The Shiny Thing

 

A post by fellow blogger, knowthesphere titled Diamonds and Pearls ,  in which he questions, among other things, how we humans assign value, got me thinking about the shiny thing.

A friend of mine to express his feelings for a girl he desired but perceived as out of his league coined the term the shiny thing. This morning while journaling, it hit me that my long term off again almost on again relationship that I finally ended was all about the shiny thing.

We tend to think the need to accumulate useless albeit valuable things is a uniquely human trait but how do we explain ravens and their penchant for shiny things or my cat Dani, who covets pens, and will collect and hoard any one left unattended? (I expect to see her posting her own blog any day now!)

What makes one thing desirable and not the other? Who assigns value? Is beauty just in the eye of the beholder? How do we decide what is shiny and what is not?

When I was a teenager, the horse I rode at camp was the shiny thing, there was no way I could ever have him, aside from the issue of money, he wasn’t for sale, being one of those valuable teaching horses that are born not made and worth their weight in gold.  And so though I pined for that big chestnut pony I knew in my heart of hearts he would never be mine.

When I was 20, the universe conspired to allow me to own Sir Michael and I will never forget that “kill me now it can’t get any better” feeling when I signed the papers making him mine. He was the one shiny thing that never tarnished in the years we had together and that experience led me to become a staunch believer in the value of going for the gold.

My latest shiny thing gleamed in several ways (I know there are a few friends reading this who are choking and sputtering as they saw not glimmer of possibility in the whole mess, sorry guys.) First he is a good bit younger than I am, tall, well built, fairly good looking, and races motorcycles. (Be still my beating biker chick heart!)  I on the other hand am getting older and less desirable, which was underscored by my recent divorce. He’s an officer in the armed services, makes a darn good income and will be retiring in 6 years at a still young age and on full officer’s pension while I am currently unemployed with an almost nonexistent retirement fund. In addition, thanks to two bouts with cancer, I have scars instead of breasts; did I mention he’s an oncology nurse? Lastly he swears he’s been attracted to me since the first time he saw me 15 years ago and can’t get me out of his mind. You can understand how that might be pretty shiny to someone recently emerged from the darkness of a serious depression!

I also see that cultural and societal forces played a big part. Advertising screams young is better. (And won’t I be younger by association?) Media pronounces me a cougar if I’m attracted to a younger man and cougars are in, though not something to aspire to publicly. (Now that makes me feel daring, and a touch wicked!) Society tells me breasts are beautiful and scars are ugly. (They won’t scare him so I feel safe.) Recent events remind me fairy tales are for dreamers and happily ever after is an illusion. (But he could be the one to prove that wrong and so I feel hopeful!) All fuel to the fire of desire.

I suppose it’s for the best, that once I was willing to really look at the situation in the light I was able to see a lot of tarnish no amount of wishing, hoping or trying would remove.

All too often reality hits once we have the shiny thing in our grasp, up close, there’s quite a bit of tarnish or thanks to the reflection we didn’t notice that there’s no substance under the gloss, or sometimes we discover that it takes all our resources to keep the brightness from dimming and decide that maintaining the luster isn’t worth the cost.  Like Dani, we can end up with a pen and nothing to write home about! (Or in her case no way to write home at all.)

The lesson I’m taking from this latest earth school offering is that we all have our shiny things, and like moths to a flame we are drawn to a glow sometimes only we can see. Understanding why we think the object of our desire is out of reach is the heart of the matter, uncovering that truth allows us to judge if what we seek is real or fool’s gold.

 

Onward and upward

 

 

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit, 2012.

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Day of Distinction – Must I be Satisfied to be Content?

I love distinctions. I’m far from an expert and don’t claim to base mine on much more than how I’ve experienced a word or how it feels. I have an admitted addiction to my Thesaurus and fear that as we settle for the shortening of words and the discarding of punctuation we will lose nuance along the way. How boring will life become then! In honor of our amazing gift of words I declare Fridays the Day of Distinction, choose your words with care; they are an endangered species.

Must I be Satisfied to be Content?

To be satisfied feels as if there must have been some kind of goal or result or expectation involved. Satisfied seems to require action and a yardstick by which to judge the result of that action. Perspective plays a part in satisfaction as well. I can be satisfied with a result or an attempt at a result, depending on which perspective I choose. Is my perfectionist looking at whatever and satisfied with what I’ve done? Is the me who’s learning I am enough, the observer and therefore the intention behind and effort I put forth enough though the result is less than perfect? Satisfaction comes from the outside in and fills our need for measurable accomplishment.

Contentment on the other hand is a state of being, more a result of awareness and presence than doing or accomplishing. I can be in the midst of an unfinished project or even thrashing around in the throes of anguish, stop, notice the way the sun hits a branch or how cute my cat looks sleeping and be flooded with contentment, then return to whatever I was doing not yet satisfied. Contentment comes from the inside and wraps us in comfort and the feeling that all is well.

For example, I’m not satisfied with my life right now, without a job and the income it brings I am uncomfortable, feel less than and am frustrated that as skilled and experienced as I am no one wants to hire me. What more should I do or be to achieve my goal?

On the other hand when I really stop and look at my life right this moment, I have everything I need, dear loving friends, health and opportunity, suddenly I am content to trust that the universe knows what it’s doing.

On the flip side, satisfaction can have egotism and superiority as its downfall; contentment can lead to complacency and possibly sloth. (Or other “deadly” sins I suppose)

For each there is a place; satisfaction spurs us to try and often accomplish, then holds us in that higher level we’ve achieved. Contentment teaches us balance and to stop and smell the roses so we remember to be as well as to do.

Satisfaction is the cat that has just eaten the canary; contentment is the cat lying in the sun while the canary sings above him.

onward and upward,

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit, 2012

Related articles

• Word Nerd Thursday: Complacency vs. Contentment (vonildawrites.wordpress.com)
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Roadblocks/Lifeblocks

When I first came up with the No Time for Detours idea, I was thinking of detours as self chosen, things along the lines of Jennifer Louden’s shadow comforts and time monsters. I didn’t really consider roadblocks on my journey through Earth School

Yesterday I hit a life block. Things had been moving along quite magically, a friend sent a check just as money was running out, another friend offered to show some of my art which led to a gallery owner stopping by and showing interest. When I thought I wouldn’t see another friend’s son for weeks, suddenly he was in town and last weekend I got to spend several joy filled hours with my two favorite guys. My paintings have been flowing from my brush; my daily writings have been rolling off my pen, even my last blog wrote itself.

So what was the deal when just as I needed to do a bunch of paintings, I woke up to a stuffy head, a fogged brain and an exhausted body?

“This isn’t acceptable, I have things to do!” I thought as I sank back on the couch clutching my heating pad. I managed to do my cat-sitting gig, but that was it. Forget about detours, obviously I’d been standing in the road too long and gotten run over by a bus!

I toyed with forcing myself to paint, but that would be breaking my word to me, which was that I was only going to paint what called to me when it felt joyful to do so, so I let my paints rest untouched.

I thought about baking cookies for a friend and decided that for once, I’d take care of me first. So I made a cup of master cleanse, stretched out on my heating pad and was asleep before either cooled.

Hours later I woke up stiff from the couch and still brain fogged. I didn’t have enough synapses firing to feel guilty at my laziness, though I did move to another room and a different couch, at least I moved, I figured that counted for something.

At 7:00 one of the members of my writers group texted to say she felt like crap, had worked doing her lawyer stuff all day but was now going to bed and not going to make the call. I felt myself reply, “yippee, me neither” and canceled the call before crawling off to my own bed. My last thought for the day was “I’m scheduling feeling good for tomorrow!”

This morning I woke up with my brain in gear, my body willing (though my back wasn’t happy with me for all the couch sprawling) and the question, so what do you do when life sends you a roadblock?

Yesterday I needed the rest, I’d been going hundreds of miles an hour creating and manifesting. I was tapped out. When I pictured my energy from the last few weeks it was all going out. I’d become so wrapped up in what I was creating that walking Smudge, riding my bike, and even doing my morning stretches had all fallen by the wayside. I’d forget to eat while painting or writing then grab something easy and not particularly healthy. I was dancing with the muse and I wanted to take advantage while the music played.  It had to stop and it did. Life threw up a roadblock, surprising myself, I choose to surrender and pull off by the side of the road to wait.

How do we know when to wait for the obstruction to disappear, when do we go the long way, when do we bully forward over or though the darn thing? There are arguments for all three. I know there have been those late to work mornings when a traffic snafu has caused me to take the first turn off, scramble through back roads and unfamiliar territory to sometimes get where I’m going faster than if I’d waited. Sometimes, being the opportune word here, sometimes waiting works, sometimes moving works better.

Can we really know the answer I wonder or is it all a crapshoot?

onward and upward,

 

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit, 2012.

The Winds of Change

As is usual with Earth School, when I decide to put my focus on a subject, suddenly lessons abound. “No Time for Detours” my soon to be offered mini retreat series has been no exception. I also tend to teach or lead the subjects I need to know at a deeper level, so I usually find myself enrolled in an immersion class without ever actually signing up.

Smudge and I headed out for a walk the other day. (He’s feeling back to his old self.) And as she’s wont to do in spring, when my beloved bipolar state, New Mexico throws her lithium out the window, (how else to explain the 4” of snow yesterday morning and practically shirt sleeve weather by noon?) the wind was blowing.

Prevailing winds here are from the west; exactly the direction Smudge and I were headed. Santa Fe is located at 7,000 feet and yes there are mountains, the tail end of the Rockies to be exact, but they are fairly far away on the western side. Santa Fe is also high desert, which means there isn’t much in the way of tall vegetation. So when Mariah blows, she blows hard with little to slow her down.

Walking into the wind I felt like a salmon, the only saving grace was the thought of how nice it would be to have the wind at our back on the way home. This got me thinking about sailing, and wind and detours, and life.

We face three kinds of wind on our journey, headwinds, tail winds and crosswinds.

Headwinds, what I was experiencing in the literal sense that day, build muscle and stamina when we face them head on, like one of those swimming pools where you swim against a stream of water, there are difficulties we face that make use stronger even though it feels like we aren’t getting anywhere. Earth School headwinds test our resolve, our discipline, our imagination. A door shuts. We can hammer on it, which at least will build upper body strength, we can search for a key or look for a way to pick the lock, possibly learning a new skill in the process or we can use our sense of wonder to see if there’s a window of opportunity to climb through. People can also serve as head winds, who hasn’t been stopped in their tracks by any of a variety of human foibles, ineptitude, anger, grief, even love can slow us down, make us stronger and frustrate the hell out of us. Flying often requires a head wind to give us lift don’t forget!

Tailwinds do just the opposite. These are the forces that speed us along the way, magnifying our efforts, giving support to our wings. People, opportunity, skill, all tail winds, the trick is to make sure the wind is blowing in the direction we want to go! Remembering how easily we can miss the little things as we allow the current to rush us along is a thing to keep in mind when we decide to spread our wings and take advantage of the flow.

Crosswinds are the ones to watch out for. Often they seduce us, a tender caress on the cheek that subtly pushes us off course or the more obvious sudden swirl of a hurricane that knocks us from our path. There’s a reason you see those signs posted, “dangerous crosswinds ahead”. With practice we can learn to harness such power by tacking and jibbing; zigzagging our way to where we want to go.

Lastly, there are the no wind days, these are useful, they give us time to re-supply, take care of repairs, and fill in the logbook. The danger of no wind days is how easily we become complacent. While calm is restful, becalmed is stagnant.

Now all these musings presume that you have taken the time to be clear on where you want to go in life and made some attempt to plot a course. If you have the luxury to wander, taking the scenic route, stopping at all the hysterical (or historical) markers, then pretty much any road will suffice and crosswinds will become another adventure, but for those of us with no time for detours, it’s important to test the wind each day as we set out to continue our journey.

onward and upward,

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit,2012.

 

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Have Faith? Try Trust

The act of faith is an idea we humans created to appease our need for logic, thought and hope. A human contrivance that can be less effective than our more base instinct of trust, faith is about someday, trust happens in the moment.

These thoughts occurred while watching my old dog, Smudge. Smudge is an Australian Shepard; he’s a rescue dog whose stubborn refusal to listen nearly caused serious injury to my best friend in a little incident involving a big horse. So Smudge left a lush 60-acre farm in New Jersey to come to New Mexico and be a pet. Advancing deafness means he can no longer roam off leash and what were once busy days guarding chickens and herding sheep are now filled with waiting for the next walk. (I humbly note that he greets me with joy whenever I make time for him with no bestowing of guilt for not doing it sooner. That perhaps is an example of faith.)

Now that I’m unemployed Smudge and I have been walking several miles several times a week, until the evening when his back legs suddenly stopped working.

My first thought was oh no, the end is near, but Smudge hadn’t shown any sign of weakness before, didn’t seem to be in pain or even upset; he just kept falling down.

The next day Smudge still wasn’t perturbed though his legs continued to be unreliable. In fact when I attempted to help him down the back yard stairs, worried about the ice at the bottom; he shrugged me off. After waiting patiently until I went back in the house, he made his unsteady but unencumbered way down the stairs. I heard him scramble and fall on the ice at the bottom, but within seconds he was walking into view. Jauntily he strolled up to the fence, lifted his leg and fell down, and then he got up, switched legs and took a leak.

As the days passed I watched him practice trust. He’d trust one leg, when it didn’t work he’d trust the other. When his legs got tired as he drank water, he lay down and continued drinking. A few days later when asked, he said yes to a walk. Smudge went just so far then he stopped, tested his legs for a moment and turned and trotted surely back home. (I had to jog to keep up). He never lost his enthusiasm for life; in fact he seemed only puzzled at first when his legs refused to do what they had always done. I never saw him whine or cry.

I found this an inspiring example of self trust in action. He would try the old way, when that didn’t work he’d try another until he was able to achieve his goal. No seeming attachment to the original plan, he changed how he was doing things and things got done.  (A choice about as present and sane as one can get, no repeating the same action hoping for a different result, though now that I think about it, that rule is suspended when it comes to begging.)

What do I do when that which I expect turns out less than I hope?  I moan, gnash, whine, grieve, anger, complain, pray, try to have faith – oh the list is endless until eventually I reach cope. From cope I move to speculation, then openness, finally I accept and allow myself to try something else.

I’m not saying faith won’t or doesn’t get me where I need to be, eventually, but what if I just trusted right off the bat? What if like Smudge when one leg doesn’t work I try the other and if that doesn’t work I lie down or lean against a wall, not to ponder and pray for guidance but to achieve my goal of getting a drink of water now and worry about what to do next when next comes?

Is trust an instinct that we’ve bypassed for more intellectual pursuits? Faith resides in the heart and we open the door to it with our thoughts. Trust often happens without thinking – our beating heart, sunrise, that gut feeling. I’m not saying that faith doesn’t have its place; it’s been my light not just at the end of the tunnel but the one that has kept me company in my darkest moments, faith requires turning toward, I’m not sure trust requires anything but accepting.

So now it’s been a week, Smudge is doing great, once in a blue moon he still falls down. He’s also old and as one gentleman of a certain age said, “Hell, I fall down every now and then too.”

In the spirit of “and” verses “or” I would like to keep the faith and trust a little more. Trust; so that when I take a step only to fall on my face, I try another way without agonizing or blaming, I just trust I’ll figure it out.

onward and upward

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit,2012.

 

Ain’t Nothin’ but The Real Thing Baby

I’m designing a retreat series titled “No Time for Detours”, practical, sustainable ways to stop allowing life’s scenic overlooks, business loops and rest stops from becoming detours on the way to a life that satisfies and nurtures.

Two books that have been extremely helpful are Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North Star and Barbara Sher’s I Could Do Anything I Want, if I Only Knew What it Was.

As with most lessons in Earth School, these came at just the right time. I started Barbara’s book first, but didn’t make it past the 2^nd chapter. I picked up Martha’s book and was engrossed, worked the exercises, formed a beautiful picture of the life I wanted and discovered valuable insights and actions; then I thought a lot about what I might do first.

Last week I picked up Barbara’s book again. Suddenly I was hearing exactly what I needed to hear. What leapt out at me, (ok so it’s leap year and I couldn’t resist) was the idea of escape dreams verses real dreams.

Escape dreams are the extravagant, otherworldly visions that we turn to when life feels like a trap; they’re entertaining and diverting. Real dreams contain adventures that light up our hearts; they feel possible and right.

In this world of bigger, better, faster, we’re told to dream big, that we can have it all; unfortunately too often that leads to mistaking escape dreams for real dreams. We rarely take the first step toward escape dreams, because deep down we know they won’t work. We know that giving up everything and moving to a desert island won’t sustain us, we’d miss the kids, or the dog or the inspiration of the people around us, we’d get sun burnt, we don’t like sand, what ever the realities of that big dream are, they won’t give us joy in the long run.

Our escape dreams do contain valuable information though, what do we believe such a life would provide that we don’t have now?

Ok, so my big dream involved an effortless life of creating – writing, painting, speaking, retreat leading. These pursuits would unfold effortlessly, audiences clamoring for my time and wisdom, publishers lining up, no marketing, no networking, no horror of horrors, cocktail parties where I would have to make chitty chat. No I would awake with brilliant thoughts, my beloved wishing me well as he went off to do his own thing, my creative partner appearing eager to share, my assistant taking care of all the icky problems and challenges that would distract me from my brilliance. Sounds lovely huh?

The truth is; I don’t do well without structure and I love challenges and problem solving. Right now I’m unemployed; I have all the time in the world to create. So how have I spent this time? Reading murder mysteries. Total brain candy, letting someone else solve all the problems while I wallow in effortless inactivity. Without somewhere I have to go, I indulge my introvert side, eventually creating loneliness and the feeling that I don’t have the energy to “get out there”. I need people and connection to discover fodder for my writing, some of those cocktail conversations were fascinating and inspiring even while the thought of going terrified me. Effortless is a nice fantasy, but it doesn’t motivate me.

I was holding onto a picture of either or, either I work a job or I have this perfect life of effortless creating. Looking deeper, the times I have been the happiest were those when I worked at a job that provided me enough income to pay the bills, got me out to engage with people and used my problem solving and leadership skills so that I saw tangible results; then I made time to write, draw, take classes and yes, even network. One fed the other and not having to rely on my creativity to pay the bills allowed me to actually enjoy when I made some money from my creative side.  The job satisfied my need for order and structure and my need to be needed and acknowledged, having to make time for my passions spoke to me in my favorite love language, quality time.

Is this your idea of a really good time? Perhaps not, but it’s mine and that’s what I finally gave myself permission to own.

So last week, I started a blog. This week I took my friend up on his offer to show my art and started painting. I’ve also reframed my thoughts around the type of job I want instead of what I thought I needed. Interesting that the steps are now unfurling effortlessly and I’m enjoying the effort of completing them. Practicing a life of “and” not “or”.

What are your dreams? Why aren’t you following them? If you find yourself putting off the first steps to making them come true, then maybe you’re mistaking an escape dream for the real thing.

onward and upward,

 

© C A Crossman and Dancing Through Life with Spirit,2012.