Saturday 19Nov16
I've been working through so much stuff that I stopped pressuring myself to get everything/anything done.
That everything included blogging.
So much has happened since my trip to Australia in February & March of 2014 plus happening upon Human Design once I got back. There hasn't been much to write about except for really personal stuff. My blogs are somewhat personal of course but there is some personal that I'm not willing to share in this format.
I've mostly been coming to this place where I've allowed everything to slow down. Stop chasing, sit back and wait. I've been fighting it too mind you. Returning from my trip to Australia was definitely the dividing point where my social life got even slower than it has ever been. Finding ways to accept this fact without bitterness. Finding ways to understand that there are lulls. Finding ways to accept that there are lulls. Acceptance ahh! Acceptance.
I'm not going to lie. I was pissed at friends who I'd bought presents for who I never did see. I've since given those presents to other people. I was pissed at making contact attempts that I knew were read but people/friends just never seemed to respond to. I swear I felt like I was being punished for finally having something good and as big as Australia happen in my life.
Does anyone else try to force things, push things forward, rail against what is, to change it into something better than what is? I'm learning how to calm that noise. I'm learning how to be present to what is right in front of me. The Police horse with the blinders that blocks the peripheral vision of all the traffic to the left and right that keeps her from getting spooked.
I have moved to Projector island. On Projector island I go about my day to day. I allow the Universe to guide me and tell me who is meant to be in my life by the invitations I receive, finding my clarity on whether or not I want to accept those invitations and the energy that is there or isn't there for the invitations. It's been pretty quiet on Projector Island but quiet has its place. I often forget that.
In the quiet, I've had time to focus on what type of invitations I would like to be prepared for. I'm learning how to save money. Substantial money. Saving for trips I'd like to take. Saving to move. Saving for those magical rare invitations that do come, that will come. I'm starting to believe that being a projector can be wonderful if you open up your belief system and allow the magic. You have to have faith in some magic.
There's that old question, "If you were stranded on an island what would you want to have with you?"
One of those things for me is magic.
As I slowly study Human Design and the slowness of any action in being a projector the image is of a person, me, going on my merry way with my aura radiating and touching others. It's in the way my aura touches others that bring on the invitations or not. When I explained it to a fellow projector friend of mine I said to her, "it's like sitting in a public place reading a book that you are totally engrossed in."
Someone will see you and comment, "You look like you're really enjoying that book!" An invitation.
There are different ways that you react.
With one person you will say, "Yes it's fantastic!" And you'll give them an enthusiastic synopsis.
With another person you will smile and nod your head and go right back to reading.
Life on Projector Island is like reading a book. That is all I need to do. And my aura does all the attracting for me.
I was simply doing my job when I responded to Kyle's email. He needed me to book the loading dock for him and I did. Once everything was said and done, a day or so later, I got an email that said that Kyle wanted to connect on linked in. I accepted his request and didn't think much more of it.
Earlier this month I received a message from Kyle inviting me to a Black Bloggers United meet up. The best part about the invitation is that the meet up was a few blocks away from where I live. I gave myself some time to find the clarity and then accepted the invitation.
The magic part is that for the last couple of months I've kept planning to go out on a Saturday and find a public place to sit and work on my blogs. I know it's the energy of other peoples auras that fuel me. I still hadn't managed to actually get out of the house up to this point. I've been working both jobs on Fridays. So much has changed at my day job. On Fridays I work a full 8 hours at my day job and a full 8 hours at the part time job so by the time I get home on Saturday mornings I've been up close to 24 hours. Needless to say I've been sleeping the bulk of the day on Saturdays and ordering take out because I can't get my act together to get groceries.
This morning I was up at 10am, bathed and ready to meet up with the group. And I was excited. In Human Design the right invitation gives a Projector the energy. I got to the meet up on time and got to meet Kyle and his beautiful wife Nicole and the other people that showed up. Nicole runs the Toronto chapter of Black Bloggers United. I had to laugh too because isn't it always the way that when you're in a group of new people the people look familiar? The best part was that I'd just read a blog entry last week from Black Foodie.
I had a lovely time with these new beautiful, knowledgeable people who are looking to be supported and provide support. Ideas were shared on how to make our blogs better. The bulk of the bloggers use their blogs for business, something I may do eventually. I am still in the personal blog stage while I discover what 'guiding' projector role I have to play. It still was a validation of me blogging.
I'd only mentioned this blog. I wasn't sure if I was going to even discuss Human Design at all. But then through the course of the conversations and a comment about getting people to show up to events I mentioned an aspect of advertising that takes into consideration the different Human Design types. I then said that I have another blog that is only about Human Design. I never tell anyone about that blog (it is followed by people who are into Human design). And there was real interest in it which was pleasing.
Another comment about energy gained from invitations... Over the last couple weeks I've been filling my little writer's note book with ideas for blog entries. Something I haven't done in so long. I've been playing with possible directions that I might take. Being calm and present.
EY
Check out the people I met today:
Nicole Nurse
Dwainia Gray
Michelle Joseph
Eden Hagos
Adam H.C. Myrie
19 November 2016
20 May 2015
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
28 April 2015
Looting?
Tuesday 28Apr15
Every day he beat me down and beat me down.
When I went right he said I should have gone left.
So the next time I went left and he said, "why didn't you go right?"
I tried to guess what he wanted me to do before he wanted me to do it so I wouldn't have to deal with the criticism. I didn't have to constantly look at myself and think that I was wrong. I didn't want to be wrong or right. I just wanted to live in peace.
With my step father, I'd introduce him as my mother's boyfriend. He said, "Why don't you tell people I'm your father?"
He wasn't. He wasn't kind enough to me for me to have anyone associate him as my father. I didn't want anyone to think that as this man did something inappropriate, like yell at my mother in front of them, that he was my father. I started introducing him by name. Because if boy-friend wasn't good enough then this was my solution. Can you tell that I was starting to rebel a little? It was a childish middle finger.
He complained, of course.
"People will think I'm just some guy. Like I don't belong here."
I shrugged my shoulders when my mother told me about his issues.
I finally stopped introducing him period.
A friend or friends would come over. I'd say, "This is my mother." And I'd stop there.
There was that uncomfortable stillness in the air.
My friends would look over at the man and look at me. The man would look at my friends and look at me. I wasn't uncomfortable. I didn't say a word. He would introduce himself or not. I didn't care.
There are many examples of ways in which I was in the wrong for not being prepared to do absolutely every thing exactly the way he wanted me to do them. I may have had self esteem issues but I had a strong stubbornness that wouldn't allow me to make myself the doormat that he wiped the shit off his shoes on.
In the, 'what are the neighbours thinking,' anger that escaped my lips, I yelled at him. He'd been yelling at my mother in the middle of the summer. Windows wide open, the sun shining its large globe in the day, the neighbours sitting out on the front porch of the duplex we all lived at. My step-father and my mother were arguing. I was in my bedroom talking with my boyfriend. We tried to have a normal conversation despite hearing my step father's voice getting louder and louder.
In the living room, which was at the front of our unit where the wide windows were wide open giving our neighbours crystal clear hearing of the goings on, my step father yelled something to my mother about their sex life. Now it was bad enough that I had to hear this information, it was humiliating that my boyfriend had to hear this information but my rage at knowing that our neighbours were hearing this.
It was the first time that I ever yelled at my step father.
I yelled, "What don't you say that shit louder they didn't hear you on the next city block?"
My step father rushed to my bedroom with his intimidating, "What the fuck did you just say?"
And as my boyfriend grabbed me and held me back, I repeated in my loudest possible voice. "Why don't you say that shit louder they didn't hear you on the next city block! You want to embarrass someone? Why don't you try to embarrass me?"
And the yelling match went back and forth. My mother held him at my bedroom doorway stopping him from entering while he yelled at me about disrespect. My boyfriend held me, stopping me from going towards my bedroom door while I yelled back asking who I should respect. "You? What are you doing that I should respect?"
My mother eventually pulled him away. She was crying. He was grumbling about how she needed to do something about her daughter.
I looked at my boyfriend and said, "Next time, mind your own business and don't hold me back."
I wasn't scared of either of them. I was going to fight even if my mother had to cry, even if I had to burn the place down.
When I started to get mad at work. My biggest fear was being seen as an angry black woman. That term negates all the solutions I've looked for. All the times I was assertive and put down. All the times I've endured some bullshit rule that seemed to only affect me.
I had a manager who always insisted that my work was wrong. The signing off of my work was held up because my boss believed her word against mine. They'd call a divisional manager from head office to meet with them. The divisional manager would assure them, "Shelley is doing the work right. I'm not sure why you are questioning this... Still."
My boss would ask me information that didn't pertain to my job. I started keeping records so I could answer his questions. Come evaluation time, I wrote down that I kept these records. He said, "Why would you do this? It's ridiculous and a waste of time."
I explained, "You expect me to have the answer. I've told you repeatedly that it's not under my role and yet you continue to ask me the questions. So to save myself, I've kept records."
I was told not to keep those records anymore.
He questioned everything on my evaluation each year and he would laugh at me and say, "Oh I bet you thought I wouldn't notice that you hadn't done that."
"I have done it. I just can't tell you exactly when within the last year. From now on, I will put the exact dates that I do things."
All of my evaluations after that I recorded dates with any of my accomplishments.
For several years, I tried to guess what he wanted me to do before he wanted me to do it so I wouldn't have to deal with the criticism. I didn't have to constantly look at myself and think that I was wrong. I didn't want to be wrong or right. I just wanted to do my work in peace.
When the invoices came through the invoicing system I didn't know the accounts. I'd asked, "Since you know you are ordering things could you tell me in advance what it is and what the corresponding accounts are so I can code the invoices the one time and send them off to you?"
"I don't have a problem with you asking me for the accounts."
I'd ask for the accounts and he wouldn't get back to me and the invoices would bounce to him because they only sit in the system for a maximum of a certain amount of days. He'd email me, "why are all of your invoices bouncing to me? Why are you not processing them in time?"
"I can't process them unless you give me the accounts. I ask you for them and you don't get back to me. What would you like me to do?"
If you beat a dog, the dog may become submissive but there's always that one chance, that one day, when the dog sees you coming with the belt or shoe or whatever you beat him with. That one chance, that one day, the dog might attack you. Does that make him a bad dog when he just can't take another beating?
We want to say, get away, get out of it but how can the change be made? When we're kids we don't always have the choice to leave our homes unless we're runaways. We don't always have the other parent whose house we can move to. And why do we have to leave?
In a job situation, we don't always have the choices either. We can stay and document the abuses and go to Human Resources or Human rights or lawyers and be without a job, be without references and scared.
When do we become that abused dog seeing the belt coming and attack? What if the abuser is only holding the belt because he's going to use it to hold his pants up? How would the dog know?
One day I got all the paperwork ready for the staff meeting. My boss sent me an email with an attachment of pictures he wanted me to print off for the staff. He wanted a copy for each staff member. The pictures were in colour. Knowing my co-workers the way I did, I knew they weren't going to pay much attention to the print off. I had a choice. I could print off the pictures in colour and waste a whole lot of paper or I could print them off in black and white and make the copies double sided. Save a tree.
As I handed out the black and white printouts, my boss said, "Why didn't print them in colour?"
I went off. "If you want me to do something a specific way then tell me specifically what you want. I'm so tired of making a decision and no matter what decision I make you tell me it's wrong. You make it miserable for us to work here and if these people had enough guts they would tell you they feel the same way."
Was I wrong? Probably. But this dog couldn't take another shoe upside her head. Today it's a bark with some teeth showing. Tomorrow it's a bite and the next day it's a full on attack.
I'm one person who has tried to find the way, the path, to be assertive and speak up for myself. Ask for what I want. Ask to be treated with respect. We all have those examples in our lives when we've tried every thing we could and we reach our limit, don't we?
So many Black people in America have moved past the bark AND the bite. Even that isn't waking up enough people. How are we going to change this?
Pointing our fingers at the looters, 'THOSE PEOPLE, THOSE THUGS' is a distraction. They are not the point. There are looters in every instance of violence and riots. Looting isn't a black issue.
They broke the man's spine. Black people, even if they're criminals, are treated worse than serial killers. Has there been a serial killer that was denied medical help? You can imagine he died in unbearable pain right?
Black people don't want to be wrong or right. They want to live their lives in peace and have their fair share of opportunities and live with respect. We want to live our lives in peace with our fair share of opportunities and live with respect. You want to live your life in peace with your fair share of opportunities and live with respect. I want to live my life in peace with my fair share of opportunities and live with respect.
How are we going to make this happen?
EY
Thank you to my friend Sarah Stockton for posting this link today on Facebook. I'd seen so many friends write statuses about the looters and I was feeling so disheartened that that was the only takeaway they were getting from Baltimore. Looting is not the only thing going on in Baltimore or anywhere else in the United States.
Every day he beat me down and beat me down.
When I went right he said I should have gone left.
So the next time I went left and he said, "why didn't you go right?"
I tried to guess what he wanted me to do before he wanted me to do it so I wouldn't have to deal with the criticism. I didn't have to constantly look at myself and think that I was wrong. I didn't want to be wrong or right. I just wanted to live in peace.
With my step father, I'd introduce him as my mother's boyfriend. He said, "Why don't you tell people I'm your father?"
He wasn't. He wasn't kind enough to me for me to have anyone associate him as my father. I didn't want anyone to think that as this man did something inappropriate, like yell at my mother in front of them, that he was my father. I started introducing him by name. Because if boy-friend wasn't good enough then this was my solution. Can you tell that I was starting to rebel a little? It was a childish middle finger.
He complained, of course.
"People will think I'm just some guy. Like I don't belong here."
I shrugged my shoulders when my mother told me about his issues.
I finally stopped introducing him period.
A friend or friends would come over. I'd say, "This is my mother." And I'd stop there.
There was that uncomfortable stillness in the air.
My friends would look over at the man and look at me. The man would look at my friends and look at me. I wasn't uncomfortable. I didn't say a word. He would introduce himself or not. I didn't care.
There are many examples of ways in which I was in the wrong for not being prepared to do absolutely every thing exactly the way he wanted me to do them. I may have had self esteem issues but I had a strong stubbornness that wouldn't allow me to make myself the doormat that he wiped the shit off his shoes on.
In the, 'what are the neighbours thinking,' anger that escaped my lips, I yelled at him. He'd been yelling at my mother in the middle of the summer. Windows wide open, the sun shining its large globe in the day, the neighbours sitting out on the front porch of the duplex we all lived at. My step-father and my mother were arguing. I was in my bedroom talking with my boyfriend. We tried to have a normal conversation despite hearing my step father's voice getting louder and louder.
In the living room, which was at the front of our unit where the wide windows were wide open giving our neighbours crystal clear hearing of the goings on, my step father yelled something to my mother about their sex life. Now it was bad enough that I had to hear this information, it was humiliating that my boyfriend had to hear this information but my rage at knowing that our neighbours were hearing this.
It was the first time that I ever yelled at my step father.
I yelled, "What don't you say that shit louder they didn't hear you on the next city block?"
My step father rushed to my bedroom with his intimidating, "What the fuck did you just say?"
And as my boyfriend grabbed me and held me back, I repeated in my loudest possible voice. "Why don't you say that shit louder they didn't hear you on the next city block! You want to embarrass someone? Why don't you try to embarrass me?"
And the yelling match went back and forth. My mother held him at my bedroom doorway stopping him from entering while he yelled at me about disrespect. My boyfriend held me, stopping me from going towards my bedroom door while I yelled back asking who I should respect. "You? What are you doing that I should respect?"
My mother eventually pulled him away. She was crying. He was grumbling about how she needed to do something about her daughter.
I looked at my boyfriend and said, "Next time, mind your own business and don't hold me back."
I wasn't scared of either of them. I was going to fight even if my mother had to cry, even if I had to burn the place down.
When I started to get mad at work. My biggest fear was being seen as an angry black woman. That term negates all the solutions I've looked for. All the times I was assertive and put down. All the times I've endured some bullshit rule that seemed to only affect me.
I had a manager who always insisted that my work was wrong. The signing off of my work was held up because my boss believed her word against mine. They'd call a divisional manager from head office to meet with them. The divisional manager would assure them, "Shelley is doing the work right. I'm not sure why you are questioning this... Still."
My boss would ask me information that didn't pertain to my job. I started keeping records so I could answer his questions. Come evaluation time, I wrote down that I kept these records. He said, "Why would you do this? It's ridiculous and a waste of time."
I explained, "You expect me to have the answer. I've told you repeatedly that it's not under my role and yet you continue to ask me the questions. So to save myself, I've kept records."
I was told not to keep those records anymore.
He questioned everything on my evaluation each year and he would laugh at me and say, "Oh I bet you thought I wouldn't notice that you hadn't done that."
"I have done it. I just can't tell you exactly when within the last year. From now on, I will put the exact dates that I do things."
All of my evaluations after that I recorded dates with any of my accomplishments.
For several years, I tried to guess what he wanted me to do before he wanted me to do it so I wouldn't have to deal with the criticism. I didn't have to constantly look at myself and think that I was wrong. I didn't want to be wrong or right. I just wanted to do my work in peace.
When the invoices came through the invoicing system I didn't know the accounts. I'd asked, "Since you know you are ordering things could you tell me in advance what it is and what the corresponding accounts are so I can code the invoices the one time and send them off to you?"
"I don't have a problem with you asking me for the accounts."
I'd ask for the accounts and he wouldn't get back to me and the invoices would bounce to him because they only sit in the system for a maximum of a certain amount of days. He'd email me, "why are all of your invoices bouncing to me? Why are you not processing them in time?"
"I can't process them unless you give me the accounts. I ask you for them and you don't get back to me. What would you like me to do?"
If you beat a dog, the dog may become submissive but there's always that one chance, that one day, when the dog sees you coming with the belt or shoe or whatever you beat him with. That one chance, that one day, the dog might attack you. Does that make him a bad dog when he just can't take another beating?
We want to say, get away, get out of it but how can the change be made? When we're kids we don't always have the choice to leave our homes unless we're runaways. We don't always have the other parent whose house we can move to. And why do we have to leave?
In a job situation, we don't always have the choices either. We can stay and document the abuses and go to Human Resources or Human rights or lawyers and be without a job, be without references and scared.
When do we become that abused dog seeing the belt coming and attack? What if the abuser is only holding the belt because he's going to use it to hold his pants up? How would the dog know?
One day I got all the paperwork ready for the staff meeting. My boss sent me an email with an attachment of pictures he wanted me to print off for the staff. He wanted a copy for each staff member. The pictures were in colour. Knowing my co-workers the way I did, I knew they weren't going to pay much attention to the print off. I had a choice. I could print off the pictures in colour and waste a whole lot of paper or I could print them off in black and white and make the copies double sided. Save a tree.
As I handed out the black and white printouts, my boss said, "Why didn't print them in colour?"
I went off. "If you want me to do something a specific way then tell me specifically what you want. I'm so tired of making a decision and no matter what decision I make you tell me it's wrong. You make it miserable for us to work here and if these people had enough guts they would tell you they feel the same way."
Was I wrong? Probably. But this dog couldn't take another shoe upside her head. Today it's a bark with some teeth showing. Tomorrow it's a bite and the next day it's a full on attack.
I'm one person who has tried to find the way, the path, to be assertive and speak up for myself. Ask for what I want. Ask to be treated with respect. We all have those examples in our lives when we've tried every thing we could and we reach our limit, don't we?
So many Black people in America have moved past the bark AND the bite. Even that isn't waking up enough people. How are we going to change this?
Pointing our fingers at the looters, 'THOSE PEOPLE, THOSE THUGS' is a distraction. They are not the point. There are looters in every instance of violence and riots. Looting isn't a black issue.
They broke the man's spine. Black people, even if they're criminals, are treated worse than serial killers. Has there been a serial killer that was denied medical help? You can imagine he died in unbearable pain right?
Black people don't want to be wrong or right. They want to live their lives in peace and have their fair share of opportunities and live with respect. We want to live our lives in peace with our fair share of opportunities and live with respect. You want to live your life in peace with your fair share of opportunities and live with respect. I want to live my life in peace with my fair share of opportunities and live with respect.
How are we going to make this happen?
EY
Thank you to my friend Sarah Stockton for posting this link today on Facebook. I'd seen so many friends write statuses about the looters and I was feeling so disheartened that that was the only takeaway they were getting from Baltimore. Looting is not the only thing going on in Baltimore or anywhere else in the United States.
Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view. I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results.
But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention.
And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.
______________________
Martin Luther King, Jr.
March 14,1968
14 April 2015
The Month of Aries - Guru Rattana
Tuesday 14Apr15
I'd lost track of Guru Rattana once she stopped sending her email newsletters each month and has stuck to posting on her site. But, lucky for me, she added me as her friend on Facebook so I'm back to seeing that reminder of when she posts her newsletter.
Speaking of being reminded, would you like to be reminded of my posts here? I invite you to subscribe to my blog. There's a little "Subscribe Me thingy there on the right hand side of my blog above the clock. It's powered by Feedblitz and you only get an email when I've posted on my blog. :)
Back in the old days of me blogging, when I used to blog daily, I would summarize her newsletter down to the bare bones.
I liked her comment/reminder of this month's newsletter : "As you evaluate your progress, move into the future, and continue to interact with the shifting energies this month (and every other month), remember that the planetary influences are not just active on a single day, week, or month. They have a cumulative effect and offer us gifts that we can take with us on our journey of self-empowerment, awakening, and self-love."
I always have a feeling about what I should focus on as her newsletter jogs old memories and cycles that I'm working with.
We're still in the month of Aries until April 19th and here are some tidbits that rang out for me from Guru Rattana's newsletter, Aries and New Beginnings:
The full month and beyond - Where have you noticed profound inner and outer shifts that set the stage for a new chapter in your life?
March 20th Pisces New Moon - take quiet time to be with yourself. Listen and feel deeply. Allow your soul to speak to you. Invite this total solar eclipse to help you clarify and affirm your highest priorities and values.
April 4th Libra Full Moon - the eclipse defines the areas in our life and the issues that we will be working on for the next 6 months.
Monitor where you are ‘being eclipsed’ from your routine way of thinking and being.
This is the third of four total lunar eclipses in a row. The first was in 2003-4 (What was up for you then?) and the next will be in 2032-33. The last one at 14 degrees Libra-Aries was on April 3, 1996. What was going on in your life at that time and how has your experience of those life challenges transformed?
The Aries archetype represents (1) the need and desire for new experiences, (2) the evolutionary development of our identity from ego to soul consciousness, and (3) building an internal sense of self that gives us independence, self-esteem, and the courage to face life from our own truth. To achieve these soul goals, Aries must overcome self-righteousness, inner anger, and impulsive recklessness.
Aries’ polarity Libra helps Aries achieve its goals. The Libra archetype represents the neutral mind, where we achieve the ability to be objective and acquire an attitude of fairness and compassion in all relationships, including our relationship with our own ego.
Uranus and Pluto are still influencing us through May 2016: we should have already (1) let go of some major impediments and illusions, (2) connected with a new level of self-empowerment, (3) know the direction in which we are going, and (4) be moving forward in a new life adventure. There is still time to catch this train, but it is slowing moving out of the station.
April 8 - Jupiter goes direct (I blogged about this yesterday):
we have been urged to release limiting beliefs about ourselves so that we can express our unique creativity and enjoy sharing our personal light in the world.
Upcoming dates
Saturday April 18 - Aries New Moon - The Aries New Moon is an appropriate time to examine how we approach and evaluate our lives. We are being supported to (1) renew ourselves, (2) liberate ourselves from past pain and struggle, and (3) more thoroughly enjoy the adventure called ‘my life.’
Taking a look at our mindset - We suffer from debilitating programming including, (1) The perceived need to be perfect. (2) Thinking ‘Something is the matter with me.’ (3) Believing, ‘I should have known the unknown in advance.’ (4) I am a victim of — you name your story! (5) My life would be better if — fill in your fantasy about coping out of your life lessons.
We can use the Aries New Moon to reboot our inner computer and start a new phase with some self- and life-affirming ways to evaluate and deal with our life challenges. Start by taking stock of how you have met the many challenges in your life. What have you gained from these experiences?
Thursday April 16th -
- make us aware of how we self-sabotage and to help us eliminate our victim programming.
- create the ground for self-empowerment at the most basic subconscious level so that we can trust our own inner guidance, be our own authority, and act with authenticity and integrity.
- inviting us to live for our soul and trust that the Infinite is always our partner in life.
Wednesday April 22nd - be honest about what we value, align with our truth, and take action to follow our heart.
End of newsletter notes.
I came across this article today by James Clear Using Bright-Line Rules. I like the idea of combining them with New Moon Wishes to create actions for my wishes.
An example of one of mine would be, "I only watch one round of the news each morning then turn the television off." (I find that the news can be like a negative mantra because I hear the same bad news repeated and repeated.)
EY
I'd lost track of Guru Rattana once she stopped sending her email newsletters each month and has stuck to posting on her site. But, lucky for me, she added me as her friend on Facebook so I'm back to seeing that reminder of when she posts her newsletter.
Speaking of being reminded, would you like to be reminded of my posts here? I invite you to subscribe to my blog. There's a little "Subscribe Me thingy there on the right hand side of my blog above the clock. It's powered by Feedblitz and you only get an email when I've posted on my blog. :)
Back in the old days of me blogging, when I used to blog daily, I would summarize her newsletter down to the bare bones.
I liked her comment/reminder of this month's newsletter : "As you evaluate your progress, move into the future, and continue to interact with the shifting energies this month (and every other month), remember that the planetary influences are not just active on a single day, week, or month. They have a cumulative effect and offer us gifts that we can take with us on our journey of self-empowerment, awakening, and self-love."
I always have a feeling about what I should focus on as her newsletter jogs old memories and cycles that I'm working with.
We're still in the month of Aries until April 19th and here are some tidbits that rang out for me from Guru Rattana's newsletter, Aries and New Beginnings:
The full month and beyond - Where have you noticed profound inner and outer shifts that set the stage for a new chapter in your life?
March 20th Pisces New Moon - take quiet time to be with yourself. Listen and feel deeply. Allow your soul to speak to you. Invite this total solar eclipse to help you clarify and affirm your highest priorities and values.
April 4th Libra Full Moon - the eclipse defines the areas in our life and the issues that we will be working on for the next 6 months.
Monitor where you are ‘being eclipsed’ from your routine way of thinking and being.
This is the third of four total lunar eclipses in a row. The first was in 2003-4 (What was up for you then?) and the next will be in 2032-33. The last one at 14 degrees Libra-Aries was on April 3, 1996. What was going on in your life at that time and how has your experience of those life challenges transformed?
The Aries archetype represents (1) the need and desire for new experiences, (2) the evolutionary development of our identity from ego to soul consciousness, and (3) building an internal sense of self that gives us independence, self-esteem, and the courage to face life from our own truth. To achieve these soul goals, Aries must overcome self-righteousness, inner anger, and impulsive recklessness.
Aries’ polarity Libra helps Aries achieve its goals. The Libra archetype represents the neutral mind, where we achieve the ability to be objective and acquire an attitude of fairness and compassion in all relationships, including our relationship with our own ego.
Uranus and Pluto are still influencing us through May 2016: we should have already (1) let go of some major impediments and illusions, (2) connected with a new level of self-empowerment, (3) know the direction in which we are going, and (4) be moving forward in a new life adventure. There is still time to catch this train, but it is slowing moving out of the station.
April 8 - Jupiter goes direct (I blogged about this yesterday):
we have been urged to release limiting beliefs about ourselves so that we can express our unique creativity and enjoy sharing our personal light in the world.
Upcoming dates
Saturday April 18 - Aries New Moon - The Aries New Moon is an appropriate time to examine how we approach and evaluate our lives. We are being supported to (1) renew ourselves, (2) liberate ourselves from past pain and struggle, and (3) more thoroughly enjoy the adventure called ‘my life.’
Taking a look at our mindset - We suffer from debilitating programming including, (1) The perceived need to be perfect. (2) Thinking ‘Something is the matter with me.’ (3) Believing, ‘I should have known the unknown in advance.’ (4) I am a victim of — you name your story! (5) My life would be better if — fill in your fantasy about coping out of your life lessons.
We can use the Aries New Moon to reboot our inner computer and start a new phase with some self- and life-affirming ways to evaluate and deal with our life challenges. Start by taking stock of how you have met the many challenges in your life. What have you gained from these experiences?
Thursday April 16th -
- make us aware of how we self-sabotage and to help us eliminate our victim programming.
- create the ground for self-empowerment at the most basic subconscious level so that we can trust our own inner guidance, be our own authority, and act with authenticity and integrity.
- inviting us to live for our soul and trust that the Infinite is always our partner in life.
Wednesday April 22nd - be honest about what we value, align with our truth, and take action to follow our heart.
End of newsletter notes.
I came across this article today by James Clear Using Bright-Line Rules. I like the idea of combining them with New Moon Wishes to create actions for my wishes.
An example of one of mine would be, "I only watch one round of the news each morning then turn the television off." (I find that the news can be like a negative mantra because I hear the same bad news repeated and repeated.)
EY
13 April 2015
Melancholy Then and Now
Picture from The Color Purple Movie. at site www.screeninsults.com
I am a moody person. My step dad would be so thrilled to have me say this as he accused me of being moody when I was a teenager. I didn’t think I was moody then. I mean I WAS moody but it was because of the daily treatment. I hated my step-father by the time I hit my teen years. He had treated me unfairly when I was paired up with his daughters – different rules for different people. If anyone was to be punished without letting up or ridiculed in an humiliating way, I was the prime candidate. A person can only take that shit for so long. I used to love to tell the stories about what life was like when I declared war on my step-dad. I trampled everything in my path AND I LOVED IT! I was The lion mauling the lion tamer. The elephant trampling the abusive handler. The hysterical grizzly bear protecting her cub. Or Celie in the Colored Purple pulling the butcher knife out of the Turkey or ham and pointing it at Mister’s throat.
My subsequent anger (or bitterness) about the whole step-dad situation falls into the Projector description of bitterness in human Design. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to experiment with its truth. It all rings very true to me.
So much is going on for me emotionally lately and I’m trying to work myself into it and stay present.
It’s the thoughts primarily, the monkey mind that gets out of control. The wrong focus for my well-being.
Through my Human Design chart I am told that I have the channel of Moodiness 39-55
channel-of-moodiness-39-55
the defined channel of Emotional Moodiness (39 - 55) ... is subject to mood swings that at times can find her either depressed or elated. What she can learn about herself is that when she swings into a deep mood, she is reaching into her place of deepest creativity, where she accesses a part of herself that is profoundly connected to her Spirit. Chetan ParkynFrom the article about Drew Barrymore
Because being an emotional person who has to wait and go through waves of ups and waves of downs before I can make a decision isn’t enough I’ve got this whole moody thing going on. My biggest challenge with it lately has been about convincing myself that it isn’t depression. “This is not depression, this is what it is, a fluctuating mood that is a part of the way I operate. “
Because the Universe is loving I’ve received some answers to help me along the way.
Jennifer Hoffman posted this on Facebook on April 6th
Jupiter goes direct this week, on Thursday, after being retrograde since December 7, 2014. It is also at the degree it was in May 2003. That's significant for me because it's the month when I moved from Virginia to Phoenix, to begin this new journey that would involve being totally broke, nearly homeless, and denied a job I thought I had, which spiralled me downward into a really scary financial situation. It's when I asked God to take me home every night because I thought that my life was in such disarray that it was the only solution.
On the bright side, it also started my journey into acknowledging my spiritual gifts, and using them with a larger audience as I also met Archangel Uriel six months later, and started the website and newsletter. All good things but Jupiter can expand our challenges as well as our blessings.
Are you seeing repeats from 2003 now?
I wrote in response:
Shelley-Lynne Domingue, Writer - In 2003, I gave up my full-time job that I hated and TRUSTED that the Universe would provide. I worked very little that year and money kept appearing when I needed it. I took a writing course (week long intensive) that I'd always wanted to take but could never afford. I think it was in May that I signed up for it as the course was in June. There was more focus on our writing because of the SARS scare in Toronto, out of towners didn't want to take the chance so the course attendance was lower than it normally is. Wow it's good thinking back.
On April 7, 2015 Jennifer wrote:
Jennifer Hoffman
April 7 at 1:14pm · Edited ·
2003 has been on my mind because it was such a difficult year for me, where I had to face a lot of my fears, some of which I didn't even know I had. In that year, I became homeless, penniless, I could not find a job, I had to do work I never thought I would ever do (reading tarot cards and doing intuitive readings), and I faced a health crisis after being bitten by a brown recluse spider. All of that happened in about 6 months but the effects lasted for over a decade.
That cycle is coming around again now as I am being reminded of these issues and know that I can make different choices now. We can either repeat old behavior or do something new. If we repeat old behavior we will get the same results. If we do something new we can potentially get different results, as long as we are willing to do everything differently. We can't make one little change and expect a totally different outcome. It has to all be aligned, the desire for things to be different has to also be accompanied by the willingness to 'be' different, to shift our beliefs, thoughts, and actions to create a different outcome.
It's also my birthday this week, which is always a time for introspection and review for me. I like my birthday and don't see it as the process of aging, I see it as an opportunity to look at what I have done in the past year, to pull out all of the things I enjoyed and learn from those that I didn't. I'm already feeling the shift and know that this next year is going to be less challenging that those I have had since 2003.
If you're seeing the 2003 cycles repeating now, are you less afraid now, more aware of different potentials, and have more courage this time, to do things differently?
So needless to say I’ve been thinking about 2003. Because guess what? I got diagnosed with DEPRESSION in 2003!!! It was only yesterday that I remembered that. I remembered that some of my downspiral thoughts that I’ve been having lately are the same as the ones I had when I was diagnosed with depression. And then I asked myself to think back, “When was I diagnosed? Oh shit it was 2003!”
That recognition seems to have opened a door for me. It’s reminding me that my mental focus has been on the wrong things, in the wrong areas. There hasn’t been any anxiety but there has been a profound sadness. I cannot count how many times I’ve said in conversation, “I can only go so far in this conversation because I’m about to start crying.”
Not that I’m afraid of crying but time and place.
Anyway, it’s the recognition of where I’ve been going with my mind. How I can guide my thoughts in a productive way. Focus my thoughts elsewhere, like on creative endeavours.
Back in 2003 I didn’t work for the bulk of the year. I experimented with believing in the universe, that the universe provides. I relaxed, and money appeared when I needed it and when I was ready to go back to work I got invited to a 2nd contract position at the day job I currently have.
In 2015, a different potential is to trust in the Universe in a larger way. Not just job-wise but with any aspect that shows up. The whole situation with the George Clooney character of last year and the beginning of this year really showed me that I am loved and the life lessons aren’t here to hurt me. They are here for me to learn, to heal, to move forward.
Have faith. Believe, Trust. Relax.
I have to find my permission to simply be and focus on my writing. Whatever blockage that is still within me that holds me back from occupying my time by writing. Hand that blockage over to the Universe’s care. I feel like the messages keep coming, telling me that it’s okay for me to write and yet there’s a blockage that holds back my consistency.
In 2003, I took the Humber School for Writers program. I’d never been able to afford that program prior to then and yet without a regular job I paid for the program.
Financial insecurity has been a repeated theme of my entire life. In 2015 I want to get to that place where I believe, “it has NOTHING to do with money!”
In 2003 I had bouts of exhaustion and I was sad about friendships. I couldn’t see that all that time to myself was for my best. Or I didn’t make full use of all that time to myself. Although I did take a really hard look at my friendships and I distanced myself from relationships that felt more hurtful to my emotions.
In 2015, I get that everything is about extreme self-care. My loyalties can carry me blindly in the wrong places. And I can feel undervalued . It always goes back to my childhood best-friend who has consistently shown me how I need to be valued. Or in Human Design terms, who has always recognized me. We were emailing in March, he was making sure that I will include some Montreal time to spend with him in the summer. It was the way he let me know that he wanted this to happen, he was giving me lots of time to prepare for it and the way he expressed his excitement about it. Showing me I am important to him. We can say it but can we show it? I have to be shown otherwise I don’t believe. I also need to take a look at what and who I’ve stopped believing in (which I also did in 2003.)
Abe-Hicks has an exercise. At least I think it's them. I couldn't find it on their site.
A To Do list 1) Things I Intend to Do Today and 2) Things I give to the Universe to handle.
I feel it’s time for me to practice this.
Also think about what extreme self-care means to me. One of the items is writing my morning pages the moment I wake up. It really rids me of the mental chatter.
I was writing my morning pages this morning I wrote, I've been allowing myself to feel down. There are different levels of melancholy. Some of it is a feeling and some of it is about thoughts. It all beckons back to 2003 when I was diagnosed with depression. 2003 pops up again. It's about not repeating the mistakes from then...
For whatever reason I flipped on the television. I don't normally turn it on when I'm writing my morning pages but because the Universe is loving...
On Breakfast Television, Frank Ferragine (Frankie Flowers) was interviewing this kid. The kid says that he'd been depressed and his guidance counsellor got him, "forced me,"to sign up for different groups, "the more I got involved, the better I felt."
The kid, Shane Feldman has an organization called Count Me In. His advice, "Try new things out of your comfort zone."
The last thing I wrote in my pages this morning, "Funny Universe. I wasn't going to turn on the Television and you give me that little gift."
And Reiki Fur Babies posted the following picture that I came across today:
I commented - I've needed this one. Been having bouts of exhaustion and mostly I know it's about over thinking, feeling impatient etc...
And their response - trust your guides and the angels... when we get out of the way, and let go of attachment, magical things come in !!"
I invite you to answer for yourself Jennifer Hoffman’s questions
Are you seeing repeats from 2003 now? If you're seeing the 2003 cycles repeating now, are you less afraid now, more aware of different potentials, and have more courage this time, to do things differently?
EY
23 February 2015
We're All Connected
Monday 23Feb15
One of our Managers was let go on Thursday January 30th. We were about to start our meeting, got moved out of the boardroom and into the lunch room because there was another meeting to take place. There seemed to be so much activity in the management office and the energy was a little chaotic but it didn't enter me. It wasn't my chaos.
Those of us who were going to meet in the lunchroom cracked a few jokes and were ready to begin as an executive stopped in the door and called the manager's name, "Can I talk to you for a second?"
"Sure,"she said, then looked at us, "I'll be right back."
And that was the last thing she said to us.
We saw the HR woman who is usually around when someone is being let go and a couple of the ladies made comments of, "oh-oh, if she's here that can't be good. Do you think the Manager is being fired?"
I said, "No, no. She doesn't always come for that. When I applied for a position at Head office she came to see me to tell me personally that I hadn't gotten the position. We discussed why the other person did get the position, she had more experience etc. She doesn't come for just bad news don't worry."
Minutes went by. The faces of the other ladies looked scared. They were that scared silent. The Security Coordinator and I cracked our jokes, trying to keep the mood light.
I said, "Ahh it's probably me getting fired."
He said, "Yes, and I'm going to be the one to escort you out of the building with 3 guards and a taser."
The ladies weren't having it. They kept to that scared silence.
Well, 45 minutes later, our big boss came in, closed the door, and said, "Well, I guess you folks have figured out what's going on. The manager has been let go."
I leaned back in my chair. My stomach turned.
He talked about stuff, my mind wasn't connecting. There were a few, "Whys?" and "I really liked working with her."
And I spoke up. "I just have to say something because my stomach is upset and well, I have to say what's on my mind. I feel so disheartened that after all her years of service that this is how it ends. We were just starting to get into a good groove..." And then surprising to me as well as to every one else I started to cry.
I was asked if I was making this whole experience about me and I said no, that I was upset that it feels like there is no loyalty to a persons years of service. This way of being let go was like a slap in the face. That I imagine that she is wondering what we are saying about her. That we can go through years of feeling abused by one manager and when we finally get a manager who listens that this is what happens. That we don't even get a chance to say a proper good-bye. It was like a death. How do I even contact her to say, "Are you okay?"
He talked to me again later and I said, "I don't warm up to many people. It makes a huge difference between working with someone you get along with and working with someone who you feel is always setting you up."
If there is anything good that came out of it, it's that us non-managers have been confiding in each other more. We've shared stories of the things we'd suffered through over the years. We've realized that we are not alone in some of the mistreatments that have transpired.
Last Thursday there was breaking news that a little 3 year old boy had gone missing from his Grandmother's apartment. It was so weird. As I walked to work in the morning it was so cold out that my knees hurt. When I got to work I was saying to a couple of co-workers that you'd think I could walk faster since it was so cold out but I actually walked slower because my legs were so cold. I had on leggings under my pants.
I think I got the breaking news email just after 8:30am about the little boy Elijah. He'd last been seen at 9:30pm when he was put down to bed. He was wearing a t-shirt and diapers and the apartment door was open.
Dear Lord, let this end in good news.
It didn't. People drove in from Mississauga, from London, Ontario. From all parts to help to look for little Elijah. He was found by a volunteer about 100 metres away from the apartment building without vital signs. I got that breaking news email and 30 minutes later the breaking news email that he had passed.
I felt defeated.
I worked that night at my part time job. As I was getting ready to leave for the evening we turned up the news to hear the full report. There had been a picture of little Elijah in the apartment building lobby before he left the building out into the -30 degree weather to his eventual death. My eyes welled up.
In the report, they said that the volunteers who found him were crying. That the police who took him to the ambulance were crying. They spoke to some of the volunteers on the scene and they broke down just saying, "We came to help. We were hoping for the best. This is just so heartbreaking."
I started to cry.
I said to my co-worker, "When I heard the news this morning that he'd passed away I kept trying to think of a reason for this. Maybe the angels were with him. Maybe they woke him and held his hand and said it's time for the job you were brought here to do - to open everyone's hearts." Because why would something so tragic have to happen?
Friday morning as I had my shower, I thought of little Elijah and pictured his sweet smiling face and I sobbed. I sobbed because so many of us would have offered our own lives in order for his little 3 year old life to continue. I sobbed because this life can be so damned painful and feel so senseless.
I want to believe there is a purpose for this painful story. So many strangers, including myself, are mourning his death. His death tells us that we are all connected. When life is incomprehensible we are all connected. We all cry, we all mourn. In this cold, cold winter that has been bearing down on us, they've been calling it 'winter fatigue' in the news, we can find the energy to help each other. We have to.
There are so many negative things that can be said about this city, any city, but then our hearts open and we show up. There has been an endless year of bad Police coverage in the news in both the United States and Canada and then a story like this brings us back to the real deal, that the Police are witnesses to regular pains that we can't comprehend. Incidences and crimes and senseless deaths that would break us.
There are so many ways to look at life and then the Universe shakes us and we have to find gratitude for our small lives because we don't know what kind of traumas can be around the corner. We have to find a way to live in honesty, with compassion, with love. We have to realize that the minute we feel our connection to each other the less likely we are to continue to do terrible things to each other. And when we're kinder to each other we'll be kinder to animals and mother earth.
Even on the Oscars last night. It was the people who stood up and spoke for something more who received the real applause. Because it is time. It is time we accept each other. It is time that we respect and care for one another.
There are so many levels of us living in fear and living in anger and feeling abused and victimized and vilified. There is so much pain. We have to feel it in ourselves to see it in others. xo
EY
One of our Managers was let go on Thursday January 30th. We were about to start our meeting, got moved out of the boardroom and into the lunch room because there was another meeting to take place. There seemed to be so much activity in the management office and the energy was a little chaotic but it didn't enter me. It wasn't my chaos.
Those of us who were going to meet in the lunchroom cracked a few jokes and were ready to begin as an executive stopped in the door and called the manager's name, "Can I talk to you for a second?"
"Sure,"she said, then looked at us, "I'll be right back."
And that was the last thing she said to us.
We saw the HR woman who is usually around when someone is being let go and a couple of the ladies made comments of, "oh-oh, if she's here that can't be good. Do you think the Manager is being fired?"
I said, "No, no. She doesn't always come for that. When I applied for a position at Head office she came to see me to tell me personally that I hadn't gotten the position. We discussed why the other person did get the position, she had more experience etc. She doesn't come for just bad news don't worry."
Minutes went by. The faces of the other ladies looked scared. They were that scared silent. The Security Coordinator and I cracked our jokes, trying to keep the mood light.
I said, "Ahh it's probably me getting fired."
He said, "Yes, and I'm going to be the one to escort you out of the building with 3 guards and a taser."
The ladies weren't having it. They kept to that scared silence.
Well, 45 minutes later, our big boss came in, closed the door, and said, "Well, I guess you folks have figured out what's going on. The manager has been let go."
I leaned back in my chair. My stomach turned.
He talked about stuff, my mind wasn't connecting. There were a few, "Whys?" and "I really liked working with her."
And I spoke up. "I just have to say something because my stomach is upset and well, I have to say what's on my mind. I feel so disheartened that after all her years of service that this is how it ends. We were just starting to get into a good groove..." And then surprising to me as well as to every one else I started to cry.
I was asked if I was making this whole experience about me and I said no, that I was upset that it feels like there is no loyalty to a persons years of service. This way of being let go was like a slap in the face. That I imagine that she is wondering what we are saying about her. That we can go through years of feeling abused by one manager and when we finally get a manager who listens that this is what happens. That we don't even get a chance to say a proper good-bye. It was like a death. How do I even contact her to say, "Are you okay?"
He talked to me again later and I said, "I don't warm up to many people. It makes a huge difference between working with someone you get along with and working with someone who you feel is always setting you up."
If there is anything good that came out of it, it's that us non-managers have been confiding in each other more. We've shared stories of the things we'd suffered through over the years. We've realized that we are not alone in some of the mistreatments that have transpired.
Last Thursday there was breaking news that a little 3 year old boy had gone missing from his Grandmother's apartment. It was so weird. As I walked to work in the morning it was so cold out that my knees hurt. When I got to work I was saying to a couple of co-workers that you'd think I could walk faster since it was so cold out but I actually walked slower because my legs were so cold. I had on leggings under my pants.
I think I got the breaking news email just after 8:30am about the little boy Elijah. He'd last been seen at 9:30pm when he was put down to bed. He was wearing a t-shirt and diapers and the apartment door was open.
Dear Lord, let this end in good news.
It didn't. People drove in from Mississauga, from London, Ontario. From all parts to help to look for little Elijah. He was found by a volunteer about 100 metres away from the apartment building without vital signs. I got that breaking news email and 30 minutes later the breaking news email that he had passed.
I felt defeated.
I worked that night at my part time job. As I was getting ready to leave for the evening we turned up the news to hear the full report. There had been a picture of little Elijah in the apartment building lobby before he left the building out into the -30 degree weather to his eventual death. My eyes welled up.
In the report, they said that the volunteers who found him were crying. That the police who took him to the ambulance were crying. They spoke to some of the volunteers on the scene and they broke down just saying, "We came to help. We were hoping for the best. This is just so heartbreaking."
I started to cry.
I said to my co-worker, "When I heard the news this morning that he'd passed away I kept trying to think of a reason for this. Maybe the angels were with him. Maybe they woke him and held his hand and said it's time for the job you were brought here to do - to open everyone's hearts." Because why would something so tragic have to happen?
Friday morning as I had my shower, I thought of little Elijah and pictured his sweet smiling face and I sobbed. I sobbed because so many of us would have offered our own lives in order for his little 3 year old life to continue. I sobbed because this life can be so damned painful and feel so senseless.
I want to believe there is a purpose for this painful story. So many strangers, including myself, are mourning his death. His death tells us that we are all connected. When life is incomprehensible we are all connected. We all cry, we all mourn. In this cold, cold winter that has been bearing down on us, they've been calling it 'winter fatigue' in the news, we can find the energy to help each other. We have to.
There are so many negative things that can be said about this city, any city, but then our hearts open and we show up. There has been an endless year of bad Police coverage in the news in both the United States and Canada and then a story like this brings us back to the real deal, that the Police are witnesses to regular pains that we can't comprehend. Incidences and crimes and senseless deaths that would break us.
There are so many ways to look at life and then the Universe shakes us and we have to find gratitude for our small lives because we don't know what kind of traumas can be around the corner. We have to find a way to live in honesty, with compassion, with love. We have to realize that the minute we feel our connection to each other the less likely we are to continue to do terrible things to each other. And when we're kinder to each other we'll be kinder to animals and mother earth.
Even on the Oscars last night. It was the people who stood up and spoke for something more who received the real applause. Because it is time. It is time we accept each other. It is time that we respect and care for one another.
There are so many levels of us living in fear and living in anger and feeling abused and victimized and vilified. There is so much pain. We have to feel it in ourselves to see it in others. xo
EY
09 February 2015
Over Sensitive Artist
I love Sia Furler's work.
I love her voice and I love her writing. If you go back to my straight for the knife blog entry, she had already affected me with saying what I was feeling about a man. It was painful at first but now I can listen to that song and feel the learning that went with that whole experience.
Last night I was over sensitive about some of the comments my friends were making about her performance on the Grammy's. Several people wrote similar statuses of, "What is this mess?"
I don't know it really upset me.
So I wrote a little comeback on facebook:
"So many people are posting about Sia in a negative way. I love her. She is an amazing songwriter and was only going to write and get out of performing for many reasons. How hard the industry can be on people, women in particular. Her problems with addiction. People not accepting her and her faring better as a writer...
I think about stage fright, and insecurities and still being able to find a way to perform because she turns her back on the audience. Performing through our fears. She has an amazing voice.
And I see the dance as the crazy mental chatter in our heads. People who go crazy. People who suffer from depression and paranoia. The thoughts, the crazy thoughts.
You don't have to like her but take a moment and think about what she is doing. She is an artist.
My grammys rant for the year."
A couple of people responded rather kindly. I don't think I was looking for a response per se. And I said, "all I wanted was people to think about it before they dismiss it. She touches me in my deep place where all my fears live and I want people to see that. They can continue on disliking her, of course, but I want them to at least see the validity of her work."
I think what is happening is that I am seeing myself as an artist again.
Recently, at work, the conversation came up about being mortgage poor. One of the managers said she couldn't do something because she was mortgage poor. I said I couldn't do it because I was music poor. I spend all my money on music.
Someone asked me if I downloaded music for free. "Hell no. I pay for other peoples work. I understand how hard it is to do the work. I understand how hard it is to be an artist and survive off the money you make off it. Heck I'm a discouraged artist and working here because I haven't had what it takes to be a paid, thriving artist."
My boss went into a long monologue about buying a whole album for one good song and yadda yadda yadda. I tuned him out.
There's no excuse for that now. You can buy one song.
I talk so much about healing and themes each year. And I'm slowly seeing that it's my artist that I'm starting to look at healing.
It's funny, as I wrote my little Grammys rant on facebook last night I forgot that Sia's album title is 1000 forms of fear. And yet in my facebook response I said, "She touches me in my deep place where all my fears live."
Yes fear and missing out on so many more flavours.
I've been a multi-talented person from when I was very little.
I always danced. I was the little girl who automatically started dancing to music even before I could speak. My mother would get me to dance in front of the grown ups and they would all watch me with big smiles. Dancing then was just moving up and down but I improved once I got older. I wanted to be a solid gold dancer. Dance training was never an option or even an idea of an option.
In grade 2 or 3, I discovered my singing voice. I can remember that singing class (there was such thing when I was a kid)when we sang the same song as a group and everyone turned around in class to look at me because my voice was louder than everyone else. My singing teacher encouraged me but I wasn't at that school long enough for it to move on to any real training or options. I went to three different schools in grade three. By the third school I was a quieter, shy, child. No one knew I could sing.
My mom would get me to sing in front of the company when she had parties. Often she would get me to sing, Firefly, to the record by The Temptations. It was her favourite song. My mother always wanted to be a singer. Her praise and criticisms were unpredictable. They would range from the sing to my friends to stop showing off, you don't even know what you are doing.
I used to draw. If you ever read my old blog entries you would know that both my brother and I would draw. My brother was the Picasso to my Charles Schultz. I could only draw cartoons. My brother could draw wild animals, people, landscapes and cartoons. Where my brother's drawings were put up around the house by my mother for admiration, my cartoons were completely ignored. So I gave up drawing and picked up writing.
I've been writing since I was 10 years old. I have been offered mentorships by professional writers three times in my writing life. I ran away in fear because a couple of people whose opinions I valued told me they were not interested in helping me, they were only interested in stealing my work.
I've been a blocked and creative artist interchangeably for my entire adult life. I am not blaming anyone, please understand. I am simply saying that I needed others to help me to believe enough in myself and my talents.
Those are a brief look into my fears.
Growing up being in love with music I could never understand why it was so hard to have easy access to all the types of music. You know, radio was top 40. My mom did play jazz on a Saturday afternoon or classical on a Sunday. Classical was annoying until it wasn't and so was jazz for that matter. Right?
As an adult as I listen to the music from my childhood I hear so much more because I have so much more experience and music knowledge. When I listen to Blood, Sweat & Tears song, Spinning Wheel, I don't hear it as a classic rock song, I hear it as a jazz piece. And Queen's, Somebody to Love, I hear as a gospel song.
I guess the more we know, the more we appreciate and the more we see.
The main reason I love Sia's performances is because she turns her back on the audience. She's telling me and every over-sensitive artist, in every performance that there are ways to still put our work out there and carry our fears along with us. We can bring the mental chatter and our crazy along with us.
I'm asking people to open your minds to the artists out there, even if you don't like them. And see the bigger picture.
We all say we're tired of the lowest common denominator ass shaking and boob revealing performances but we can't expect to get through that and past that until we start to see what options there can be out there. I only started to love movement theatre because I was exposed to it. It was a beautifully, brilliant piece done at a fringe show that Theatre Rusticle did called the Stronger. I didn't understand it for the first half of the show until I did. And then it was a cannonball through my soul. It blew me wide open.
We need to make a proper space for our artists. They chronicle our experiences. They help us to articulate our humanity. We can't simply dismiss someone's work with what is this mess?
The two friends who did respond to my facebook rant said they just didn't like the song. Mind you, they weren't the ones who said, What is this mess? So they were never the people I was talking to. You don't like the song, you don't like the song. That I can understand. That's specific.
What is this mess? I don't get why she's singing facing the wall and she has this child and woman making these frenetic moves. Then we're open for a dialogue. Open for interpretation. Open to learn.
What is this mess? A brilliant woman who is finding a way to put her work out there through 1000 forms of fear.
EY
15 Songs you never knew were written by Sia
Criticism of Sia using 12 year old dancer Maddie
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
04 February 2015
Playlists - side bar
2014 Playlist was "Lift Me Up"
1. Turn it Into Something Good - Earth, Wind & Fire
2. I'm Going all the Way - The Sounds of Blackness
3. Get Up - Amel Larrieux
4. You Can Do It - The Brand New Heavies
5. You Gotta Be - Des'ree
6. I Believe I can Fly - R. Kelly
7. On Top of the World -Imagine Dragons
8. Am I Wrong? Nico & Vinz
9. We Give You Thanks - The Sounds of Blackness
10. Please Take My Hand - The Sounds of Blackness
11. Happy - Pharrell Williams
12. You Can Make it if you Try - Sounds of Blackness
13. Yes We Can - Sounds of Blackness
14. Do it for love - Dannielle DeAndrea
15. Superwoman - Alicia Keys
16. Never Stop - Brand New Heavies
17. Optimistic - Sounds of Blackness
18. Stand - Sounds of Blackness
19. His Eye is on the Sparrow - Lauryn Hill
20. Magic - Olivia Newton-John
21. Your wish is My Command - Sounds of Blackness
2015 Playlist is "FUNK"
1. Affection - Tamara & the Seen
2. Lost You - Zed's Dead
3. I love Myself - Kendrick Lamar
4-7. Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars
Uptown Funk plays 4 times in a row, if that can't get me going, I'm the walking dead!
8-11 Check up on it - Beyonce and Slim Thug
12. Holdin on - Flume
13. Still Got Me - Mark Ronson featuring Daniel Merriweather
14. If you want me to stay - Eric Benet
15. One more day - Glenn Lewis
16. Tell me Something Good - Rufus and Chaka Khan
17. Ain't off to the back - Ben L'oncle Soul
18. Ain't no other man - Christina Aguilera
19. Groove Thang - Zhane
20. Hey Mr. DJ - Zhane
21. We run this - Missy Elliott
22. Love will never do without you - Janet Jackson
23. When I think of you - Janet Jackson
24. There you Go - Pink
25. Raise your Glass - Pink
26. Funhouse - Pink
27. Love you Honey - Randy & the Gypsys
28. High wire - Ernie Isley
29. All about that Bass - Meghan Trainor
That's just a taste. There's 252 songs in the playlist. I've been listening to it daily and tweaking it, like putting Uptown Funk and Check up on it 4x's in a row. And it was originally only funk but it really is more dance than strictly funk.
Do you have a playlist for the year to set the tone?
EY
1. Turn it Into Something Good - Earth, Wind & Fire
2. I'm Going all the Way - The Sounds of Blackness
3. Get Up - Amel Larrieux
4. You Can Do It - The Brand New Heavies
5. You Gotta Be - Des'ree
6. I Believe I can Fly - R. Kelly
7. On Top of the World -Imagine Dragons
8. Am I Wrong? Nico & Vinz
9. We Give You Thanks - The Sounds of Blackness
10. Please Take My Hand - The Sounds of Blackness
11. Happy - Pharrell Williams
12. You Can Make it if you Try - Sounds of Blackness
13. Yes We Can - Sounds of Blackness
14. Do it for love - Dannielle DeAndrea
15. Superwoman - Alicia Keys
16. Never Stop - Brand New Heavies
17. Optimistic - Sounds of Blackness
18. Stand - Sounds of Blackness
19. His Eye is on the Sparrow - Lauryn Hill
20. Magic - Olivia Newton-John
21. Your wish is My Command - Sounds of Blackness
2015 Playlist is "FUNK"
1. Affection - Tamara & the Seen
2. Lost You - Zed's Dead
3. I love Myself - Kendrick Lamar
4-7. Uptown Funk - Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars
Uptown Funk plays 4 times in a row, if that can't get me going, I'm the walking dead!
8-11 Check up on it - Beyonce and Slim Thug
12. Holdin on - Flume
13. Still Got Me - Mark Ronson featuring Daniel Merriweather
14. If you want me to stay - Eric Benet
15. One more day - Glenn Lewis
16. Tell me Something Good - Rufus and Chaka Khan
17. Ain't off to the back - Ben L'oncle Soul
18. Ain't no other man - Christina Aguilera
19. Groove Thang - Zhane
20. Hey Mr. DJ - Zhane
21. We run this - Missy Elliott
22. Love will never do without you - Janet Jackson
23. When I think of you - Janet Jackson
24. There you Go - Pink
25. Raise your Glass - Pink
26. Funhouse - Pink
27. Love you Honey - Randy & the Gypsys
28. High wire - Ernie Isley
29. All about that Bass - Meghan Trainor
That's just a taste. There's 252 songs in the playlist. I've been listening to it daily and tweaking it, like putting Uptown Funk and Check up on it 4x's in a row. And it was originally only funk but it really is more dance than strictly funk.
Do you have a playlist for the year to set the tone?
EY
Being Here
The above quote and picture came from Jovian Archive
I'm feeling like I'm in 2015 energy and out of 2014 energy. Thank goodness. I was happy to see that year behind me. Mind you, It was a big learning year for me but you know what that often means right? The learning curve came with much pain. But like that GoDaddy.com commercial that makes me laugh 2014 can stick it! Stick it! Ha-ha!
I'm in my personal 3 year of Numerology and although I don't have many notes on my previous personal 3 years there are some great themes:
1988 - at 24 years old - I left my job as a nanny to 8 children.
I started a part time job at a bowling alley where I subsequently got bar-tending experience that experience subsequently got me a job as a waitress/bartender and then restaurant assistant manager and brought me downtown. And a co-worker at that job got me into working at a performing arts centre of which I've had a job within the performing arts either full-time or part-time ever since. You just don't know the gifts one little part-time job can give you. All the theatre and musicals and dance that I've watched because of my jobs and the people I've met including eventually my Australians!
I met one of the Warren Beatty's of Straight for Knife blog entry that year.
1997 - at 33 years old - I ditched the other Warren Beatty once and for all.
I spread my mom's ashes in Montreal
2006 - at 42 years old - It was a fun year.
I worked the final children's festival of one of the performing arts centres that I'd worked at for over 10 years. Every children's festival I'd worked I'd always get scheduled with the crappy guy. Everyone would be scheduled with their buddies and they'd ask me, "what did you do wrong that you have to suffer that punishment?" When I finally brought it up on the previous year, I was told that not every one could be scheduled with their friends. "You have to understand that we need people in specific places. It's not personal." But EVERY YEAR?!?
So for the final year I gave availability that made it impossible for me to be scheduled in the shitty position. It was my nice way of saying that the years of taking advantage of my accommodating nature were over.
And now we're in 2015 and I'm thinking of my personal 3 options. Thinking of what no longer serves me. Those were the themes of the previous 3 years. How might I begin something new, with a foot in the door, and what gifts might come with that beginning? Or better yet, what invitations might come with my preparation for them?
As I move into 2015 energies, I feel like I resolved the issues and blocks of the previous Warren Beatty with the help of George Clooney. He really did serve a fine purpose. I'm living comfortably with the knowledge that he is not for me. I've watched myself through a very important cycle, a full cycle with him. I don't feel any bitterness about it whatsoever and I understand emotionally that my cycle (It's actually called a wave in Human Design) is at the very least one full year. The brilliant thing is that we've gotten to a point where I can ask him questions and he answers them. It's like that episode of Sex & the City when Burger tells Miranda, "He's just not that into you." And she says,"Thank you! That information is so freeing."
Why doesn't he call when he says he's going to? He's just not that into you...
Old things I've learned about myself prior to starting this Human Design journey are being confirmed again and again with the HD experiment.
Things like:
- I need to know what a person wants from me so I can say either yes or no. In HD, it's the invitations of course there's the proper recognition of me that goes hand in hand.
- Something my mother told me when I was a young child, "You have to learn how to play solitaire. You have to know how to have fun all by yourself." In HD, it's what do I do while I wait for the invitations.
- I've always had a delayed reaction before I know how I feel. It can take me days to know How I really feel about a situation. In HD, My delayed reaction is my emotional wave.
- Be seen and not heard; Don't speak until spoken to. A childhood mantra I was raised on. And ironically enough in HD it's about me not initiating. I have to wait for the invitation. I have to be recognized first otherwise it's disastrous.
- Whenever I'm really happy in my life and I've got things going on is when men/people/friends approach me. In HD, the best quote that resonated with me is, "A Projector happily engaged and intrigued pulls the interest of others to them." I'm the person quietly reading on a flight somewhere and every body keeps asking, "What are you reading?" or saying, "Oh you look engrossed."
- I've always been an aloof person. I've never been one who makes friends quickly because I know that the energy of the wrong people wears me out. In HD, Tune into subtle energies to get the cooperation and attention to fulfill your purpose. Pause to assess situations and intentions of others.
So yes, Human Design is still on my roster. I think I'll make another blog entry to discuss my Head Center which has cleared up my mental anxieties because -- they weren't mine!
I usually have a specific theme for my year or a knowledge of what it will be but so far it feels wide open. When I listen to my intuition I hear words like Love, Self-Care, Faith. Faith has been coming up a lot. But more like faith in the process. I get a sensing, they tell me, 'it looks like chaos but have faith. When it's time, you'll understand.'
So I believe, I surrender, I find my faith.
There's a newness. It's like everything has been interwoven and all I have to do right now is simply Be Here.
Be here with the noise. Be here with the peace. Be here.
And as I'm here, I bring music with me. Where last year's playlist was called, Lift me Up, and it was filled with gospel music and songs of positivity this year's playlist is called , FUNK, and it's all about dancing.
I haven't talked about dreams in a long time. Hmm, Have I ever? LOL! Anyway, I've kept dream journals since I was in my early 20s. Dec 1996 is when my mom passed away, which was my personal 2 year and last year was my personal 2 year. In my dream on the early morning of the day of her death, last December, I dreamt about pandas. Playful, baby, pandas. I got off the public transit to help their caregivers coral them all to safety because they were running around playfully in the streets. One of the pandas jumped into my arms for a cuddle.
I love bears. I've always known that one of my animal spirits is the bear. It's been interchangeably a black or brown bear. It's been with me since childhood. When I'm/ it's scared it rushes at what scares us, then stands up on its hind legs and makes itself as big as possible. It lets you know don't fuck with us. We will do damage. It only comes out then. It came out most recently a couple summers ago when a man scared me in the grocery store. He backed away quickly. There is a polar bear too that joined up with us around 2006 but that bear is really quiet, still. The elephants joined me around 2010 (Thursday and Good Friday). There are quite a few elephants I still don't know how many. And Ganesha joined me by 2011, I think. The baby Ganesha in my dreams. A little playful guy, really adorable, who I could sense was telling me, "I go where ever you go." And a giant, adult Ganesha who leans in the doorway when I go for my massages and simply waits for me so I can really go deep into my relaxation.
And the cuddling, baby pandas that my mother sent me on the anniversary of her death. I originally thought it was simply to help me to cope with the day especially since I'd had nightmares every night leading up to the date. Because Pandas? Adorable! :-D But then as I researched pandas I realized that Panda is my animal spirit for my Human Design journey. So many of the things that my mother taught me, when I was a child, that upset me, are now turning out to be the perfect training for this Projector trip.
The Panda is about finding pleasure in what you are doing, not multi-tasking or over-working or being busy. Conserving energy; waiting and patience. And they can be as fierce as a tiger (the projector anger or bitterness.)
Dancing and Waiting Patiently and Being Here.
EY
19 January 2015
Aquarius New Moon Jan 20th, 2015 8:14 am EST
Tomorrow is the new moon in Aquarius.
It was Astrologer Dawn who got me into making the 10 New moon wishes with each new moon and last year I started building on the previous ones each month and keeping track.
Some notes from her email:
Each new Moon we all have the opportunity to make 10 wishes around the sign for that month. These 10 wishes need to be made within 48 hours of the New Moon and need to be in writing.
Aquarius possesses qualities of uniqueness, inventiveness, originality, flair, experimentation and friendliness. Aquarius energy allows you to embark on new friendships and new projects this month. The stubbornness of Aquarius can be used to stick to your plan of action that allows you to live more of a life that's congruent with who you are.
Do you want to create the opportunity to apprentice in a career about which you have passion? Are you drawn towards an unusual or unique group that plans on changing the world for the better? Then get involved.
Career and Income producing area of your life. This is the New Moon that will give your imagination a boost on how you can create work that is fulfilling as well as income producing.
Relationships
Assess whether you have true friendships in your relationships. If not, what's your plan for moving on?
When creating wishes in an Aquarius period around relationships it's best to focus on the friendship part of the relationship. Get clear about the type of relationship you want with each individual in your life. Look at hose relationships with honesty and decide if they are staying or going. If they are staying then you will have to have more fun in your intimate relationships and there needs to be more spontaneity. Create a wish around having fun with your partner. You might write something like, "I easily find myself enjoying the adventures that ______ and I have together." If you are looking for a relationship then, "I want to easily attract a mate who is a friend first."
Action - Write out a list of characteristics, values and beliefs as well as interest that you are looking for in a friend or partner. What do you want?
Make sure the wishes are about you and what you want rather than what you want for someone else.
And in April Elliott Kent's New Moon pdf some notes include:
Things to Initiate (From the Aquarius New Moon up to the Full Moon)
- Websites, podcasts, radio shows, new media
- clubs and organizations
- regular activities with groups of friends
- activism
- long-range goals
- finding an audience for your creative projects - especially the ones you initiated during the Leo New Moon
Things to Finish (Between the Full Moon and the Pisces New Moon)
- social connections that no longer suit you
- groups that don't honor your individual contributions
- goals that no longer reflect what you truly want to accomplish
- things you do simply to 'satisfy the audience,' but that don't reflect your creative spirit.
The New Moon Phase
Start fresh: The week following the New Moon is always the best time of the month to start new things. Initiate your vision for the month ahead. Make a list of your goals for this month. Then create a second list of somewhat longer-term goals that you'll review six months from now.
EY
It was Astrologer Dawn who got me into making the 10 New moon wishes with each new moon and last year I started building on the previous ones each month and keeping track.
Some notes from her email:
Each new Moon we all have the opportunity to make 10 wishes around the sign for that month. These 10 wishes need to be made within 48 hours of the New Moon and need to be in writing.
Aquarius possesses qualities of uniqueness, inventiveness, originality, flair, experimentation and friendliness. Aquarius energy allows you to embark on new friendships and new projects this month. The stubbornness of Aquarius can be used to stick to your plan of action that allows you to live more of a life that's congruent with who you are.
Do you want to create the opportunity to apprentice in a career about which you have passion? Are you drawn towards an unusual or unique group that plans on changing the world for the better? Then get involved.
Career and Income producing area of your life. This is the New Moon that will give your imagination a boost on how you can create work that is fulfilling as well as income producing.
Relationships
Assess whether you have true friendships in your relationships. If not, what's your plan for moving on?
When creating wishes in an Aquarius period around relationships it's best to focus on the friendship part of the relationship. Get clear about the type of relationship you want with each individual in your life. Look at hose relationships with honesty and decide if they are staying or going. If they are staying then you will have to have more fun in your intimate relationships and there needs to be more spontaneity. Create a wish around having fun with your partner. You might write something like, "I easily find myself enjoying the adventures that ______ and I have together." If you are looking for a relationship then, "I want to easily attract a mate who is a friend first."
Action - Write out a list of characteristics, values and beliefs as well as interest that you are looking for in a friend or partner. What do you want?
Make sure the wishes are about you and what you want rather than what you want for someone else.
And in April Elliott Kent's New Moon pdf some notes include:
Things to Initiate (From the Aquarius New Moon up to the Full Moon)
- Websites, podcasts, radio shows, new media
- clubs and organizations
- regular activities with groups of friends
- activism
- long-range goals
- finding an audience for your creative projects - especially the ones you initiated during the Leo New Moon
Things to Finish (Between the Full Moon and the Pisces New Moon)
- social connections that no longer suit you
- groups that don't honor your individual contributions
- goals that no longer reflect what you truly want to accomplish
- things you do simply to 'satisfy the audience,' but that don't reflect your creative spirit.
The New Moon Phase
Start fresh: The week following the New Moon is always the best time of the month to start new things. Initiate your vision for the month ahead. Make a list of your goals for this month. Then create a second list of somewhat longer-term goals that you'll review six months from now.
EY
03 January 2015
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
28 December 2014
Being Human
28Dec14
Spent a very lazy day yesterday. I'm learning how to be lazy without guilt tripping myself.
I've been watching the Blue Bloods marathon. Why? I have no clue but watching it (anything) is teaching me that I have way too much mental chatter simply because it's starting to calm it.
One of the episodes made me wish I was able to articulate my truth when I was a teenager. Erin's 16 year old daughter, Nicky, wants to go to a college party and of course her mother has said no. Nicky goes to her grandfather (The Police Commissioner) for his help. She tells him something like, "I've done everything that's ever been asked of me to the extent where all my friend's parents say, 'why can't you be more like Nicky.' I've never done anything to make you embarrassed. At what point do you start to trust me?"
At what point do you start to trust me? Brought a little tear to my eye. There were so many restrictions in my child hood home especially on me and I was the good kid.
I've been watching child hood stuff come up at work. I said recently to a co-worker, "It's like we never escape being children. We still have to give that fake smile and fake, Thank You, because being honest makes us seem like we're difficult people or we're ingrates."
The Christmas parties were a big thing this year. The invitations are emailed out for the Company party, the Team party and the party that we extend to our service providers. Our guys are the worst for responding to (or not responding to) invitations. How many times I've said, "Guys just click accept or decline and call it a day." They simply rebel against it. Then it turns into a thing where I have to become the babysitter because I'm "asked" to find out who is going and who isn't. I have to ask Grown men.
I compile a list and send it to all interested parties and then we're still continually asked, "Are you going, Are you going?"
Anyway one of the guys, 'Andrew', has never been the guy to participate. In the 14 years I've been there he's never been to the Company Christmas party. He's attended a handful of the team parties and he usually avoids the SP party (he's been to two). He's not the guy to attend these things can we just let him be?
He is asked every year if he's attending and if the answer is no, he is guilt tripped. These things are planned for you guys, you're not social enough, you're ungrateful blah, blah, blah.
For whatever reason this year every body comes to complain to me about him. Complain!
I've tried to explain him away. I've said you know you have to understand he's had a rough year. His dad has been sick. Or, He's not always in the mood to be social. I've explained that he's been trying really hard and participating when he's not really the guy to participate. And finally I just came right out and said, "Why can't he just say no? Why does he need to explain himself? He's a grown man. And quite frankly there's always so much pressure."
After the year I've had I'm turning to the place of living a life less bullshit. I'm getting tired of sugar coating what I think and how I feel.
They really put so much pressure on something that is supposed to be FUN! At our team party someone said, "We should have set up the seating so that everyone was alternated between the Operations and the Management office."
I'm like, Why? Why can't I sit with whoever I want to sit? Now you're telling me who I can sit with? "That idea right there is why Andrew isn't here."
Like children we have to continue to smile. Smile through bullshit pressure to be social on our own time and possibly have to sit beside someone who fucks with us all year round.
Like children we have to show we know how to take a joke when the boss blatantly insults us in front of everyone, but it's only a joke.
I was telling Andrew the next day, "the fucking picture taking did me in. Did me in!"
We're in a dinner atmosphere and our pictures are being taken by one of the staff. She criticizes me because I don't like having my picture taken. I say, Okay you've taken 4 pics of me, you can leave me alone now. But it's too bad for me that I'm assertive enough to say I don't want to have my picture taken. I must be mocked. She yells my name across the restaurant and continues on taking pictures. There are a good 25 people there. Once the food comes, please don't take pictures of me eating. I had to sit there for 2 minutes before I could bite into my food while she took pictures.
Life is so bizarre. We can spend so much time faking it.
EY
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