True Day: A Scathingly Brilliant Idea...

A few days ago, Olivia posted this. It's a very brave post, addressing the fact that we all have things we wish for that we don't want to admit to others. Within the post, she suggests that we all need a "true day", times when we are free to admit the things we really think, really want, really fantasize about, without fear of how others will receive it.

We began talking about this off-line, about the possibility of creating a space where all of us would feel free to express our inner selves, including these things we typically hide from others. Most of the time, we only believe we're hiding them since others do see it, but there's something freeing about writing it or saying it. It's almost like a confession without the penance. In these spaces, we don't want to see any penance dished out, just acceptance and sharing.

I'm willing to start.

I am ashamed of how small my world is and do a lot to hide it. Over the past year or so, I have used many of the lessons from my mother, things I scoffed at in the past, to create an image that isn't entirely true. In other words, I've allowed myself to become a social climber. I want to be perceived as "A List" material and have compromised my own values at time to accomplish that. I've given the impression that my life is much fuller than it is because it's easier than dealing with the shame and embarrassment.

I haven't lied exactly. Maybe a little. I've just left a lot out. My life embarrasses me. It should be fuller than it is, yet I deal with a touch of the isolationist. I love my alone time, yet recognize that I am not serving myself or anyone else by giving into it to the degree I do. Even knowing it is unhealthy doesn't necessarily push me out of the pattern. I fake it around others. I've allowed numbers and a calendar to control my perceptions of myself.

This began because there are times when I can be a petty and competitive person. I had a minor conflict with someone on my recovery list. She said "most people have lives, Chani" and my immediate reaction was to think "I'll show you, you *****!" and go into full-tilt competition, to prove to her that she was wrong. I not only "have a life" but one that is rich and full... the extension of that being "richer and fuller than yours". Because sometimes I can be that way.

It's stupid and faulty reasoning, of course.. but one I nurture anyway. I want to prove something - by any means necessary. My life hasn't changed all that substantially since that conflict occurred but I've learned how to present myself in such a way that no one will ever be able to say something like that to me again. It was humiliating, hurtful and intended to wound. Mission accomplished.

(For the record, I detest that expression "get a life". It's only purpose is to embarrass or humiliate another person. From now on, I will challenge anyone who says it.)

So I've admitted it here. Sometimes I can be petty and competitive. And sometimes I'm a phony.

I don't like that about me but I believe the quote in the graphic on this post. Each time we bring something like this into the light, we have an opportunity to heal it. If we don't admit it, it festers and spiders in several directions, making it possible to become an unhealthy pattern.

So I'm putting this on the table, admitting it because I intend to heal it. The other possible outcome is that I will accept it as part of my character and determine to not use it in a hurtful way - to myself or anyone else.

This is the purpose of "true day". If you would like to participate, put "true day" in the subject line of your post so we can find it with a search.


~*

Wellness Wednesday: Sometimes we just have to admit it....

Sometimes we just have to admit when things are not optimum.

And when we do ~ and something amazing happens.

For the past few days, I've been feeling pretty badly, missing my old wat connection. In a moment of weakness, I sent an email to one of the members, trying to find out if some of the problems could be resolved.

My email was ignored.

That was the final step, the final blow I needed to know that, yes, I really had to put it behind me. It's not going to work out and I am not going back there. I made two friends out of the experience and that's as good as it gets.. which is pretty damn good, all things considered.

For quite a while, I've had a slip of paper around here with the name of another wat, one that was continually badmouthed at the old one, so I never called them.

It's a Thai wat, actually. I was told how bad the people are there, how they're just a bunch of "old Thai women who have married American men and all they ever talk about is money and what their husbands bought for them."

Anyone who knows me would know how unappealing that would be. I just never followed up on it.

The truth is that sometimes people don't tell the truth. At that time, WLP (the old wat) wanted me to stick with them because I was useful. In retrospect, I can see now that they left out the part Lenin was willing to say outloud.... "useful idiot". They figured by badmouthing the other one that I wouldn't leave and I'd continue to serve them.

I'm naive about that kind of thing and tend to take everyone at their word until they prove untrustworthy. I'm may not always be the sharpest tool in the shed but I wouldn't want to live a life being suspicious of everyone's motives. Well, they've proven I can't take their word for anything and it's time to give up.

So I called the new one... which I'll call WSB.

A young man answered the phone in broken English. I mustered some of my broken Thai and we managed to have a conversation. It's hard to admit this - but during our conversation, I was crying. He didn't recognize that. I cover up well. Just to hear his voice, to have that conversation, to be welcomed, to feel that "connection" that automatically occurs between me and anything or anyone Thai, caused me to recognize the separateness I've been feeling over the past three months since I broke with the other place ~ but denied. I refused to deal with it head-on because I am notoriously poor at dealing with emptiness. Even if it was bad, it was better than nothing.

So.. what the heck does this have to do with Wellness Wednesday? In thinking about it, I see that if we are unable to admit when something is broken, we have no opportunity to fix it. Additionally, I wonder if holding back, lying even to ourselves, somehow closes off things that might come to us. I was so highly invested in *not* admitting that I was missing that day-to-day connection, that sense of belonging, that I closed myself off to drawing it again.

Just a thought - not even fully processed - but it seems right. At least for now.

~*