Verbal Venus

I care very deeply how other people perceive me. This causes a lot of pain as I put a lot of energy into controlling my “image.” Focus and direction. Ambivalence, feeling strong emotions. Feeling all the emotions at once, how can I identify them individually if it’s all encompassing. Challenging to detangle, detach. Probably why I intellectualize/overanalyze feelings. Focus on what I want out of the journey vs the outcomes. Empowered, Restless, Inspired.

The only rule is love. I grew up loving Jesus and then became disillusioned with the church when I realized the hypocrisy of many followers. I still love Jesus, very much believe in his message. But as the usual all or nothing person that I can often be, I became an angry atheist. Now budding back into spirituality but lacking focus. I don’t plan on ever being part of organized religion/dogma again. I don’t like the rules. I feel like they are different for everyone because we are all different people with all different perspectives. I know I can prescribe a one size fits all opinion on to other people and making sweeping generalizations; but I don’t actually believe it all. I know it’s projection of my own anger and insecurities. In reality I do believe everyone has value; actually understanding that is… a journey. Not procrastinating anymore and realizing I have a choice to do the same thing I always do or be different this time has helped me move forward. I got out of the rumination thoughts around my mother. For now.

Progressive Insurance. progressive ensurance. When I first woke up this morning, I knew had the choice to make a change and not fall in the same traps. Today I would practice self love, starting with a self love meditation on spotify. The first thing I heard at 4 this morning was a progressive insurance ad. I immediately paused it and found a mediation with no ads, but I couldn’t totally get over that I was ever so slightly shaken and annoyed at the ad, it felt counterintuitive to what meditation should be about, but I continued on, and felt generally better after the 10-15 min guided mediation I listended to. Upon reflection, I actually was thankful and grateful for that ad. It could be all in my head, but I feel like it was a sign that I am on the right path. If I want to see change and progress, meditation and practices of self love will ensure that I get there. Thank you universe for this sign. I’ve decided today to show myself love by listening to my body. Don’t cave in to the urges, actually pay attention to the areas of your body that are calling out for nurturing. You’ve been ignoring them in favor of your mind.

The meditation ultimately asked to go back to a situation that caused pain and to address it. I thought my mind would whisk away to a more “exotic” thought, however I ended up back in my parent’s den, where the family computer has been since 1996. Felt innocuous but I know it’s where I spent a lot of time, it was my escape to the outside world. Where I discovered sexuality (aol chat rooms) among other things, but has been a source of pain as it’s a place I began to hide and start wearing masks. Of course I was never my age online, and then I had to lie to parents about what I was doing or looking at. Sharing with my friends led to oversharing, the I would pull back to control an image and on and on. It was poignant as I had to look at myself in that moment and show myself compassion and love – I was resourceful. My mom was a prude and I was feeling horny, I had to discover what all of these feelings were outside of the “catholic view” of sexuality. I had the courage to recognize and seek out this information. That’s about as far as I got, but a good start. One small step. Pattern change. I got out of bed after that thinking I would start my day, start crossing off my to do list of better habits to start my day with. I felt energized, but my eyes were still tired. And since I said I would show love to myself today by listening to my body, I lied down on the couch. I just HAD to read, but instead of going to reddit like always, I read about vibrations for about 30 minutes, asked the universe and my guides to continue supporting me on the right path and continue to show me signs as I’m ready to observe and listen. I fell asleep, and woke up to my partner lighting the pellet stove like he does for us every winter day. I woke up relaxed, at peace, with gratitude in thinking about this service he does for us every day to warm our environment. I had a better morning – no urge to wake and bake… yet… very surprising though. I get bored and go to the pipe. But I’ve been up for 4 hours now and haven’t had the urge yet. I also thought about the dream I had. It was so literal. I was on a rollercoaster (I do love rollercoasters), with my cousin. We don’t see or talk very often but I would say she is a soul sister, and I have immense gratitude for her. So I was on a roller coaster sitting with a very trusted person. Strapped in turning the corner to start ascending. I realize I had my phone in my hand. I stuffed it into my pants so it wouldn’t fly anywhere. We came down (the first drop is the best) and had fun, and the rest of the ride was a smooth and enjoyable. There was no fear in any of it, just a realization of putting my phone away to enjoy the experience, feel excited to be riding along with someone I love and trust. Put the phone down, enjoy the ride, and you are not alone.

I consider myself a relatively knowledgeable person because I find consuming information intoxicating. But I only actually understand like 5%. I always loved the more you learn the less you know. I am someone that has to learn things the hard way in order to truly understand it to learn the lesson from it. But then I always caveat that with, universe, please not too hard. And I realized that when I’m asking the universe or anyone else for help it’s always out of fear. I’m trying to ask more inquisitive and curious questions to keep my mind moving forward. Now that I have my head out of my ass a little I feel like I am seeing signs or connections everywhere. I realize that my home is largely curated by me so of course I can easily find connection and meaning in all of it, but I feel like more timely things. Or maybe It was always me knowing I’d need a reminder someday. I feel like my story is a bit of a Dorothy Gale. A story that’s always resonated with me. I have the power all along, I just have to learn it for myself.

I cry a lot, it’s become part of moniker. I embrace it. I saw the number 103284 today, I felt it had meaning. I cry when I’m happy, sad, overhwhelmed, and every strong emotion in between. Would get angry reading reddit, still probably do, but actually wanting to avoid it these days. Not feeling like I have to avoid it which is a better feeling. I realize I was projecting anger at myself on to the words and interpretations of others. I need a constant reminder that I do not control the interpretation of events by other people. We are all on our own journey. I also have to remind myself of that.

I woke up again this morning, reminding myself of starting out in a good headspace. I don’t have a morning ritual yet. I picked up my earbuds, and started playing a meditation list… hmm skip skip, not that one, each one I listened to I was tossy turny. They’re lovely, but I was frustrated and anxiety ridden. The ones that read out affirmations, I think I’m still too critical to listen to because they just sound so cheesy…. “you’re outie excels at stargazing.” And then the guided ones through nature or gardens give me anxiety because I’m worried to much about what my scene should look like, or having the feeling that someone is watching because we all know even if we think we’re alon in the woods, we don’t know that and we can always come across somebody else there, so I was getting distracted to the point where all of a sudden I saw myself in a small circular room with a bunch of closed doors that I was banging on to try to get into. I stopped. I was sweaty and thought this would be good timing to take a shower. Cleansing. In the shower I had usual thoughts… opinions, funny moments, back to judgments of others and myself, although I think I was a little better at letting those go than ruminating. But then I started to feel panic. This was not a feeling I was all that familiar wiht. While I’m super emotinal and can get angry and sad, panic was a new one for me. And I didn’t understand why I was panicked. Literally nothing in my life to be remotely panicked about. It was interesting to have a body feeling that wasn’t attached to an emotion for once, just the pure feeling of panic. But then I kept asking myself why I feel panicked, and I think it’s because I “left myself” in that room of closed doors, still sitting there, discouraged with no outlet. I reimagined myself in that room and opening a door with no expectations. It led to clouds and I fell upwards. I felt better. I realized I use media and other people’s thoughts as distractions or validations of my own. Standing naked after the water turned off, I’m usually shivering cold and immediately grab my towel, but this time I could just stand there. I wasn’t cold, just realizing that I can’t default to the same old habits of using media as a constant comfort – because, well it’s lost it’s purpose for me, where I’m not even experiencing the joy as much, just using it as a coping mechanism, and I never actually feel better. I’ve come to realize that with weed and hair-picking. The hair-picking (split ends, plucking) usually happens when I’m bored, or overwhelmed with tedious tasks. I’ve largely abstained from that for almost a week now. I don’t have much of an urge which is good. Perhaps I’m finding more interesting things, or finding that the “boring” can be interesting too. I’ve only tried the sitting still meditation for a couple of days for 5 minutes. The first day went surprisingly well. After a minute, I did feel at peace and I thought I could sit there forever. Thinking I could master this in a day, the next two days were struggles. I wanted to move so bad, all I could feel was the anxiety. So that’s why I tried the guided meditations. But now learning how too much of that is a distraction. After my shower I sat in silence for about 5 minutes. Lots of thoughts, but I felt very peaceful. My body wasn’t feeling the anxiety during it like the past couple of days. I reminded myself that you weren’t given anything you can’t handle. Do you think you can go forward with focus, direction, and intention? I said “yes” out loud and opened my eyes. Lol I just read the last sentence of another blog that said “but artistically – they really shine” and thought I wrote that? That’s beautiful. dangit wrong blog, not mine.

i’m lucky I can work from home. I think. I tell people that working from home is actually more beneficial to my coworkers because in office I’d probably be a distraction. I constantly talk. Even to myself. People catch me all the time like it’s something I should notice. Yes I know this. I kind of lean into it as a badge of honor. Like something that makes me unique. I don’t know how I feel about it now. I pace and talk out loud. This weekend I decided I wasn’t going to ruminate, and tried to fuel all the talking into some grand plan. It was kind of amazing and euphoric to be in that headspace. I felt really creative… and punny. So I created this blog/webpage. I don’t want to advertise it, or force it into someones mind by some algorithm, more like if you stumble across it I’m sorry, and if you’ve gotten this far, hello. I still can’t handle feedback from people and the internet is mean. I’ve been mean on the internet. But I realize what I put out will get reflected back to me. So I don’t know, I figured a raw thought blob output could help satisfy my need for getting all the words out instead of just annoying the people around me with the same old thing. I always hated writing because I’d hyper over-analyze every word/sentence/paragraph, or if it was a journal was it curated exactly how I wanted it. But it was too complicated so I gave up writing altogether, but I think I’ve realized all the words have been stuck in my head and are just circling and cycling. I think realizing I had the decision and the ability to do something about it open my mind up to a lot of different things. I think it’s a little closed back up now, but it was nice to get a glimpse into that headspace and know it’s acheiveable. But, am I getting high off my own supply? Is that the point? I always get confused between humilty and confidence. I know they co-exist but I fear so much leaning into losing humility (which I wouldn’t even say I’m that humble) that I can be self-critical and self-deprecating. So I probably overcompensate by putting on airs, as well as asking my favorite question “do you mind?”

It’s been a minute because I get bored or overwhelmed but it’s good for me to write and get it out. I realized most of my thoughts with myself are superficial. All surface level. I’m trying to dig deeper. As much as I want to deny it, meditation has been working. The “gamfication” of the intiation of the meditation in just having the goal to not move my body and work through the “pain” and anxiety of that to then overcome that into a more peaceful state has really helped. I find that the conversational superficial thoughts do start to fade and I start “seeing” more abstractly. I still have to tell myself not to control it, but I do seem to go with the flow of that a little bit more. I did have an interesting meditation experience this morning. I have some sex hang ups because of having felt suppressed when I was younger and kind of anger at the catholic church. A couple of years ago I started getting into this masturbation ritual almost as if to fill or throw back in the catholic ritualistic face, idk, but every couple of months, I would start to listen to Catholic podcasts and pretend to believe and be a good catholic girl and want to obey my parents and love jesus. Be an obedient and submissive wife. It was a pretty explosive orgasm by the end of it because it was like a whole mental spiritual edging. Now immediate post nut clarity I was like ya I don’t beleive in any of the catholic shit. I was still agnostic but didn’t think much of it otherwise, maybe just a way to cope. Other sex fantasies often include crusty old men. I guess I figured i just wanted to feel desired and felt that the only types I could attract were the most desperate. I could be useful. this morning i had the typical overthinking thoughts cried a little but then was like ok let’s meditate and just see where it goes. I just came off a dream where I was in a basement with a creepy old man who literally lost his marbles and I wanted him to come onto me but then it ended. I decided to go with that and think about a fantasy I often have which is meeting up two old men in a mediocre hotel in a plaza city – not too seedy, but not fancy, just pedestrian. Explored my feelings on that and why I seem to think about that fantasy a lot. I’ll spare the details but basically I just want to feel safe and secure to freely express my full self. I do have that in my home now and feel immense gratitude for that. But I feel like I have to hide myself from others as I can be a “bit much” for people and I don’t know how to control the energy so I figure it’s easier to just stay out of people’s way. Still working on the self love thing. Baby steps. I accept that.

In highschool as seniors we wrote “crystal ball” visions for each other in the class. My friend wrote that I would be a recluse in *state.* It’s funny how that’s kind of what I’ve become. We moved here right before covid, and I don’t think I’ve really come out of hibernation or isolation since. I’m hoping this year will be different. Get out of my bubble. My blue bubble. I’ve realized since I can’t do organized groups yet, I like the organic interactions in unexpected places with people that you wouldn’t think you’d have much in common with and you end up having some of the most enriching interactions. I’d like more of that. Still working on self acceptance. I’m still afraid of rejection. I can love hard and fast, so I’ve come around to just rejecting myself before other people can to save both ourselves the time and misery. I don’t think I’m snowballing as much guilt and shame with new experiences and interactions, but I still have an icy core to melt. Corny. Farts are funny and I just want to yell penis in the back of the bus. Sideways is probably my favorite movie and I think Miles is such an amazing character. Perfectly imperfect.