Day 65(C): A Cosmic Joke
Yesterday I wrote about how liberating acceptance is and how learning to accept poor choices I’ve made in the past allows me to move ahead and make better choices in the future. I also wrote about how I am now able to enjoy the present moment more fully by keeping myself from dwelling on the past:
“whatever my choices, when I allow myself to regret and become stressed about the consequences, I drag the past into the present and that poisons my experience of the here and now.”
Today, I felt like a Vaudeville hook yanked me hard into the past.
Who says the Universe doesn’t have a sense of humor!
The day after writing all that about “acceptance,” I fell into a very, very old trap. I lost myself in dwelling on how far I have fallen short of who I want to be, leaving me awash in a sea of regret and self-pity. Just like every time I got lost in these feelings in the past, I retreated into myself and became distant from the present and more importantly, from my spirit of joy and play. My brain went into overdrive, alternately thinking of ways to “atone” for my poor choices and ways to punish myself for my past mistakes. I felt my whole being, my joy, my self-esteem, and my power, spiraling down into a bottomless pit. My confidence, hope and faith for the future which came from witnessing the changes I’ve made in my life over the past year, all disappeared like a soap bubble landing on the ground.
I wanted to give it all up. I felt like a fraud having written what I wrote yesterday and then today recognizing that I was unable to accept who I am. I had no faith that I actually had the strength to carry through with the vision of Soul Play Family: ”to create work that feeds both our souls and our family.” I didn’t know how to go on.
I have always been able to pull myself out of these pits, but in the past, it has required much drama to swim that sea of regret and self-pity. I would have to become an emotional mess before I could find my bearings again and more ahead with my life, grasping onto the flotsam and jetsam of my self-confidence to fashion a makeshift raft.
Today was different.
Today, as the turmoil of petulance continued within me, another voice spoke from my heart, saying, very simply, “No.” It said, “No, you are not those things you are telling yourself right now, and no, you may not continue.” It told me that I am better than this and that I am stronger than this. It didn’t lecture me on how and why I was sabotaging myself and why I needed to stop. It simply told me that I was not being honest. I was lying. It didn’t care why; it only wanted me to face the truth. I am strong, and whatever I may think about my past, I am not that person anymore. I am my own Robin Hood and a warrior for my soul. This is the person I have chosen to be for myself, for my wife, as an example to my children, and for the Universe.
Even if the Universe does have a mean sense of humor sometimes.
