Sunday, May 28 - 04:52 PM
Yesterday after my first truck escapade, I had another truck guy event. I was trying to get in the right lane over this long bridge and this guy just was not going to let me in. It was obvious, speeding up wasn’t going to do it after I tried that so I backed off and not too soon because right in front of me while I was watching the truck beside me came the rear end of this car right up in front of me. There were no squeaky brakes, but another 5 seconds and I would have been in the deep do-do.
So I got through that and asked myself the question, "Sandy, what is going on with you today? You must be out of alignment somewhere in your thinking, so as of right now, slow down, pay attention and be extra cautious because something is going on."
Not today, but many times because things happening were off and I made the correction in flight, so to speak, I kept out of trouble like a cop in the next nook in the road-I was listening-not speeding, an accident that was right up ahead. Etc.-I stayed out of it. So I do pay attention when things aren’t quite working right.
After all on this morning, I was running a perfect track record. I couldn’t get my mind quiet enough to meditate right. I could have been in a fight with one truck driver and another wasn’t being cooperative at all. I asked for the learning experience and all kinds of good stuff came up-some mentioned before and more I’ll do later.
The fact is, everything I was doing wasn’t working right but I was laughing all the way through it and it all came out great. I know laughter and the way I think about things will make a difference. Just keep being positive and realistic at the same time. Boy, that could be a challenge right there!
I’ll keep listening. Life keeps telling me the "good stuff". It’s when I am too busy to listen that I miss the messages. I have done a good job on that one throughout my life-missing the messages. Now I am listening a whole lot better. Good for me!
Monday, May 29 - 04:47 AM
As I reflect on the recent events, I went back to the truck driver who I was trying to signal him that his signal was on. I started thinking about that and other options. Then I started thinking about core reasons why humanity does what it does. For me, I asked myself what was my motivation behind wanting to signal him? At first I thought it was about letting him know that his signal was on and he could turn it off now and I was trying to get him to see why I turned in front of him.
I stopped on that one and asked why was that important to me? Then I saw a pattern in me. I have up until now wanted to make sure people knew the truth about something I said or had done especially if what they were thinking was a lie. It is called justifying your actions. Why? The question was why?
Well, when I was a kid being raised in the mid-west in a small town, opinions were flying as to what you “should” be doing and saying so I learned very young to comply to that culture. That culture: work hard or you aren’t worth much, tell the truth or it will catch up with you later, be nice---boy that was the zinger of all zingers---I have learned that one the hard way (remember to do the details on that one later), always do the right thing and on and on.
To think I had to comply to all that stuff growing up and to whose criteria? It was certainly not my own but everything outside myself. Bummer! Well, that really stinks. I don’t think that was in the original plan of the universe that we are supposed to be true to anything outside ourselves without first being true to ourselves. I could write a book about that one. Maybe I just will.
As a result of making sure everyone was happy in my environment, I went around making sure I was doing the right thing, and if I didn’t, I would rationalize it and justify it.
I was in a chiropractor’s office a few weeks ago and I said to him I am not usually this far off in my thinking. I was really under the weather. He said, “Sandy, you never have to justify anything to anybody. You are always doing the best you can.” Just know that.
Then I remember what LS Barksdale always taught and Bill McGrane as well. They said you are always doing the best you can at your level of awareness at the time. Some people think that is a cop out, but I know they have to face the consequences. You set up your own consequences by your decisions whether you know it or not.
Each person walks down their life’s path and makes decisions along the way. They all have influencers influencing and some of those influencers were really negative for people and they didn’t grow up so positive. If we, for a minute, make judgment of them, we are doing the job of the entity that built this universe. That is just not our business. That is between them.
What IS our business is our reaction to what they are doing.
We have choices around that.
Also, if I walked the same path they did, I might not have done as well, so it is not for us to judge.
I have a right to live my life the way I want to, but not the right or the responsibility to live it to other people’s opinions. It took me a long time to learn that. I maybe the trucker’s signal to me (Ha!) was the friendly reminder that I can stop doing those justifications now. Makes sense to me. I think I will chew on that one for a while.
It is one thing for me to get these insights intellectually, but then again, it is quite another sometimes to integrate them. It is all in process. Yippee! It is moving!
Thursday, Jun 1 - 12:55 AM
I was reading some old journals at random in no particular chronological order that were written by me back in the 70’s and 80’s and I found them to be fascinating because I would make bold statements like “I am so ecstatic today because I am FINALLY free. It took me a long time to get over that one, but I finally did. It feels so good to have let that go, I am so happy about that.” This was in 1984.
Then I found one in 1978. "This has been a beautiful beautiful day. The Past is truly gone forever!! I am so glad I could make that idea a reality. I am grateful for that!!"
Then I would be reading along and I would say something like, “I just put the past in the past, didn’t think about what I hadn’t done and should have done. I just dug in and did it.”
"I cleared the clutter everywhere I could. One’s house must be in order. I am grateful that my prosperity consciousness has a clearer path now. It is a beautiful blessing. Clearing the clutter in all dimensions is a key thing and needs to be done now." Well, today is in 2004 and this all sounds very good but it is interesting that just last week I was reminded of the incident in 1984 and I cried my eyes out. Let it go? Evidently not. Same thing was true from 1978. I have thought about it all many times and it made me sad.
Thursday, Jun 1 - 05:49 PM
Clutter, that’s a good one. In 1992, I cleared out boxes and boxes and more boxes when I sold my house. Fourteen years later, it had clutter up the ying yang. It filled the street for garbage day 110 ft. across and 3 feet deep with clutter that I had to sort and pitch.
Today I have 250 boxes of stuff from that house in storage - not clutter - but stuff being unused; I have 60 boxes to be sorted in IL and another 20 here with me. Clutter - I know what clutter is and I am still doing it.
I stepped back and asked myself why???? I concluded that we as humans are made up of old habit patterns. We keep living out the same patterns for some reason even when they no longer serve us. It is amazing to me how we are creatures of habit.
Saturday, Jun 3 - 07:32 AM
Well, I really got to thinking about my patterns that no longer serve me and decided it was time to do something about it. So almost every day, I set an alarm for 10 minutes and clear the clutter. If I want to keep going, I set the snooze alarm and go another 10 minutes. One day I had so much fun clearing the clutter, that I reset the alarm 4 times. I was actually having fun. It felt good to do it.
Right there is the point of changing a habit. You do something differently until it feels better to do it than it does not to do it. It takes a long time sometimes to make that change, but doing it over and over again can make it better.
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