The Pressure to Clone

I walk to work. I've got my Ipod ears on. I find that right rhythm in my step and I observe. How different we are.

Yesterday morning it was still a little warm out after a long weekend of near Summer temperatures. I know it's going to be cold though, later at night, when I'm heading home from my part time gig. It's going to go from a 17 degrees celsius to a 4 degrees and wind. I'm wearing my quilted Canada jacket that I wear through most of the winter unless it's those real polar bear frigid temperatures.

I round the corner through the University grounds and come across a University student, she's wearing a tank and shorts jumpsuit and flip flops. I smile. I love our differences when the weather is in transition. I can stand at the corner waiting for the street light to change from red to green and there's a person in a jump suit, a person in a full on winter coat and toque. I'm always amused by the winter coat and the flip flops combination. Is that like sleeping with one leg sticking out of the covers to balance out your body temperature?

This morning Frankie Flowers (on Breakfast Television) announced there was a windchill. I'm getting ready for work, assessing how I'm going to dress, "A windchill? What the? I'm putting on a turtle neck and I don't care if anyone mocks me."

People watching, this morning, left me zipping my Canada jacket right up and turning up the neck for a little more protection. I did a little shiver shake looking at pretty sundresses and bare feet in flip flops and shorts and t-shirts. "dese peeples cray-zay!"

I remember the year I worked with a manager Jessica who as I walked into the office first thing in the morning, without saying good morning first said, "You're dressed ridiculously, it's not THAT cold out!"
I snapped back, "Yes you're right. I'm dressed this way because I'm seeking attention. I should dress the way you say I should dress because you're not cold."
Then I gave her that cold stare that I have in the morning, that 'don't piss me off first thing in the morning because I have no filters' stare.

We are so different. And yet we tend to question each other with the underlying tone of, "why aren't we the same?" Why aren't I like you, why aren't you like me?

I've been really practicing relaxing into my life this year. Part of my theme this year is to be present. Being present brings me to interesting places.
In my mind, I start with the t-shirt, shorts and flip flops. I go through those few questions, "Doesn't he know there's a windchill? Does he really think that's appropriate clothing for this weather? What's he going to wear when it's actually hot out?"

Then all of a sudden, my mind goes swimming. All of these thoughts brush up against me.

It's cold for me. Me. So I dress appropriately for how it feels to me. What if every single person I see is dressed appropriately for how the weather feels for them?
"It's not THAT cold out!" for them

This little monologue goes off in my mind. We can't really expect everyone to wear the same kind of layers, to walk around all bundled up, to wear the same type of clothes as we are. Like clones.

I digress to the question, has anyone watched the series Orphan Black? Not only am I in love with Tatiana Maslany because she is a superstar in that show, she plays a bunch of clones. And the clones are very different.

For us though, clones would be identical in every way. Weren't the clones in Michael Keaton's movie multiplicity all the same?
My mind bounces over to the pressure to be clones.

If you're single you're constantly asked if you've met someone because we're all meant to be with someone, right?
If you're with someone you're constantly asked when you're getting married because we're all meant to marry that particular person we're with. None of us has ever dated anyone before the person we're with.
If you're married you're constantly asked when you're going to have kids because no couple has ever made it past child-bearing years without having children.
If you live in an apartment why don't you buy a condo? If you live in a condo, when are you going to buy a house?
You know that saying there's no stupid questions? All of those are stupid questions.

One of the topics in my Human Design study brings up frequently how we are raised to live as the other (not ourselves, HD calls it Notself).
We're raised to be Manifestors... go out and get it.
If we are not Manifestors and we don't succeed at trying to live a Manifestors life we question ourselves, what's wrong with me?
Others question us, What's wrong with you that you can't have this or that? Why can't you apply yourself? Why are you always quitting? Why can't you make up your mind?
Do you have that friend where nothing seems to work out in their life? Am I that friend? hahaha!

I've been learning how to relax into my life, every aspect of my life, exactly the way it is. Look at that thing that kind of pisses me off and be relaxed and okay with it. The rush and anxiety to change what I don't like about my life has gotten me into some of the needless skirmishes simply because I couldn't accept my life as it is. I kept asking myself, what's wrong with me? Okay I'm going to go out and get it and this time it's going to work out. and it didn't.

One of my hardest issues to deal with is being single.
I love being single. I've always been okay with being single. I'm not the person to jump in and out of relationships. I believe that it takes a certain type of man for me to be involved with, to commit to and deep down I've always known that about myself. But the world and other peoples stuff surrounding being single kind of beats me down. It's been hard being okay in a world and with people who tell me that I'm not.

I have this stress when I'm going to meet up with friends. I have it when I run into people I haven't seen in a long time. I have it when I meet a new man and he asks how long I've been single. The stress surrounds me like a firing squad and I have to come up with reasons before they shoot me through with holes. It's about the meaning that being single has been given. Can I say that again? It's about the meaning that being single has been given.

Are you seeing anyone?
Have you met anyone?
Why haven't you met anyone?
It has all felt like, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU THAT YOU CAN'T SEEM TO FIND A MAN?
I don't understand why she's single. It's not that hard to meet someone.

What was the conversation between Joe Fox and his dad in You've Got Mail?

NELSON: I just have to meet someone new, that’s all. That's the easy part.
JOE FOX "A snap to find the one single person in the world who fills your heart with joy."
NELSON: "Well, don't be ridiculous son. Have I ever been with anybody who fit that description? Have you?"

I've only ever convinced one person to stop asking me if I'd met anyone yet and that was my mom, when she was still alive.
I would get so frustrated with her when she'd asked me the question. "Mom, I've watched you with men, they weren't exactly gems."
She'd find a way to by pass that obvious observation and we'd go back and forth, me feeling frustrated, pissed off and finally like she saw me as being defective.

I finally hit the right note when I asked my mother, "What if I never meet the right man for me? What if I'm single for the rest of my life, are you going to continue to ask me that question for the rest of my life?"
She said, "OH! That would be a horrible thing to do."
"Exactly."
My mother never, ever, to her dying day, never asked me that question again. Of course, when ever I met someone and dated someone, I always told her. I always tell everyone. We all do that. So why does the question need to be asked anyway?

Plus being in a relationship, that was her stuff. It's never been mine. My stuff is, if he can't make me as happy as I am when I'm alone he gotsta go!

I remember, several years ago, being at my friend Steven's house and his friend Paul who had been consistently single started seeing someone who everyone felt was a serious relationship. Steven said, "I thought Paul would never find someone."
Taken aback I said, "Is that what you say about me that I'll never find someone like it's a problem?"
Steven didn't answer but I've since learned that that was his stuff. Steven's been single for close to 10 years now and he thinks he's a loser. It's not logical thinking!

I want to be able to face down, "Are you seeing anyone?" and be able to feel fully relaxed to say "No I'm not," and not take on all the 'What's wrong with you' projections. Be able to accept that I don't need to stop people from asking the question, they're not going to stop anyways. Get to a point where no matter what you think of me I don't feel the need to try to change it.

I'm really getting there. Plus it's not my stuff. If you think there's something wrong with me because I'm single that's because you believe that there's something wrong with you if you're not in a relationship.

I want to mention in brush strokes the stupidity of our culture and our questions (and the media feeds into it or perpetuates it).
The questions surrounding Jennifer Aniston since she and Brad Pitt divorced :
Is she ever going to find another man?
Is she ever going to get married again?
Is she ever going to have children?
Oh she has a man, oops she couldn't keep him.
The comparison of Jen's life versus Joli/Pitt's life - She couldn't possibly be happy not as happy as Brad anyways.


and questions about Oprah Winfrey:
Are Oprah and Steadman ever going to get married?
Is Oprah really okay with never having children?
She still hasn't married Steadman, How long has she been engaged? 20 years?
She and Gayle must be lesbians, right?

Do you see how we're making them wrong for having the lives that they have and living them? Projecting all this meaning on the lives they are living. Creating these questions that are not their questions.

Maybe Jennifer thinks that having that brood of kids would be a nightmare. Hey, I'd rather take care of that many elephants before having that many kids. I'd rather be a god mother rather than give birth to my own.

Every body has a different life. It plays out the way it plays out. We wear the appropriate clothes for the weather that we feel, not the weather someone else feels.


People live lives never becoming professional basketball players. It just doesn't happen for everyone. It is ridiculous to question people about things that haven't happened for them. That they may not be meant to have.

What if this singleness is my journey? I know it is and I understand why. It is part of the way that I am able to guide.

People die childless. People die unmarried. People die young. Babies die minutes after they are born.
We are all going to die. We have individually unique paths that we will take that lead us to the ultimate.
My Human Design study is becoming the biggest tool that I use in all the healing and soul searching I've done over these years.

EY

I have an Open Head and an Open Ajna

I started working with my open head (or crown). That's the top triangle. All the shapes/centers that are white are considered open or undefined. Because of that open, undefined, triangle I am prone to receiving mental pressure from others and often think that it is my pressure when it isn't. I get lost in all this mental dialogue, mental chatter that I think I have to figure out.
My biggest issue that I noticed I have is solving other peoples problems. I ask all these questions and I feel like I need to find the answers to these questions, not realizing that they're not my questions.
The hardest part is being able to allow those questions to flow through my thoughts and not become attached to them.

My head and those questions is not a place for me to work out what my next decisions are. And the moment I think it is the place is the moment I am overcome with mental anxiety. The moment I think that the questions are valid is the moment I am overcome with mental anxiety.

At work, it was the situation of not ever having been invited by my boss to share my ideas or opinions. I've understood that clearly since I've found out about Human Design. So I know I'm working in a situation where I haven't been invited. That tells me to be quiet. Don't volunteer information. Don't say what I think could be done to improve anything because I won't be heard. That was simple enough. The hard part was the question, How do I gain approval from a person who hasn't invited me?

Still not the clearest question because the question was more, how do I avoid having to listen to being told that I didn't do my work the right way, according to him? I've spent all this time second guessing how he wants me to do my job in order for him not to tell me that I didn't do it right. If I did this first then I'd find out that I should't have done this first. Can you see what happens with that kind of thinking? I'm rushing around trying to get everything done at once simply so I don't have to hear, "Why didn't you do this first? This is more important."

I'm running around in this circle of anxiety, trying to avoid another beat down of disapproval when I know full well that I know how to do my job. I go into stress mode because I'm going to receive another evaluation where I have to fight every negative bullet point of how I'm not very good at my job.

As I started studying what the undefined head center stood for I started to think, "wait a minute, if he's never invited me, he can never approve of me. If he can't approve of my work then no matter which way I do it, it will be wrong."
AHA, AHA, AHA!

Damned if I do, Damned if I don't. hmm
If I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't then what do I do?
Don't do and don't don't. Get it?

I've always known what to do at this job. I know that certain projects have to be done by certain dates because accounting needs to process invoices based on my work by certain cut-offs, for example. These cut-offs are company wide. They are not arbitrary dates that can be pushed back and pushed back.

I've been second guessing my own work that I know, I know how to do because of all these questions in my head that have nothing to do with me. I know how to do my work. It is always accurate.
He will always voice his disapproval because there is no approval. What the hell am I getting stressed out for? I can't win.

The only valid question I need to answer, which I have, is do I know how to do my job right?
So, since I do know how to do my job right the only thing I need to do is do my job.

And that's what I've been doing since January. I've been simply doing my job. When he asks me if I've done something yet and I haven't, I inform him no and list all of the activities that are on my to-do list and when I plan on doing the activity he's asked me about. And I keep going on about my business.

I do not need to find answers to all these myriad of other questions that are not my questions.

I can use my open head to help me to relax, remind me to stay quiet (not initiate) and change my negative thoughts. I can use my open head to think about what I want to write.
My open head is good to help me to review but it doesn't help me to do.
Do not make decisions - I don't need to decide to quit my job, nor when I should quit my job. My head center can't help me with that. It's my strategy and authority that helps me with that decision. My strategy is to wait for an invitation and my authority is to find out within my emotional wave how I feel about that invitation.

My little mantra I wrote for myself regarding my open head center is be quiet and focus on my own projects. Think about my own projects. Not my questions, not my pressure, not my energy, not my chaos. I have to differentiate between what is theirs and what is mine. None of it is mine. Because I am open, it is coming into me and it is amplified. It is not mine.
The lesson is to become unattached and simply watch. Be quiet and focus on my own projects. Seeking his approval on the way I do my work is not my project. Doing my work accurately and within the set deadlines is my project.

With the Open Ajna (mind) center directly below the Head/crown center it's the mental pressure (the head) to find the right answers (the ajna).
The mental pressure questions that we think we need the right answers can fall into things like I have to be debt free before I have a baby or before I fall in love. I need to move into a bigger place before I start dating. I don't have to have an answer for everything or anything for that matter.

The Ajna, whether defined or undefined brings mental anxiety and fear. It just so happens that the undefined ajna's fear and anxiety is amplified because we are taking in so much more. We think we have to do this or that (whatever we name ii like x in a mathematical equation) in order to relieve the anxiety.

The combination of the two centers were causing me mental anxiety because I felt like I had to make decisions. I felt I had to fix things. I felt I had to do something to change what's been going on within the environment and only then would I feel okay.

I wrote up a bunch of notes for my open Ajna to help me to hone in on how all this pressure was feeding this anxiety that needn't be here

I do not have to do this (Quit my job; move away)
I do not have to do that (Get my life in order before I quit my job; move before I date)
I do not have to say that. I do not have to speak if I'm not invited. I do not have to help if I'm not invited. I do not have to find a way to resolve my issues at work. I let my strategy and authority decide how and when I speak. I don't have to rehearse possible answers to possible questions. If I make a rash decision about what I think I should do and follow through on it, I will replay that decision for the rest of my life. "Did I do the right thing? What if I had done it differently?"

Ask myself, Does this matter? Is this of value?
I can never be certain of anything I am not like everyone else and there is nothing wrong with that.
I don't need to be uncomfortable when I don't have an answer.
I simply need to learn how to be fully present instead of working to develop an answer or comment. (I was so anxious, I was always rehearsing in my head.)

I don't need to finish anyone's sentence. I can listen without impatience. I cannot solve my personal problems by figuring them out with the mind.

Studying those two centers has relieved me of so much angst.

I had that little conversation with myself like you have. There are two things that can happen here. I can quit my job or I can be fired. If he wants to fire me, he has to have a reason. If he doesn't have a reason then he has to pay me off. There are labour laws. I could quit, but there are still many good qualities about my job and so far, I haven't been invited to something new. And this job has really only been about this relationship. Well if all that is the case then I simply go to what I've always done in every job I've ever worked at. I simply do the best job I can do. And that's what I've been doing.

I stopped getting upset when decisions are made that I think, don't make sense. I remind myself that I'm not invited so there's no need to volunteer my "make sense" ideas because they won't be heard anyways. Ironically enough, we've been getting along much better.


A side note about invitations, in case I haven't explained them properly. If I had been invited then I wouldn't have to repeatedly be invited. I could go up to his office any time and say, I have an idea about saving our department money... Or I could email him and say, I was thinking of another way we could do this that might be quicker... And he would be open to 'hearing' what I had to say/email. Because I haven't received an invitation nor been recognized in knowing what I'm doing, if I volunteer, I am a nuisance.

Any of the notes I've gotten have been from the book I've been studying by Lynda Bunnell called Living Your Design. A Manual for Celular Transformation.

Previous blog entry about My Questions

EY

What are my Questions?

3Jan15 Saturday

There's a bit of a blizzard outside. Our first for 2015. a perfect Saturday afternoon is being able to look out the window at the blizzard and not be in it. haha!


I'm still quietly moving along with my experiential learning of Human Design. Knowing the centers are next on my list to incorporate on the experiment I've been living. It's so funny too because I finally came up with an answer yesterday that brought the pendulum swinging from the extremes down into the middle territory.

You know how New Years go, I've been thinking about my focus in my Personal 3 year. Now that I've resolved some of the stuff of 2014 how do I move forward? With the Straight for the Knife guy, (S for KG Blog entry), we seem to have found a comfortable space with each other. He's opened up a whole lot and I notice something about myself.

I am filled with so many questions. I always have been. It's the questions that pull me out of my retreat to help others. It's the questions that I feel so strongly that I need to find the answers to. The questions can distract me and I can run off for years taking care of the wrong people, not being focused on myself.

You're having troubles with your in-laws? What solutions can I help you find to make your relationships with them work? Or how can we find the words for you to approach this subject with your husband/wife without alienating him or making him feel he has to choose between you and his parents? I am not well! ha-ha!

With the Knife guy, after a year of interesting interactions, we have more and more honest conversations everyday. In my maze of questions I've had many questions for him. Not about me, mind you, but questions on how to solve some of his situations. It's so weird because I'm at a rubbery detached place with him. I'm willing to be friendly. I understand that given our situation, how we are often thrown together, I have to find my comfortable place. I can no longer have designs on this person. And that's where the rubbery detached comes in because I am detached but I know how easy it is for me to be drawn back in.

We've had a couple weeks break from each other and I notice that his questions keep jumping around in my thoughts. His questions. How am I going to remain detached when I keep asking myself these questions? I'm involved in this. I have a stake in figuring things out.

Last night I journaled about energy. I've always noticed energy but in 2014 I made it more of a study. Sometimes I can feel anxious when I'm around a certain group of people and then I realize I'm not actually anxious I'm simply feeling the energy of the group. There's the energy of the wall, the closed down energy of workers towards their boss. There's the energy of fear that filters through the group. It was with the fear, one day, when I mentioned a few things/actions of others that went with it, the person looked at me like I was crazy and I realized, you can't feel that? Not every one can feel energy in the way that I do.

I spent serious time asking myself in 2014, 'Is this my energy?'

I spent time noticing energies that were inviting. Energies that spoke. There was a moment when I slipped with my boss after he'd asked me how I was and I started to complain about a work frustration and I felt his energy say,"Fuck! Why did I ask her that?" ha-ha! I stopped in mid-sentence and ended with, "I'll figure it out," so he could make a hasty retreat from my office. Which he did.

It's funny. It brings me back to being a quiet child. The time my mother said to her party guests, "If Shelley doesn't talk to you then I know there's something wrong. That child has a sense about her."

So as I come back to an old realization that I feel these energies and not everyone can feel them in the way that I do, yesterday I finally asked, What is my question?

If I'm going to find a way to remain detached from this person who has to be in my life I have to realize that all these questions are not my questions. They're his questions.

To remain detached from him and from everyone who distracts me, I have to ask myself, what are my questions?
If these are your questions, do I have to answer them? NO! If this is the energy of the room or the group, do I need to take it on? No. I just simply observe, wait for an invitation or not, accept it or not.

As we move into the new year energies and we get back to near daily contact I can go in and ask myself, is that my question? What is my question?

And that crazy rigmarole is me approaching learning about the Head (Crown) center and Ajna (Mind) center.
Being focused on other peoples inspiration, answering other peoples questions.
Both of my centers are undefined. Defined is when they are coloured in and undefined is when they are open or white. Obviously there's different meanings if they're defined or undefined.

So that's what I'm dealing with for the next while. Reading about centers and testing the information experientially as part of my experiment.

EY