Do Reindeer Have Fear of Flying...?

And now to contradict my last blog about the virtues and rewards of proactive change. There's a special hell inhabited by those of us who sometimes live for years with deeply conflicted needs and wants. I'm talking about liminal places in life where desires and the portals through which they're accessed are in the process of aligning but aren't there yet. I'm talking of course about middle aged women like myself. We who still haven't gotten with the program and totally self-actualized. We have no excuse eh? Nobody likes a fence sitter. The self-help-you-can-do-anything mecca of 50 ways to detox your liver, leave your used to be lover, vent your spleen, cleanse your colon and push push push those boundaries is targeted at we (am I being paranoid here ?) whose lives are eminently fixable. We just need to spend more money and most of our time on reinventing ourselves. Right?

Can I just say that I'm tired of being told how worth it I am and to put my own oxygen mask on first? I know it's good advice to keep breathing, but if one is trying to answer a more basic question like " am I on the wrong flight"? then who cares whether oxygen is flowing freely?

In other words, to meet and prioritize your needs your have to know what they are. It's one thing to know you need a different size bra or more cardio in order to feel better- but what about those times when you suspect you need a radically different life? In such cases conventional wisdom can be useless--unless you really, really don't have a clue what to do next and then it can work temporarily as a strategy for self-preservation while dog paddling. Like my friend Vinny says, the last step in re-creating comes down to timing. Trust in the unknown and overcoming the fear of flying are not the same as being ready to act. When it's time.

Which brings me back to conflicting wants and needs. A lot of women pressure themselves in ways that have nothing to do with their ability to make choices but rather with things they aren't in a position to change right away. We tell ourselves we're stagnating rather than see the process for what it is, and then we get stuck in what Patricia Sun refers to as old style thinking. It's a style that says we're either naughty or nice, doing it right or wrong- in a good marriage or a bad one. Unless you're solving a math problem there are many potential correct answers that will work, and an infinite number of paths to a happier place. Process thinking allows us to be kind and patient with ourselves and others while we're moving towards goodness and wholeness. I've had the greatest epiphanies and shifts come from forgiving and releasing guilt or shame--which are like the bags we carry the baggage in.

So here's my advice- forget sweeping New Year's resolutions. Don't even try to seize the whole day if you've been a chronic worrier/analyzer/fixer up to now. If you catch yourself for a moment loving yourself, something, or someone exactly as they are for one moment, you've just entered the kingdom. The rest is practice, surrender, and here's that word again: TRUST.

See you in 2010,

Love,

Gwendolyn.

Ch ch ch chchanges....

I think Bowie was right, I think we do change in order to turn and face the strain of living. I'm basically lazy. Hey, one needn't grow up in a hurry. I do a dead fridge items clean out at least once a week and I religiously recycle to the point of being obsessed with getting rid of whatever I don't use.

Yet how many times have I waited til reality bit my shapely arse before spitting out the sands of denial and procrastination? But what about you and I making change from a place of exuberance and joy- because we actively seek to grow or because it's time to do the hard thing before it gets harder?

This is what I personally am working to get better at-- proactive rather than reactive living. It makes sense to start with the small stuff, so this year when I knew that I'd need support to handle spending an entire bleak, wet winter in Auckland without going abroad ( yeah, I know it's a privileged cross to bear) I did something about it. Exercise kept most of the winter blues away and a few of the indoors extra pounds that my inner foodie and I are want to accumulate...especially whilst indulging in pre-recorded episodes of The Colbert Report. I also committed myself to the demanding if not hugely rewarding undertaking of organizing a large city event in support of the World March for Peace. Becoming an activist for ending the condoned use of nuclear and other weapons spoke to my heart- and meant that instead of sitting home waiting for my son's school day to end, I went out and asked local NGO's and others to join me in bringing violence to an end.

So here was my small epiphany for 2009: I didn't have to renounce being a change junkie to satisfy my fix for something new. I could simply redirect the focus from distracting myself to getting engaged. I know it sounds like tripping over the obvious to say that a year spent working for peace really took care of that old empty feeling in a way that no amount of working at self-improvement could have. Who knew that what I was ultimately lonely for was a sense of meaning?

Now if only I'd stop waiting til my car runs out of oil before I make myself drive to a mechanic.