A New Day, An Old Me

Hello, and welcome back.

It has been quite some time since my last post in which I discussed my struggles with depression in the loss of my mother. This last year has been a real roller coaster of emotions where the unresolved is resolved, and where the broken is put back together again, many times held together with some duct tape.

Does the duct tape make me stronger? Or, are the cracks so deep that they are irreparable? I’m not sure and, like life, time will definitely tell. I like to think that the cracks, held together with the sticky duct tape, make me stronger for I know where my weaknesses are now, don’t I? Because of the crack, I’ve been able to define why the crack exists and how to repair the crack to create a new sense of stability.

I wondered if grief works this way, too, but in a much more subtle way or with invisible duct tape. Grief can create a mirror of our lives which then reflect the many facets of reflection. We may see areas in the reflection that may not be our proudest moments. We may see the opportunity in the mirror for a little growth, too. Through death, I’ve been able to reflect on what I want in life, and where those areas might be ‘shaded’. As we walk along a certain path, these events happen for us to pause, reflect, and make course corrections. If anything comes out of death, the event does breathe a different type of living into us, doesn’t it? Like a reminder of our own mortality. We can decide to grieve the rest of our days – and that is okay. Or, we can honor the person and create more lasting memories with other loved ones in celebration of this thing we call life. I’m for the latter.

In my career, I’ve been eligible for retirement for a few years now. (Frankly, the money wasn’t quite right.) My gut told me to stick it out and, thankfully, I did. Working through the Pandemic has really been a game changer for me in that I continued to have a sense of normalcy while the world seemed to fall apart around me. The death of my mother was really the final straw that broke the old me which didn’t really fit into my new reality. While the world seemed to be simultaneously shifting while standing still, I did the same. Or, I stopped fighting the flow of things. Stopped seeing the problems before they exist, thinking that by some miracle, I could prevent whatever it was I saw happening. I usually did prevent these events from occurring. Or, so I thought.

You see, I found things that might happen and set myself up for that eventuality. In doing this activity, I was never really present because I was always looking for the next ‘shoe to drop’. (This habit is so common, there is even a saying!) Recognizing that this mindset took me out of my present moment, I began a course of training to help me determine my well-being goals and the track by which I could achieve a new outlook. This began with my signing up for a single training that appealed to my more analytical side and helped me on this current path of self-care. My beginning was very minor and fit my needs at that time. As a result of this intensive work, I was able to shift my perspective and improve my overall mental well-being. Let me add that the healing has been profound and has resulted in improving me both mentally and physically.

In my darkest time, I decided two things: First, I prayed that my mom would communicate with me by showing me a penny at random times and odd places.

I really felt her (and still do) with me and showing me pennies grounds me in the present moment. I really felt her agreement and I do find pennies from time to time in the oddest of spots, usually when I’m enjoying life. These pennies are little hugs from my mom. With a quick motion and tear, I snatch up this treasure and put them into my pocket.

The second thing I decided was to retire at the next best window. Life is just too short to work until I drop dead. My mom enjoyed almost 30 years of retirement and, while I don’t think that is in my cards, I want to really give this retirement thing a good try. In my profession, our retirement dates printed on official documents so, selecting my proper year and birthday, I went to the next ‘best’ day. Turns out, this is also my mom’s 88th birthday. The number 88 is significant to me as it represents double infinity, both in life and love. That is about all the future planning I have in the moment, and that is OK.

And, in case you think life is random, let me give you this gem. This week, besides blogging, I’m working in my garden to weed and clean. My prized possession in my garden is a peony that my mother and sister gifted me for my college graduation. Each year, it produces the most beautiful and fragrant blooms and is a showstopper. I have found that gardening is really about tending in the moment for what is to come, or the ultimate ‘being present’. In writing this post and detailing my ‘penny’ experience, I cannot help to see the correlation between the words “penny” and “peony”, and how both are representing my mom. These types of realizations – and viewing this as a deliberate message and not a coincidence – creates the drive in me to continue on my charted course or path. And, THAT, my gentle friend, is the purpose of correlating factors or, for the uninspired, coincidences. Both explanations are correct. However, which viewpoint you choose creates a passion in YOU. Seeing and feeling the passion IS living.

Peace.

Lessons from 2021 – December or Changing My View of Failure

As many of you know, I manage two different blogs: OwnYourWobble and Mentagility. Both of these blogs deal with aspects of critical thinking and I’m finding that the subject matter is beginning to overlap. Initially, Mentagility – my first blog – was designed to be more business-minded, focusing on productivity and leadership. However, I found the need for creative expression in a more personal way and began OwnYourWobble to share more personal struggles with others who find themselves in the same predicament.

My post on Mentagility this month really resonated to an OwnYourWobble situation so I’m sharing this here as I think this applies to both aspects.

I hope you enjoy, and wishing you all a very Happy New Year! The original post link is here: https://www.mentagility.com/failure-a-changed-mindset/

* * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * ** * * * * *

In writing my post for this month, I like to begin in the prior month and ‘channel’ a few residual thoughts from my just completed post. I note areas that I didn’t include but are of interest to me at that time and this gives me a little creative loop.

(Note on the image for this post: When I was selecting my featured image for this post, I searched for a picture to denote “failure.” I thought that the “shame” image was very telling on how our society perceives failure as, perhaps, something to be ashamed of? Isn’t that interesting? It is my goal with this post to change our view of failure into something more positive. I hope you continue reading.)

The following were my hastily typed notes from last month and in reviewing these notes I found them to resonate for me in December. Here they are:

Changed my mind about a few things…this came to me by inspired thinking

1.) We must break before we can build

2.) Trusting our own personal timing and ‘flow’

3.) Make decisions from an ‘abundance’ mindset

4.) The importance of sincerely seeing the beauty in ourselves first

This month, I did follow this guidance in my personal life and struggles to improve my feeling of health. In my weight loss journey, I began to feel very restricted which began as a physical sensation and evolved into a mental frame of thinking. With the surge of COVID-19 in the Northeast, we began to once again be isolating into a quarantine. This external driver created another internal loop of my normal behavior to ‘cope’. Instead of using this coping mechanism, however, I elected to choose a different path: Self-love. I listened to myself, considered my known situation, and gave in to the removal of perceived restrictive behavior. Because I gave myself the Grace to be in the moment, I turned a corner in how I viewed my personal journey. This decision reflected #4. I saw myself as a person, not as a thing to be belittled. I spoke to myself as I would a friend, not an enemy. This is how I gave myself ‘Grace’ or a higher feeling of love than I had ever known before. My decision considered #3, my abundance mindset, because I saw the entire journey to health as a journey, not a destination. I considered everything that I have in life and was so grateful to actually have this struggle because there are so many struggles that could be considered worse.

I began to see the significance of the timing of my struggle which ticked my #2 idea. The timing of the holiday season could not be denied and was key to my understanding of how I wish to achieve my health goals. Everything in our lives is timing; I am beginning to see timing as my Divine guidance and have begun to be more of an observer of life and letting things ‘flow’ from me and not necessarily ‘to’ me. I’d like to live life more like thinking that “the ‘to'” is taken care of already by what I put out to the world. I finally realized that I can only control my behaviors in the moment which stem from my beliefs. Our beliefs are extremely important to mentagility so I’m very cognizant of how they originate … and my interpretation of them.

This leads me to #1: We must break before we can build. When I discuss ‘break’ in this sense, it is not a literally breaking of things or of self. It is more of a breaking of beliefs that no longer serve me. It is my judgement to what serves me which is why it is important that our judgment be free of bias or the “trappings of life”. When I have a belief that does not feel good, I really began to examine the belief from a few different perspectives – mainly, internal and external. What internal measures am I consciously or unconsciously using? What are the external factors? I review these areas without emotion so that I can more scientifically assess them.

If I have an emotion within the belief as I did in my recent struggle, that emotion is to be addressed first so that I can better understand the cue that life has given me. Emotions are neither good nor bad; they are cues to my personal beliefs about a given situation, both known and unknown. This unraveling of your emotions takes time which we may believe we don’t have. (That is also a belief that is based on your behavior, isn’t it?) We actually do have time because, Dear Reader, this is the reason we are living. It is not doing a job and earning a good salary. Nor, is our purpose to necessarily being a good parent. Those roles and purposes are trappings of our lives and where or how we grew up. We are all in our personal situations as a type of classroom where we can learn. Classrooms take all shapes and sizes, interactions and events. I believe that as long as we realize that there is a benefit in all things, we can actually begin to see the positive which helps to give a certain belief and begins the rebuilding process.

Here’s the thing. I’ve tried this journey before and have failed at one point or another. Rather than learn from ‘the’ past failures before, I berated myself for them and, thus, doomed myself to repeat them in one form or another. By accepting failure as an example of what isn’t working – and de-personalizing the failure – I’m creating a healthier ‘me’ in the long run because I no longer focus on what happened but on the lessons I learned as a result. It is our belief or perspective that helps us see past the emotions and understand and accept these failures so we can continue to learn. And, in that, a failure isn’t anything other than a missed cue or a needed change in one’s perspective. Peace, and may you, too, fail in your goals so that you can learn more about yourself in the journey.

“Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” – Robert F. Kennedy

Lessons from 2021 – November or Waiting for Inspiration Gets One Everywhere

As you read my lessons from November, it is just gone December 4th. My lesson is really short: Be Inspired. I have found that I feel better and have better results when my actions are taken after inspiration. Many times, inspiration can even result from my inaction which, in itself, is actually an action. It is how we define inspiration that separates us. Inspiration is that niggle of an idea or a phrase that we just overlook because we are too busy to listen and pay attention.

The idea came to me in a recent dream experience that I’d like to share. In this dream, I realized that my own personal inspiration comes to me in a whisper of an idea, a dream, or an inclination to do or be something…different. Fear keeps me small and is a damn waste of energy. My inspiration is the kindness of a stranger, or the beauty of nature around me, or the laugh of my partner over something really trivial. It used to be that nasty voice telling me I wasn’t ‘enough.’ Now, the voice is much more relaxed due to my acceptance of who I am and what I’m about. I’ve come to realize that the voice is always there and is what one may call my own personal intuition. It reflects my own opinions and that nastiness was my own extreme self-judgment which kept me moving forward, on a path. As I said above, the idea came to me in a dream that was so profound and occurred the night that I asked my own self to help me see what my reason for being is. I’ve been studying brain science and the subconscious: the roles it plays in our lives. One of the exercises is to ask for a dream to help one navigate to their true purpose, which is exactly what I did this evening. I asked: Am I just to be a wife, sister, and daughter in this life? I would like to help others find this sense of peace that I’ve chased through my decades of breathing to find – and recently realized that it was always within myself. I used to look externally for what I already had and that had been buried so deep that I lost my own sense of self through always trying to fit in. Big, big, mental movement forward. ❤

My dream was very profound and occurred the night that I requested the dream. I was traveling with a large suitcase, computer bag, and purse – my normal M.O. It was a busy airport and felt like what I imagine Tokyo to feel like. Busy, with people of all kinds going every direction. (I originally noted that it was Newark Airport but the airport was new, shiny, really clean…or not Newark. Sorry, Newark, this airport was so modern and clean, the floors were all shiny white tiles. Newark reminds me of a 70s den with wood paneling.)

I was struggling with my luggage, alternating how to carry it all for the wheels took up too much space; I struggled in walking through the airport from gate to gate. I was traveling with three people, one of which was my sister. (Odd.) We were being picked up by my colleague’s father who looked like a man I used to work for when I was 18. He was joined by another man who I worked for at the same place. (These two ran a company that sold electronic parts off the boat through a catalog service. I handled the order desk and was always told that any delays were stuck on a boat through customs.) Anyway, in my struggling with my luggage, I lost track of the bosses’ direction and we got separated from them…and ended up stopping for lunch. Everything was tile floors, bright black and white lighting, and a lot of neon for an airport. While we stopped to rest, I received an email from the boss asking where we were. (Why didn’t he call me, I don’t know.) We got moving again as I struggled to read and respond to his email asking where we were in the airport, along with always dropping or losing my luggage and stopping while people got mad at me, running around me as I was slowing the pace of the entire airport. This was a particular memory as I struggled with the communication form as we can sometimes do when our devices don’t cooperate. Finally, after a significant struggle, I was able to read the email – the time that went by seemed like hours. I was told that they were at gate 920 or 902…the 20 and 02 in those numbers flipped flopped like an old burned out neon sign. I noted that we were at gate 11 in the airport. I was told to find “Akira” and that they would be meeting me there. As I struggled with understanding how I would get to gate 920, I woke up.

When I ask for a dream from my subconscious to help me navigate, I will go to bed with a journal so that I can review and record the dream for later interpretation. The areas that stand out are giving a highlight and I do some internet research in the area just to figure out what it all means.

What stood out to me were three things, listed in an order of priority based on my immediate feelings upon waking up:

1.) The gate numbers: 11 and 920. I was aghast at how far they’d come and how little traveling I had done in the same time. The number 11 is always a sign to me that I’m supported by the Universe. What does 920 mean?

2.) What the heck is Akira? Is this a restaurant? It was repeated to me and I figured I’d seen this in an airport at some point. (Literal me.)

3.) Why couldn’t I just roll my luggage? Why was the use of email also a struggle? What was the reason for all of the struggling when I had the means to NOT struggle?

Here are the answers that I found and believe to be helpful for me.

1.) The meaning of the number 920. Thank you to angelnumber.org for their work in this area. From this site, I was able to ascertain the following:

As an ‘angel number’, “…[t]he number 920 combines the energy and attributes of the numbers 9, 2, and 0. The number 0 intensifies the energy of other numbers, in this case, the numbers 9 and 2. The number 9 symbolizes spirituality and spiritual evolvement, as well as the path towards spiritual awakening and enlightenment. This number also symbolizes humanitarianism, service to the humankind, philanthropy, altruism, peace, faith, karma, the Universal Spiritual Laws, lightworking and lightworkers. It also symbolizes endings and closures, as well as serving as an example to others. The number 2 signifies balance, duality, harmony, mediation, diplomacy, teamwork, compassion, compromise, cooperation, selflessness, peace, encouragement, trust, faith, stability, service to others, responsibilities, empathy, relationships, partnerships, love, and kindness. This number also symbolizes following your soul’s purpose and mission in this life. The number 0 is a symbol of infinity and eternity, wholeness and oneness, cycles, phases, flow, closures and new beginnings, potential, new opportunities, chances, God and the energy of the Universe, spirituality, and spiritual development.

The number 920 in general signifies major closures and endings, as well as new beginnings in your life. It also symbolizes the change of cycles and phases in one’s life.

It symbolizes relationships, selflessness, balance, stability, faith, trust, spirituality, spiritual evolving, humanitarianism, serving humanity, altruism, and philanthropy.

This number also symbolizes teamwork, partnerships, compromise, lightworking, cooperation, duality, diplomacy, mediation, service to others, infinity, wholeness, oneness, phases and cycles, potential, and new opportunities.

The Secret Meaning and Symbolism

The angel number 920 is a message from the Universe, which confirms that you are on the right path to fulfill your Divine soul’s purpose and mission in this life.”

WOW! I was reading this at 5:30AM and was just gobsmacked that I had actually dreamed this information! I took a sip of the coffee and continued with my research.

2.) What is Akhira? When I ‘Googled’ the term, it was spelled this way but I pronounced it with more of an ‘a’ sound that that with the ‘i’ in the back of the word. The first term was this:

“Akhirah is the term used in Islam to describe the belief in everlasting life after death. Muslims regard life on Earth as a test from Allah, to prepare them for eternal life. … Muslims believe they can enter Paradise by living according to the teachings of the Qur’an.”

Now, I’m not of the Islamic faith so this was totally out of left field for me. However, given what I had learned on the number of 920, I accepted that my dream referenced this in its meanings. My final destination. What a beautiful reference, too, to a faith that is not my own. This also spoke to me that all faith is good. Having faith is a beautiful thing that we humans enjoy.

3.) This meaning to me was obvious. The luggage I was struggling with was my own personal baggage that was weighing me down. My struggle with handling everything became the entire focus of my journey and got me a bit lost. To answer being lost, I stopped and had lunch. See this site for a full explanation. I have had the dream of struggling with luggage before, and being left behind. This seemed to be a running theme in my dreams for the past few years. What I had not had was the clarity of purpose, or the other notes which is why this item is third.

Now, you may wonder how inspiration figures here. Well, I learned of the idea of the subconscious mind in reading I’m doing. This book is fascinating and a recommendation from Jim Fortin. (Listen, folks, if you are struggling with changes in your life, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND JIM FORTIN’S WORK AND PODCAST. It has changed my life.) I came upon Jim’s work after listening to a totally unrelated comic discuss the profound impact it made for her while relaxing at home one evening. Her discussion was so much how I was currently thinking that the message could have been FOR me. I felt inspired to find out more. In researching Jim’s work, he discusses brain science, shamanism, and all things transpersonal psychology. He recommended two books to read, one of which was The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Dr. Joseph Murphy. A dated but fascinating discussion of the formation of the brain and impact on humans. It is sitting at my bed table for night time studying.

It occurred to me in the writing of this post that, by just following my own inspiration, I have made such a profound ‘leap’ in my own development through listening and acting on my own internal voice. I stopped arguing with myself and am now a creature of inspired action. This has resulted in a decrease of anxiety and a level of self- acceptance I never thought possible. A work in progress, sure, with all of the ebbs and flows that life provides in our grand journeys. As I was saying just yesterday, when life begins its ebbs, we need to flow to meet the ebb…or not. We can wait for the flow to return which is part of the larger Universal design, right? I’ve accepted that I’m different and that is by design. I’m okay with being unique and not conforming to expectations – even my own. Not more, just different.

Here’s hoping that as we hunker down into winter up here in the cold northern hemisphere, you find your inspiration in the solitude of the evening or the smile of your dog. (Yes, they smile!) A suggestion: Listen to your intuition and let the inspiration find you when the time is right for both of you! The work we have to do is to clear up our mental clutter to be able to hear. Peace and love for the end of 2021.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: