I’m sure I’m not the only person who feels as I do, but given my “I’d live in a cave if I could” personality, I don’t stumble across many people period, let alone people who are much like me. So maybe this is more common than I think, but I suspect most people are not quite so susceptible to ant hill stumbling as I am.
I have decided that when I stumble over the littlest of ant or mole hills that there must be something I am supposed to see from ground level.
I can’t imagine any other reason I would have been given the ability to be instantly befuddled, stopped in my tracks and stymied from moving on by the smallest of impediments unless there was some “reason” for it. I’m not a person who believes in predestination or cosmic micro-management. I have however learned that I am far more aware or and in charge of what I do than I once thought. I firmly believe that we shape our lives beyond the conscious, top-level layers of our actions.
But I also know that over-thinking can result in less than optimal results.
I know that visualization works, but I do not know how it works. Practice? Yes, probably. Self-guidance? Definitely. Shaping possibilities? Maybe even more so than simply giving ourselves permission to see obscure, less than likely opportunities and paths can explain.
So rather than beating up myself for “tripping over ant-hills” I have come to realize that these situations actually give me a chance to see a part of the past that shaped me but which I have no conscious memory. Deconstructing the stumble allows me to discern the shapes of the missing pieces.
Having to put my beloved dog down seems to have kicked my butt to get out of a long-standing stumble. Big decisions, like life and death decisions make smaller decisions, like what to toss and what to keep, where to set up a craft center, and similar level decisions much, much easier.
I don’t want to make an awareness of death a motivating factor in my life. I grieve and then let it go away so I can enjoy life again as fully as possible. But I am going to try to stumble over fewer ant hills after this period of grieving for my Daisy Doodle the bestest doggie in the whole world, although, as I said, sometimes a stumble allows for a completely different perspective to be gained from the new vantage point.
Personal Challenges, Problems, and Sucky Situations
I am frustrated enough to spit nails, as my Mom used to say, although what she would actually say was “mad enough to spit nails.” But only dogs become mad as my husband, in his role as the semantic cop, is wont to say. The vile corruption of our elections by evil blubbery little men like Karl Rove does not help my overall dissatisfaction with much of my life. But the slow pace of getting my empty nester site up is driving me crazy. It is nothing that an infusion of funds or even a few positive, supportive statements wouldn't help mitigate. But neither are likely to appear in my life any time soon. So I have to buck up and find a way to succeed. I almost wrote “keep on trying,” but I have to stop trying and start accomplishing.
Even though I have found my tribe, online, in women my age who write, I read about the lives of women who are my age, who write blogs, who are amazing and I can't help it, I compare my life to what they choose to share about themselves. This is always a bit difficult for me. I have issues. Most of them are as resolved as they can be for the moment. I have found that there is always another level of understanding to develop. I also know that people paint a far more rosy picture of their personal lives in public depictions than is probably the case. I am in the process of turning the envy I feel into motivation to change things. But my attitude is teetering on the edge of slipping into badness.
Old issues are not the problem right now. A new configuration is the problem. I am trying so hard to be what I want to be. Visualization has been extremely useful for me in my life. Practice before the real thing is now a positive experience for me, mostly. Firsts have been extremely difficult for me in the past, but I have finally developed confidence. What I'm dealing with now is finding the resolve and creating a structure that will support me while I build a business on my own. All the elements within the process are familiar so I am not having any problem visualizing what I do next . I am letting personal problems get in the way of business. If I had money to throw at the problem, it wouldn't be a problem, so I must simply work harder and do more myself since I cannot hire anything else done.
It is difficult to build a business with no money and no one to run ideas past or even someone around for moral support. My hubby is a great person and a brilliant scientist, but he has his own set of personal challenges that make it difficult for him to do the moral support thing, just as I do. I am not at liberty to discuss his challenges in life, but there are things that neither one of us learned in the socialization process that hold us back in personal relaionships.
When I start feeling like this I always end up wondering if I really do have to work three times as hard as everyone else because of lacking resources, healthy experiences to draw upon, and friends to bounce ideas off, or whether I am just a whiner looking for excuses.