly throw driftwood into and have my mongrel dog go swim after until my mom would MAKE me stop because she was about a quarter of a second from death by drowning. And she would have too. She'd have gone and gotten that stick if it meant her life. So standing atop Elephant Rock, I look down the coast. I can see our footprints in the sand. And in that moment, he's right there with me. Ironically as a memory, and amazingly, not the man on the ladder, but the man standing on the cliffs of the Pacific.
I miss you grandpa. I love you and I hope that one day I can fill the role you did for me with my grandchildren. And to the big man upstairs, if you're there, fuck you for taking those years from him. And if that anger, not for me...but for him, condemns me to an eternity of fire as a result. So be it. As long as I have that memory, of MY HERO standing at the mouth of the Pacific I will be in heaven. And his smile. I wish Alex could have known him. And to those of you that did, you understand. THAT smile.
So he gets sick one year. Alzheimer's takes him. At first it's not too bad, I mean...just the basics. And some days it's worse than others. But I remember that my grandmother called me one day when I was laid off and she told me that there had been a storm in Ft. Bragg, and some shingles got ripped off. The neighbors told her about it. So she asked if I could go up and fix it. She'd pay, and buy my gas, etc. So I'm thinking, hell yeah. No problem. So I drive over to their house to get the keys and money etc. As I'm walking up to the door, I hear her yelling at him. I never heard that before. EVER. I learned after the fact that as a part of his memory going, he would test himself. He would remember that he would forget things, but not what they were. So he wanted to prove that he could remember. He'd take something, and "hide" it so that he could remember later that day and go get it. Problem is, he'd actually forget where it was. So from her perspective, in addition to dealing with the bad days that he didn't know who the fuck she was, or when he'd get angry, etc. He was hiding shit. Like, the house keys, the car keys, her purse. So I guess the stars aligned for the storm to necessitate me going up, and me going over there, and him having just hidden something else, and her losing it as a result. I knocked, she got quiet, and came to the door. Tears, etc. The whole nine. She looked spent. The first thing she said was, "Can you please take him up there with you?" And I knew, it wasn't go spend time with Pa, or he'd love to go up. It was, get him out of my sight. Thankfully that day he knew who I was so it wasn't hard to convince him to go. If there is a God up there....thank you for that at least.
So we set off, he's lost in his thoughts most of the way through the city and stuff. Finally we get to Cloverdale and we turn into wine country, and then into the mountains, and finally the redwoods. His eyes brighten with every passing mile. We pass a stream where he and I got out to pee one trip. A seemingly trivial moment at the time suddenly thrust into a grandeur of commonality with a memory remembered. He smiles the rest of the way up to the house. Getting out of my old yellow truck, I have to bring his mind back around as he's lost in thought. "Come on grandpa, we're here" He comes back, and a little of the twinkle fades from his eyes. There is still recognition there, and a sense of what I can only call peace, but it was the memory he savored then, not the reality. Reality sucks because in reality he can't remember things...and he knows it. But IN the memory, IN the moment he was washed in the simple perfection of what once was. Or at least this is how it all seemed to me. We take the bags in, he asks me where he's sleeping. I take him down the hall to the master bedroom and it seems like he recognizes it, as well he should. So we get settled, and I run up to the roof real quick to assess how bad it is, how much we need to buy, etc. My amateur (aka Jack and Squat) opinion comes up with a theory and I climb back down to find him in the living room, looking a little lost. Or maybe just trying to recall a memory in full that is dancing just out of reach. "Come on Pa, lets head to the store". It occurs to me as his face screws up to remember what the hell we needed at the store that he doesn't know. But he knows this game. Just go along with it, and everything will be fine. He smiles, and says "Okay". In town, he's more or less mute as he isn't into rocking the boat, like maybe he just wants to get this part over with so we can get back to something familiar and safe.
Arriving back at the house we offload and take the materials and tools around back. I start humping things up, and I ask him to hold the ladder for me. He does, and soon I've got everything up. I intended to take everything to the damaged area, come back down and then get him situated so I could get this done. On my third trip back to the ladder, there is a familiar face looking at me from aside the ladder. And then, the bombshell.
"Can I help?" he asks
I can see his face, every line, every spot, every detail. I will see it until I die. I can hear his voice. Small, and weak. And that's the last thing I can remember. Facing my hero, the man (like my father) who could do anything, an immortal human testament to capability and more fundamentally a man who I could never see myself being elevated to THAT level. Him, lost and scared, helpless and to the core wanting to be the man, not the illness. I'd like to tell you that I said, "Oh yeah grandpa, come on up", or at least "No grandpa, lets get something to drink". My last image of that man, and that trip was this. Period. I don't remember anything past that point about my grandfather. Not a glimpse of the drive home. No memory of fixing the roof. You could tell me that I went to a bar and he fixed the damn thing for all I know. But all these years later I can feel that instant, and every sensation of it. It is fundamental to who I am, in a variety of ways. Not the least of which is the realization that one of two things will happen regarding me, and THAT disease. Either there will be amazing advances in medical science that will keep me from ever becoming a prisoner in my own mind, trapped without an escape. Or I will resurrect Kavorkian and shuffle off this mortal coil a man clear of mind before the day I can't remember my own children. I'll fight just about anything else. I WILL NOT fight that disease. Another change that happened to me that day was that I realized, finally and to the core, that mortality is less about death in a physical sense, but for me in the mental sense.
I remember the Colombo that was always in the drawer at the house. On the back wall of the kitchen, second drawer down right in the middle. Always on the left side of the drawer. The ritual. "Hi Pa, hi Grandma Dot" make a b-line to the bread. We'd watch TV, have dinner, all the routine stuff, and then as the night is winding down, there were ALWAYS the Flintstone Push Pops. I'd usually be asleep when mom and dad showed up. Groggy, I'd be led out of the house to the waiting car. And soon it was another memory. Bookmarked by Colombo and Push Pops. But it was Fort Bragg where we really came alive. Where the sand, and the surf, and the grass were paintings of the backdrop of my childhood. I dream of that walk from ten mile to Ward. Now there's a big ass river in the way. A river that is in reality probably his fault. What? A river that is his fault? Yeah. It was once just a trickle that some days dried up to nothing. And he'd break the dams and let the water flow. Last I checked it was about thirty feet wide at it's smallest, and god only knows how deep. I will venture across one day. Or I'll get swept out to see with the current, but hell. There are worse ways to die. Being pulled out with the tide that I would relentlessly throw driftwood into and have my mongrel dog go swim after until my mom would MAKE me stop because she was about a quarter of a second from death by drowning. And she would have too. She'd have gone and gotten that stick if it meant her life. So standing atop Elephant Rock, I look down the coast. I can see our footprints in the sand. And in that moment, he's right there with me. Ironically as a memory, and amazingly, not the man on the ladder, but the man standing on the cliffs of the Pacific.
I miss you grandpa. I love you and I hope that one day I can fill the role you did for me with my grandchildren. And to the big man upstairs, if you're there, fuck you for taking those years from him. And if that anger, not for me...but for him, condemns me to an eternity of fire as a result. So be it. As long as I have that memory, of MY HERO standing at the mouth of the Pacific I will be in heaven. And his smile. I wish Alex could have known him. And to those of you that did, you understand. THAT smile.
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Inspiration
Just a quick note that I feel compelled to share with all of you.
I just started a new blog ( http://gwogblog.blogspot.com/ ) that is going to deal with a very central part of my being. The critical point I want to make here is that I want to thank the people who have helped me along this blogging journey. I have heard from friends and family. People who are new in my life, and people that have been there all along. What started as me wanting to connect to people and to inspire people who might be lost to find themselves, has evolved into a synergy with people experiencing other equally life changing events. For some, it is quitting smoking. For others it's losing weight. It's dealing with cancer, losing loved ones, and learning that "I deserve more". The particulars are as varied as the people who are taking these journeys, but there is a theme. Something resonates in my words. It resonates enough to make them reach out and tell me. And something funny has happened. I have found inspiration in them. I have found strength for my own resolve, but my commitment to them, and everyone else who might want to bond with me, to fight for them...with them.
The message for today is this. You deserve to be happy. Period. There is no qualifier there. None. You don't deserve to be happy if... <insert external force here> You deserve to be happy. And if there is something that is keeping you from being happy, address it. Meet it head on. Ultimately what prevents us from being happy has to be something unhealthy. Even if on a trivial level, any willful deferral of happiness is an unhealthy impulse. That isn't to say that there isn't room for others, and caring for them beyond ourselves. But if you can't find happiness in providing that place in their life, I struggle to understand how that isn't a purely unhealthy activity or mindset. You sacrifice for your children, and rightly so. But the happiness comes from seeing them succeed. That is a healthy concept. You sacrifice eating those "bad" foods that might provide a moment of visceral pleasure, but you gain happiness in a greater sense when you stop hating the body you are in. (And by "you" in any of these statements, I do really mean "I", but I say you to encourage it being internalized. Maybe the royal "we" would work, but that might be a breach plagiarism laws.)
Accepting that "I deserve to be happy" is a tough nut to crack because it comes weighed with a host of repercussions. It means you will have to change. It means you will have to own the drains on your happiness and address them head on. And that's hard. It will challenge you on a fundamental level. It might mean you have to go through chemical withdrawals. It may mean letting go of that person who you know in your heart doesn't love you anymore. And that will hurt. It will suck. You will HATE it, and you will fight against it. Your desire to tolerate is going to try and hold you back. But the reality is this. If you can accept it. If you can internalize "I deserve to be happy", you will find the strength to get there. If it REALLY matters to you, you will find a way. If not, you will find an excuse. And that's not me calling anyone out. It's meant as a motivation to rebuff that sense that you will experience that tries to tell you to just accept things as they are and not try for more. So fight my friends. Please believe that you deserve to purge the bad from your life and you deserve to be fundamentally happy. Grab that person who gives in by the hand and drag them along with you. Show them that tomorrow you WILL be happier as a result of choosing to be happy. Love yourselves, every one of you. Love yourselves the way you fantasize about wanting someone else to love you. You are worth this fight, no matter how hard it is.
YOU DESERVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just started a new blog ( http://gwogblog.blogspot.com/ ) that is going to deal with a very central part of my being. The critical point I want to make here is that I want to thank the people who have helped me along this blogging journey. I have heard from friends and family. People who are new in my life, and people that have been there all along. What started as me wanting to connect to people and to inspire people who might be lost to find themselves, has evolved into a synergy with people experiencing other equally life changing events. For some, it is quitting smoking. For others it's losing weight. It's dealing with cancer, losing loved ones, and learning that "I deserve more". The particulars are as varied as the people who are taking these journeys, but there is a theme. Something resonates in my words. It resonates enough to make them reach out and tell me. And something funny has happened. I have found inspiration in them. I have found strength for my own resolve, but my commitment to them, and everyone else who might want to bond with me, to fight for them...with them.
The message for today is this. You deserve to be happy. Period. There is no qualifier there. None. You don't deserve to be happy if... <insert external force here> You deserve to be happy. And if there is something that is keeping you from being happy, address it. Meet it head on. Ultimately what prevents us from being happy has to be something unhealthy. Even if on a trivial level, any willful deferral of happiness is an unhealthy impulse. That isn't to say that there isn't room for others, and caring for them beyond ourselves. But if you can't find happiness in providing that place in their life, I struggle to understand how that isn't a purely unhealthy activity or mindset. You sacrifice for your children, and rightly so. But the happiness comes from seeing them succeed. That is a healthy concept. You sacrifice eating those "bad" foods that might provide a moment of visceral pleasure, but you gain happiness in a greater sense when you stop hating the body you are in. (And by "you" in any of these statements, I do really mean "I", but I say you to encourage it being internalized. Maybe the royal "we" would work, but that might be a breach plagiarism laws.)
Accepting that "I deserve to be happy" is a tough nut to crack because it comes weighed with a host of repercussions. It means you will have to change. It means you will have to own the drains on your happiness and address them head on. And that's hard. It will challenge you on a fundamental level. It might mean you have to go through chemical withdrawals. It may mean letting go of that person who you know in your heart doesn't love you anymore. And that will hurt. It will suck. You will HATE it, and you will fight against it. Your desire to tolerate is going to try and hold you back. But the reality is this. If you can accept it. If you can internalize "I deserve to be happy", you will find the strength to get there. If it REALLY matters to you, you will find a way. If not, you will find an excuse. And that's not me calling anyone out. It's meant as a motivation to rebuff that sense that you will experience that tries to tell you to just accept things as they are and not try for more. So fight my friends. Please believe that you deserve to purge the bad from your life and you deserve to be fundamentally happy. Grab that person who gives in by the hand and drag them along with you. Show them that tomorrow you WILL be happier as a result of choosing to be happy. Love yourselves, every one of you. Love yourselves the way you fantasize about wanting someone else to love you. You are worth this fight, no matter how hard it is.
YOU DESERVE THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Friday, June 1, 2012
June Baby
Well, it's June 1st so my journey has been going on for 5 full months now. A few things have happened in the past couple days that I want to share, or more accurately I want to express as a part of gaining a better understanding of where I am and what the future has in store for me.
First, I want to thank everyone for their continued support via email, comments, Facebook, etc. It really is so nice to know that so many other people have related to this epiphany I am experiencing. The one I wanted to address directly is toward my uncle. He called me out of the blue the other night to tell me how much he appreciated what I wrote. This evoked a very positive, and a very negative response from me. As a man living with cancer, to hear him connect to my blog was amazing. The negative (guilt) response came from my inability to express to him when he learned of his diagnosis my sympathy and support. I know that was just part of the "old Jim" mindset of shutting down at the first sign of trouble, but the reality is that I know I wouldn't be that guy today. Two specific themes came from our conversation that I feel compelled to share. First is that he told me that I need to let go of my guilt. Quite a well timed comment, given how I was feeling specifically about where I feel I fell short regarding him. But he was (and is) exactly right. Guilt really does not serve a purpose, at least not from the perspective of an enduring sense of becoming happy. It can be a motivator to accept our failures so as not to repeat them, but we have to let go of it. Feel the guilt, let it teach the lesson, then let the guilt go, but carry the lesson. Enduring guilt is counterproductive in that it is a past focused concept and only hinders our ability to move forward. The second concept we discussed was that of the journey itself. I had some intuition to the point he brought up, but he cast it into a very clear light for me. He said that the journey continues. (Paraphrasing) And it hit me. I was thinking of this experience in terms of an ultimate (and intermediate) terminus points. The "One day I'll....<fill in the blank>" attitude with things like:
- Reach my goal weight
- Be happy with my body
- Get off the medications
But what I'm realizing now is that I need to stop thinking about those points as endings of one journey, but rather a way point along the path. Life IS the journey, it is NOT the destination. For me this means (I think) that I need to ensure that my goals are focused enough to know when I'm attaining the intended results, but flexible enough to encourage a lifetime of growth and learning. So, to my brave uncle who found encouragement in my words, know that I found equal parts of support and love in yours. Keep on fighting and know that "the choice" has become a mantra of mine.
The other topic of this post deals with some emotions I had to deal with today. I made a specific blog regarding the beginning of the ordeal.
http://jfranting.blogspot.com/
This was the way the day started, and I found myself more than at any time in the past month having to consciously bring myself back down from some emotional rough spots. Now, I'm not nearly naive enough to think that this sort of life change would go off without a hitch, but just like quitting smoking knowing this fact and having a nic-fit are two VERY different things. I will say preemptively that even though I did go further toward my old "anger" reactions I was able to make the choice to come back down. But it was scary. I series of issues on the road had tried my patience, and then IT happened. I was trying to pull into a parking space when some jack hole tried to cut around me, and nearly hit the car. Angela's car. White flash of rage!!!!!!!!! I pulled into the spot, and senior moron went past, and as I thrust the car into park, white knuckles on the steering wheel, I could feel that primal emotion. I was angry. And then as I realized that this idiot had pushed me past the point of no return (sort of) and that this was again "old Jim" behavior, and that made me more mad. That I had let go of the choice and was a slave to my negative emotions. I got out of the car, did a little vocal purging, and within a minute or two I was back. I could laugh about it. But for that short period of time I was reminded that if I am going to be successful at conquering my demons, I have to remember that I will have to be ever vigilant to these emotions. It is okay to have them, but I can't let them control me. I can't be a slave to them. That's what got me into this situation in the first place, letting my situations and emotions dictate my responses, rather than the inverse.
So today was a lesson. One that I honestly am still working on digesting, but even if all I take from it was the knowledge that I have to be an active participant in my own happiness and that I will always need to do that, it was a good lesson. I'm the captain of this ship dammit, and if I want to stay on course, I can't just abandon my fate to the winds. Keep my rudder true, and my sails full and I can make it.
First, I want to thank everyone for their continued support via email, comments, Facebook, etc. It really is so nice to know that so many other people have related to this epiphany I am experiencing. The one I wanted to address directly is toward my uncle. He called me out of the blue the other night to tell me how much he appreciated what I wrote. This evoked a very positive, and a very negative response from me. As a man living with cancer, to hear him connect to my blog was amazing. The negative (guilt) response came from my inability to express to him when he learned of his diagnosis my sympathy and support. I know that was just part of the "old Jim" mindset of shutting down at the first sign of trouble, but the reality is that I know I wouldn't be that guy today. Two specific themes came from our conversation that I feel compelled to share. First is that he told me that I need to let go of my guilt. Quite a well timed comment, given how I was feeling specifically about where I feel I fell short regarding him. But he was (and is) exactly right. Guilt really does not serve a purpose, at least not from the perspective of an enduring sense of becoming happy. It can be a motivator to accept our failures so as not to repeat them, but we have to let go of it. Feel the guilt, let it teach the lesson, then let the guilt go, but carry the lesson. Enduring guilt is counterproductive in that it is a past focused concept and only hinders our ability to move forward. The second concept we discussed was that of the journey itself. I had some intuition to the point he brought up, but he cast it into a very clear light for me. He said that the journey continues. (Paraphrasing) And it hit me. I was thinking of this experience in terms of an ultimate (and intermediate) terminus points. The "One day I'll....<fill in the blank>" attitude with things like:
- Reach my goal weight
- Be happy with my body
- Get off the medications
But what I'm realizing now is that I need to stop thinking about those points as endings of one journey, but rather a way point along the path. Life IS the journey, it is NOT the destination. For me this means (I think) that I need to ensure that my goals are focused enough to know when I'm attaining the intended results, but flexible enough to encourage a lifetime of growth and learning. So, to my brave uncle who found encouragement in my words, know that I found equal parts of support and love in yours. Keep on fighting and know that "the choice" has become a mantra of mine.
The other topic of this post deals with some emotions I had to deal with today. I made a specific blog regarding the beginning of the ordeal.
http://jfranting.blogspot.com/
This was the way the day started, and I found myself more than at any time in the past month having to consciously bring myself back down from some emotional rough spots. Now, I'm not nearly naive enough to think that this sort of life change would go off without a hitch, but just like quitting smoking knowing this fact and having a nic-fit are two VERY different things. I will say preemptively that even though I did go further toward my old "anger" reactions I was able to make the choice to come back down. But it was scary. I series of issues on the road had tried my patience, and then IT happened. I was trying to pull into a parking space when some jack hole tried to cut around me, and nearly hit the car. Angela's car. White flash of rage!!!!!!!!! I pulled into the spot, and senior moron went past, and as I thrust the car into park, white knuckles on the steering wheel, I could feel that primal emotion. I was angry. And then as I realized that this idiot had pushed me past the point of no return (sort of) and that this was again "old Jim" behavior, and that made me more mad. That I had let go of the choice and was a slave to my negative emotions. I got out of the car, did a little vocal purging, and within a minute or two I was back. I could laugh about it. But for that short period of time I was reminded that if I am going to be successful at conquering my demons, I have to remember that I will have to be ever vigilant to these emotions. It is okay to have them, but I can't let them control me. I can't be a slave to them. That's what got me into this situation in the first place, letting my situations and emotions dictate my responses, rather than the inverse.
So today was a lesson. One that I honestly am still working on digesting, but even if all I take from it was the knowledge that I have to be an active participant in my own happiness and that I will always need to do that, it was a good lesson. I'm the captain of this ship dammit, and if I want to stay on course, I can't just abandon my fate to the winds. Keep my rudder true, and my sails full and I can make it.
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