What Needs Done

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. -© Oriah Mountain Dreamer

How many mornings have we drug ourselves out of our bed to do what needed to be done?  I am sure we cannot count the times.  Once it was midnight forays making us tired.  Once it was stumbling to a bassinette or a child's bad dream.  Later it was, for some, stumbling from our beds because we have to go to work early.  Then, now, we stumble out of bed because everything hurts in the mornings.  But, nonetheless, we get up to face the day and make it worthwhile being here at all.

As we age, we wish to remain independent, whatever independence means to each of us.  We learn we do not have the same balance as when we were younger.  We know life expectancy has changed for baby boomers.  What we hope, though, is that we can stay mobile and continue do things for ourselves and others.  We should always have a goal set the night before, so we know we will get something done.  Anything above and beyond that is a bonus.  Celebrate.  Save time in the day to check on a friend, go for a walk with the dog, go on a nature walking path, do something that gets you out and about.  Yes, say hello to a neighbor, make a treat to take over, check on them.  It is way too easy to get trapped in the pitiful place of hurt that many of us are caught in.  Do it anyway...somebody needs you.

Just when you get tired doing dishes and tidying up, you can find time to sit down at the computer and research interesting topics to you.  Keep a good collection of novels to read for some quiet intellectual time.  A friend, who was studying social work and geriatrics, did a research on how bingo keeps the mind sharp by finding those bingo numbers in a few seconds of time you are allotted before they call another.  Her findings were absolutely positive... bonus is the socialization.  I am a hungry mind and I spend hours reading and writing and developing brain skills.  I love solving the problem of a paintings lights and darks and shapes and shadows.  I give away most of my paintings... the joy it gave me is passed forward as gifts from my very soul.  Every night I may do a quick sketch to get shapes and the next morning I work all day off and on it.  It helps to fill the day and I can share my techniques, successes and failures in hopes to inspire others to try painting.  Keep yourself intellectually sharp.

Emotionally, be aware that emotions can be hard work as well.  It can wear you down because women are problem solvers and our brains can go a hundred miles a minute, until it doesn't.  I am not sure that women manage their emotions better than men.  I think we are more expressive about our emotions.  Our emotions can wobble all through the day and keeping up to guarding our emotions is labor we go through every day.  This does not consider those who have emotional problem-solving difficulties.  They work even hard because it is really difficult to manage roaring emotions.  There can be emotional blockades as we meet something that is not so easy to manage.  Our minds still go a mile a minute and we can either find a way to conquer that or we will sink into more emotional problem solving than living a more peaceful, joyful, life.  Don't say, I cannot, I am afraid...that stunts your ability to feel joy and gratitude.  Don't say you cannot change, that you do not need too;  unless you are living a sedate calm life already, you will need to change every moment.  That is a cop-out..  grab life by the neck and hang on because it can be a wild ride if you are trying to skid your feet about changing.   We all know things we need to change.  We have patterns in our life, we have replay of incidents and emotions that do not make us happy.  Those are the things to focus on.  As we age, we have more time and more time means we can think and feel and consider emotions and those things that create chaos or comfort.  Choose comfort because we come to a time where emotional chaos can keep us from ever having a graceful and dignified lie at the end of our years.

Spiritually, we need to keep feeding our soul with the best of things.  Life will give us rough patches and our body will betray us more and more as we get older.  We need something to hope for, something to dream for, something to wish for, that are attainable...yes, attainable.  

As we age, we need social interaction, we need to be able to make choices, we need to be able to feel safe and secure in the fact that we know what we want and how appropriate that it might be.  It is easy, before we get there, to think, well, I can do this or that or the other, but once day we lose our driver's licnense, and then we start burning food on our stove, and then we fall and break something, and then we are cooped up in little rooms to bide our time until we move into more care and less personal options.  It comes, unless we die before we get to that stage.  It comes and we have to be settled with our life before it does.  I know that I have made plans, thinking I might go before my partner.  I know where, in the house, everything that is mine is kept.  I have mentally packed things up and I have a do-not-forget list in my head.  It is my way of being prepared for something that may come to visit me again - death of a partner and the move out of the home and into wherever I can poke myself into a place I choose, until I lose more ability to choose where to be.  

So, as anyone else, we know we will have rough days and rough decisions.  It is a good idea to clear the debris, the past things we hang on to for dear life because we think that is our story.  It is time for us to gather the harvest of what we have done in our life, pack up our negative memories and burn them in th fire, and get on with getting on and being prepared for the next step of aging.  Rise every morning grateful we are still here and able.

This is going to be a test to see if we truly were ready.  Let's be ready.  No denial, no clichés, just be prepared for what comes nest;  fluff up your hair, brush your teeth, throw some make-up on, get dressed , make a plan to go do something nice for someone else, and greet the waning days.

Make your world a better place by making other's world a little brighter.

©Carol Desjarlais 6.28.19

Entitlement

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, 'Yes.'-© Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I think, somehow, human beings have developed a sense of entitlement.  We are human, we try and we fail or succeed, but either way, do we rationalize even our failures and wear them as a badge, or do we learn the lesson from not quite succeeding?

noun: entitlement:  the fact of having a right to something; the amount to which a person has a right; the belief that one is inherently deserving of privileges or special treatment.

There is a difference between self-confidence and entitlement.  There is a difference between self-absorption and entitlement.  And, yes, there is a time for entitlement in certain situations in that we do deserve basic human rights, etc.  But thee is always the positive and the negative and the negative of entitlement is that we want something without deserving it, or earning it, and without doing what is necessary to gain something.  When we get something without doing the work to earn it, we do not appreciate it.  We have all seen this when people get handouts, for free;  it is not respected as it should be and people lose respect as well. Surely we have all received something that we just did not feel we earned.  There is not nearly as much joy in it.  I had a situation where the gift was unbelievably heavy because I am so danged independent and do not want to burden by asking for things.  When I received, I felt so much responsibility that I could not enjoy the gift.  It was a horrible feeling but so greatly grateful for it.  It was a strange place for me to do for I worked hard for anything I got.  I will forever feel indebted for it and no way to ever give back such a gift.  I am sure you have felt the same betimes.

I am sure we have all met people who think everything is unfair, the bureaucracy is demonized, any authority is rebelled against.  Yet, they are on some sort of subsidy or social services.  They seem to decry more about unfairness.  They feel controlled.  They seem to feel punished.  Yet, they forget the gift of it and be grateful and show gratitude.  Is it that they do not feel they deserve it, do they truly deserve it?  It is a hot topic, to be sure.

We are privileged to be down here on earth.  Yes, we work hard at being the right kind of human being.  Yes, we work hard to keep our heads above water.  Yes sometimes we question if it is worth it.  But we learn to be patient, we learn to be considerate, we learn to earn what we receive and work for what we want.  We learn that we are not the center of everyone else's worlds and we are unique (not special) or more special than anyone else, and we learn we are full of wants and needs we have to fulfill ourselves.

I know I am coming from entitlement when I refuse to compromise (to forgive, for instance).  I know sometimes I want respect when it has not been earned yet.  (This was a huge thing for me when I was in the educational arena.  The boys were told they had to take their hats off to show respect towards teachers, etc.  And, yet, those students had imprinted their identity on those hats - there was beading, feathers, beautiful handwork that set them apart and showed some of their unique personality.  Sometimes the most lost kids had the most beautiful unique beading and work on their caps.  I bucked the system and the boys were able to wear their hats around me: Such an antiquated protocol.)  Do we, the freedom fighters of the sixties, impose Victorian etiquette on others because we might be in a position of authority?  Hmmm, something to consider.

I am pretty sure, if we overstep our entitlement bounds, we have had people misunderstand us, become defensive towards us, and/ or feel offended by us.  Just because we think we are special and our parents told us we were special, does not mean we are better than anyone else.  Was that 'loved' instead of 'special'?  Not everyone, ever, will ever always love us.  We have learned that. 

I know that artists and creative people of all kinds border on craving attention, support, affirmation from others when we share our work.  Are we sharing to help others see what is possible or impossible?  Or, are we looking for simply affirmation that our work is awesome?  There is a fine line.  I know that I share mine for critique and to show others that one can do art no matter how gifted we might think we are or aren't.  I have shown what I do since I first started doing art for myself once I retired.  Some of that stuff surely keeps me humble.  In fact, some of my latest stuff keeps me humble.  Oh, is humbleness a sign we are not feeling entitled?

I always refused to be Principal or Vice Principal because I was a great frontline person.  I am great at being a helper bee rather than a queen bee.  I guess we should know our limitations:  Each to our own.  Sometimes positions of authority can ruin us. We see it over and over in higher positions where authority equals a right to be a bully of sorts.  We see it in children in the park.  We see it when parents may demand unrealistic/unhealthy attitudes and things of children. I will ever be sorry for telling my fourth daughter to "smile; be happy girl!"  when she was unhappy about something and it was inconvenient for me.  I have told her I was sorry for it and she forgave me.  I have learned to forgive myself in that I encouraged authentic feelings.  Her teaching me made me have a better gift to give to those who are suffering or sad.  It goes beyond the home, for sure, and we see it in society all the time.  Entitlement.

Self-pity is the dressing gown of Entitlement.  Of course, we can have moments of self-pity but we do not impose that self-pity on others, or we should not.  Bullying, vanity, untruths all are part of the dressing of someone who feels entitled.  Even to believe we 'deserve' happiness and success without consideration of how that entitlement might make others feel.  I am always struck when we say, after a bad accident where some lose their lives, that one that lived was "blessed'.  I am struck because it infers the ones who lost their lives were not.  I am sure many times, that is not meant, or that we are not conscious of how trite clichés are, betimes.

If it costs someone else, do not do it.  Those who feel entitled often do not care at what cost they create on others.  They are the type of people who can consciously or unconsciously create their own happiness in passive ways so that it becomes manipulation to feed their own desires.  There seems to be no black of white to entitlement in that others are either competition or threatening to stand in the way of wants and needs.    It is so easy to take more than we give and to do so constantly leaves you in debt not ahead of people, places and things.   How easily we could slip in to entitlement as we plod our way through life.  We all have flaws and frailties and some of us feel entitled without realizing that we have moved our scale a bit too far to the left.  Entitlement is a type of narcissism, a very difficult trait and not always is the entitled aggressive about it. 

Let us be self-aware enough to realize when the memememe is more important than anything else and we have such just reasons...but they may not be jsut to anyone but us.  Let us guard ourselves well in analyzing what expectations we have and why and if they are just.  Sometimes we need to take a really good look at what we expect from others and realize we need to expect the same for us.  If we can do these things, be just, kind, compassionate, and centered not within our own expectations but centered on how others might need and how to compromise.  Compassion and empathy are huge and celebrating others is huge as well.  Let us always celebrate others and share in that happiness we give.  

Love ourselves so we can love others.  We can all change.  We are changing every millisecond we breathe.  We can work at being whole and whole-world centered because what is put out into the ether is what will return.  Time and time again, lessons return to test our authenticity and whether we are not self-accepting, self-loving or whether we might just be tipping the scale into entitlement. 

Lots to think upon.

©Carol Desjarlais 6.26.19

Pain, the source of beauty

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

How do we become resilient?  Where does it come from?  Even on my worst days, and believe me there were many, as I walked through the shadows, I gained a strength that I cannot explain.  The only thing that I could not bear, and what broke me, was the death of my soul mate in five weeks.  I was angry at being abandoned this one last time.  I broke.  I am still broken but I am healing up those scars that were left from it.  I will spend the rest of my life trying to heal that.

I think, in being totally broken, and totally unable to even manage the basic of skills, I found beauty in my ability to carry on, to breathe on more breath, to walk the rest of my journey without him.  I begged for Creator to take me.  I knew that my life would never be the same.  But, in all that, and as the months went by, I found a new way of being... a good way.  I still have problems making decisions and I abdicate the decision making to those I trust.

What the beauty in it all is, is that I know how to be vulnerable.  I know that being broken is not forever but that it will change us forever and in that change we find more resilience.  Can we be vulnerable?  Why is it so difficult when that is exactly what we are in this life down here on earth?  Is vulnerability beauty?

©Carol Desjarlais 6.25.19

Can You Bear It

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

This is huge.  Can you be betrayed and not betray your own soul?  Wow!  If we take each phrase of the above quote, from the Invitation, and really look at it, it will provide us with good thoughts.

Again, the story we tell ourselves and the true story might be different.  It depends on whether you bought in to other people's story about you.  Somehow our story gets less and less authentic and we are living someone else's story rather than our authentic one. 
Could I, did we, disappoint another to be true to self.  Of course.  It happens.  There were times I disappointed my parents..well, many times.  I could not be a sheep nor was I a lamb.  I was grateful to have them live long enough to be proud of me.  There is nothing like the look on a mother's face when you disappoint her.  My biggest disappointment to my mother was that I divorced a Mormon man and left the church completely in order to save myself.  I had to bear her disappointment but when she saw me flourish she did become proud of me and said so.  It was so hard on her, I knew.  But, I also know I had to bear that in order to be what I could be.  

Have we borne accusation of betrayal?  Oh, so many times.  Again, it was leaving my 10 year marriage, with seven children, bundling them up and going to University so I would not be a burden on anyone else, or society.  I had to completely walk way without telling my story.  Of course, truth was discovered shortly, about the abuse and other terrible things and I was justified in others' eyes.  See, I spent a great deal of time worrying about what others would think.  I betrayed many, sometimes myself, as I walked away and tested the waters of being a single parent mom with babies that were in day care.  To others, and their stories of me, I was fodder for much gossip.  None of it true.  But, to justify their own unhappiness, their own caging, they had to find their own reasons why I would walk away from everything.  It may have been betrayal to others, but I had to be true to myself.  My soul needed detaching at great cost to many relationships and yet I bore it and was truly blessed in so many ways that it made up for the hurt I had to hand over to those who thought I should stay forever and be the lamb or the sheep.  I can be very proud of my courage and the work it took to completely shed the victimhood and become more whole than I ever could have.  

Faithless!  What does that truly mean?  It has many connotations, but to me, it means that I had to drop the veil of conditioning from my eyes and let no man be in control of my soul.  I had to completely withdraw so I could have a personal relationship with Creator.  I had to change the language of it all, as well, and you will typically say "Creator" rather than God. I could no longer use that title for the Omnipresent Being.  To me, with my past, the title of God and all I was conditioned to believe, was that he was a monster out to get us no matter how hard we try.  To me, as he was used against me, and used by others to abuse me, it was not a being that I trusted any more.  I had to find a way to live that gave me hope and a sense of a loving Being.  I moved into following the Good Red Road and living that life so completely that I came to know Creator.  I took the good that fit my soul and discarded the rest.  It saved me.  I became faithless so that I live a spiritually trustworthy life.

Our stories are so important.  My story could be made into a movie.  I have written and published my story.  Not for acknowledgement, but as a way of doing deep soulful work in understanding who I was and why.  The why is important.  Not many know the WHY of who we are.  It released me.  It empowered me.  It may help others who struggle.  There is a way to come out of despair, out of a life where Christ wept, out of dire circumstances and come to a beautiful place.  Yes I succeeded in many ways.  Yes, I failed in many ways.  But here I am and I am my own story.

Can you speak to all the important phrases of the quote?  Think deep and soulfully about it.  You do not need to share, for that takes great trust, but I hope you will speak to the importance of that quote in your life:

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

©Carol Desjarlais 6.24.19