Shedding the skin of unimportance

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Yesterday , I read through an old diary from 5 years ago . I was taken aback by how needy I was for importance and recognition and how much I have grown in my management of my insecurities.

It was littered with a need for inclusion , a huge desire to fit in with the crowd and be recognised for someone who is liked and wanted. My decisions and goals were often based on what other people were doing or what was expected of the culture that I was immersed in at the time . I had a strong sense of freedom that those days are gone and I have a real sense of self orientated functioning. Growth is often imperceptible and I am grateful for my journaling to expose the truths of my journey.

It’s taken me a long time to just be me. And the wonderful result of that metamorphosis is that my relationships have improved and become deeper and more rich in love and joy. I still sometimes struggle with getting my needs met , particularly at work but I have felt a descending peace upon my psyche lately . One which demands that people have to accept me as I am or move on. And when I am rejected , in whatever form , I know that it is due to the other person not being able to accept who I am and that isn’t my problem.

I attribute these changes to age & wisdom , which come as an intrinsic pair , leaving a conform- driven religion and group therapy. I have also got to know the little girl I once was and honour her needs for nature , dancing , Solitude & creating .

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Eve was BRAVE!

I am mid way through the new best seller by Glennon Doyle

” Untamed : Stop pleasing , Start Living “.

I was really struck by the ending of one of the chapters

Own your own wanting 

Eat the apple

Let it burn.  

Years ago when I was a new Christian ,  I was in a women’s bible study group .   We were studying the ‘ Fall ‘   .    We were talking about Eve and her crucial mistake of eating the apple and its subsequent domino effect on the earth.   I remember being really struck by this;   all around me were murmurings of her calamity & in my natural openness and perhaps naivety to the Christian faith ,  I said   ‘  I think  Eve was brave ‘ .   The flurry of voices filled the room admonishing me for my comment ,  albeit in a loving ‘ she’s new to us ‘  type way    : ‘  she was stupid more like ‘.       I then spend another 8 years as a christian but I realised that perhaps my initial reaction never left me ,  my intuitiveness that Eve was brave was damn right ,   but under the scrutiny of my new friends I submitted to the new way of life that I had forged to myself.  I ,   as many women are , was pressured to feel,  fit in ,   agree,   submit and to follow  that which went against  a deep feeling  in my heart.

I realise that I have always been brave.   I was seeing what was in my own heart inside Eve’s   and I was denying it.    As I leave the Christian life behind ,  there are still remnants which need to be swept up and put away ,  taken to the dump in fact.   Eve ,  you were fantastic.   You were brave and true to your instinctive nature to need to know what is true and what isn’t .   To seek that which is unknown.  To step out of the boundaries which have been placed around you by man,  society , culture :  the list is endless.  The things you were told as a little girl ,   the lies you were fed by your mother,  your friends,  the bullies,   the bosses ,   the teachers .    That which doesn’t serve you ,   trash it .  With a big whack in the bin like a basket ball hitting that ring.

Pick that apple  ,  it’s ripe , it’s juicy and despite that you might be told it is the way to sin &  estrangement with God ,   it’s actually a secret pathway to freedom ,  nature,   death , new life , more death ,  divinity itself.   Mother Earth ,  God,   oceans , trees,  everlasting oneness and love.     It’s a gateway to Love.   Its a pathway to trueness to oneself .   And that ,  my friends is the one thing left for you to have which is your own.    To mould , shape, change , convert,   put away , pick back up , chase , follow ,   create !

Eve was a bad ass mother fucker.

 

Radical Acceptance ?

So , the Prime Minister is up tonight at 7pm,    as the nation waits with baited breathe to see what he will unveil!   The nation is clearly divided between those which want the lockdown to continue and those who really yearn for some freedom and normality.   The disputes , fights and discord online between these 2 groups are at the forefront of every swipe you issue.    Perhaps it’s the difference between those who like to control and subsequently also like to be controlled?   Or those who want to vent and spew , those who just can’t stand authority, those who can’t see past their own situations.     I think I am a mix of all of them.

I feel tired .    I wonder if it’s just the energy and anxiety at a macro level which is depleting me of energy.     I miss having my friends over without worrying about the corona police.    I miss my old job and the freedom.  There has been so much change.  I think change is exhausting in itself.

I drink  ,  smoke ,  eat ,  work ,  decorate and repeat.    I find myself in this little whirlwind  of life.   I am learning to take what I need and leave everyone else’s shit behind.    There’s so much time yet the days just fly by.

My mother drives me insane.   She’s at that age where she constantly repeats herself,   always shoving her phone in my face asking me what to do about so and so’s spam messages warning her that her account could be hacked.   Arguing with my husband about how much she feeds the dog ,   drinking all my wine.    I moved out when I was 19 to get away from her and here I am at 44 now living back in the same house with her.   It’s like having a 3rd teenager in the house ,   4th if you count my husband’s tendency to lean toward teenage behaviour ,   arguing with the kids about who ate all the icecream.   I used to have days to myself in the house.     I can’t remember the last time I was alone.

I seek solitude up the local common or my allotment.      I don’t know what I would do otherwise.    Sometimes I just want to run away to a little cottage in the country all alone. But then I would probably yearn for busyness!     I guess I have to just learn that new buzz phrase ‘   radical acceptance ‘  .    Bloody hell.