My Confession - Patience
Topic: Living on Purpose
Saturday 24Mar07 11:04am

I caught the movie, Green Fingers, this morning. In it the old guy Fergus gets Clive Owen's character to plant violet seeds in an area where no one could believe that they could ever grow. Come spring the violets have grown and Fergus makes a comment about finding beauty in the most unlikely places. He suggests that Clive Owen's character (Luke?) find a way to learn how to embrace the adversity in his life even though they are prisoners.

Something made me think about the qualities we want to develop in ourselves. My latest quality of the last year or so has become patience. Not the losing your temper kind of patience but the long term patience of seeing things through. Of course when ever you decide on a certain quality you come face to face with it in a major way.

I am known for being uncommitted when it comes to relationships with men. Part of it is because I've been disappointed so often and for so long that I'd basically given up. If the truth be known. Why wish for something if it feels like it's not destined to ever happen in your life? It seems ridiculous to me. So I stopped wishing and worse yet, believing.

I met a man in December 2005. We were introduced in passing by a mutual friend. There was something about him the moment I saw him that I liked. I can recall thinking, "He's cute in a different way. I'd go out with him. He probably wouldn't look twice at me."

In February of 2006 our paths crossed again and over the last year we've become more friendly and have learned bits and pieces about each other. My original appraisal of him has turned into a full fledged crush. Of course nothing can be that simple in my life. With things not happening fast enough in my opinion I looked for other distractions i.e. other men to be interested in. I stayed away from him. I ignored him. I closed my thinking to him.

The male distractions never bore fruit in any substantial way. I was never that interested, my heart wasn't in it. I could care less if it worked out one way or the other. I finally read the signs and dropped all the distractions.

Over the last five months or longer I've resurfaced admitting to myself finally that I can't really get this person out of my head. I want to know more about him. I want to know if he's a worthwhile human being. I want to know what kind of man he is. And I've witnessed some pretty consistent remarkable things. Nothing has developed still and yet so much has developed.
I always have all these questions I want to ask him and all thoughts escape my mind whenever I come face to face. He does and says things that are quite sweet and leaves me wondering when action will follow or if any action will action follow.

He has become my patience meter. There are certain people that come into your life and you just know what purpose your connection to each other is met. His purpose in my life is to teach me that long term patience (maybe even the patience of Job!) I've gone from running far away from him to that high school confusion of, "Does he like me?" Finally I've reached an inner calm (still with a sense of urgency) that acknowledges that whatever happens will happen. We could become great friends, something deeper, or we'll disappear out of each other's lives. Who really knows about anyone you meet, what your relationship could become?

Maybe it's not how long a relationship lasts or what it develops into but who I become because of it.

EY

Breathing exercise - Cleaning Angels
Topic: Living on Purpose
Tuesday 5:37pm 6Feb07

I guess I should preface this one with an explanation. I truly believe that life is about energy and imagination. If my energy is focused on getting sick, I will be sick. If my energy is focused on being depressed I will be depressed. If I live with a child's imagination where everything is magical and Angels and fairies exist, well it just makes my world a better place so why not do it?

I love the thought of having guardian Angels that do all these jobs for us on the sidelines while we go on about our daily life. Napoleon Hill used Angels and had an Angel that he would send out in advance when he was driving somewhere to find him a parking spot when he got to his final location - his parking Angel. I've always loved that idea.

With the media that tells us on a daily basis that we are going to get killed if we go to Mexico because 4 or so Canadians died in Mexico, they're out to get all Canadians. If we don't go to Mexico we'll probably get Cancer next week, get bitten by a mosquito this summer and get the bird flu, eat tainted beef and have some effects from Mad Cow disease, drink water or better yet, put an ice cube in a cocktail and get Hepatitis... sigh!

I made up this breathing technique to give me some sort of peace of mind from the hysteria and fear that we are bound to feel when you listen to the news and other people and and...

I do my simple breathing of inhaling through my nose and exhaling through my mouth.
Relax my body starting at my feet and working up to my head
Then I call all the cleaning Angels and ask them to clean my insides.
I imagine all these tiny flying angels inside my head vacuuming, and sweeping and dusting and scrubbing and sanitizing and healing
I imagine them starting in my head and working down in my nasal passages, my lungs , cleaning my heart and unclogging anything thing that needs to be unclogged, warding off anything that I might catch, and taking care of anything I might not think of.
It seems a little crazy but it's all I have to keep me from getting paranoid about every little thing that I could catch.
Hmm, I haven't used them in awhile, need to get them to deal with my arthritic toes...

When they are done, I always thank them for cleaning me up.

It seems strange but it doesn't hurt.

EY

Breathing exercise - Chakra's
Topic: Living on Purpose
Tuesday 5:24pm 6Feb07

As promised here is what I do to work with the Chakras which at their simplest are energy centers.
This is the interpretation of the Chakras that I use for myself. I find that I have to use what is right for me and follow my own intuition. The main thing about working with your chakras is the intention you start with. If you intend to focus on a specific Chakra then it doesn't matter where you think it is.

The Root Chakra
base of the spine (I imagine it at my butt right at the bone)
color Red
feelings about basic survival, security, safety, instinct.

The Sacral/ Sacrum Chakra (often called the Sexual Chakra)
Abdomen area ( I imagine it in my genital area)
color Orange
relates to sexual energy, creativity, emotion

The Solar Plexus Chakra
Between Chest and navel (I imagine it in my stomach)
color Yellow
relates to personal power, power, control, freedom to be oneself

Heart Chakra
Heart/Lung area (I imagine it in my heart)
color Green (although some people use pink)
relates devotion, love, compassion, healing

Throat Chakra
Throat area (I imagine it at the adam's apple area - not that I have one ha ha!)
color Blue
relates to speech, self-expression, communication

Third Eye Chakra
between the eyebrows
color Indigo
relates to intuition, psychic abilities

Crown Chakra
Just above the head (I imagine it starting at the top of my head and ending just before the back of my head)
color Purple (although some sources say violet) to me Purple is rich and violet is a pastel.
relates to our connection to the divine.

Our Heart Chakra connects the lower, earthly chakras to the higher, spiritual chakras.
When I do my breathing exercise I can actually see all the colors. I couldn't at first and then I would just name the colors in my head or see the letters for the colors. For the longest time, I could see all the colors except indigo. After my Mom died, all of a sudden I could see indigo clearly.

My breathing technique is really simple (I'm all about simple):
I breath in through my nose and exhale through my mouth.
there are variations such as holding the breath in for 4 counts and exhaling for 4 counts etc.
the simplest is breathing in as much as I can through my nose and exhaling as much as I can through my mouth.
I relax all the parts of my body, naming them as I go from my feet to my head. (I usually feel a tingling sensation)
when I feel relaxed I go to my root chakra and pretend that I have an energy hole with sliding doors.
I imagine that the doors slide open and red rays of light stream through my body through the hole coming in through the back and going out through the front and vice versa.
I do that for each chakra and once I'm done the Crown chakra I combine all the colors in a rainbow and go in and out all the chakra holes.
When I'm done, if I'm not going to sleep I ground myself by imagining that I have steel rods coming out of my feet that dig into the earth.


Summary
Breath - inhale through nose, exhale through mouth
Relax entire body
Focus on each chakra
Root chakra - red light
Sexual - orange light
Solar Plexus - yellow light
Heart - green light
Throat - blue light
3rd eye - indigo light
Crown - Purple light
All together - Rainbow
Ground my energy.

EY

I Live Alone
Topic: Living on Purpose
Saturday 3:33pm 30Dec06

When I get home from work I don't have anyone to ask me how my day was and all the other questions that people who live together ask each other. I don't have anyone who looks in the fridge and says, "Where's the ginger ale?" just as they spy the green plastic bottle. I don't answer to anyone nor do I have to explain anything that I do.
I had to explain to one of my co workers yesterday, after snapping at him more than once, 'You have to understand, I live alone."

I realize that I have to remind myself of the opposite for other people that they live with other people. I get so impatient with people who ask me a lot of questions. i wonder why they're so nosy. I wonder what purpose it serves to ask questions that could be naturally answered in time. Like if I'm holding my winter coat at 3pm when I normally leave work at 4:30pm chances are that I'm leaving early and instead of asking me the obvious, wait until I put my fucking coat on and I say good bye.

Sometimes I get so sarcastic in my responses to questions. I say stuff like:
"Are you my fucking boss now?"
"If I'm holding my coat clearly I'm leaving early."
"Why don't you try checking the binder to see if there's any new time sheets instead of bugging me about it?"
"I told you yesterday that I'd do it today. When have I ever said I'd do something and then not do it?"
Yeah, pretty bitchy!

I have to remind myself that that's how most people who live together talk to each other. They ask questions and sometimes for answers they already know. For a lot of people it's their way of making contact, to acknowledge another's presence. I have to remember that a lot of people either have nothing to talk about or can't stand the silence when they are with someone else.

I'm not one to ask a whole lot of questions. I realize that most things can be figured out just by observation. Plus some answers aren't that important to know. It's one of the reasons my boss and I get along so well. Neither of us ask a lot of questions and because of it we tend to tell each other a lot more than we tell the others who ask questions all the time. His response to most questions is, "What are you a cop?"

If there's anything I need to focus on in 2007 aside from being nicer and being disciplined, it's to remind myself that not everyone is like me. In fact, most people aren't like me. Not every one walks through life with my kind of lone wolf independence. And if I can learn to tolerate more questions maybe people will learn to ask me fewer questions.

At the very least, I'll stop hurting people's feelings because they are trying to connect with me in the best way they know how.

EY

Not finished with the General
Now Playing: Annie Lennox - album "Diva"
Topic: Living on Purpose
Thursday 7:10pm 21Sept06

Still thinking about the General. A grown man that still dreams big dreams and knows he'll realize them. A grown man who is still in touch with his inner child. Is ready to pack it all up and go and live his dreams and he's not 18 years old. It's insane to some but that's how it's done that's how most of them have done it. The big dreamers. They carry all their power in their solar plexus where its supposed to be (chakra wise).

No fears to stop them. They just do it.

What am I doing? Why have I been focusing on the people who like to smother me to death? Why have I noticed the fickle, the uncommunicative, the deserters, the liars? Why have I taken my eyes off the goal, yet again?

What am I going to do to get the unwavering focus back?

EY