Difficulties

I am having great difficulty at the moment with something that I really, really want to be good at. My approaches are simply not working, and I find myself getting tied in knots, mentally speaking.

I also made a big big boo-boo today. It was rather large. Fixed now, but I should really have known better.

This would be the point where I would start blaming myself, and beating myself up about how much of a failure I feel. It's tempting to go back down this thought process route. But I am not going to do that. This is the point I need to show myself some compassion. Just because I am not good at everything, doesn't mean I am a failure.

High achiever.

You wouldn't want to be one.

Houston, we have sanity

I was driving home this evening from a long work day. Normally I crank the tunes up to level 11, Spinal-Tap-style, but tonight something made me refrain from even turning the radio on.

I drove home in complete silence. Apart from the sound of my car, I just sat and drove home with just my thoughts. It was amazing. And very illuminating. The feeling of just moving along the same route I've taken for the last 8 months, with a difference, made me realise something.

I'm fine.

I'm not being cute. I have realised that I am absolutely fine.

After years of a lot of self-reflection, counselling, therapy, meditation, kinesiology, breathwork, life coaching, mentorship at various places of work, long fireside chats with some pretty amazing people in my life, as well as the normal coming and going of the various little challenges I've faced in that time, I feel about as balanced and at peace in myself as I can remember feeling.

I am at the end of the tunnel, in fact, I'm probably way out in the fields that line the edges of that tunnel. If I remember the start of my walk through it, I had absolutely no idea I could ever feel this way, serene and calm and unflappable. I had no idea I could sit in my car in silence and be at peace with the thoughts that floated to the surface. They were things like "this feels good" and "gosh, I have a nice life, when you really look at it" and "I wonder what's for dinner."

In fact, I've been fine for some time.

A letter to my future partner

A friend of mine once asked me to blog a letter to my 16 year old self. I thought a lot about that request, but the energy is just not there to give the task what it deserves. I am normally averse to dwelling too much in the past, a very very strange thing to say given I am in the process of writing my memoirs. But, as a rule, I don't like encouraging it. I am trying to cultivate and foster the habit of living in the "now", for that's where life takes place.

But, it has gotten me thinking about what I used to do a lot - think about and wonder where "the one" is. I spent a lot of time over the past half a decade or so wondering whether it would ever happen for me again. Enough to write a letter to my future partner.

So here goes.

********************************************************************************

It's wonderful to have finally met you. I feel like a gift has been given to me, something that I had once given up on, but worked really hard to believe I was worthy of.

I know that I will love you to the core of my being, because I have a lot of love to give, and I've been waiting for someone like you to be open to that love, care and affection.

I know you are a very special person, because only a very special person could have overcome my resistance to change, to allow me to yield my independence once more, and give myself to interdependence. As lonely as it's been sometimes, my ability to be myself completely and without reserve has been a hard-won struggle for me for a very long time, and I've encountered many false starts along the way that have made me pull my toes back out of the water again. For someone to inspire me to give my heart completely to them, to change my status from "single" to "in a relationship", you must be true, loyal and committed to a life with me. For that I am grateful.

I am grateful for the work you have put into developing a strong character, to be able to stand up for your ideas and opinions. I am grateful you have the ability to have swept me off my feet, to be able to clear away my doubts from the remnants of lovers past that have caught me in their webs and hurt me.

I have thought about you quite often. How you are living your life, what you might be doing or seeing. How your character might have been shaped. I admire the clarity of thoughts that you have, and your ability to debate with me about anything and everything. I love the way you are unafraid to disagree with me, or even to call me on my bullshit occasionally, for I know that occasionally I can be difficult. Something which you no doubt would realise after half an hour in my presence, with my incessant mental gymnastics, especially when I feel open and vulnerable emotionally, the way you make me feel.

I love your sense of humour, the way you can be both serious when needs be, but silly and playful all the other times when seriousness is not called for. It keeps me young and mentally agile to play verbal volleys with you and pit our wits against each other.

I am grateful for your affection and attention, for so many men believe this makes them seem weak and less of a man. For me, this is untrue. I love your ability to melt into me and allow me to melt into you, and our affection, touch and love could never be considered "too much" for each other.

I love your passion, not only for me, but for life. Sometimes I get morose and depressed. My anxieties and worries can get the better of me. I do not ask you to bear any responsibility to "make me better" as I have learned to do this for myself, but I also appreciate the way you can, with just a few positive words, turn a dark day around with a smile.

We all have a tendency to project our weaknesses onto those we love and blame them for the resulting "issues". I am so very grateful for your wisdom and insight in these situations. I don't expect us to never fight, for where's the growth in a life filled with peaceful avoidance of the truth? But I do appreciate that when we do fight, we are fair and never nasty. And that we can both navigate the truth of any situation to its ultimate solution. I love that you are committed to finding solutions with me, rather than simply pointing out the problems.

Finally, I am eternally grateful that I will be falling asleep next to you, and waking up with you, with our arms wrapped around each other, from now until the end of our days.

I feel very blessed to have met you, my best friend, my lover, my partner. I will do my very best to be the best version of myself with you, and I hope that my presence in your life has the same effect for you.

Natasha

Insight

I am now in my second quarter of my self-imposed "romance-sabbatical".

It's so very interesting to note the number of things I used to do for attention, good or bad. Without realising it, I actually was a lot more interested in how I was perceived in a 'dating' or 'availability' sense than I cared to admit, even when I was saying I was putting dating on hold, I'd never actually put it down altogether.

My motivations for doing things were not always about what I wanted, necessarily. And it took a lot of energy denying that, as well. I'll give an example. After my improv comedy graduation night, my meditation teacher commented at following sessions how I'd "now put myself out there more" and that it was a matter of time that I'd be noticed. This was in reference to my constant requests alluding to the fact that it hadn't "happened" yet for me, and how impatient I was getting with the self-improvement thing, and it not "working".

Yup.

A lot of my self-improvement was all about getting myself to a place of perceived "sanity" from the crap I had been through in previous years, and all about my trying to be "normal" again. And that normality would be vindicated once I found someone who was "normal" who wanted to be with me.

It's pretty twisted thinking, innit?

But that's life, and that's what I craved for such a long time, and that's just where I was in my *ahem* "journey".

It was all about meeting someone to partner up with.

I am not saying this is a bad thing. And I am not saying that's not what I want anymore, because it very much still is something I hope I get to do again. But my sabbatical has shown me just how much I was wrapped up in this way of thinking. That this goal, if not reached, was somehow defining me in a negative way.

I have really enjoyed the first 3 months of my romantic "time-out". I still hope to meet someone special. But it doesn't define me as much as it once did.

Hankering...

Oh dear.

I knew the calm couldn't last.

I knew I'd need to shake myself up again from my Buddha-like state.

At least now I can recognise it.

It is coming as a slow itch.... to do something... be somewhere else... aspire to something I don't have.

It's manifesting in me looking over at other patches of grass, thinking, believing, they "have it better".

It's all bullshit, of course.

I have what so many crave - freedom. I should really enjoy it.

Still, I am looking at mummy blogs with envious eyes (nawwww such sweet kidlings..... REALLY Tash? You are thinking WHAT now?)

I am looking at foodie blogs (I really must do something MORE with my cooking ability)

I am looking longingly at fitness tweets (I really should "do" something else, like join the 12WBT program again, or another gym, or more boot camps..... honestly, Tash, this is getting old)

I am watching programs like Selling Houses Australia, thinking "I want to do that."

I am reading travel stories thinking "I really want to travel, live overseas.... yadda yadda yadda"

I am feeling dissatisfied with being pushed in my job (again) and thinking "why can't I just chuck it all in a be a hippie feral on the dole... just writing away my ideas.

Yup. It's that itch again. I have learned to both expect and dread it. It's that horrible itchy feeling in my head that keeps waking up the "dissatisfaction beast" within me, believing that I could be so much more... or so much less... or so much elsewhere... or so much something-else--other-than-where-I-am-right-in-this-present-moment.

Wake up, Tash. It's an illusion.

Me. Now.

I am not entirely sure how to position this blog, given I have been searching for the meaning of life for such a long time, so this is going to come across entirely the wrong way... but I have come to a point where I have stopped caring for anything that has no relevance to my immediate present.

I do not know whether this is some kind of epiphany or that it means I've reached some point of absolute calm or balance... I would hazard a guess that I haven't actually, but it does seem to me to be the first time in my life that I give not one utter shit about anything that is not directly related to my immediate existence right now.

I have stopped thinking about things, people, places, circumstances, events, dramas, "what ifs", "what coulda, shoulda, woulda's", and a whole host of the normal stuff that has previously run through my brain on a pretty regular basis.

I have stopped focusing on things entirely outside of my control. I don't feel sad, disappointed, regretful, unhappy or dissatisfied with pretty much anything at the moment.

Do not mistake what I am saying, I am nowhere near what I thought I would have, be, do or desire in life. I have not "obtained" what I always thought I wanted. It's just that all that stuff has ceased to hold any meaning for me. I wonder if this is what Eckhart Tolle wrote about in his book "The Power of Now"... where nothing matters except for what we are experiencing right now.

My book contract was signed today, yet I haven't finished it. Normally that sort of thing would send me into a performance-panic... anxiety and doubt would be setting in, the pressure and expectation of the finished product. What will people think? Will they buy it? What will "his" family think? Will it cause a stink? All these thoughts I try to hold onto to see whether they "mean" anything or have any kind of impact to this sort of eerie calm I currently feel inside me.... and they don't. The thoughts simply slip away from me, and I think "all in good time"...

What. The. Hell?

Who have I become? Certainly no-one I recognised previously as me.

I do wonder how long this will last.

The now is all that matters. And right now that is the warmth of my bed, beckoning me to shut my computer up and get some zzzzz's.

On reaching the end of the line

Having finally gotten to the end of the marriage part of my chronicles over the weekend, I've suddenly felt purged of that relationship. I know that the most difficult part of the writing is yet to come, his suicide, my grief, the lost years, the long and painful rebuilding of my life and care factor about living, but I've now reached the end of the marriage itself. It has been like riding that rollercoaster all over again in the past six weeks of so since starting the process, and getting to the end has been an immense relief (as it was the first time around). I feel like I've done the grieving for the actual relationship itself that I was unable to do the first time because I was too busy fighting my grief for the man himself.

I never did this, grieve the loss of the relationship. I felt I didn't need to. Obviously I did.

I have often felt my love and passion was going to waste. What I have found through writing my story is that all that love and passion is now turned inwards.

On strength

I'd like to call out something.... in writing my memoirs, I have been called "strong" a lot. I don't have a problem with being recognised for that, but I feel uncomfortable with the attribution, it's almost like I have a special talent that means I am to be admired for getting through what happened in my marriage.  I have to admit that I don't see it that way at all. I believe I have developed strength from going through it all, and that all these years later I can appreciate the pain somewhat for giving me the ability to write about it.

It's like that with any challenge in life, you either build up strength, or give up. There really is no other choice, and I had no other choice than to get through it or give up. You have to get strong through what life throws at you, or you stop moving forward. Everyone has challenges in life, and that's what we do, we face them and get stronger.

In fact, that was something that I chose to do for a while. I did give up and stopped moving forward altogether. I almost destroyed myself. I was not strong in those moments, and I considered ending it all.

So, please don't give me more credit than is due. I don't have all this strength as a natural resource, anyone who would have walked in my shoes could survive what I have done. It's like going to the gym, you destroy muscle fibres with weights to build up strength and resistance. You get bigger muscles.

It's exactly like that, with life. You face challenges, you feel a little torn up by them when you're going through them, then afterwards you develop emotional strength.

Seeing 'The Search' as a good thing

Giving yourself the space to discover what you like, and more importantly what you don't like, is so important for someone like me, I've come to recognise.

Being an extreme rescuer means I have in the past subverted my own needs and likes and ignored my dislikes to the point that I get into very poor situations and make bad relationship decisions. Taking the time that I have taken to find "the right person" for me has been necessary.

I haven't always seen it this way, and now that I am I can see where others are at a similar stage I was a few years ago, when I thought the increasing length of time it was taking meant I was damaged goods, unworthy, unloveable and unable to partner again.

Now, I have a slightly different outlook. Sure, I still get lonely, and sure I get disappointed when a potential mate turns out to be not quite right for me or vice versa.... but I now have a little voice in the back of my mind that always always says now "it will only take one".

It will only take one. Once I meet him, it will be right, and both of us will feel it. There will be no push-pull. There will be no guilt, angst, drama, or obstacles to overcome. There will be no "test" as I have so often believed there needed to be to prove someone's love for me, and mine for them. It will be easy. We will be curious about each other, but not obsessive. There won't be that niggling gut feeling of nervousness that I usually have when I'm pursuing the wrong man or wrong situation. It will just feel right. We will share values and goals. It won't be a sacrifice for either of us to easily and effortlessly get together. We won't be second guessing ourselves or what others might think.

And if I don't meet him, then obviously the universe has something else, something bigger, and more satisfying in store for me.

I trust.

I believe.

I accept.

Things happen easily, for a reason

How often have we all been in traffic and watched other drivers ducking and weaving through cars, accelerating to make the lights, and in general acting like they haven't a moment to lose?

How often do you notice this behaviour, and smile, and continue at a steady pace, going with the flow, humming a merry tune, taking in the scenery, only to find yourself pulling up alongside Mr Hoon at the end of the road.

One of you has had a pleasant journey to the set of lights you have found yourselves at, the other is highly stressed out and seething.

Well, this is a lot like life. I have tried both approaches, impatiently trying to get to my destination, feeling resentful when the obstacles forcibly slow me down, honking my opinions to the person or people in the way of my end goal. I have been guilty of not admiring the scenery of my life, and where I am in the moment. Going with the flow, I'd scoff. That means not getting there faster.

But where is there?

I used to think there was a combination of my ultimate life goals. I'd be settled in a great relationship. In a job I loved doing. Paid off my debts. I'd have already written one or two books by then. My fantasy residence (always in another country or city) is where I'd be living. I'd be at my goal weight... thin, rich and basically wildly successful...

What a rort, that line of thinking is. And a recipe for discontentment.

So I did a little experiment late last year. I took my foot off the clutch, I stopped changing gears in my attempt to manipulate my life to resemble how I wanted it to be. I stopped racing, racing, racing, and just left the outcome of what I was trying to achieve into the hands of the universe. I stopped being that stressed out driver, hoping to get to the final set of traffic lights faster than the road I was travelling wanted me to.

All of a sudden, things became really easy. The outcome happened and my life is as it is, because that's the way it's meant to be. Easy. I am now the driver who is whistling a little tune along to myself in the drivers seat, picking up the hitchhikers that look like they would be good company along the way, dropping them off when they want to explore the local area as I head back on my journey, looking at the scenery. I feel less stressed, less anxious. And above all I feel at peace that the road will get me to where I am going.... eventually.

Here is what matters. Now is what we are experiencing. Take your foot off that clutch! Stop trying to change gears, you will guzzle more petrol and end up at your destination tired and ragged.

And that's not much fun, cos there's a party at the end, so you may as well enjoy getting there.