Saturday, July 28, 2012

Being Oneself

     Sometimes one can feel a sense of self doubt.  Well, maybe not everyone, but some like myself, sometimes feel unsure of ourselves.  I am not unsure of my belief system, strengths, talents, etc., but of my very essence at times.  A feeling of less than will emerge, and it is not a good feeling.  I push through it and hold my head high.
     Recently my mother said to me, "so you want to do a solo act."  I felt bad, because it is not really that I want to, just that I have not found the right person to share my life with, and I have my grown children and friends.  Also I do like being alone.  I would rather be alone than be with someone who does not treat me right.  I know my mother meant well as usual, and of course I said nothing.  I will not play into the fear and insecurity that present themselves in these statements because I know they were meant with love, and I am projecting my fear and insecurity as well as judgment on to the statement, while she is also projecting hers of some sort into the statement, so as the Course in Miracles would teach, I choose to see this differently, correct my perception.  That is the true essence of forgiveness of any kind, not that this innocent statement of my mom's requires forgiveness, because as I said she said it with good intentions.
     I know when I do feel inferior in any way that it will pass as will any feeling of superiority.  These are merely movie screen projections onto the movie screen I call my life.  That is how ACIM would explain it.  
     The key I think is to love myself and accept myself as a child of God and a sister in Christ.  I accept every other person as my brother or sister in Christ. 
     Also, I am not always Shakti, but sometimes Kali with the blood dripping tongue.  I embrace the bad with the good and all aspects of myself, as Jung said "the shadow."  When I feel bad I embrace that darkness in myself as well, and I take my darkness to the light.
     When I feel bad, I push on with exercise, good food, yoga and meditation.  I go to yoga classes whenever and where ever I can.  This helps a lot.
      I would like to quote a few words from a song I wrote called Lately:  "So I take to Him my darkness, into infinite knowledge and brightness, this suffering is bliss."  Infinite knowledge - Paramatma.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Letting Go of Self Recrimination

     Before I went on vacation, one of my issues was mostly just self doubt.  I did not doubt my talents or my blog or my intelligence.  I did not doubt my level of education or my ability to stand on my own belief systems although I know many or a couple at least of my views are conservative and not very popular beliefs among my bleeding heart liberal ironically, friends.  Although I am not judging anyone, really I am not, one is my pro-life point of view except in rape and incest as whatever the individual feels about it being the only two exceptions, and always no matter what in the late months.  My only other conservative view, is that I strongly believe in the second amendment to The Constitution of the United States of America and all other amendments at that. 
     Now I will get back to my subject.  I was feeling doubtful of myself as a woman, and I was a little bit afraid of the world and how they were to perceive me as a visually impaired person.  I was feeling bad about not being able to apply eye makeup, but my mother who is supposed to think you are beautiful said my eyes were beautiful and that I did not need makeup on them.  This helped.
     I used to be a wearer of eye makeup and contact lenses until I became more and more blind and contacts did not help and my eyes were chronically infected with or without them.  So, now I wear lipstick sometimes, especially when I have no lip balm and powder when my skin is shiny from the heat.
      The yoga class I attended helped me a lot, in Charleston this past weekend.  I realized that I am OK to be who I am, that I did not have to mold into any individual, self or society dictate.  And, not egotistically, but in a more inner spiritual sense, I felt whole again and therefore I felt beautiful again.  What truly matters is one's inner beauty, without which the content of, there is nothing.  I also let go of desires, expectations and the need to be seen, heard and thought or not thought of in any particular way.  I also found compassion, feeling with by definition, for my self rather than constant self judgment and condemnation.  If others judge me or condemn me, it is not my problem.  I felt free, OK with who I am and that, my friend, is a beautiful feeling.  It is extremely liberating.  I am not saying I will not have other bad days or cry some more, but for now I am OK with all that is however it is.
     

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Undefined

     I think that it can be easy to define oneself within a certain aspect of your life or a phase.  I have always been a camelion  changing, and have changed a lot from time to time.
     It also never matters what others think.  One can spend time being afraid of being "undone".  This is a huge waste.  I have done this in my life.  The truth is that freedom comes when you do not have to be any one thing in anyone else's mind nor your own.
     Any time I have been attached to how people or a person may think of me, I have not been happy.  I have never enjoyed peer pressure.  The only way I can see life being enjoyable is to be a free spirit.
      I do care about whether or not I hurt others or others feelings, unless they hurt me really badly, then I feel like "what the hell?"
     I am just being honest.  I can keep my poise I suppose, but if I do not and express what I really think, at least I am being honest.  No one is the winner.  I used to think that because of the Course in Miracles that whoever is most meek and whimpy is the winner, but that is bullshit too.  True, attack is never good, but neither is passive aggression.
      Over the years I have been through so many changes that I cannot define myself as any certain way.  For a long time I went by the name Sage and now I am back to Leslie, and I may have lost a little weight or gained some, had short hair or long hair, had contact lenses at one time and then glasses, wore makeup, and then none.  But, all in all through every change I am the same person undefined by circumstance.  I am a survivor and a grateful person.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Mara Faulkner's book, Going Blind; a Memoir, about her Father Going Blind from RP

    Recently I read a book by Mara Faulkner, called Going Blind; a Memoir.  Faulkner is a nun with retinitis pigmentosa who is facing the possibility of going blind along with her sisters who inherited RP as well and her nephews who have it as well.  I think she may have decided to be a nun, so as not to have children because the females always carry it and all of her sisters like her also have RP.  Her brother is the only one who does not, because it is heretogenically passed.  This means that fathers give it to daughters and daughters to sons.  Also, like me the girls have severe myopia and wear thick glasses from age five like me.  
     I do not have a sister by the same father.  My sisters have another father and therefore do not have the disease.  Part of me wishes I had a whole sister by my father and mother both who had the same myopia, RP and the genetic disposition to unavoidably carry RP like me.  Until I read this book I felt so ashamed of my disease.  I felt guilty for having it, for carrying it, for having bad eyesight.  I know that seems insane for someone who has not experienced it.  Ignorance and prejudice towards blind people is incredulous.  We are thought to be less than.  There are people who talk about blind people and not to them even in their presence.  We are whole people.  We are not children.  We are not challenged in any way at all except that we cannot see at all or we cannot see well enough to be sighted in a legal way, not enough to drive a vehicle for instance.
     My own eye disease RP is more misunderstood than most.  In Faulkner's book she describes her nephew who has retinitis pigmentosa.  He is an architect, even though his family was against it, like my father Lyn Ott who became a fine artist against some odds but with family support.  There is a drawing he did of Winston Churchill at the age of seventeen which is amazingly lifelike.
     She told about how her nephew would use his cane to get home from work on the bus at night, and how he would read the newspaper on the bus during the day making people think he was 'faking' which is ignorant.  I have had people misunderstand my ability to do one thing and not another with RP and I cannot even read a newspaper.  
     She talked much about the Irish famine and how an Irish girl brought the disease to her family which was intriguing because my grandmother also Midwestern said that it came from the Irish in our family as well.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Letting Go of the Past

     Regret is a useless preoccupation.  I recently was talking to a wise person, a confident about my regrets and how I feel that decisions I had made caused damage in the lives of myself and those I love.  
     "So, you feel you did it on purpose?" he asked.  
     "No, of course not," I said realizing how silly I must sound.  
     The resolution is that nothing can be done about the past, but you have to go forward.  It sounds trite I suppose, but it is true.
     I think everyone has things in their lives that they wish they had done differently, and maybe some have easier lives than others, less complicated and confusing, less loss.  
     Some of us who have had the rug pulled out and a lot of disappointments and losses sometimes become afraid, walking through life tentatively so as not to provoke more pain to come our way, like walking on thin ice.
     I suppose some people have a good head on their shoulders from beginning to end, but I have not.  I have had to grow wise with the years and have learned to avoid what is bad for me, what I once could not see, and even if I could see could not seem to control my decisions very well.
     I will not bore you with the boring past relationship mistakes, but sometimes a bad relationship can be an addiction, like a drug.  You get over it and move on.  You might even find someone else who is nice, and might even find your life falling together again like someone adhering to a twelve step program as an analogy.  Then the object or person of one's addiction shows up, and like a drug or alcohol to an alcoholic, one is tempted into one little bit of involvement only to find oneself struggling to get out like a drowning person.  
     It sounds like drama, but I think people are not robots, not perfect, not all good and not all bad.  I wish I could have lived my whole life like a stepford wife, but it just did not work that way.  Now I am perfect - kidding.  I am far from perfect.
    So, I concur that all there is to do is let go of the past.  Let go and let good things start to happen.  Or as Baba said "don't worry, be happy.  I will help you... " and something like "do your best."   And, I strongly recommend The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.  Just listening to his soothing voice talking on CD helps me feel more calm, serene and resigned to what is.  You can still make good things happen as well.  I do not mean to say that one should give up, but "acceptance is the key."  I did not come up with that slogan, but I did use it in a song I wrote called 'Lately'.  Namaste.

Do Not Sell Yourself Short

      I have not made money on my music since the eighties, except for a few CD's that never made or were meant to make a profit.
    Lately more focused on my writing, when telling someone I met about American Boys and Adrien's Story, an article I wrote on Operation Iraqi Freedom, they referred to making money, but truthfully money never crossed my mind.
     I have never written to make money although I have been attempting to write a novel since high school and submitted a short story about the first time I fell in love with an English bassoon player at music camp in Vermont when I was fourteen, unrequited love I suppose, at least romantically.  He loved me as a friend, but led me on I suppose by being romantic.  Well, all the magazines, like Seventeen, etc. rejected my article.
     I have had many rejections in terms of schools and career.  My mother had me apply for Harvard even though Dad was not earning enough money for me to ever go there, and of course I was turned down.  I was turned down at my audition at age fifteen at Winston Salem School of the Arts.  I was turned down for the TV show Fame, when my best friend in L.A.'s husband, an agent had me audition.
     My point is never sell yourself short.  We all lose some and gain some.  I have not been turned away from everything.  And, if you cannot make money at what you do and have to get money another way, then do not think that what you do is any less.  Many professionals call themselves amateurs for technical purposes.
     Well, I just wanted to say that.  Namaste.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Healing and Acceptance; Being With What Is

     Sometimes I think about writing my life story or maybe the worst parts, just to cleanse it from my psyche or process it.  I have written some of it, not on my blog, but in a manuscript, which is only one part of my life.
     I would like to focus on healing the past, rather than reliving it painfully with sorrow and regret.
     As a holistic health practitioner, a Reiki Master, I do reiki on myself at times to heal my emotions and body, since body and mind are connected.  My eye disease drains me, because I know that every nutrient I ingest or that my own body makes, tries to be used to make up for the lack of.  I also do yoga and meditation.  Sitting cross legged, hands open on the knees, back straight, I close my eyes and look towards my third eye.  Breathing in and out through my nose, I pay no attention to what I see, clearing a space in my own self, letting thoughts go.  I see things, colors shapes through my third eye, but I ignore these looking not for definition.
     Still the sadness sometimes overcomes me.  I was hurt recently because my own brother was telling me how much he loves this man I lived with who stole from me and treated myself and my children badly.  I said nothing and am trying to let it go, but it stung me, making me want to write a memoir of when my son David was little and this man made our lives unbearable, and maybe I will someday when I learn to use JAWS, a computer program for the blind that will enable me to write more without straining my eyes and that I can use even if I end up totally blind God forbid.  I really hope that does not happen, but I know it is a strong possibility.  I will not project but stay in the now, in today and say The Serenity Prayer
     So, I let it go and I said nothing and for now and today I will not dwell on my past or present shortcomings, but will just move on with what is and what I have now. 

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Diet and Exercise

     Recently I was a little alarmed that I was six pounds over my normal weight.  I researched it and women my age in my hormonal state, I will say no more, typically put on exactly six pounds, and according to the charts, I was not over weight for my height for a woman any age, but I was getting criticism from family members.  
     They mainly told me to start doing yoga, one said, and another walking and more vigorous exercise.  Actually being blind, I had become very sedentary.  I could not get to a yoga class any more, although I was still doing yoga at home.  I have two yoga mats and lots of yoga clothes.  But, my exercise routine had become too easy for my body, so I had to increase my number of five pound weight lifts, start doing stomach crunches, leg lifts and since I had become too weak to do more than three men's push-ups, I started doing girl's push-ups like we used to do in gym, because I can do more of those.  
     I got rid of all my unflattering too tight clothing, and I bought a book on how to dress slim, with big color platelets I can see.  It is obvious who is dressed right and who is dressed wrong.
     I also bought a diet cookbook, but it is hard to see unless I use a magnifying glass, but I got the idea, lean meats like chicken and fish, fresh fruits and vegetables and less bread and carbs.  You can be really creative with cooking.  I do not use recipes because I cannot really read them.  For example I bought three boneless, skinless chicken breasts and cooked them slowly with a little oil, fresh garlic and tomato sauce.  Because I let it simmer a long time on low with water, not only did I serve my family, my sons and me a great chicken dinner with spaghetti that was delicious and tender, but I had a soup left over which I mixed with minestrone.  
     Greek yogurt, the plain, is very filling and it is great for cooking as well.  I have been preparing my own salad dressing with lemon, oil, garlic and soy sauce.  
     I lost ten pounds in a very short time.  I admit though that I had to have my first colonoscopy, and the fasting and cleansing you have to do for a day before hand, helped to get the weight loss started.  My doctor said it is common to lose weight from it, and I am in good health.  Yey.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Truthfully

    I was promising myself to stay out of politics today because it really brought me into a bad space yesterday.  I went from feeling confident, sophisticated, intelligent and articulate, to feeling like a total failure altogether, and emotionally drained.
     But, I feel a little better and I will not again bare my soul, but I also will not pretend I think something is good, when I really do not just because it is the popular opinion.
      Obamacare is not going to help the poor, who have no coverage now.  As I said before, they will slip through the loop holes in the system, because they will not be able to buy insurance, pay the fine or qualify for Medicaid.  
     I am not going to go on about it.  Rather I will end with a joke.  A string went into a bar.  The bartender says, "I can't serve you."
So the string leaves and ties himself into a knot and goes back in and sits down at a booth.  The same bartender comes over and says, "Haven't I seen you in here before?"
     The strings says, " 'fraid not."