Well it’s day 28. Tadaaa! the magic number. The day the brain is changed. We’ll se what happens today.
It’s also the first day of the “Calling In The One” webinar class. If you haven’t heard of the book, I will attest that it is one of, if not the most transformational books I have ever read. It’s not what it seems like and the title is a bit misleading. The book is actually about dedicating yourself to changing and growing past your present paradigm, so that you may become “the one” that “the one” you are waiting for is waiting for.
I’m not gonna pay for the web class, but I already have the book, and so I’m gonna read it again along with the other people. I read it two years ago, and almost, almost, called in “the one”, the one whose breakup inspired this deep, dark, crazy depression that i am now getting out of. Lol. My life was better than ever after reading it, though.
An interesting thing happened to me last night. I was perusing through my friends’ Facebook pics and i came across this pic of a man. He was stunning. Recently, my sis has been trying to recommend men for me and inevitably she picks men who I’m not attracted to. So I showed her a pic of this man who I just thought looked perfect for me in every way. After looking at a few of his pics, she looked at me and said, “He looks just like your ex.”
I looked again. He did. I hadn’t thought about this particular man in so long that I didn’t realize that my dreamboat man had his eyes, his expression, even a similar mouth! More importantly, I didn’t realize that I was still subconsciously looking for him in every man I met. I’m willing to let that go now…
People who have never been in Love don’t understand these kind of things; what it’s like to love everything about someone. How it feels to be willing to travel to ends of the Earth with a person, to actually enjoy looking into another’s eyes. They don’t understand why people do such crazy things in the name of Love and how easy it is to become lost, mixed-up, lifted, inspired, and entwined with another once you have come to the magic land we call love…
But I remember. Love is easy. There is no forcing, no guessing, no maybe should I’s about Love when you are in tune with yourself. It comes naturally. It exists. I remember a time when I didn’t have to ask questions about Love, about Life, about which direction to take. Things came naturally. It was the same me that smiled from deep in my eyes. It was the same me that lived with integrity. Now I can mix some of that life experience/wise stuff in and make better choices. I’m ready, though. I’m ready to come back home to myself…
Day 28
Get Back To Yourself
Well, according to the days on my post, my life should be almost transformed by now, if the theory is true that it takes 28 days to accept a change in the brain.
So if it takes 28 days, does that mean 28 days for a seed to plant in your brain, or 28 to see the manifestation of a changed life?
Since starting this experiment, a few things have changed. I’ve moved to a new apartment. I’ve only been here a few days, so I’m not quite sure how I feel about this yet. I’ve dumped almost all of my men friends. It kind of feels bad but in the end i know it was the right thing to do. I’ve sent out my children’s book to one publisher and also written another project on spec that I’m waiting to hear back about.
And now i’m wondering what’s next. Where is the fairy dust that I’m gonna sprinkle that’s going to bring me an actual man? How am i going to make new friends and where do i find them at? When is somebody going to hire me at a job where i can earn enough to do as i please when i please? When do I get to be an actual writer and community builder and help folks? When does life change?
These are the questions that go through my head. I have been trying to make changes for 27 days. Some people try for 27 weeks, months, and even years. How long does it take to manifest the life of your dreams and when is it quitting time?
I have the utmost respect for the artists, doctors, lawyers, healed folks, mothers, singers, dancers, engineers, folks who keep at a thing even when they don’t know how they are going to get to the other side. They have found a way to believe in a thing they do not see and they keep believing until that thing becomes real.
I am following their lead.
Day 27
Keep The Faith
I woke up good today, with a smile on my heart. It has been so, so long since I’ve felt this way.
My fingers are tingling with life again.
Last night I met with my wanna-be son and he was so excited about us working together! I am glad i didn’t quit on him.
I slept in my new bed last night, the first new bed I have ever bought. The sun is shining through the leaves outside of my window and there is a breeze in the house.
I dumped another almost-man last night (or rather he dumped me) and I don’t even feel bad about it. He wasn’t nice to me.
So i guess I’ll grow to be old and without a man or I’ll actually have a good relationship that I’m satisfied with it. It’s Ok with me.
I am learning that there is so much life beyond our present perceptions. I am learning to step into the things I am afraid of. I am learning not to give up. I am learning to believe in good things, even if I have to cry along the way.
Someone told me this the other day: Birth does not smell like roses. It is messy and bloody. There is pushing and struggle involved, and death can be painful as well and it can bring much sorrow to the ones experiencing the loss. But after you have pushed through the mess and the pain, after you have grieved the loss, a new life is born. It always is.
Ameen.
Day 26
A New Day Has Come
I’ve got the internet again.
And i got a bed yesterday which will be delivered in a couple hours.
I’ve been in the apartment most of this morning and spent a long time praying and meditating. I didn’t grow up meditating, but my parents taught us about prayer at a young age. When i was younger, i never really understood why people prayed, but now i can’t understand how people make it through the day without taking a moment to reflect.
I guess prayer, meditation, and reflection are not neccessarily the same thing, but to me they are correlated. With all this moving around, it had been about two weeks since i sat down for some real prayer, and i don’t think i want to go that long without getting connected again.
The speaker at my spiritual center suggested that we take a moment every day to clear our minds, ask to know the truth and to be available to accept and live the truth. It took a while for me this morning because there is so much going on in my surface mind, but i was finally able to get to a place where my mind just shut up and for a moment i realized that in any given moment, anything is possible.
I imagined that i was giving myself a lobotomy, and i looked at all of the things that were going through my head, thoughts of anger, betrayal, unforgiveness, despair. I also saw the other things floating around: hope, love, faith, happiness was even over there. But the negative thoughts were rooted really deep, in between the mushy brain things, and the positive thoughts were just floating around. They didn’t have much space to take root.
So i imagined that i was a mother, planting a new garden, and i looked at all the mushy bad things. One by one i took them out. I took out this big “victim” thing that had been rooted like right in the center of my brain. It was surrounded with all of my resentments towards so many men, and it was fluid and brown, like an umbilical chord. I held and i asked everyone, all of them, to forgive me. I know i have hurt a lot people, whether wilingly or unwillingly. I forgave them as well. It wasn’t that hard because i wanted to forgive them. When i took out the pain, there was an empty space. The good stuff was still floating around, not planted in my brain yet.
I went ahead and took out other things, too. My deep-rooted sadness. It was sleeping in a little space, but it didn’t put up much of a fight when i asked it to leave. It actually seemed a little cramped…
I am better today. The experiment is working. I am coming out of the muck for good. Thank you God.
Day 25
Take Time To Clear Your Mind
I’m glad i stuck to my decision to move into the new apartment.
I spent the first night there last night and it’s cool. It’s nice to have a separate room from my sis and yet still have her around…
I don’t have and haven’t had internet for a couple of weeks, and I don’t really live near a free internet spot, so it’s kind of challenging to write these consistently. I will get it turned on soon in the house and in the meantime do my best to write as often as i can.
I’m feeling a little down tonight. I broke up with yet another man who i was never with. This one is a bit more complicated, though, because this guy was actually a good friend of mine, probably the closest friend that i have at the moment.
We dated for a while and then we broke up because i didn’t like the way he was treating me and then we became friends and then we dated for a while and then we broke up because i didn’t like the way he was treating me and then we dated for a while… and this pattern has continued for the past three years.
We were right at the place where we would have been transitioning from being friends to dating again and he did a little thing that i didn’t like which reminded me of the big things he has done which i didn’t like, and it dawned on me that he has been doing this here thing for years and will probably never change…
So i broke up with him. I didn’t have to. We could have continued being friends and gone on with the drama after drama that inevitably comes when you are friends with someone who wants to be more than friends. I could have held on to him, just so we wouldn’t have to be alone, and just so he wouldn’t hate me, and just so we could at least both have a hand to hold sometimes, but, quite frankly, I’m tired now. I don’t remember what it feels like to really want to be with a man and have him really want to be with me back. I don’t know about being in love any more and trusting my heart with someone. I’d like to know those things again.
And, i can talk myself out of it, but i know i have to let him go. Not just him. Most of my friendships consist of men who I’ve either been involved with or men who want to be more than friends. If i let go of all of them, i will be left with… let me see… none, two, three… nobody to call a friend in this city besides my little sis. If i hold on, i will have people, at least someone, to spend time with, a man hand to hold, etc., but i will be leading folks on, breaking hearts, and inevitably not doing the right thing. it doesn’t matter why it’s not the right thing. its just not, and i know it.
So I’m letting go, and I know that this might be the hardest part for me so far. I’m letting go and i know that some folks are gonna be hurt and they are gonna talk about me. I’m letting go and i know they won’t know how much i Loved and appreciated them. They will call me names… I’m letting go and i don’t know if i will ever have the good thang that i dreamed of. But i know i have to do this. I have to do this…
Day 23
Let It Go
My brother-in-law put the cat in a cage last night. I slept in the closet with my sister.
I woke up this morning to find a text from my brother suggesting that I reconsider moving into the apartment that I’m supposed to get the keys for in the next two hours. He thinks the neighborhood is too dangerous… Technically the neighborhood is not dangerous and we will be living three blocks away from a dangerous neighborhood, but…
I really just wanted to clean the floors and get my bed today, set up my desk and organize my papers… I was so looking forward to a place to call home, and the apartment is nice and clean and spacious and very gated. The only issue might be walking through the neighborhood three blocks down at night, but we can work that out.
I’ve lived in areas considered dangerous before and I’ve run this thing over and over in my head and considered the possible consequences. There will always be other options, and I’m sure that with some more time (I’m not sure how much) we might be able to find a place within two miles of sis’s school that is in a safer neighborhood and has similar value…
Call me stubborn, but I already made up my mind. We’ll be just fine.
I’m going to get the keys.
Day 22
Make a Decision and Stick to it
I went to work at my education job and was surrounded by young folks today, and now I’m sitting at a college writing this blog.
I Love young people: they are so alive. I’m not a young person or an old person, I’m at that age where people start giving up or living up. You know, the 25-35 year-olds… Today i feel full of life and promise, like the kids walking around this campus with their lives ahead of them or the little girl who smiled at me at the school today and told me to “have a nice day”.
My fire is lighted. I lit it for real right around the time i started writing this blog, and i am glad that it is still burning.
From now on, I’m going to write these in the morning. I have written them in the evenings, midday, midnight, mornings, etc., but i think there is something to be said about reflecting and setting an intention before you walk out of the house in the morning. It helps to guide the path of your day.
The cobwebs are clearing up. I can feel it. I made it through the storm. I know it. I feel strong. Heck, I am strong. I am strong. I admit it.
I have always been afraid, prior to now, to announce the good things about myself. Like i thought it would make me seem arrogant or proud or i thought that maybe people wouldn’t like me and they’d hate on me if i was too good at one thing or another or i thought that maybe i wouldn’t have any friends or a man if people thought I was too good. When i look at it now, it doesn’t make any sense. One part of you says you want to be (happy, successful, spiritually aligned, at peace, etc.) and the other part says it’s not ok to be that way. Internal conflict=stagnation=confusion=backwards movement=death=internal conflict=stagnation=confusion. You get the drift. It never occurred to me that there are people who rejoice in the success of others. I’m letting that thought cook…
I am moving tomorrow. Forward. To a new apartment. I’m going to bathe it in rose oil and get a comfy bed and that makes me so excited. I’m going to finish my script and it’s going to become a movie that inspires and helps a lot of people. I am going to help a lot of people in my life and I am becoming a spiritually aligned, peaceful, powerful. loving, kind, happy, wise, successful woman… These things are hard for me to say, by the way, but I have to say them to get over the fear of stepping into the fullness of who i am.
Let the haters come as they may. You got to open your mouth, you got to stand up, you got to fight and say “YES, MY LIFE IS A GOOD LIFE. AND WHAT?” We are all starving to know, to believe, that goodness is real, that it is OK to live this way.
There is a place in Spirit where you are protected, supported, and Loved. I’m going there…
Day 21
Testify
Today was a bit of a blur…
Last night my brother-in-law’s cat thought it was a good idea to sleep on top of me all night and pounce on my blanket any time I moved, so sleeping was a challenge.
I talked to an old friend who i grew up with today, a thug-turned-religious man who wanted to marry me at one point, and he proceeded to tell me about everything that’s wrong with me and “free-thinking women”. Actually, he didn’t tell me what was wrong with them, he just told me that i shouldn’t be that way.
I know he wasn’t really mad at free-thinking women and he probably had deeper issues, but he made me realize how far away i’ve gone from where i come from.
Now I’m used to not fitting in. I’ve been a black sheep by default since childhood and that hasn’t really bothered me for some years now. but today i felt particularly alone, and i felt afraid. I realized that i don’t personally know many people who are living the lives of their dreams. I mean, in theory, yes. But mostly i see so many people with empty eyes, so many people who have just given up.
And i’m asking myself who do i think i am? Why can’t i just swallow the smog and be ok with it? Why don’t i just give up? Settle. Do something easy with myself. Have someone’s baby and go teach at a school or something. It’s not that hard to just marry somebody. People do it every day. Why do i care about “fulfilling my destiny” and why am i so sensitive to the tone of people’s voices and the aura that surrounds them?
And I’m not one of “those” people yet. You know, the ones we hear about, the Oprah’s and Speilberg’s and Ghandi’s, but i’m not in the other group either and i don’t want to be numb and distracted anymore and i still believe. i can’t help it. i still believe a good life, an ideal life is possible.
So what to do? Surely i can’t be on this mission alone… I’m going to reach out. I thank God that i have learned not to always lean upon my own understanding. I’m going to reach out. I’m going to find some folks on a similar path so we can help each other build… Wish me luck.
Day 19
Reach Out
