Whistling Coffee Muffins! (not really)

I have had the most lovely weekend so far. I took time to be with myself, both with meditation and with leaving the house and doing things just for me. I forget sometimes how healing and energizing it is for me to go out and about by myself, time when I'm only responsible for me, time when I'm not trying to coordinate other people or mediate issues others are having or trying to follow an agenda.

Just me. BEing. It's nice. :)

And it probably goes without saying that the weekend has involved copious amounts of French press coffee, the new burning love of my life (sorry Eric). Hot DAYAM but this coffee is good! Haha, I just typoed 'god' instead of 'good' and honestly that fits too.

I was going to blog yesterday after a kick-ass journaling session at the library (part of that 'me time'), because I had a LOT of epiphanies and I wanted to share them. But then I followed my inner voice to do other things and the day was over and I never did write here. And now those moments are past and not as thrilling as they were at the time and so I'm going to write about something else instead. I don't have any idea what it'll be, but here it comes!

...

(anticipation builds)

...

(excitement pooling inside of you)

...

(WHAT WILL IT BE???)

...

Muffins are delicious.

Sorry, probably a bit of a let-down, but seriously, muffins ARE delicious, you can't argue with me on that one. You can, I suppose, but WHY? I got some adorable silicone baking cups - which are also PINK because PINK - at IKEA and they are the absolute best way in the entire world to make muffins. No need for a muffin tin, the muffins slide right out of the cups, nothing sticks, it's clean as a whistle (are whistles clean? where did that saying come from?). And the muffins are NOM.

You know you want it...

As this blog has been a rather spiritual/awareness tilted enterprise as of late, I'd really love to make a metaphor for higher awareness using muffins. Or whistles. However, I got nothin'. Instead of Insightful Shell this morning you're all getting Mellow and Happy and Filled With Muffins And Coffee Shell. I'm good either way. <3

p.s. http://www.word-detective.com/2010/03/whistle-clean-as-a/

Now

I've been busy today and have therefore put off blogging until I "had time" - which everyone knows is code for "I'm a lazy so-and-so and don't wanna" because nobody ever just has time sitting around waiting to be used up by something interesting. Kiddo #1 is finishing up therapy and I'm starving (seriously I think my stomach is trying to eat itself, even though I'm obviously not actually starving, I'm being a whiny hangry person)... anyway, I don't have the time (or the well-fed focus) to write a post but if I don't just DO IT it'll never get done. So I'm writing now.

One of my favorite sayings, which I should really follow more often.

Meditation today happened, and I realized that I was pretty judgy about it. (Blogger is convinced that "judgy" isn't a word, but we all know what I mean, so I'm leaving it.) I realized today that I have this expectation of what meditation looks like, what it "should be" if you're doing it "right." Which is nonsense of course, meditating isn't something that you can get right or wrong, it just IS. What my meditation looked like today was my head coming up with all kinds of stories and dream-like scenarios; almost like daydreaming. I just let it be, but the whole time I was thinking that for some reason it wasn't good enough and when I was done I felt disappointed that it hadn't been the kind of experience I wanted.

And that right there was the moment I had my 'a-ha' moment of knowing that my hour had been truly well spent. It taught me that It's All Good. There's no pass or fail. There's just this moment, containing whatever it contains. It taught me to stop judging everything. That's a lesson I get shown over and over and over and over... I may fully grasp it one of these days!

Acceptance of What Is is the biggest lesson of the day for me. I can't get it wrong. There's no scoreboard for my life. Only this moment and living in that space, loving it and being there. Pretty simple stuff. <3

I'm Not the Wall (no, not THAT wall)

An interesting thing is happening as I continue my hour-long meditation in the morning. I'm seeing more and more that my thoughts aren't who I am. Neither is my body, nor my beliefs, nor my accomplishments, nor my failures. My plans, my dreams, my time-sucking activities, those aren't me either. I know this because as I meditate, my head fills up with all that STUFF; it chatters away and goes on and on about all the STUFF. But then there's a part of me that is sitting there, watching the chatter go on, watching the watcher who starts judging the chatter. I can see it all.

So I cannot be IT. You know? I can't be the STUFF. If I was, I couldn't watch it unfold like a movie playing on my own personal Netflix. I mean it feels like I'm watching "All Me All the Time!" but I'm not IT.

Okay, I'm not all that stuff. I'm the space it swirls around inside of, the holder of the stuff. Like, I'm not the stuff in my purse, nor am I my purse, I'm the one holding the purse. I'm not sure if that's a good analogy or not. Here's another way to picture it that I (badly) drew this morning. That's me sitting on a cushion, meditating. Little me (ego) is being scared and I'm telling her that I love her. But even that's not me - I'm the big resonating space of Pure Love holding it all.

That's all really cool but now I'm sitting, watching, and wondering what I'm supposed to do next. Because from this vantage point pretty much all of the activities that I've been filling my time with feel boring and not enough. They're not doing anything for me, they're just literally filling my time.

I want to expand, but it feels like there's this big Wall in front of me. Beyond the Wall I know there are amazing ideas and activities and people and places, ones that will resonate with Who I Really Am. I was journaling about this earlier today and my Inner Voice - you know the one, we all have it - said, "Dissolve the Wall, allow it to dissolve." Because the Wall isn't real, it's just all those stories I have about who I thought I was. I'm not the Wall.

It felt amazing to think that at first, and then my little ego (whom I often picture as 5-year-old me) ran out in front of the Wall, like Katniss volunteering as Tribute, arms outstretched, tears streaming down her face, pleading with me not to touch the Wall! "The Wall is Everything!" she wailed. Little me was totally devastated.

5-year-old me (approx.), not feeling devastated. 

So I did what any loving Soul-Who-Is-Only-And-Always-Love would do - I crouched down to her level and wrapped my arms around her and let her bawl out all the fear she'd been carrying around for 45ish years, fear that she believed the Wall was keeping at bay.

I'm still sitting with that. The Wall is still there as of this writing, although it's fuzzy around the edges and turning ever-so-slightly translucent. I still have no idea what I'm doing next. Allowing myself space to see what shows up sounds like a path I can walk today.

 

Flowing out in Public

I admit, that title sounds really wrong. It's not what it osunds like. Well, it's not what *I* think it probably sounds like; I don't actually know what it sounds like to you. If it sounds gross to you then that's not what I meant. Unless you're into that kind of thing, in which case I don't judge so go on with your bad self, just don't share it with me. Or in the comments. You do you, but maybe subtly, is what I'm saying.

What I *do* mean is that I'm going to be writing this month as an exercise in connecting with my heart space instead of my head space. I'm allowing words and ideas (which in writing is pretty much the same thing I suppose) to flow out from my soul and pour onto the page. Screen. Whatever. And instead of doing it privately - in which case I have zero accountability and would therefore likely stop after day 3 (that's generous, day 2) - I will be doing it here on my writing blog. Which as you can see by previous posts I stopped after day (post) 4.

Accountability isn't my thing, folks.

Here's the trick on this for me - I'm NOT doing this for approval. Really I'm not. If nobody ever reads this that's fine. If you read it and hate it, that's fine. If you disagree with everything I say and hope I go back under my rock, that's fine. If you love me forever and ever and want to have my babies (which would be a neat trick), that's fine. If you don't give a rat's ass either way, that's fine.

The point is, it's all fine. It's a theme for me this month. It's all fine. The good, the bad, the... you want me to say 'ugly' don't you? But I don't like that phrase. I mean, the good and the bad, that's fine, those are opposites that contrast nicely and it's natural to think of them together. But the ugly? Where the hell does that come in? Full Disclaimer: I've never seen that movie. I don't care for that genre. So I'm probably missing the entire point of the title. But the point of this paragraph is that I'm embracing all of life and sinking into the realization and acceptance that it's all good.

Did I mention that this entire project is going to be stream-of-consciousness-straight-from-my-heart-without-any-editing-or-thought-involved? It is. I'm not even going to go back and re-read what I've written before I post it.

Holy shit my stomach just did that THING your stomach does when you make a scary decision that you know is fine but your ego is like WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING YOU HAREBRAINED BUFFOON????

My ego has some issues right now. Always. But really right now. Because I'm meditating for an hour every morning and it HATES HATES HATES that. A whole lot. It screams at me quite frequently during that hour. The best is when it gets all quiet and quiescent (do those mean the same thing?) and (oh wait, no, they don't) it makes me think that it's all feeling safe and healthy and normal. Then it throws a godawful temper tantrum and makes me want to claw my eyes out just to MAKE THE SITTING STILL STOP ALREADY!

Did I mention issues? Got 'em. In spades.

I kinda want to include the cool journal entry I wrote before this where I came to the decision that I was going to do this blog thing, not so much because the back story is interesting but because I made this really witty remark about zucchini which will never be funny again. But I don't care if you think I'm witty (I remind myself). So I'll leave it be.

Gel nail enamel is the shit. And that's the last thought I have to write down. *mwah*

(that's a *mwah* like giving you a kiss, not a *mwah* like the *mwahahaha* evil cackle. to clarify.)