Later Alligator

7 hours and counting...bring on the new year!!!! Woo-Hoo!!!!!!

12/22/08

Last night I woke up at 1 am, not being able to sleep because thoughts of anger and hatred, deep seeds of fear were coming up to the surface and so I sat down with my emotions to meditate. I was so angry and I was crying and then the thought came to me that perhaps this is exactly what I asked for. I asked for time to heal, I have been praying for love, the practice of love meditation and I am receiving it on the rocky climb of self-discipline. I have prayed and meditated on self-love and love for others not really knowing what I was asking for or how to go about it. Now that I have not heard from my other half and my expectations are not being met, my ego bound attachments are not being given to me, tidal waves of anger and fear and resentment are surfacing.

Last night marked four days. At three days, my response is generally reactionary and I have, in the past, gone into a negative space and to come out of feeling this way, I have chosen some kind of action to chase away the afflictive emotions, usually causing pain and sadness to another so I do not have to feel it myself. But I have made a commitment to myself to learn about love so that I may break the cycle of pain that I have been operating with, and in doing so be able to give true and healthy and deep love to my family and my children.

So, on day three, my thoughts went to their habitual negative spaces and I almost reacted by running in the opposite direction but my spirit told me I was strong enough to carry myself to the cushion and just sit with this storm. So I did. As I sat, my ego kept repeating over and over that I was weak to just sit and do nothing, that I should react to this obvious display that I had been thrown out of the kingdom of affection and into the cold winter of abandonment, I am weak, I am passive, I am allowing myself to be a victim if I do not act...Over and over this repetition, the thoughts of suffering coming from a deep reservoir in my repressed subconscious. It was as if I was being thrashed against rocks.

Somewhere in the midst of these thoughts, I remembered my determination to still my mind. 'There has to be something beyond these extreme emotional highs and lows I am experiencing'. Slowly, and with much deliberate effort, I reigned my focus onto my breathing and in time I naturally went into a love meditation. I spent time looking into my pain, seeing there a little girl who needs my attention. I looked deeply at my other half, who needs our freedom, who needs my love and attention. Softly, my thoughts found their way to the reality of the situation. It was day three and this was a response I had created to protect myself. In choosing to heal, this is where I face myself, face my anger, fear, and jealousy and face them all by myself, for the benefit of others, without expectation in return.

When I woke the next morning,I felt better and enjoyed that feeling for about five minutes before having negative thoughts again. I spent most of the day in the car, in the snow, so all there was to do was think and so I battled with this strong energy. So strong is this energy and my habitual response to feeding into it that each time I was able to identify a thought and restrain it, I felt a physical, knee-jerk reaction. In panic, I will think very cruel things about myself, about other people, and my body, either in my face or in my stomach will become very warm and nauseous feeling, like when something frightens you and all your blood rushes away.

Anyway, there was this, all day. When I got home, I checked my email and checked my phone for signs of life, nothing. In the back of my mind, I was still hoping, still expecting. I started crying again and took a shower and pulled myself, sobbing, to the cushion. I sat for a long time and after a while I remember the last thing said to me was 'you have my love'. I felt that rush of blood I was telling you about but not in panic, it was understanding. In AA, we say the phrase I surrender when we realize we are powerless over alcohol and our addictive thoughts and behaviors. I repeated this phrase as I sat, realizing I was powerless to control any outcome and so I just let go. I let go the need to feel attached, to feel connected in some tangible way, some identifiable way.

I know that my ability to heal myself cannot be done through trusting it to another person. All the trustworthy actions in the world can do nothing if I do not make the choice to trust. I committed to trust in love and let it lead me and it is leading me now. I am being broken down now by my own love for myself to get better. I trust in this. I trust the choice I am making to face my fears will bear fruit. I trust that as I stand firmly in my beliefs and act in their accordance, I will be rewarded the love I seek.

So, in this moment, I am preparing myself for the next tidal wave. I am aware that this is the tip of the iceburg. I choose to become comfortable with these storms if I am to form the new habit of seeing beyond chaos, understanding it as change. As always, I am grateful to have made this commitment to come here, there are so many reasons I have come to practice fearlessness. I will continue this path of non-violent resistance within myself and I will be the love I wish to see in the world.

white out

This is one of those days where so much is running through my mind because I have nothing to do. We are snowed in at the mountain and it looks like another storm is coming tomorrow. So, holiday break has started early. I have to drive two people to Albany tomorrow afternoon and then back up the craziest driveway ever...crazier than our driveway at the cabin, daddy. I'm going through this phase where I am learning what it means to do for others and its very confusing, like right now I am questioning the blogs I have written and the one I am writing now if I should be writing for the benefit of my audience or if I should write for myself and you maybe benefit from the stuff in my crazed mind. I know not but the two themes are different and whereas I know that this too will come to a balance, right now its driving me nuts because I want to write abotu things that I can't write about. But writing about things that you, the audience, can enjoy will only lack in flavor if I have to think abot the approval of you who read, right? So, I guess I'll just keep writing about my stuff in my head, painting a picture of life as I thnk it. However, I am aware that you would like to see me paint of picture of what life is life on this journey to Africa and not ness the journey of my personal transformation all the time, so I will try to balance these things in future but I can't get to the former without the latter.

Nobody's even said anything to the contrary so the point is that I am just confused with this new set of ideas and principles that came falling down on top of me, on accident. I was just doing my part in cleaning up my life and aligning myself and my spirit and then I thought I might dabble a little bit in 'service', not knowing the rook would fall ontop of my head in the process. Now all I think of is what is best for humanity, how to cultivate love, how do I restrain my selfishness so I can be happier, and damn it, everyone else seems to benefit from this, too. And there's no way to get around sneaking my happiness through the express lane without the minimum 15 people having to come too, my God. So, come on happy people...

I have a list of ideas written down fo rthings to do over the holidays to occupy my time. My mind goes in some scary places when not under supervision and attention. This doesn't mean that I am not working directly with these human frailties but keeping myself occupied has greater benefits as well. Tomorrow morning I am going snowboarding with a board I found hanging around the mountain. If I start on the picnic tables behind the eating area, there is this sweet little drop off and with all this fresh powder, I think I will have quite a time taking snow to the face all day tomorrow until I can land a few. Jorge, my portuguese teacher, wants me to teach him how to board, too, mmmwwahahahaha. I am SO looking forward to that. My team has already conspired to start a snowball fight with the august team, who are mostly from Brasil, so we will start making ammunition in the wee hours of the morning, it seems. Then, of course, there will be snow angels and men making, I'm sure. Hopefully, everybody keeps the parts in the right places.

Sufficient balance?

12/15 3 days till b-day of LDM

Today is our last day in Richmond and with the Taylors' generous and kind spirit. We decided we would cook them Korean food last night, although, I have no idea why we decided this as none of us know how to cook Korean food and today have reconsidered our plans to include the purchase of Korean food from people than can cook such food exceptionaly well. I put my new drawing skills to good use and drew a card for everyone to sign. As I am learning how to draw portaiture, I have a limited well of subjects to draw from, namely noses, mouths, and ears. Luckily for me, a smiling mouth came in incredibly useful for the Taylor's card. Side note: I left another card for the owner of this art gallery the other day for being so helpful in telling me places to go around the city for fundrasing. I drew a giant ear that said, thanks for listening....

I am almost done reading Ethics and will be posting an essay of thoughts soon, although calling it an essay may give the idea that it will be in sort of presentatble order and there will be no such thing. It will be disorder all the way, I don't want to break the grammatical and articulate tradition I have set down on this blog.

That's it for now. My thoughts are otherwise occupied with the past right now and I would like to stay there for just a few more minutes.....

Sunday Sunday

Last night I stayed out until 2:30 in the morning, roaming the club streets with a teammate of mine, fundraising money and smiles. It was cool, we didn't go in anywhere but met some really nice people, securing my theory that kind people are everywhere and sometimes they don't know how to express their kindness unless given a hand. We met some jerks, too. There was this guy who was standing with a group of other brothers who had lamborguini doors on a suburban, first of all, and when I aksed him to contribute toward the fight against AIDS, he looked down, grabbed his crotch and said, I got your AIDS right here...I said, 'i'm so sorry to hear that'.

Not everyone is connected but for the most part, I have an optimistic view that most people do want to be kind. Today was good, I found a natural grocery store that let me a Chris stand out front and ask for money for a few hours and we made good money until the manager said we were being too agressive with the customers and would rather that we just sit there and let people come up to us and ask us if they can give money to us...which is lame so we left. It felt good though to be called agressive, its a measure of the willingness I have to support this cause.

And sticking with the plan to work harder, after making a bunch of money, I went to the book store to lurk around and write things down out of books that I cannot afford to buy which makes me a gypsy and I'm okay with that. Anyway, I wrote down some things on the philosophy of happiness as a state of being and I intend to write myself some essays in an attempt to breakdown these components and mix them with my own and we'll see what comes out on the other side but I am learning that it is not about becoming everything that I read. It is letting things work their natural course of attraction and benefiting from understanding a little bit more about something and its practical application in my life.

After that, I found this cool graffiti artist sketchbook that had a ton of information about the creative process of artists I really liked. So, I wrote that down as well and decided to put together a book of all this information I am finding along this journey, a little creative process journal, if you will. I think it will be helpful since I am teaching all this to myself and I don't have any way to measure my performance.

Left Barnes n Noble and took my spoils to the house and sat down to write about it.

12/12 (beautiful full moon)

Today is a beautiful day. I have uncovered and dusted off a part of myself I had sitting on a shelf while I was investigating this new chapter of my life. It has shone through the last couple of days with hope and brilliancy. I remembered that I am not just doing this one thing. That there are infinite causes and conditions to my existence and an equal amount of wishes I have cast out into the universe and she has sent them back to me and, as I have said before, I must honor these gifts.

I was unaware that I was placing myself into a label, it is not my intention and like I just mentioned, I did nothing in particular except pay attention and a veil was lifted in my mind saying that I have work to do. I cannot just rest on my laurels, waiting to regain my equilibrium from having decided to do something completely outside, but not-so-outside, of myself. I have dreams and going to Africa is a drop of water in the ocean of intentions I have set for myself.

I mistakenly considered the idea of solely being a humanitarian. It has been easy enough to do because the people I am around all have different reasons for being here and are all equally confused about their own expetations and we have teachers who are not mistaken in their decisions to be humanitarians as a sole purpose and this is amazing because it affords them the luxury of being dedicated to teaching us with passion and intensity. I am grateful for this and I am also aware that I, Candice, am not bound to limit myself from my potential. Helping others in another country is only one way in which I can serve others. It does not define me.

I believe that the dedication and perserverence of living a life of happiness is not contained to this or that. Happiness simply 'is', and it is my responsibility to cultivate my perception and thought around the understanding of happiness. Today I think happiness is appreciation. I cannot appreciate without the interrelated thoughts and actions of others and all others need happiness, not just those in Africa so I should probably get on with planting the seeds of future happines now by appreciating those things most important to me. So, I will work a little harder. I am aware that this strength comes from the fear I just met with and moved through during fundraising, simplifying this experience to the benefit of another.

May you be peaceful, happy, and light in body and spirit

I am always doing that which I cannot do in order that I may learn how to do it.

Pablo Picasso

Sobriety Rules

Today marks my first year of being sober!! One year ago today, I put down alcohol and picked up a white surrender chip. My life has been amazing since that day. I went to alot of AA meetings and went through alot of fear with my sponsor and I am coming out on the other side with a desire to be present in this life. I am renewing my self-confidence a little more each day.

These last few days I have noticed that even though it is hard, I voluntarily and subconsciously decided to listen to my own voice of reason to make choices in my life. It is the first time I have trusted meself enough to do this, to know that my intentions are motivated by a desire to do good for not only myself but others as well. I will admit, some days I make a piss-poor delivery at it but the point is that I no longer need to have others opinions to make a decision. I may makek the wrong decision and go back repeatedly to the drawing board but that is my choice. It is my choice to take responsibility for my life because I am the only one who can make it worth living and more than make it worth living, make it the life of my dreams.

Today, there is the same amount of fear I felt before I stopped drinking but the difference is I desire it to be there. I desire it to be there because I have become aware of the benefits of being present with my feelings, I recognize there is another side. I am not just stuck with something, I can change my perspective. I do not choose to pick up a drink because that is the only way to escape a given situation. There is no need to escape at all. The recognition that this life is the life of my choosing is enough to put a smile on my face and determination in my step forward. Yes, the reality of life can be daunting and full of suffering but the reality is that where there is suffering, there is the most room for growth, where there is suffering, there is happiness and that is what makes this experience real and possible to choose between the two.

One year ago, I felt that everything that was wrong in my life was because I was a victim of abuse and neglect. I would always be underdeveloped mentally because of my past and that's just the way it was. There was no need to grow outside of that, I found people whose ideals shadowed my own and so we drank away our misery. I drank away my misery and was comfortable holding up a flag of defeat. I cannot change my life, I thought, I might as well enjoy the nightlife, where I can find companionship and smiles and laughter, and forgetfulness. I woke up in the mornings full of self-hate, masked by fuzzy hang-overs and the rush to get to work on time. I stuffed away my dreams of better living in a compartment in my mind, filed somewhere between healthy relationships and self care.

One year ago, I had been drinking alcoholically for eight years and most of my memories, if not forgotten, were soaked in beer and ignorance. Convicted of a DUI at 20, having to have my parents and close friends bail me out of trouble time and time again, all the while laughing and dancing my life away at night as if everything in life were going my way because I still had somewhere to run, someone to clean up after me. Wreaking havoc and leaving trails of my sanity and intelligence until there was none to be seen. This is the tip of an iceberg, which I still have more work to do before I am ready to tell the full story, but just a reminder for myself on this day of where I have been...

So, it has been a year...just one year. I stopped drinking. I stopped smoking. I stopped eating crappy food. I stopped going out. I stopped wearing make-up everyday. I stopped hurting myself. I stopped lying about who I am. I stopped pretending to know everything. I stopped trying to control my life. I quit my job. I became a volunteer. I started singing. I started smiling. I started laughing (really loud). I shaved my head. I took vows to be a better person. I chose to be a vegetarian..twice. I started meditating everyday. I started writing everyday. I am teaching myself to draw. I am learning another language. I started listening to my body. I am learning to trust. I started a deeper and more honest relationshiip with my parents. I started training to go to Africa. I started to learn about healthy love. I started to dismantle my defensiveness. I started to dismantle my fears. I started to want to live for others' happiness.

One year. All I did was say no to alcohol and everything in my life has changed because of it. Everything. I am grateful to my most amazing sponsor for helping me see clearly when I could not and my friends in AA Atl that I miss so much right now. I am most thankful to my higher power for carrying and pushing me through this inevitable impermanence.

ouch

I have a migraine and its kicking my ass. Today is my day off and I have spent all of it in bed. I am writing this entry in that bed with one eye open and a couple of pain-tears in both eyes...sad state fo affairs. You know how when you are feeling crappy physically, you feel the same mentally? Today has been dedicated to this researching and understanding this philosophy.

I have a feeling that there could be a spell of unhappy emails in my future since I am in the midst of confronting my inescapable fears on a daily basis. Sometomes I think of sparing anybody else the Eyor (I don't know how to spell this guys name, but you know, the donkey on Pooh's Corner...)-thoughts I am thinking and just reporting the happier, more sugary version of this journey but you're not the boss of me and I wanna tell you about the reality of trek, just in cases you ever need a conversation starter at the dinner table...actually, I just finished back-tracking and reading this email and obviously-to-me this migraine is effecting my mood far more than I am communicating to my fans. I am happy to be alive today and I will write again shortly when my teammates bring me some relief. I do not choose to be a bummer///

I just arived home from a long and disappointing day of fundraising. This was the day where the pink, cotton spun, cloud wore off and the reality of my mind shone through. Is that how you even spell shone or better yet, is shone a word? I digress. I have been doing alot of work in the mind department as I have previously mentioned and today was beneficial to see where it needs developing, which is, again, why I signed up for this.

I have been doing reasonably well with talking to people and facing my fears of rejection and judgement and condemnation (yes, there have been these, too). I have met so many amazing people living so close together that I must have all but forgotten about the 'others'. It seemed that today, all of my usual heroes and heriones were out saving the planet because the doors I knocked on were mostly empty houses. This began to wear on me after about oh, twenty houses or so. I started thinking about what I was saying and how it must be different from days past and maybe I wasn't showing enough happiness and I should show more and I know they are home they just are not answering because I'm the dreaded SOLICITOR. So, I had to think about all the times when I didn't answer the door because I had no opinion or thought myself above these pesky jevhovah's-witness-types. All of a sudden, all those times I felt so deservedly arrogant seemed very ugly and this experience was a beautiful mirror into my past karmic actions.

So, my teammate and I decided to go fundraise some lunch, then hit the houses again but when we started to ask around, it seemed no one wanted to help us. I think there were around ten to twelve places we went to and were repeatedly rejected. I have not had the pleasure of experiencing rejection while asking for food before and so many times! Finally, we broke down and both got something off the dollar menu and I gave Chris the Humana Charter to read and I read more from MLK's biography, which was just what was needed. My problems started to look alot smaller after reading about civil right's violations and hate crimes. I am aware that I knew to look there for a perspective shift which means that I trusted myself to get out of this mental jam which is a victory in itself, that I trusted I could solve this and not have to call anybody or spend three days in the depths of despair is good turn-around. All-in-all, it took about thirty minutes to change my attitude and not spill any suffering onto anybody around me. nice.

Journal Entry

Good Morning Morning Pages, it is day four of fundraising and i'm up at six am to journal and such before everybody else gets up. The space bar is sticky, I don't know how long I will write before this drives me crazy....okay, its driving me crazy. I will write when I find keys that work. Today is a beautiful day!!