A Sunday Afternoon
Jul. 11th, 2010 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
angelakThings have been going right along. Been working hard on not working as hard in life. We've gone through some tumultuous times here and there - yet it's clear that each situation gives way to much needed relationship weeding.
Have my new weight loss strategy:
1. Work out less
2. Eat more
3. Ditch the stress and worry as much as possible
I think it's working.
It's a little different than most people and their weight loss plans.
Been working them 8 hour days. It's beginning to feel regular - minus one thing. The most intense hours of boredom in the last 2 hrs of the day aren't there.
Will be trying to re-awaken my lunch hour dog walking, as the last couple of weeks they went by the wayside when Jimmers decided he wanted to wake up EARLIER to catch me on my around-noon lunch!!!!! Hah.
Read the book "My Stroke Of Insight," By Jill Bolte Taylor. Trying to use this to really re-shape my neurological thought patterns. I want to re-activate my old ways of coping with the World at large. It's clear that when my life hit the fan and my World shattered for a while, that I made brand new negative loops that are now the ones I automatically go to instead of what it was prior: a different loop that was less dramatic, less story-telling, less depressing.
My life theme for the moment is really about shutting my Left Brain down when I need to, and really giving way to the Right Brain sense of total peace and allowing.
It's OK to fluctuate. It's OK to accept where I am right here, right now. If I can really begin to kick a new set of circuits to come online with my brain, I think I'll be able to attain my hearts' desires instead of racing around chasing my fears and angers.
I am allowing license to let my negative loop speak here - as follows...
This doesn't address my current state of familial frustrations:
There are things that frustrate me about my family right now. I don't think they did anything different, but one day I woke up and felt different. Namely that Mom has been saying that the bro rift is just a little siblings rift or something. Down playing what to me is no little insignificant tift. It's truly a heart-breaking thing to me, because unlike anyone else in this World when I've been at ends with them, I have truly no way of getting a hold of him.
I cannot show up at his house.
I cannot call him, I did try with my last simple message on the phone line voicemail.
I cannot send email.
I will have to send some sort of hand-delivered note, via someone who isn't me.
I have not heard from him since that last screaming phone call over 7 months ago.
When my mother shrugged it off a little, I was deeply upset by this.
If it were her in my shoes, several months of no speaking after a screaming match would probably devastate her. I realize she has never had a great bond between her siblings, or if she did - I never witnessed it. Her comparison as to what it is (possibly) to me is weak at best. Maybe I don't know everything and I'm wrong, is why I insert possibly.
So, it makes me want to draw away.
My Left Brain screams, it says:
It's easy for you, mother - to keep seeing this woman for use of her gas and her company. This woman who has parted the seas of our once-drama free family.
It's easy for you, mother - when you can speak with this man. When you still see his smile, hear his voice, and he still tells you he loves you.
You aren't limited.
And yet no one else in this family has courage because they cater to the fear-mongering of Melissa. The fact I've been "cut off," in every possible form, only confirms the entire reason I sent the email in the first place.
There is a point where I have to let go with love of my brother.
There is a side of me that can't bear to hear all about James and his life right now. It's 7 months and I can feel in my heart that Christmas 2010 will come and he won't want to see me. He won't want to accept my love, and now begin to realize if someone doesn't want my love, doesn't want me in their life (James) - then they have made their choice. It is with Love that I bow out of this connection. Those who deserve my love, are the ones who accept it freely.
While this realization is probably the best for me, it's hard to let go with love when I feel the draining, sinking heart break of a woman who feels such enjoyment over crushing me, with no remorse so long as she has her power.
As Eckhart Tolle would say - I do my best a thousand times a month to let go of my pain-body and separate from that which is history, and that which is the Right brain, the here and now.
Right Now, Right Here.
I'm full of peace and whether or not my family is a part of my life, or not...
Life still is.
Trillions of cells make up a symphony of my Living sack of flesh that sustains my rental space for this experience we all call Life.
Whether my house burns down or someone plows into my car and wrecks it while it's parked on the street - I'm still here, living, breathing, and loving somebody.
If my family wants me, they can come find me. I'm on the internet, I live in a house that they all know the address to.
Tired of trying, driving, expending for the moment. All those Northern end beings are the ones my mother in particular makes effort to see. It's so easy when someone pays for her gas. It's so easy when it's only a 20 minute drive instead of 45. It's like some thing that middle aged Mothers think: All my kids must come SEE ME instead of the other way around. They'd so little as get off their lilly pads of their own homes to go to the homes of their children.
It happens with Heinz, with Jim, with my own mother, with tons of other people I know.
It's judging, it's not fair, it's probably wrong in so many ways to hold these kinds of expectations - particularly without clear communication. But... one morning I woke up and this was how I felt.
I can't deny it doesn't have to do with the company she keeps. I wish Grandma hadn't told the little stories about that guy I used to call my bro. He isn't my bro. He's some dude that could give a fuck about me and my life. He's that guy who would rather turn me away and let me cry for months on end with a dull ache of him in my heart. He's that man who once was my best friend - but that's fine. I have memories and I was lucky to spend the time I had with him.
Now I know he's in his own place of life now. That place doesn't include a loving little sister who has a knack for over-zealous feelings of protectiveness. It includes a wife that would run the show and is threatened by me.
It includes a man who took my concern differently than I could have imagined. Happy 30th Birthday, James. So far as I know - you've shown me that you aren't the man who would be here in an instant if I needed someone to help me in a crisis.
If I die before we speak again - I'm so sorry I sent a spousal-emotional-abuse awareness link to you. And yet........ I'm so glad too. It has shown me who you really are as you enter the gateway of the next decade of your life. I hope you have a wonderful family and a beautiful time. I'm just that woman who sent an awareness link and you vilified for it.
Letting go with Love the best and the only way I know how.
/end rant
Back to the mellow:
Went to the Mariner's game yesterday with Dave from Sultan. They were the ticket's Amy bought for him for his birthday. I could take a million minutes writing the circumstance.
Needless to say I got a free M's game in the Terrace club with a nice dude who happens to think highly of me. We spent hours chatting and drinking a few over priced beers, to witness a grand slam in the bottom of the 8th - and a nice closing 9th inning.
Been running, circuit training, and taking time off when I can.
Also went back to Yoga and survived. While I love the Yoga - I know it is not going to be my primary workout right now. I need it to stay loose in the legs and back mostly - and will be going when I can, but basing the bulk of my training around the old formula that took me to my dream bod.
And am really embracing accepting me RIGHT here. RIGHT now. Temporary, our whole entire life and the states that are within it.
Temporary are the people in lives, the bonds and love we share. When we let go with Love, we allow openings for people and places and things that have meaning that will contribute to our life experience.
Temporary are our pets, temporary are our levels of fitness, our body shape, size, mass and resilience.
No matter what we do, it is setting us up for what we will witness in the future. But the Now is bigger than that. The future is not tangible, touchable.
So - retraining my brain circuitry to really grasp that right now, it's all fine. Right now - I've got all I need to be happy.
I may begin scheduling whine minutes into my life so that my negative loops have a "place," and a "time," rather than letting it randomly poke its head up and ruin my night. I have written an AWESOME vision board, and am beginning to trust in the Flow of life.
I have goals and they look like this:
+Creativity, Productivity
+Fat Loss
+Fruits and Veggies <3
+Self Esteem, Self Confidence
+Learn about business
+Right brain dominance,
+Left brain TAKE A BREAK, thank you for being so efficient, but chillax
+Raw foods and cooked foods: Balance! Best of both worlds.
+Mental equilibrium, weight equilibrium
+FAITH IN MYSELF
+Contentment
+Achievement/Growth, manage an organization!
+NON JUDGMENT
+Allow
+<3 Fruits and Veggies
+Yoga Teacher Training->Meeting tons of people->Finding myself->Proving my to myself that
*I am stronger than I know*
And while it seems like there is a lot of crazy stuff going down ... there is.
And yet. It's a beautiful place to be right now. I'm really just on a journey right now to allow myself to follow this philosophy for a while:
We Have to Let Go of who we have Become, So That We Can Be Who We Are."
And Secondarily, a favorite mantra for the moment is,
"WHAT IS IN THE WAY, IS THE WAY."
I'm getting there! It's time to find the way.
-Angela
Have my new weight loss strategy:
1. Work out less
2. Eat more
3. Ditch the stress and worry as much as possible
I think it's working.
It's a little different than most people and their weight loss plans.
Been working them 8 hour days. It's beginning to feel regular - minus one thing. The most intense hours of boredom in the last 2 hrs of the day aren't there.
Will be trying to re-awaken my lunch hour dog walking, as the last couple of weeks they went by the wayside when Jimmers decided he wanted to wake up EARLIER to catch me on my around-noon lunch!!!!! Hah.
Read the book "My Stroke Of Insight," By Jill Bolte Taylor. Trying to use this to really re-shape my neurological thought patterns. I want to re-activate my old ways of coping with the World at large. It's clear that when my life hit the fan and my World shattered for a while, that I made brand new negative loops that are now the ones I automatically go to instead of what it was prior: a different loop that was less dramatic, less story-telling, less depressing.
My life theme for the moment is really about shutting my Left Brain down when I need to, and really giving way to the Right Brain sense of total peace and allowing.
It's OK to fluctuate. It's OK to accept where I am right here, right now. If I can really begin to kick a new set of circuits to come online with my brain, I think I'll be able to attain my hearts' desires instead of racing around chasing my fears and angers.
I am allowing license to let my negative loop speak here - as follows...
This doesn't address my current state of familial frustrations:
There are things that frustrate me about my family right now. I don't think they did anything different, but one day I woke up and felt different. Namely that Mom has been saying that the bro rift is just a little siblings rift or something. Down playing what to me is no little insignificant tift. It's truly a heart-breaking thing to me, because unlike anyone else in this World when I've been at ends with them, I have truly no way of getting a hold of him.
I cannot show up at his house.
I cannot call him, I did try with my last simple message on the phone line voicemail.
I cannot send email.
I will have to send some sort of hand-delivered note, via someone who isn't me.
I have not heard from him since that last screaming phone call over 7 months ago.
When my mother shrugged it off a little, I was deeply upset by this.
If it were her in my shoes, several months of no speaking after a screaming match would probably devastate her. I realize she has never had a great bond between her siblings, or if she did - I never witnessed it. Her comparison as to what it is (possibly) to me is weak at best. Maybe I don't know everything and I'm wrong, is why I insert possibly.
So, it makes me want to draw away.
My Left Brain screams, it says:
It's easy for you, mother - to keep seeing this woman for use of her gas and her company. This woman who has parted the seas of our once-drama free family.
It's easy for you, mother - when you can speak with this man. When you still see his smile, hear his voice, and he still tells you he loves you.
You aren't limited.
And yet no one else in this family has courage because they cater to the fear-mongering of Melissa. The fact I've been "cut off," in every possible form, only confirms the entire reason I sent the email in the first place.
There is a point where I have to let go with love of my brother.
There is a side of me that can't bear to hear all about James and his life right now. It's 7 months and I can feel in my heart that Christmas 2010 will come and he won't want to see me. He won't want to accept my love, and now begin to realize if someone doesn't want my love, doesn't want me in their life (James) - then they have made their choice. It is with Love that I bow out of this connection. Those who deserve my love, are the ones who accept it freely.
While this realization is probably the best for me, it's hard to let go with love when I feel the draining, sinking heart break of a woman who feels such enjoyment over crushing me, with no remorse so long as she has her power.
As Eckhart Tolle would say - I do my best a thousand times a month to let go of my pain-body and separate from that which is history, and that which is the Right brain, the here and now.
Right Now, Right Here.
I'm full of peace and whether or not my family is a part of my life, or not...
Life still is.
Trillions of cells make up a symphony of my Living sack of flesh that sustains my rental space for this experience we all call Life.
Whether my house burns down or someone plows into my car and wrecks it while it's parked on the street - I'm still here, living, breathing, and loving somebody.
If my family wants me, they can come find me. I'm on the internet, I live in a house that they all know the address to.
Tired of trying, driving, expending for the moment. All those Northern end beings are the ones my mother in particular makes effort to see. It's so easy when someone pays for her gas. It's so easy when it's only a 20 minute drive instead of 45. It's like some thing that middle aged Mothers think: All my kids must come SEE ME instead of the other way around. They'd so little as get off their lilly pads of their own homes to go to the homes of their children.
It happens with Heinz, with Jim, with my own mother, with tons of other people I know.
It's judging, it's not fair, it's probably wrong in so many ways to hold these kinds of expectations - particularly without clear communication. But... one morning I woke up and this was how I felt.
I can't deny it doesn't have to do with the company she keeps. I wish Grandma hadn't told the little stories about that guy I used to call my bro. He isn't my bro. He's some dude that could give a fuck about me and my life. He's that guy who would rather turn me away and let me cry for months on end with a dull ache of him in my heart. He's that man who once was my best friend - but that's fine. I have memories and I was lucky to spend the time I had with him.
Now I know he's in his own place of life now. That place doesn't include a loving little sister who has a knack for over-zealous feelings of protectiveness. It includes a wife that would run the show and is threatened by me.
It includes a man who took my concern differently than I could have imagined. Happy 30th Birthday, James. So far as I know - you've shown me that you aren't the man who would be here in an instant if I needed someone to help me in a crisis.
If I die before we speak again - I'm so sorry I sent a spousal-emotional-abuse awareness link to you. And yet........ I'm so glad too. It has shown me who you really are as you enter the gateway of the next decade of your life. I hope you have a wonderful family and a beautiful time. I'm just that woman who sent an awareness link and you vilified for it.
Letting go with Love the best and the only way I know how.
/end rant
Back to the mellow:
Went to the Mariner's game yesterday with Dave from Sultan. They were the ticket's Amy bought for him for his birthday. I could take a million minutes writing the circumstance.
Needless to say I got a free M's game in the Terrace club with a nice dude who happens to think highly of me. We spent hours chatting and drinking a few over priced beers, to witness a grand slam in the bottom of the 8th - and a nice closing 9th inning.
Been running, circuit training, and taking time off when I can.
Also went back to Yoga and survived. While I love the Yoga - I know it is not going to be my primary workout right now. I need it to stay loose in the legs and back mostly - and will be going when I can, but basing the bulk of my training around the old formula that took me to my dream bod.
And am really embracing accepting me RIGHT here. RIGHT now. Temporary, our whole entire life and the states that are within it.
Temporary are the people in lives, the bonds and love we share. When we let go with Love, we allow openings for people and places and things that have meaning that will contribute to our life experience.
Temporary are our pets, temporary are our levels of fitness, our body shape, size, mass and resilience.
No matter what we do, it is setting us up for what we will witness in the future. But the Now is bigger than that. The future is not tangible, touchable.
So - retraining my brain circuitry to really grasp that right now, it's all fine. Right now - I've got all I need to be happy.
I may begin scheduling whine minutes into my life so that my negative loops have a "place," and a "time," rather than letting it randomly poke its head up and ruin my night. I have written an AWESOME vision board, and am beginning to trust in the Flow of life.
I have goals and they look like this:
+Creativity, Productivity
+Fat Loss
+Fruits and Veggies <3
+Self Esteem, Self Confidence
+Learn about business
+Right brain dominance,
+Left brain TAKE A BREAK, thank you for being so efficient, but chillax
+Raw foods and cooked foods: Balance! Best of both worlds.
+Mental equilibrium, weight equilibrium
+FAITH IN MYSELF
+Contentment
+Achievement/Growth, manage an organization!
+NON JUDGMENT
+Allow
+<3 Fruits and Veggies
+Yoga Teacher Training->Meeting tons of people->Finding myself->Proving my to myself that
*I am stronger than I know*
And while it seems like there is a lot of crazy stuff going down ... there is.
And yet. It's a beautiful place to be right now. I'm really just on a journey right now to allow myself to follow this philosophy for a while:
We Have to Let Go of who we have Become, So That We Can Be Who We Are."
And Secondarily, a favorite mantra for the moment is,
"WHAT IS IN THE WAY, IS THE WAY."
I'm getting there! It's time to find the way.
-Angela
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no subject
Date: 2010-07-12 02:32 am (UTC)Second, and I'm being blunt again, and apologize if you weren't looking for comment, but at this point, are you more upset at the state of things with your brother, or the fact that your Mom seems fit to point it out? Given that at this point and time in your lives, it really isn't so much her business, have you called her on it or at least let her know in no uncertain terms that her involvement is not cool? I mean I realize you're letting off steam here in your lj. . I'm just wondering if you've also done the associated ranting in real life. Not sure if it would help, but it's something that is obviously causing you pain, and if you haven't done so, sitting on it instead is not likely to bring you peace.
Not sure
Date: 2010-07-12 03:08 am (UTC)As for my Mom part. I'm not sure what exactly happened. She occasionally tells a story here and there without really meaning outward harm. When I was expressing unrest of the whole thing, she was trying to be optimistic and helpful, I'm pretty sure.
"It's judging, it's not fair, it's probably wrong in so many ways to hold these kinds of expectations - particularly without clear communication. But... one morning I woke up and this was how I felt."
My feelings... I suppose her involvement is 100% beyond the circumstance. I have been pretty communicationally (my new word for right now just because) - blocked in regards to really saying any of it outloud. I don't think she had any real idea how badly the whole thing hit me, because I was doing my best not to vomit more emotional crap in real life (LJ is a bit of a realm of its own of course).
She once told me about how now when she mentions me around him - it stopped being the "dead word," as in - my name stopping conversation and turning the room into a dead silent blaaaaah nasty room. (I can't think of how else to word that, she had a way of putting it that basically made me sick to my stomach).
When she told me that story, it was like poking at my old wounds. To her, it was like a victory that he stopped reacting so poorly. That I should be excited over that.
To me, it was saddening because it basically told me she had been trying to mention me, and that he had rejected me in these situations for quite.some.time.
Basically, I unexpectedly got tired of hearing about him. And then I just wasn't in the mood to make huge efforts to see her. She tends to bring up "family." She'll talk about her mini trips here or there in passing with Melissa to do this or that. She'll bring up the BBQ they had at their place with James and Melissa. While I should be capable of ignoring these things and not letting them get to me, I tended to focus on her optimism for a situation that she herself was not facing.
With that, I simply stepped away from the family arena for a few weeks and busied myself with seeing more friends, making my work out quotas, hashing out some home-life issues with Jim.
:D
And fortunately my other break through moments are keeping me motivated in the rest of my life at the second.
Truly, I think after a few months of her attempts at perhaps soothing what on some level must very clear to her is a bad situation on both sides... I just got tired of the "oh it'll all be okay eventually." It was that whole, "it's no big deal," perception I took of it, caused me to suddenly lose my stack. Stack being - patience ;)
-Angela
Re: Not sure
Date: 2010-07-12 03:11 am (UTC)As for family peace... I don't hold out hope for that one. :P
-Angela
Re: Not sure
Date: 2010-07-12 03:41 am (UTC)Apology
Date: 2010-07-12 06:20 am (UTC)Mere hours ago, I was thinking about a particularly heart-breaking time in my life and my reluctance to talk about it because I thought you wouldn't understand.
Me = fool. That's how I feel anyway.
So, the least I can do is to send you all the love and friendship I can. And some big long-distance hugs.
Re: Apology
Date: 2010-07-12 05:07 pm (UTC)You realize that it's hard. There are several reasons our friendship has it's trials.
You and I live totally different realities.
While I often respect you more than you know - our approach and life experiences have many similarities, but Just like Jim and I, they are also vastly different.
Without that... well, we'd have nothing to offer each other likely.
This at times creates a sense of dissonance that doesn't always make it easy to think the other person will quite grasp certain issues that come up.
While either of may not always fully understand and be able to provide the exact eye-to-eye understanding that most people crave when they look for support, I think it's most paramount to know that the friendship existing and feeling that you can COMMUNICATE at all, that keeps things in balance. Also - Family to me is beginning to really mean, a person who you can count on when you Need.It.Most.
**************
If I can tell someone things they want to hear, or maybe those they don't want to hear - and they can accept me anyway and still continue to be there for me, no matter what the reason (Crisis, or comradeship), no matter what our differences, without fail, I know deep in my heart they'll respond if I really needed help - DNA be damned, I consider that person Family. I have hereby removed the DNA label for family and re-created Family based off of a few deeper things. DNA does not make family to me anymore.
**************
The distance makes it harsh for either of us. There are no opportunities to just grab a cup of coffee when things are feeling dismal or you just need to let it out.
That part sucks.
Coffee every 6 months is totally different than what would probably be coffee every month if we lived closer.
You know, the feeling of people "cutting" off is a pretty lousy one.
It is why I really will be shifting my approach with my Mom.
IT's not fair, it's not kind, it's not productive, it's not healthy. As I'm on the other side of one, it is ultimately reminding me that it is the worst way to treat a loved one.
While I am taking a temporary hiatus until I can really address my personal internal emotions first, then communicate more kindly at the right time. I think part of me knew the reaction I would expressed outwardly if I communicated it would be very ineffective and too hurtful. Thus the mini-timeout.
(Last night after glitch25's comments) I was given to realize... no, this stuff that is going on between me and my Mom=will be addressed within the next week or two, and it won't be over-stated.
:)
Fortunately, I'm getting used to the idea that my bro chooses to carry his life without me. That doesn't have to make me feel bad unless I choose to hook into the sadness loops of my left brain. (Left brain accounts for time lines, calculation, judging, analytical, and again - storytelling/drama that happens via emotional pain.)
Pain is pain and we can't avoid it. But I know I've been processing this deeply since it happened. Fortunately the first couple of months, LOTS of Yoga really helped me face the circumstance.
How can you be upset about bro while doing hatha yoga in 106 degree rooms??? :)
-Angela
Re: Apology
Date: 2010-07-12 08:22 pm (UTC)Re: Apology
Date: 2010-07-12 08:32 pm (UTC)