Category Archives: reflections within

reflections within

Moo

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It’s all stuck inside me. I wrote for an hour last night, and I feel I just scratched the surface. It never ends. I can reread my past journals and marvel at the discoveries and openings I stepped through. But it’s as if I reset myself after a short while. It’s as if I am starting from scratch. This is why I feel I must trust the little feeling that says there is so much more yet to be unearthed.
Part of me would like to think I am 10 or 20 or 40% through after an intense venting session like last night’s. Maybe I delved into a few topics to some degree. But there are indeed umpteen more to go. I always like it when I have a direction to go in. That comes from an outside source of wisdom like a book or guru. That can be my impetus for further self-exploration.

originally published on 3/19/08

reflections within

Snipets

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Everything becomes a cliche. Everything already is a cliche. Would you rather be a self-aware cliche or an oblivious one?
I refuse to value myself, even just enough for basic tending to my needs. I have severe confidence, self-love issues. So isn’t it safe to say I would be hypocritical to accuse someone else of a more harmful version of the same thing? At least in anything other than a compassionate way?

I seem to have a terrible time with honesty. It eludes me when I long for it. I spend much of my time dancing around the truth. Or else I am ridiculously blunt. It’s one extreme or another. I suspect I was taught this propensity.

Interesting that lying was the one sin in our house that merited punishment. Is that to say that honesty could be forced into you? Maybe lying was an attempt at a different sort of truth-telling. One that tended to be overlooked or squelched.

I am left with a great deal of confusion regarding how to negotiate honesty in my life. Where does it come from, within or without? How do you know if you’re lying or being secretive? Stretching the truth might be between the two. Or exaggerating or filtering out elements of the total picture. It’s one thing to have some level of privacy, and another to shun truths from yourself. To suppress your own knowledge and experience from yourself doesn’t seem to help anyone. Least of all myself.

originally published on 3/23/08

reflections within

Grassy

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Now what was I thinking?
My deep loneliness is connected to my deep sense of shame. I cannot feel a human connectedness, which is really my birthright, due to my distrust and fear that I will be further shamed. I never figured out how to heal my initial shame, so I inadvertently locked myself up in a box of untouchability for safety’s sake. No matter how great the conversation, or how good the camaraderie, or how varied and interesting the day-to-day involvement with the outside world, it is no use. I am stuck here in my cubicle. And it’s an unpleasant cubicle. That’s why I must distract myself. A prime example is sleep time. There are no daytime distractions left to protect me from my pain and self-flagellation, so I use the eensie weensie voices on talk radio, playing nearly inaudibly. I know someone else who has a thing for radios. I do believe it would be safe to say the word shame can be applied in that person’s heart of hearts. But it is really an endearing quality from the outside, most of the time. It imbues just a touch of likable desperation. That is inevitable where shame is concerned – a compulsion to be accepted, since you have none for yourself.

originally published on 4/18/08

reflections within

Betwixt

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Ahh, my shame. I see I am ashamed due to my shame. Seems reasonable, huh? I end up being ashamed to be me. Thus I do what any ashamed person would do: hide in a cave or wear masks. The troubling thing about shame is that you can’t even look yourself straight in the eye. So what are your chances of letting someone else get a glimpse?
That must be my greatest fear. I hide behind the supposed fear of not liking other people, when what really concerns me is whether they are going to like what they see in me.

It seems if I can work past this underlying shame, I will be able to be more myself around others. I won’t be so constantly fearful of others’ judgment. Judgmental people tend to have a lot of sway over me. Their personalities confirm my own predilection to judge myself. People have varying degrees of judgmentalness, but almost everyone has some. I do feel it can turn in on itself quite easily, and that perhaps it starts out turned inwards, later going outwards.

When I’m working on my problems successfully, I feel different. I can be more in the moment with other people, less caught up in some neuroses or another. I am less worried about whether what I say or do will violate some law or societal norm. I feel I have calmed the bumpy waters of my soul, so I don’t constantly interrupt the flow of life, of a day, an hour, a minute. I sometimes feel that I must check myself so often, I cannot make it through any activity in some semblance of peace.

originally published on 4/23/08

reflections within

Pinwheel

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I’m stuck. I’m fulfilling a role set by someone else. My actions are dictated by another. Societal parameters. And I feel alone. Alone and stuck. The one I can talk to is never in my present. Only past and future. Only imaginary. Maybe that’s not true. I do open up to people in the present. But it’s hard to recall because I close myself off just as quickly. I don’t sustain the openness. So they are fleeting moments. Do they add up to something? Maybe. I think they do accumulate. But they never seem to add up to what I am hoping and yearning for. Is this a philosophical, emotional, or psychological issue? Are they different? Is my problem dietary, disciplinary, auditory, or what?
If it’s a beautiful day outside, should I be happy? (philosophy) Should I expect happiness to come my way? (since it has in the past, for however fleeting a time) Can I provide happiness for myself? Or do I need assistance? Assistants? Am I supposed to know the answer to any of these questions, or just ask them? Does not knowing the answer condemn me to some sort of sorrowful existence? Maybe existence isn’t so static as finding the answers and then being contented. It’s the searching which is so important. So don’t stop! Don’t be ashamed to be continually inquisitive.

originally published on 4/28/08

reflections within

Bank on it

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How many different levels do I have to operate on? Is it possible to address different facets of cello and life without each one conflicting against the other? Can’t I focus on emotionality without technique butting in? Or concentrate on relaxing without sound quality making forays? Or legato continuity without first finger joint pain? Do I need to make a list of everything in hierarchical order? What about my daily routine and activities? Same deal? I wish I didn’t have to micromanage myself. Haven’t I done that before, with little staying power?
Am I perhaps existing in a pendulumic world? Are there varying sizes of pendulums which must be kept track of? How is it I don’t find others who are on the same nuisance-ridden journey as me? Where are all the other pendulum swingers? I’ve been asking around lately, and I do get some minimal acknowledgment of the issue, but it appears not to interfere with others’ lives like mine.

originally published on 5/3/08

reflections within

Boon

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Speaking of inward inquiry, I wrote this not long ago…
So, where does my shame stem from? Do I deserve to be ashamed? Did I harm someone else, or was something done to me? These are questions just as much for the heart as for historical accuracy. What does my heart tell me? Can my heart differentiate between one and the other? Abuser or abusee? If so, which one is worse? Are you supposed to shed your shame if you are an abuser? Or do you need it? To keep you in check. Is that more guilt than shame?

The trouble seems to be that something is eating away at me on the inside. Which is good. It is my checks and balances system. I only know something is eating away because part of me wants to be behaving in healthier, freer ways, and is being foiled. So my body/soul is telling me I am in conflict; it’s giving me signals. Sadness, compulsion, addiction, loneliness, isolation. These are signals. Flares. Although quiet ones. But they feel loud and overwhelming in their numbification.

I cannot simply enjoy life – like the beauty of this day. Like the beauty of being alive. That is how I know there is inner conflict conspiring against what is natural, natural pleasures of life. I am overwhelmed with distrust.

originally published on 6/17/08

reflections within

Wheew

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I just noticed that mood-altering attempts actually worsen my mood swings. I have naturally wide mood fluctuations. Perhaps accepting that fact could help me restrain myself from artificially controlling them.
I engage in an activity that appears on the surface to make me feel good. And maybe it does. There’s the trouble. Once I am under the spell of this external high, my internal barometer loses its centering abilities, however ineffectual they may be, and I have to take a great deal of time and concentration to eventually regroup and find my spiritual balance.

I might consider enjoying my own natural highs and lows, leaving the external, imposed ones to others who are less volatile.

originally published on 6/21/08

reflections within

Bye-ing

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I am looking for that buzz. I am searching for those endorphins. One idea is that they are there, inside me. I need not expend all of my energy in a quest for their source. It is right in front of my eyes, really.
I self-medicate. In all sorts of ways. But in my efforts I am masking the natural remedy which is here. I think I am a peaceful man, but instead I am fighting any truths which I am privy to. I am a ludicrous warrior. How boring. No wonder I am so often bored. Fight, fight, fight. How monotonous.

originally published on 6/22/08

reflections within

Out

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I definitely have an odd relationship with perfection. I jut back and forth between seeing it everywhere and seeing it nowhere. Between not caring about having it and accepting nothing less. Very jarring. It seems to stem from the fact that I still see Mom and Dad and probably my siblings, too, as the perfect people that no one is.
I never outgrew the idea that love is always about feeling unconditionally happy and nurtured. I cannot see the good for the good and the bad for the bad.

Am I just a naive bastard? A naive boy? As I’ve noted, I remember feeling unconditional love in our household, as well as other relatives’ households. I keep my eye open to that sentiment to this day. Is it a feeling which is not appropriate for equal relationships? Equal partnerships? Am I taking it a bit too far?

So I am perpetually comparing this to that. But I don’t realize what I am doing. So there is no way to address it. But it undermines everything. And I mean everything. Either directly or by means of avoidance.

If I do something other than play the cello, I am questioning the wisdom of one of my parents. Unbelievable. So not only do I love them unconditionally, but I also fear them unconditionally. There is the disturbing aspect to this.

originally published on 6/24/08