The Women I Follow

Your Personal Year

I’ve been chatting with friends lately about knowing your personal year and getting in depth with looking at your patterns in life. I’m completely fascinated with cycles and patterns in life.

I’ve always called my bouts with depression cycles of downtime that are healthy when they are simply a month and problematic when they last over a year. Knowing my personal year and then ultimately looking over years of personal years has helped me to see patterns, cycles and themes in my life.

I’ve been following Christine Delorey’s work since at least 2006. On her websites she provides so much free information like your personal year forecast, plus monthly and weekly ones as well. Check her out, read her work and once you see how accurate her work is, buy her work. That’s how I end up supporting people, by the way. It’s through a person’s free work that ultimately enables me to trust and then happily pay for all that they’ve given. I trust Christine, she has helped me to discover so much.

Truly if you want to gain powerful insights into yourself and your life, run over to her website and find out what your numbers are.

I follow other women: Susan Miller’s Astrology Zone and Guru Rattana’s New Millennium Being. Susan Miller’s monthly forecast is best for me to know specific transits, like the new moon, full moon etc. Guru Rattana helped me to look at the signs we are in, we’re currently in Gemini, and create a focus pertaining to that signs qualities. Plus she got me interested in Kundalini Yoga as a practice that fits more with my personality.

I’ve always believed that yoga had a spiritual focus which included meditation, and chanting as well as the physical aspect. Kundalini Yoga fits with my belief.

Like my relationships, I don’t jump into anything quickly. I’ve read all of the women for years before I purchased their product and when I did, I felt I had no choice because I believed in their work. I purchased Christine’s book Life Cycles several years ago and I continue to purchase it as gifts or at the least recommend it as a “must buy.”

Christine DeLorey's wordpress - Creative Numerology
Christine DeLorey's Creative Numerology.com
Susan Miller's Astrology Zone
Guru Rattana's New Millennium Being

EY

The Feet that belong to these shoes

Theatre Rusticle One of my favourite theatre companies. :)

EY

Theme of Bad Moods?

Life is good so why am I so cranky?

The theme this week seems to involve me going into a bad mood then pulling myself back out it again.
Sometimes it’s stupid little things that bug me, like an uncalled for remark. Other times it’s bigger things like cleaning up other people’s messes as if I made them myself.

But the key to staying in a bad mood or getting out of it lies in my thinking.

I stay in the bad mood when I go down the road of thoughts such as, “Well, that isn’t fair, she should have done such and such;” or “How is this my problem?” or “I’m so tired of blah, blah, blah...” ha-ha! And the list goes on.
Everything is about control isn’t it? If things could simply be the way I think they should be, I’d be happy, wouldn’t I? Or would I? Probably not...

Life has been great after 4 years of soul crushing beat downs. I want to feel good and enjoy my great life now, while I’m in it. I know, for me, that I need to look at the stuff that I do appreciate in my life. There are always things to appreciate.

Trying to be in control will make us crazy. When I still had a television, I used to love watching ‘Hoarders’ because 1 – it always motivated me to go through my clutter and chuck it and 2 – it really made me see how crazy we can make ourselves in our need to be in control. It’s like an addiction. Actually, I think it is an addiction.
Back in April 2012 I wrote this in my journal, The “trying to change what is” addiction. April 2010 - All addictions start as a way to try to control what you can control in order to compensate for what you cannot control. But what you can control becomes out of control.
- Trying to change the system, change other people’s behaviour, change the weather. In our frustration that nothing has changed we hoard, smoke, drink and drug too much, we self-medicate in some way.
- Accept what is – accepting yourself as you are – accepting others as they are.
- The more I focus on what I don’t want the more of “don’t want” I attract.
- Don’t think of what I can’t have, create what I want
- What do I want? In this minute, for this day, for my job, for my life, for my relationships
- In silence – I can find my questions and my answers

I have a manual for myself of reminders of important thoughts I’ve had. It is filled with epiphanies like the addiction to control. It has spiritual dreams I’ve had; info on my power (totem) animals, cycles in my personal years in Numerology , personal manifestoes, and notes from readings that I’ve received. My thoughts are like a skip on a record {vinyl, of course :)}sometimes. I can get stuck in a thought instead of looking at a full experience. Stuck in the skip instead of enjoying the full song.
In the rush of life , in stress and overwhelm, it is so easy to get off track and stuck in unproductive thoughts. I’ll try anything to keep myself moving back to my center.

Julia Cameron, in Walking in This World, mentions creating a first aid kit for our moods. You know, a box that we fill with the stuff that will improve our moods, change our thinking, get us out of the funk. In my box would be pictures of my cats; recordings of songs by Pharaoh Sanders, “High Life”; Earth, Wind & Fire, “Turn it into Something Good”; Sounds of Blackness, “I’m Going all the Way”; and their full album, “The Evolution of Gospel.” And a multitude of other songs from various artists. What would you put in your box?

EY

Sidebar - Chatty Cathy's

I know a few women named Cathy and none of them are all that chatty :)

A girlfriend of mine ‘King’ said to me, “sometimes when I feel too drained by other people’s needs I want to say, ‘I am not your leader!’” ha-ha!

Here are a few of the types of chatters who drain my energy:


A - The Horror Story Triplets
One will mention a horror story in the news and the other two will jump in with an endless supply of related stories and similar stories and stories from their country of birth, and stories about bad things that happened to their friends, and workplace accidents and… excuse me while I go slit my wrists now before we all die in some horrific way.


B - The “I have 3 anecdotes for your comment” person also known as the “snow plough” conversationalist.
That was the day Tony mentioned to me that he heard my cat had died and he managed to offer his condolences. Lauri walked up in the middle and said, “you’re cat died? Yeah my mother’s dog died and she was devastated. Then her cat died and she still hasn’t stopped crying and I don’t know what I’ll do when it’s time to lose my bunny. I love my bunny. He’s my little pal. He comes up on my bed and tries to nibble my toes …”
I stop her with, “well, I’ve got to get back.”

The snow plough conversationalist talks with a level of anxious, mile-a-minute frenzy that
1) doesn’t give you a chance to participate in the conversation
2) overwhelms you with information and images that makes you realize you have an emergency that you just remembered you have to deal with NOW!

The snow plough has to make sure they take the time to tell you every thing they think about well, everything!


C - The “don’t stop reading on my account” person, who proceeds to ask you questions while you’re reading. After reading the same sentence over and over, you close your book/ turn off your e-reader and she says, “No honestly I don’t want to interrupt you.”
Well I can’t read and answer questions at the same time.


D - The “unsolicited advice” person. This person asks an innocent question then gives you unsolicited advice based on your answer. I’ve had a few people who have given me that stunned, head and body pushes back, look when I’ve come out and said, “Listen, I didn’t ask for your advice. You asked me a question and I answered it.”


E - The “I always have a problem that needs to be solved by you” person. Except they ask for you advice but have all the reasons why your advice won’t work.


F - And their cousin, “I always have the same problem that needs to be discussed repeatedly” person


G - And her brother, “I tell the same stories over and over and…” person


H - The “we’ve just met and we’re best-friends” person also known as the overly familiar person. Now some people you click with but the clicking is always both ways and you both know it. I don’t mean those people. I mean the people that you may or may not like with time but you need the time to see if you will like or not like them.


Anyone out there in the interwebs have any examples of their own? Please share, I’d love to hear them.

EY

Silence

I’ve always wanted to do a silent retreat. From the first time I ever heard it existed, I’ve wanted to do one. I have a feeling I’ll probably become addicted to them.

I’m a person who thrives in silence. Especially because my work life is so filled with constant chatter. I work with all men by day and if you think women are chatty, we’ve been sold a bill of goods. Ha-ha! My part time job is also a chat-fest. No matter what job I am at, people always want to know what I am doing in that moment and if they don’t ask about that then they have to tell me something random. I’m not always interested.

I’m not an idle chit-chat kind of person. I have no use for it. I have no patience for it. I think it’s a time filler and I could be doing better things with my time. I also believe that if you have nothing worthwhile to say then don’t say anything. It may sound cranky but not everyone’s a chitchat person. A little bit of silence never hurt anyone.

There are so many reasons why people engage in idle chit-chat. It’s a way to avoid the silence. For many people it’s uncomfortable to be with someone and not talk. Some people feel that they’re being rude if they don’t talk. Some people don’t understand that you can be connected in silence with a simple smile. Some people just love the sound of their own voices. Some people are bored and want you to be their entertainment. Some people are trying to get you to like them …

For me, the constant chatter drains me. I’m a good listener, a great listener actually, and it’s exhausting being a great listener. I empathize with what I hear, I feel it emotionally and physically. I have anxiety and worry for the person I am listening to if it’s a troubled story. I feel heavy in my shoulders if the chatter is just foolishness. It’s all energy.

I was raised to be seen and not heard. I’m of that generation. Being seen and not heard, something I perfected, meant I did a lot of listening. I knew a lot about the adults, things that I shouldn’t have known at my age, but I was so good at being quiet, they’d forget that I was there. And if they’d look over at me to see if I was listening I’d busy myself in some way or not show any facial reaction, to make it seem like I didn’t understand what I was listening to. I literally was raised to be a good listener.

It’s hard now, though, as an adult, and I almost need to shake it off, shake that energy out. It’s hard to explain. Part of it is because I’ve actually never analyzed it, I just know that it drains me.

I found myself at one point in 2003, feeling down in the dumps for an extended period of time, subsequently being diagnosed with depression and refusing to go on the meds (for a year minimum). I always go through cycles/seasons where I need more time to myself and I need to cocoon and recharge to be healthy. In 2002/2003, that season turned into an entire year. It wasn’t healthy anymore. I made the decision that it was my thinking that got me into this trouble so I’d have to use my thinking to get me back out of it.

I took a hard look at the people in my life, what they gave me, what I felt they took away from me. We can really spend an entire lifetime doing what everybody else wants in the name of maintaining relationships. I looked at how much I loved the people in my life. Was the love strong enough for me to continue the way things were? Was the love strong enough to commit to discussing with them the changes I needed for us to remain in each others lives? I became more honest about how I felt. And most importantly, I became more precious about my time.

My time. I’m not going to leave my house to sit at your house to watch TV. I can stay home and watch the shows I actually want to see. I’m not going to suffer through another dinner with friends of yours who I’m not in love with (not even in like with)if that’s the only way I can spend time with you. I’m not going to come spend time with you on your work break to have to sit through a thousand and one people coming up to talk to you because they just have to tell you something that they could have told you all day long. And you don’t bother to say, “Listen, come see me later, I’m with my friend Shelley who I never get to see.”

My time. Hah, Depression made me learn to put myself first in My Life. I’m not going to do everything your way so you feel great and I feel like an exhausted piece of shit. My life.

I’m such a firm believer that illness is an indication that change needs to happen in our lives. The gift of illness is like a decluttering. With my stomach problems when I was a teenager, my doctor a stomach specialist, told me to speak up for myself otherwise I’d be sick for the rest of my short life. Because I wouldn’t live long with those stomach problems that I had.

In 1991, My Naturopath asked me after I’d been hospitalized for 2 weeks with 3 types of rashes all over my body, “What or who is getting under your skin? What’s making your blood boil that’s turning your skin into 3 rashes?”

And in 2000, after two years of getting colds where my ears would fill with liquid and I couldn’t hear, I finally started to ask myself, “What do I not want to hear?”

Today, Idle chit chat is one of the things I don't want to hear. lol

The thing about listening to others all the time is that, at some point, I can no longer hear that voice in my head. You know that voice? She’s so quiet. She whispers and she only whispers once and her whisper is connected to my gut. Somehow her whisper yanks me in my gut , untangles the knot, and creates a subtle energy within me that makes me nod my head once and I know what I need to do in a surefooted, tunnel vision, focused way. She brushes over my mounting fear when I’ve reached my limit in a situation and burn a bridge. Sometimes the only way you can leave or change is by burning that bridge, leaving yourself with no choice. She whispers “don’t worry I’ll lead you through this. Just listen.”

When I make the space to stop listening to every chatty Cathy, I create the room within me to hear myself.

EY

John Francis, a Pisces like me, made me think about listening and silence. 17 years of not talking?

Grieving a Death or a Loss

Keep a journal pertaining to the loss. (I kept a journal for an entire year after my mom passed away.)

Write about how you feel on any given day, emotions will fluctuate.
Write about how you are coping.
Set some goals, some promises
Create new rituals for milestones, anniversaries etc.

I still haven't read that journal I kept after my mom passed away. I don't know when I will but I know where it is.

EY

Before and After

I recently saw a picture of Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter who is now 5 years old. Remember Anna Nicole? She was a bit of a train wreck and yet there was something really likeable about her. I remember being really upset about her death. One, because she left a motherless baby and two, because her son had died less than 5 months before she did. No matter what the media said about her, they couldn’t dispute the fact that she loved her son as the closest person to her in her life. The whole ending of their story made me really sad.

I know the grief that you feel when you lose a loved one in the parent/ child category of deaths. That first year of grieving is a kind of brutal that is so raw and filled with emotional triggers. You have to go through everything for the first time, your first Christmas without your mom, your first birthday etc. It’s any wonder that Anna Nicole didn’t make it through that first year, or if anything were to happen, that was the time. The years after the first year are hard too but they are a different hard.

Some how when my Mom passed away, not having anyone to provide me with any concrete guidance on how to deal with the grieving process, I decided to keep a journal for that entire first year. I started the journal going back to how I was informed that my mom had died, through the week I spent in Montreal getting her affairs in order. And continued through the milestones of my first Christmas, my first birthday, her birthday and Mother’s day...
I wrote in my journal when I woke up out of nowhere at 4 o’clock in the morning to cry. I wrote letters to my mother. I wrote anything pertaining to coping. How funny friends become in your grief.

We are a society who doesn’t know how to grieve or how to handle others in their grief. I felt like some of my friends disappeared because they were scared that what I had was contagious and they would lose a parent too. Most likely, they didn’t want to think of the mortality of their own parents. Some friends couldn’t understand why I couldn’t do all the same things I’d always been available to do. I couldn’t go to movies in that first year. I couldn’t sit still in a movie seat. I needed to pace, to be in motion, my concentration was out of whack. I liked going to parties though. I liked parties because I could be around other people and not feel the pressure of one on one interactions. (One on one interactions were fraught with expectations, it seemed, and I didn’t have it to give.)

I have a friend “Bee” who used to have these all night parties where all the apartments on his floor were open. You could walk in and out of everyone’s apartments. There were musical instruments set up in one apartment, a projection screen with movies and images set up in another apartment, weed smokers in another apartment... I was a regular at those parties and would get there around 10 at night and wouldn’t leave until 8 or 9 the next morning. Between the all night jam sessions of these crazy talented musicians, the dancing and the quality of recorded music being played, the people, you could drink or not drink, smoke weed or not smoke weed. These were authentic “grown folks” parties. There were no brawls or thefts or weapons or cops breaking up anything. There was no drunken or stoned out behaviour. These were grown folks who showed up for a nice time and had one without any of the pressures or drama.

After my mom died everything in my life had the division of what happened before she died and what happened since she died. Obviously “the Before Mom’s death” Shelley was different from “the After Mom’s death” Shelley. I spent many painful mother’s days and mom’s birthdays not knowing during the build up to those days how I was going to feel. I have a girlfriend, “Vannie”, who for years, spent every St Patrick’s day with me because it was the day before my mother’s birthday. We partied like it was St Patrick’s day but we had the unspoken knowledge that it was more than that. To this day, I send her an email every St Patrick’s day to tell her I love her and I remember what she did for me.

To help someone through their grief, we don’t have to be available every single day. We can pick a day and be consistent with that day. That’s what I learned from Vannie.

It has taken me a good ten years to get out of the fog of the pain. Better yet, it’s taken me ten years before I was ready to look at my mother’s life and death from a different angle. The not knowing how I’m going to feel on her birthday, each year is a bit much. The overwhelm of not having a mother to gift on Mother’s day is, ack, it sucks!

I don’t remember where I heard it, probably an Oprah episode. Didn’t Oprah tell us mostly everything? :) Someone was talking about the values and rituals we carry forward in our lives and how we do them because they are learned and we don’t necessarily notice if they actually work for us or where they came from.

There was an anecdote about the three generations of women who when they made a roast beef they would cut off the edges before they put them in the oven. The daughter asked her mother, “why do you cut off the edges? Does it change the flavour?”
The mother answered, “I don’t know, my mother always did that so that’s what I do”
And she asked her mother and her mother asked her mother and the answer was, “I never had a casserole dish big enough to fit the entire roast so I had to cut off the edges before I roasted it”

That anecdote made me really think about changing my rituals and what I wanted my rituals to be and made me think about how I could take more control over mother’s day. I took control by adopting a mother for mothers’ day. For several years, I bought a gorgeous expensive plant with beautiful flowers for a woman who has all sons and doesn’t know what it’s like to have a daughter. The hug? The hug!

This year I’m choosing a single mother, friend of mine. Her two children aren’t teenagers yet and all of her money is used for practical purposes. She works hard and tries to give her kids as many opportunities as her salary can allow. I’m going to get her a gift card for a massage at a well known spa in Toronto. It makes me feel good to make a mother feel good in honour of my mother. I also know that my mother wouldn’t want me to be living in pain

EY

Adopt a Mother for Mother's Day

Find a mother who could use a pick me up. Who couldn’t really?
Give her a mother’s day present in honour of your deceased mother.
It’s a nice way to bring joy to yourself, to the recipient, and to the memory of your mother

“This gift is just as much for me as it is for you.” That’s what I tell the recipient of my mom’s mother’s day present.

EY

Maybe This Is the Best

I’m a tweaker, I’m never really satisfied with the way things are. You know, my life would be better if I could lose about 20lbs, work out daily, be committed to my Qigong and Kundalini Yoga practice, write daily, complete my novel. Oh if only I could be neater, keep a cleaner apartment, have a fail-safe system for well, EVERYTHING! (rolls eyes)


I can drive myself crazy with all the things I didn’t do, haven’t done, could do better. My life would be so much better... but would it? There’s always one more thing to fix, one other thing that is missing.


What’s brought this up is that lately life has been pretty good for me. My really difficult work issues have been resolved, my debts are being paid down – one by one, life at home is calm, I’m no longer in physical pain. I’ve been through so many trying times emotionally and physically and now that things are good, I’m still a bit scared of any bad that may be around the corner. I want to enjoy this good but there’s still that part of me who has to brace herself for the worst case scenario. Then, on top of that, I want to enjoy this good but if I could tweak this situation a little, well...


I think it was Nora Ephron who wrote that when you’re 50 you’ll wish you still had the thighs you hated when you were 30. Isn’t that the way for all aspects of our lives? In retrospect that extra 5lbs wasn’t as bad as this extra 20. Doing daily Kundalini yoga isn’t as great as the long walks I used to regularly take with my gal-pal.


Maybe this is the best anything is going to be in my life right now. Can I learn to love my life exactly as it is? Can I learn to accept my so-called fat, my messy, my imperfect and laugh anyway, enjoy my life anyway, love anyway? Can I remind myself that in 10 or 20 years I’ll wish I had enjoyed myself more?


There’s a piece of advice I always give to people who are in between jobs and are searching frantically. I tell them to try to take a bit of time everyday to simply enjoy all this free time you have. I know that bills loom and you need groceries and all that practical stuff but when you do return to work, the only thing you’ll wish is that you did more of the things you enjoy when you had the time.


Of course we all know that the advice we give to others is usually the message we need to hear the most. This issue is so huge for me, enjoying my life right now. Go out anyway, even if I think I look fat in this outfit. Write a blog entry on my lunch break and call that daily writing, even if it’s still not novel work. Simply try to be a little more satisfied in this moment without thinking about how I’d tweak it to make it better. Because, really, when the bad times or hard times show up again, as part of the cycle, while I am trying to dig myself out of it, I’ll also be wishing that I enjoyed the good times a little stronger when they were here.



EY

Liebster Blog Award

My EY Page Blog was nominated for an Award by the lovely Bonnie Vesely at Just Venture Coaching

The Liebster, from what I understand, is a way to highlight bloggers with less than 200 followers. It is a pay it forward award and the responsibilities are as follows:

1. Thank the one who nominated you by linking back.
2. Nominate five blogs with fewer than 200 followers.
3. Let your nominees know by leaving a comment on their sites.
4. Add the award image to your site.

One of my goals for 2012 was to find myself a writing community. Thanks to Robert Lee Brewer's April Platform Challenge I've become a part of an active online writing community that we call "MNINB Platform Challengers."

It's been a little overwhelming on the social media front. Because of the challenge, I now have a Twitter account and a Facebook page. I never thought I'd ever have a Twitter account, turns out I like Twitter. Who knew? I've got a whole lot of new blogs that I've subscribed to from the MNINB group and I'm working BIGTIME on time management. ha-ha! All this activity keeps my mind on the writing so what more can I ask for?

As an aside, I love that Robert's Blog is called, "My Name is Not Bob" because the EY Page stands for, "Shelley with an EY." How many people out there have pet peeves about their names? :)

As soon as I find five blogs to nominate I shall mention them here.
And Thank you Bonnie for the kind words about my writing. :)

EY

Baby Massage

Absolutely Beautiful!

Woman's Work

I recently got my own office at my day job. Well, I share it with my boss’ assistant but he has so many meetings that he’s hardly ever there. Being moved to my own office has really changed my attitude. I’m a whole lot less cranky. In fact, I’m downright happy!

When I was down in the main office, I was the go to person for everything. If a contractor, security, the mailman, housekeeping, Joe Blow came into the office, they came to me first. If the phone rang, the expectation was that I would answer it despite the fact that we have two other extensions.

As is the case in every workplace, we have more and more work to do and the same amount of hours to do the work in. When there are three other guys ( I work with all men) in the office you would think that one of them could take it upon themselves to answer the ringing phone especially when I look busy. What they do instead is they look over at me as if to say, “isn’t she going to answer that?”

That’s what started to make me cranky.

I’ve never worked with so many people who receive so many personal phone calls at work in my entire working career. I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I’ve received personal calls at work . Three of them, on Sept 11th, 2011 because I didn’t have internet access, didn’t have a radio and it was important to know if the world was ending. It really did feel that way. All my friends and family know not to call me at work, if they even have my work phone number, because they’ve been told, “Don’t call me at work.”

In this day and age, you can contact me on my land-line, my cell phone, by email (I have two personal accounts), on Facebook and you know, leave a message. But call me at work? No! I’m at work to, you know, to work.
A couple of years ago I broached the subject with my co-worker that I would appreciate it if he answered the phone half the time. “It would be different ,” I said, “if all the calls were work-related but half the calls are personal and a lot of them are yours. I don’t see any reason why I should have to stop what I am doing to answer all the calls to say, it’s for you.”

He told me that he looks at the call display to see if it’s for him and if it’s not he doesn’t answer.
“Well no, that’s not entirely true because I’ve sat here and watched you not look at the phone repeatedly.”
“Fine,” he said with THAT tone of voice, “I’ll tell my wife to stop calling.”

Um, in what part of this discussion did I say that your wife calls too much?

We had a silent moment and I backed off because I didn’t want to turn it into a war especially since we get along so well. And I tried a new tactic. If I saw that a call was for him, instead of answering, I’d say, “it’s for you.” Something about that change made him realize that yes, it was true, he wasn’t looking at the phone, ever. And he improved somewhat. He started looking at the phone sometimes. Especially on the second ring when he realized I might not be answering because it was for him. Of course there was still the case of everybody else’s personal calls.

With my move to my new office, I still have an extension to the main office but now I have my own direct number. If a call comes through on the main office number that looks like it might be for me, I answer it, but 90% of the calls I no longer answer. The guys now have the responsibility of answering the phone and there is some serious grumbling about it.

It’s become like an episode of ,”The week the women left,” a show where the women of a small community are transported to a week’s vacation sans children and their husbands are left to fend for themselves taking care of all they’ve taken for granted. It’s a lovely world when everything is automatically done for you. It’s a rude awakening when you find out, through experience, that it’s darn time consuming when you have to do it yourself.
A couple of my guys have asked me, ‘Don’t you answer the phone anymore?”

“I answer it if it’s for me but it doesn’t make sense for me to answer the phone to put it on hold and yell down the stairs to tell you that it’s for you, especially when it’s a personal phone call.”

“OH!”

Don’t even get me going on what we deem “women’s” work or a “secretary’s” job…

It’s one of the stories of my life actually, that expectation that I’ll take care of everything and know my place. I do for a time, until I get tired or I take a good hard look at the unfairness of a situation and I speak up. My assertiveness always pisses off the other person, the person called on their actions or lack of actions, as the case usually is. But I have to speak up.

It reminds me of the first time I finally spoke up within my family. When I was assigned all the housework at 13 years old. My step-dad would come home and survey the house to see what I ‘d done or more appropriately, what I hadn’t done yet. And he’d tell me, “you haven’t cleaned the bathroom yet, you haven’t cleaned the kitchen yet…” He was my first micro-manager. Lol No wonder I can’t tolerate being micromanaged, but I digress.

In my meekness I suffered in silence for months but then even I couldn’t take it anymore and I spoke up. I stood in the living room while he and my mother were watching television and I waited until they noticed me.
“What do you want?” he asked with that tone of voice.

I looked at the carpet and said softly, “If you don’t pay me to do the housework, I’m not going to do it anymore.”
The volume of the television was quickly turned down and the stepfather said, “What did you just say?”
“If you don’t pay me to do the housework, I’m not going to do it anymore. You come home and all you ever notice is what I haven’t done yet.”

Then came the yelling and swearing and the accusations of being an ingrate and troublemaker and how they could never simply have a nice quiet night at home because I ruined everything. Everything!

I was sent to my room with a, “get out of my face,” and had to sit in silence listening to all the qualities that proved there was something wrong with me. As I listened though, there was a little smile mixed in with my thundering heartbeat because I’d said what I wanted to say despite how completely terrifying it was. The yelling and complaining ended with something along the lines of, “I’ll show her if she thinks she’ll get away with this.”
The next step of course is that I knew I had to actually follow through on my word. And for a week I didn’t do the dishes, the dusting, didn’t clean the bathroom or any of the other chores I’d been assigned to do. With a few more days of bad moods and worse words, they caved and started to pay me.

Now, I have to say that I understood why they had assigned me the chores but the unfairness was that I’d inadvertently found out that Step dad’s daughters, who were both younger than me, received a larger allowance and received “extra” money from my mother. That I Could Not Tolerate! So yes they paid me to be their live in maid and complained to anyone who would listen that I MADE them pay me. But it taught me a fine lesson.

At work, for the first time ever, it has been someone else who saw the unfairness in my situation and fought my battle by moving me. It was my boss’s boss (the big guy) who’d come into the main office, watched what was going on and asked, “How the hell does she ever get any work done with all those interruptions?”

Right? I told the big guy recently that I am so thrilled that every time I see him I’ll give him four kisses, one for each cheek. Ha-ha! (I got that joke from Charlie Parker who kissed Richard Nixon’s cheeks four times.)
It’s still not resolved, I’m sure. There will probably be more complaining before the guys finally realize that maybe they should receive their personal phone calls at home or suck it up and answer the phone since I’m not going to. Time will tell, and I will continue to state the facts… I wasn’t hired to take messages from your creditors, your dentist & doctor, your wife, or your friend who wants to know if you’ve gone on break yet so he can meet you on it.

EY

26May12 - Watching Ken Burns Jazz and the quote is actually from Duke Ellington. He was honoured by the then President Nixon at the White House and in accepting the honour kissed Nixon 4 times. When Nixon asked him, "Why 4 times." Duke said, "once for each cheek." :)

Blue Metropolis

I realized at some point in March that I was in a bit of a rut. I had become so accustomed to living in pain that now that I'm not in pain I'm still living my life as if I were. I made myself a commitment that I would make it a point to enjoy my life more, even if I had to schedule things. As it happens, when you make a commitment, the next email I received was from Blue Metropolis in Montreal and it was their events and dates.

Sometimes I don't have to be hammered over the head before I get things. I decided that I would attend. I haven't been to Montreal in at least 5 years and the way the scheduling worked, I would be free in the mornings to do what ever I wanted. I realized that everyone would be at work during the week so I knew I wouldn't be seeing too many people. Because I stayed at my best-friend's house, I drove into town with him every morning and did my own thing.

I made plans with my Aunt and a couple cousins to meet up for lunches. When in Montreal, I've got to eat everything that I cannot get in Toronto. Like good Smoked Meat sandwiches, Lafleur's hot dogs, bagels, good pizza (although Pizza Nova Toronto comes close). My mom used to get mad at me because I never wanted home cooking, I just wanted fast food but in the end she got over it when she realized she didn't have to cook.

Wednesday I got my location figured out. Hotel Opus, where Blue Met was being held, was in the perfect spot at Sherbrooke and St Lawrence. It's close to the Mountain, Close to Smoked meat sandwiches (although I didn't go to Schwartz's deli, I went to Salaison Slovenia for Smoked meat and hot salami combo), downtown, and close to a zillion Metro stations (Subway stations, if you've never been to Montreal.) The people at the Hotel were awesome, friendly, always smiling, made me feel comfortable when I was just hanging out in the lobby for my next event. Apparently it was the first year that Blue Met was held there.

Thursday I had breakfast at Eggspectation on De Maisonneuve near Crescent, after walking past riot police surrounding a handful of protesting students. If there's going to be drama let it not be mine. lol
Eggspectation was a brilliant choice, baked beans with sausage and eggs!?! Never thought of that. Loved it.
Everyone was so friendly. It's not the Montreal of old, when you spoke English and people were pissy with you because of it. Everyone said, "Bonjour, Hello." The French has to come first but at least the English does come and not grudgingly. What a pleasant surprise. I left there and rode the Park Ave (Avenue du Parc) bus all the way to the end and back. Located St. Viateur, which unfortunately I never had a chance to get back to for St. Viateurs bagels because of the student protest on Sunday. I walked over to the Dairy Queen on Park Avenue, near the mountain, and could remember being 4 years old and standing in line with my Mother and my Brother on a hot summer night to get some ice cream. I swear that DQ has had to have been there for at least 50 years. I guess they do well! I walked a block over where KayVan Furniture used to be and looked at our old place, the first place I can remember living at.

It's spooky how much I can still remember and how the same it looked. It looks the way I remember. I wrote down the address for my journalling and went and sat at the foot of the Mountain until it was time to make my way to meet up with my Aunt and my cousin, her youngest son for lunch. We had lunch at a Portuguese restaurant and caught up. It's been so long since I've been around family that it was nice. Just as we were about to eat, I stopped and looked at them both and said, "Oh my Mom is here!"
They both looked at me suspiciously. I told them that the first song I heard after spreading my mother's ashes on the Mountain back in 1997 was the song, "You Gotta Be" by Des'ree and that song was playing in the restaurant.
I said, "It's like she came to visit and to let us know that she's happy we're together."
I haven't heard that song in years.

Friday morning I was supposed to spend with my Aunt's older son but he had to cancel so I had the morning to myself. Of course it was cold and raining. Not to be deterred, I walked from my BF's work to Atwater Metro, got a day pass and a map and got on the metro. I went to Villa Maria Station and checked out the place we used to live in at the corner of Monkland and Decarie Blvd. Place is all renovated and looks nice, I'd live there now, if I could be a full-time writer and didn't have to go to a 9 to 5 job. ha-ha! We lived there until we moved to British Columbia for a year.

I walked to the first place we lived after we moved from Park Avenue, which was down the street on Decarie Blvd just above Notre Dame De Grace. The place looks the same and still has a furniture place underneath. We seemed to have a furniture theme for a minute there. Only now they sell Antiques. The old guy that owned the entire building when I was a kid died years before my mom did. Been trying to remember his name and somehow I keep thinking it was Chesterfield. Funny!

I walked along N.D.G towards Girourd Ave to where my elementary school used to be, down Girourd towards Sherbrooke through Girourd park where one summer in the 1970's it was overrun with bats. I remembered the bushes that ran all the way down through the park and when we were kids we would run through the middle of those bushes.
I walked over to Sherbrooke and Decarie where we lived when we got back from living in BC. They were important places, those homes on Decarie. The first one with my father and all that entailed, the second one being on the run and ultimately leaving the city and the third place coming back and feeling safer. Or better yet, The first place I was an outgoing child who would perform if you asked me to and by the time we moved to the third place, I was shy and quiet.

I left there bussed it back to Villa Maria and metroed it to Angrignon Station in Ville LaSalle to bus it to the place I lived from the age of 11 to about 15. It was the only place that we lived that enabled me to stay in the same school once I started High School. We moved again but I refused to change schools. It was a traumatic place, with violence and knowing more than a child should and superstitions like, "If you laugh all day, you'll cry all night." That superstition was proved time and again and for many years in my life as an adult, I continued to believe it until I decided to change that belief. I still get nervous if I laugh all day.

I stood outside that house and talked to myself. It's the place where I could never be sure if I'd even see the future. It was the place where I started to write. It was the place where I lost my good feelings about myself. It was the place where I learned that stress can make you physically sick. It was the place where so many things happened that I need to write about them but for the most part I felt like I exorcised them just with my presence and facing them down. Yes I survived it and I've changed so many of my beliefs that were born there.

As I stood there, I wondered about the energy of me as a little girl, if in some other dimension she is still living that life. I pretended that my now self could meet my then self and tell her to hang in there, you're going to make it. And as I walked away, I burst into tears.

Before I left Toronto, I had dinner with a girlfriend and I was telling her that I was having some anxiety attacks over going home. I didn't know what it was but I thought maybe this was the opportunity to go face down some longstanding demons. I said to her, "I've been through so much and I never stop to acknowledge the strength it took to survive. I don't know my own strength."

When I walked away from that house in tears, I realized my own strength. I had to have a helluva lot to make it through those tests. And I did. I do.

I took the Lapierre bus to Lafleur and Clement and had a great lunch at LaFleur's restaurant of Michigan hot dogs (hot dogs with spaghetti sauce) and French fries. If nothing else, everyone knows I have to have Lafleur's when I'm in town. The first thing everybody says is, "LaFleurs?" and I say, "Of course!"

The rest of my weekend was spent indoors at the Hotel Opus attending my writer's festival. I couldn't have imagined nor intended a better vacation. It was a little bit of everything that I needed.

EY

I'ma be alright by Robin Thicke

Click The title to hear the song.

Lines from that song that I love:

I got my dreams woken, man I almost got some...

I still got my mind, I still got my music baby, I'ma be alright...

all of my bills are piling cuz I spent what I owed
I wasn't invited to any parties so I'm throwing my own
can't get a job, cuz I ain't been looking for one I'ma be alright

I'ma be alright, I'ma keep on dancing
I will keep the champagne all to myself
I'ma be alright, I'ma keep on moving
I will give my love all over the world and on and on...

When the Crap Sticks

Sunday 12June11

I want to feel good. Well, if you've been reading me you know that is what is guiding my life and it's been working darn well. But this weekend I've been faced with a situation that REALLY doesn't make me feel good. What the hell do I do with this?

So far, I've given myself the chance to grieve and mourn and cry. I've slept as much as possible because that is how I deal with the height of crap. Sleep until tomorrow, tomorrow is another day - that's my mentality. And I keep telling myself that I've got a time limit. I've given myself this weekend to feel the pain and disappointment and the overall beat down of the situation and as I enter Sunday, today, the final day of the weekend I start to plot my plan back into 'feeling good.'

I used to marvel at people who had the incomprehensible things happen in their lives and how they managed to pull themselves above self-pity and do something inspiring with their lives. For example, the able bodied person who has a horrifying accident and ends up paralyzed. That person creates beautiful art or becomes a speaker or does something wonderful with their life. I was always impressed with that. I wondered how they came to the perspective.

Then I was sick in the late 1980's early 1990's. I broke out with three different rashes all over my body. I had the rashes on the palms of my hands and the bottoms of my feet, every where except for inside my mouth. With each passing week the rashes got considerably worse and ultimately one morning, I woke up with my face so disfigured and swollen that if I hadn't known that I'd walked to the mirror, I wouldn't have known that it was me. Terrifyingly freaky. Needless to say, I packed an overnight bag, grabbed some writing materials and books to read, got in a cab and went to emergency. You know it's bad when you arrive at emergency and the guy behind the desk checking people in, stops what he's doing and says, "Ma'am come with me." I bypassed the checking in and went straight to the curtained off area next in line to see a doctor. And the doctor came right away.

I ended up being hospitalized for close to 3 weeks in the dermatology ward of which when my doctor (the head of dermatology) did her rounds, she had about 25 other doctors with her who wanted to learn about this freak case called Shelley. My first morning in the hospital, I was in a semi private room with Margaret, I woke up and my face was so much worse that I couldn't open my eyes. In a calm voice I called Margaret's name and asked her if she could call a nurse.

"Why? What's wrong?"
"I can't open my eyes."
She scrambled out of the room and screamed at the top of her lungs, "NURSE! NURSE! HURRY!"
I shook my head and actually said out loud, "Well I didn't want that to happen."

Later she kept commenting at how calm I was and I said, "Well I am in the hospital. They are going to find me before the day is out." ha-ha!

So there I was in the hospital with the 3 rashes and the swollen, disfigured, elephant man face and one of my three doctors says to me, "We're going to have you apply this super strong steroid cream called Lydex on your face. We have never prescribed it for someone's face but at this point we don't think it will hurt." Great!

As I sat alone with my thoughts in my hospital room, I didn't know if I was going to live or die or what was to become of me, the thought process was as follows, "If I'm going to have to live the rest of my life like this, disfigured, I'm probably never going to have a man and get married and have kids. I can be angry, I suppose, about how this bad luck has befallen me and spend the rest of my days wishing for the time before these mystery rashes. Or if I'm going to live the rest of my life like this, what am I going to do with my life? What meaning am I going to make out of my life?" In that moment, that's when I got that the person who loses use of his or her limbs comes to the same moment and makes their decision. We are all faced with that question and different points and traumas in our lives.

Feeling good is a choice, it's a decision we make, it's a decision I've made. There are always really good things within the crapstorms. Like my three girlfriends texting me back right away as I was facing down the news and I needed moral support to keep my head up and save face. That was a major for me because I don't tend to reach out for help and when I have been people have been reaching out their hands to pull me back up. People have been hugging me in the best way they know how and man, it helps. Does it ever help.

I've still got a little more crying to do because as Robin Thicke sings in his song I'ma be alright... I had my dreams woken, man I almost got some...
And while I feel the feelings I also plot out my plan in keeping with the question, "If I'm going to have to live the rest of my life like this, with this condition, what am I going to make of my life?"

What will I choose to focus on? What will I build? How will I continue to feel good?

An as an aside to the rash story. I was the only person in the dermatology ward who was a virgin, it was my first visit. Everyone had been there at least 3 times and they all told me that I'd be back just like them. I was so motivated never to have to return to the dermatology ward that it pushed me into holistic medicine and reflexology and Shiatsu and juicing. All of the wonderful things that I still follow now and more stuff like Qi gong and Kundalini yoga that I've picked up as my interests matured. There ended up being a lot of good in that terrifying time.

So I have to look for all the good that will come out of this hurtful, disheartening situation. If it doesn't kill you... right?

EY

Mindbloom

Wednesday 8June11

I had a problem solved recently. I've been trying for 2 years, if not longer to do a television fast. You know, stop watching television for say an entire week or month and get shit done. I couldn't manage to find a way to do it. The moment I walked in the house I was clicking on the TV and had it on Bravo for Law and Order. How many times do you need to see the same episodes? Then it was some other show and another. That 3 hours a night I could have been getting stuff done, like say, writing a novel.

I was mad at myself everyday for being so weak and just not keeping my promise to myself.

And then a friend sent me an invitation to Mindbloom. I was bitter at first. Why are people always sending invitations to some kind of social something? Jeez, I'm facebook, I'm on plurk. I've got 5 email addresses and I spend so much time keeping up with those things it's any wonder I leave the house. Any how I checked it out.

It's a wonderful tree of your goals each branch is a specific area of your life and you start with 3 branches and create actions for those areas and you get seeds for keeping those actions. It's beautiful, it's visual and it's fun to keep track of your goals. The best part is because it costs you seeds to add an action, you really have to think about the most important actions you want to take. And as you go along, you make reasonable goals.

Well since I've been keeping track of my goals and actions on mindbloom, I've been so busy working on what I love that I have had no need to turn on the television. And my tree is looking mighty fine. And it all feeds into my chant, I want to feel good. I think if you click the title to this blog entry it will bring you to tree.mindbloom.com

Oh and as an aside on the man front. The gorgeous guy I'd about given up on has reached out, so he's not totally written off. Phew! I do really like him and I'm mindful that we both need to be choosing each other. I need to make him feel good and he needs to make me feel good if we're ever going anywhere with this very fascinating and exhilarating beginning.

EY

A Life off Track

Wednesday 8June11

Things are getting to the boiling point at work lately. I swear on of my co-workers, Monte (fake-name) had decided that his New Year's Resolution was to stir the pot until it exploded or something. From January he came back with an attitude of injustice and he hasn't let it go since. We are June now, it is half way through the year. Shaking my head.

His biggest war has been about overtime hours and how the overtime hours have been allotted. Now I've been working there for 10 years. When I first started there Monte barely did any work. He did the absolute minimal that wouldn't get him fired. He never even considered working overtime. Allan, an optimistic guy, always worked overtime. Sometimes, I thought, to the detriment of his family life. But he has a really cool wife who is super understanding and gets that the more money they can put on their house, the quicker it will be paid off.

Monte has always made fun of Allan. He's called him a brown noser and the like. His enjoyment has always been in trying to crush Allan's happy spirit and optimistic attitude. Then slowly my boss started to light fires under the lazy guys asses and Monte started to change his attitude a bit and did more work. That said, he is the type of guy that over-explains everything and it's clearly his way of wasting time rather than doing actual work. But not everyone is going to be conscientious so you bear with it.

In the last year and a half, out of nowhere Monte has decided that he too wants to work overtime. We all shook our heads in amazement. You want to work overtime at a job that you hate? Interesting way to make money. So he's been working overtime but that hasn't actually been enough for him. Everyday he comes in and checks Allan's timecard to see if Allan has worked overtime and if he has, Monte is in a foul mood for the entire day. Talk about setting yourself up for a miserable life.

And then January rolls around and he comes back to work after nearly 3 weeks vacation and a whole new vendetta. And we've been dealing with this ever since. He has grieved the issue with the union to no avail. The union basically said that as long as management gives everyone a fair shake at it, within the system that they've been using for 30 years(!) there was nothing he could do about it.

I guess what's interesting to me about all this is how far off track we can get in our lives. How we can waste our energies on stupidness that means nothing when we could be channelling it into something better. Realizing goals, making love relationships work, planting a freaking garden. ha-ha! If you are focusing on what you love you don't have the time to start a campaign to make another person's life miserable. Plain and simple. You don't worry about what other people are doing when you have goals to keep you focused.

I'm not an overtime person, I never have been. I get a second job. It's a change of environment and a whole other paycheque that isn't taxed to death making you feel like you worked for an extra $5.

We recently had a Respectful workplace training seminar for the entire company. Of course we all went on different days because the whole company can't stop to take the seminar. In it the Seminar leader talked about negativity in the workplace creating a hostile work environment. She said that we are a culture of complainers. We complain about the drive into work, we complain about the line to get coffee, we complain about the job, we complain about the weather, we complain and complain. She then asked, what about the happy people who don't complain. What about the people who say, that was a great drive in. And oh my kid got all C's on his report card, I'm so proud of him. And that cold air is refreshing it really helps you to wake up and face the day. What do we do to those people?

I spoke up and said, "As a culture, we try to crush them. We want to make them as miserable as we feel so we go out of our way to make fun of them and their optimism and whatever else we can."
Everybody in the room started laughing. I said, "No I'm serious and it isn't funny." And I gave a brush stroke description of Allan (who was in the seminar sitting beside me)and how he comes to work in a good mood and he loves his job and he loves to work overtime and he'll do the dirtiest jobs and how a couple of the guys outwardly try to make his life miserable.

The seminar leader smiled and said, "Shelley's absolutely right and those people are making it a hostile work environment for Allan."

Everybody in the room gasped.

Yes folks, we want to live happy lives and begrudge the people who are actually living happy lives instead of finding out from them what their secret is. It's just a state of mind, how you choose to look at things. The shittiest job can make you happy if you haven't worked in a year and you really, really need the money. When you only have $20 until payday you can all of a sudden get creative and buy some fantastic groceries and really savour the meal you've made and the leftovers that will get you through until payday. There are so many things that we can do when we have no choice in the matter and be really happy about it.

And then we get off track. We have $400 so we buy all this extravagant stuff for groceries and we don't appreciate it like we did those $20 groceries. We've been working at a job for 30 years and forget what's it's like to have to worry about where our next paycheque will come from so out of boredom and malice we make the happy guy's life miserable.

I tell Allan everyday, "don't give into the pressure. Don't lose your inner light. He's not your problem, he's his problem."

And it's true. We're all our own worst enemy and we get off track.

EY

Clearing Old Energy

5June11 Sunday
"Oh Man, the universe had to send me the most attractive, intoxicating guy for me to say no to in order for me to clear the old energy. It's not a learned lesson without a certain level of difficulty." My journal entry from 1June11.

Yep, I'm feeling the tests of the universe, that is for sure. It's always that way, when you say you want to stand for something, like wanting to feel good, the Universe will send you these curves to see how fully committed you are to your new stance. My latest test has been the most adorably gentle, intoxicating man I have ever met. I swear when I'm near him the aliens abduct my brain that is how intoxicated I get from him.

But something isn't quite right. I've been going to his work for 3 years. I never even realized he noticed me other than being a customer. And it's within the last couple months that there has been a decided difference. I won't get into the nitty gritty but he has come across as being very happy with me doing all the showing up. He has been wonderful when ever I see him. He makes me feel like he's happy to see me. He intoxicates me. But any kind of "outside of work" contact has been nil. Non-responsive to the couple emails I've sent him, no moves for my phone number. etc, etc. Everything feels so public all the time with no real moves for one on one. Warning signs?

In keeping with my new boundaries of how I want to be guided in my life, it doesn't make me feel good. I am filled with anxieties about him with all those questions that come up like, "When is he going to ask me out? When is he going to ask me for my phone number? Is he ever going to make a substantial move?"
Always when I leave I walk as I call it the "depression walk". Because I know it will be yet another week that I will have to wait. Now don't get me wrong, I do love a man who takes his time and doesn't rush things but getting to know each other on a one on one basis doesn't fall into rushing things it falls into moving things forward.

It's interesting though because his presence has helped me to adjust some of my daily affirmations.

I've been through this too many times to count. I've been the woman who shows up and shows up and wonders all the questions above and eventually watches as the guy ends up with someone else. Ironically, the movie that was playing last night was, "He's just not that into you." Message? I think so. It's so easy to make excuses for people who don't quite choose me. Oh he's an, "Out of sight, out of mind" kind of person so I just have to make myself MORE available. Or he's shy so I'll have to take the reigns. Well, what I've been told by many men over the years is that even the shy ones find a way to ask a woman they like out.

It's funny how male/female interests can bring up so many family issues. I don't keep in touch with any of my family like I used to, after my mom died, because I realized one day that if I didn't call, they wouldn't call. It was hard to see that the only reason why a relationship was maintained was because I maintained it. Right, right... that was what ultimately fed into my bout of depression so many years ago. Interesting!

So I analyze this situation and I feel like I'm doing an awful lot of chasing for great feelings at the time but then when I walk away I feel like shit.

In my return email to my ex that I mentioned in the previous blog entry, I told him that one of my latest affirmations is I no longer need to attract this into my life (whatever 'this' is). And the sweetface intoxicator is helping me to add more of what I no longer need to attract into my life.

I no longer need to attract the feeling of being lonely in a love relationship again.
I no longer need to attract a man who makes me wait needlessly.

I want a man, I want people who choose me. Plain and simple. They don't have to be up my ass, but I know which people choose me and I certainly know when a man chooses me. And if there are bad childhood feelings that come up, clearly there are things I have to work on and I can only work on them the best way I can. But chasing after people who are not available for me for whatever reason breeds desperation and the question, "What's wrong with me?"

What's wrong with me that he doesn't call? What's wrong with me that I have to do all the work? And all the myriad of questions that can come up. There's nothing wrong with me. I am more than enough.

He is just not that into me. He doesn't choose me and in order to feel good, I can't choose him.

EY

I Want To Feel Good

Saturday 28May11

I first heard the phrase, "I want to feel good," from Wayne Dyer and The Power of Intention. That book and Inspiration are my favorite books of his. Anyway, I watched him on PBS before I bought the book and ultimately the DVD and the workshop. I think they called it the Whole Enchilada on PBS. ha ha.

Wayne was talking about how his voice message on his home phone says something to the effect of, "Hi I'm Wayne Dyer and I want to feel good. If this message is for the purpose of anything other than making me feel good, call Dr. Phil!" Cute joke. But I really liked the idea of, I want to feel good and I decided that was the phrase I wanted to have guide my life.

I didn't really think it through. I'd say the phrase, I want to feel good, but I wasn't following it with anything so sometimes I'd feel good but then someone would do something to aggravate me and I'd get all caught up in rehashing in my thoughts what aggravated me and I wasn't feel good anymore.

The Easter long weekend I had a complete sobfest and after I came of out it I wrote about it in my morning pages and ended up back at the phrase, I want to feel good and I got it. I need to have the intention and then I need to make my actions correspond to the intention.

I've noticed a considerable difference especially at work. I work with all men, STILL! And boy oh boy they can be some moody bastards. They can push anybody to stop feeling good sometimes by simply walking through the door. Since I want to feel good, when Happy Gilmore is sucking his teeth at something or saying something nasty, I tell myself, I want to feel good and I focus on what makes me feel good. Luckily, I can play my music in the office so I usually just sing the song that is playing. Or I leave the office and make more tea. Or I crack a joke with my co-worker/ work husband and I don't involve myself in Happy's tirade.

I do it with my boss, with the contractors who can be smart asses. I do it with everything at work that could possibly take me down the aggravated path. And it has been amazing. I've been so much happier at work.

It's funny, as with all new decisions there is always something that will come up where the universe asks you, "Are you really sure this is your commitment?"

Well I got that test. I've been hit with all this stuff coming back at me like a clearing of old energy. An ex-boyfriend and I would haphazardly keep in contact with each other and inevitably one of us would get on the other ones nerves and there would be a span of years where there would be no contact.

The last time this happened, I had decided to myself, "you know, this guy has never really been my friend. Why do I keep accepting him back when he repeatedly shows he's unreliable?" Just because you know someone for a long time doesn't mean they need to be in your life. We can have weird obligations that don't really make sense. So needless to say, I had decided back then, about 5 years ago to write him off.

Well never to be totally written off, he emailed me about two weeks ago to ask me why I seemed to have been offended by something he said and since we had known each other for all this time, he felt I should tell him what he had done to offend me. There had been other emails and attempts at contacting me prior to this but there was always that insulting edge I just never bothered. This time, I felt like I had to answer.

As I replied to his email I kept saying to myself, if I'm going to commit to being a certain type of person I will have to send an email that states everything but in the kindest way possible. I explained the the things that had finally brought me to the decision to cut the friendship off and explained that my life is now guided by, "I want to feel good." I didn't come right out and say, you don't make me feel good but the implication was there.

I wrote, "I just want to feel good and that is what guides my decisions about everything... I just want to feel good and if I don't feel good anymore, I go away."

Obviously there was much more to the email. I thanked him for taking the time to send me his email and how very sweet it was but I don't know if knowing someone for many years is really enough to continue. We focus on what we need to focus on and we are in the people's lives we need to be in... I no longer need to attract this into my life anymore.

He hasn't written me back so I think it's finally done. And it was done in such a way that I was kind but very clear that there is no room for him in my life anymore.

I want to feel good. It took me a minute to get it. But boy have I been feeling great!

EY