Moments of Clarity Often Come in Disguise

I want to reflect on a moment of clarity I had recently. I took a sales job, thinking it should be easy enough, but failed miserably. That is to say I miserably failed to bring in money and actually paid quite a bit to stay and fail. We do not learn things through success, our greatest moments of progress occur in failure. We learn what not to do, what to do differently, and what really matters to us.

From this experience I learned that I would do things differently as far as selling to make it more ethical and a win win for everyone. I am still working on and exact method, but it got me to look for a different way, and that is what is important. I was talking to someone, the other day, about some ideas I had on a new direction to take the presentation. He said to me "what makes you so sure this will work, what if this doesn't work either, what will you do then?". I realized, in this moment, that irregardless of the outcome, the experience would be priceless. I would gain so much more from it than money. In fact my previous failure turned out to be extremely valuable.

While this insight was great, I had another unexpected benefit of this financial failure. It taught me what I really wanted in life. When I first started I brought my daughter with me to all office meetings, and office related work that I had to do. After some time of failing to even get any appointments, it was suggested to me that I leave Celina in the care of the my boss' daughter and nanny for a reasonable rate. I decided to give this a try. For about a month I took her to this babysitter while I put all my effort into making this succeed. I worked 10 hour days, put in 100 miles a day, spent tons on gas and eating out, spent money for babysitting, invested in any material I thought I would need, and in general tried to apply myself to everything I was told to do. Burn out was happening really quick. I became short with Celina and my husband, my house was a disaster, and the only time I got to see Celina was when we were asleep. I missed her so much. And to top it off, I was utterly failing to make any sales or have a steady stream of appointments. One day, it was strongly suggested to me, that I turn in all my equipment and leave the company. I was devastated, I had tried so hard, what was I doing wrong, why was I failing? I had done everything I was told, why was I failing?

Through a very long conversation with my husband, and much reflection, I finally figured out why, with all this effort, I had produced no monetary results. It took away from me in two areas. One I was being asked to perform certain aspects of selling and setting appointments which I found to go against my beliefs. I felt I was being dishonest and sleezy. This lead to realizing that I needed to find a new way of selling. The second thing I realized was that I wanted to be a stay at home mom, however someone else was with my daughter for the best part of her day, I barely saw her. This was wrong, how was I going to be able to homeshool if I was never home? How could I be a stay at home mom if I was never home. This went against what I thought motherhood should be, and was asking me to be a completely different person than I am.

Once I left, I realized that I wanted to be at home. So now my days could be spent in making this a good home, not lamenting on all that I was missing by not having a job. This was in September of 2008. Since then I have completely transformed my home into an environment that is conducive for Celina's learning. I am making great headway in organizing my home, getting rid of clutter, and crating more useful spaces. I have become focused on what I want, create what I want, and realize what is really important to me, my daughter. I can now look to the future with clarity and certainty that I am on the right path. I am even making great strides in the other things I want to do like taking control of my health and learning about natural living. I now want to go back to school and I know what I want to study. Most of all I realize my role in Celina's development, and the importance of my presence.

The Search for Love

Life is about balance. The more you are balanced the more success and happiness you have. You simply cannot have happiness if your life is in constant contrast. Life is dance in which everything is perfectly balanced in love. Even that which seems delicate is, in fact, a solid surface upon which to tread. When everything is perfectly balanced in love, the impossible is possible. Life should be full of beauty, grace, happiness, joy and the constant potential to grow. To live life this way is to be in harmony with the intentions of God. Life is God. God is creation. Creation is love. Love is balance. Balance is Fulfillment. Life is the fulfillment of purpose and direction. Therefore life is love. And Love is God. Everything goes around in an eternal dance, each with its own part, but still part of the whole.

Since the Beginning, man has worked to get what he wanted. His success could only ever be finite, never complete or whole. The reason is that man viewed himself as separate from God, therefore he could never truly feel love, and so could never find fulfillment. Man alone cannot ever hope to achieve true greatness, cannot hope to live up to all the potential he was created with. Separation from God within is the ultimate in predetermining failure. In separation from self, one never finds true happiness or meaning in life and is always looking for something else to full that void.

The void constantly haunts me, therefore I am always seeking to fill it. I am never happy, no matter who is around me. I constantly feel alone, scared and doubtful. I want love, companionship and togetherness, but I never truly find it, and I am always left wanting.

True love can only ever be realized when you partner with your God Self.

We are two parts: physical self and unconscious self. The physical self is primal and animal like, instinctual and habitual. The unconscious self is that God fragment that resides in us. In our reality we only ever focus on the physical self. We are only aware of the unconscious self through the physical fruits in our life. The physical fruits in our life are an indication of the health of the unconscious self. Because we do not have relations with this God Fragment, we feel a void.

Our attempt at religion is merely trying to fill this void. The void will never be filled, though, because religion puts God outside of and separate from ourselves. We attempt to solve the problem by looking to something external and unattainable because we are afraid to look within.

Intuitively I know my answers lie within, but I lie to my self, creating false realities to avoid self responsibility. The self saboteur within likes to feel alone because that is all I feel I deserve. What has made me so scared? Why do I feel so unworthy? I need to embrace you God self but how can I find you?

My Voice

For my entire life I have been plagued by: poor self esteem, lack of self confidence, self doubt, unconsciously sabotaging any happiness I came across, and finding avenues of distraction from my real self. Without realizing it, I was responsible for being unhappy, unhealthy, unsuccessful, and trapped in a life of my creation. I would not let my voice be heard or openly express my creativity. I often became too emotionally involved in something and often got hurt. I existed in a paradox. On one hand I wanted to express myself and tried, on the other hand I kept doing things to sabotage that expression because I was unconsciously afraid of getting hurt.

Through serious self examination and extensive journaling, I finally realized that my unconscious contained many closed closets. These closets were overflowing, ready to explode and spew their contents all over my life. These were things that I had put away from sight to forget about. There was so much stuff contained in them that I no longer remembered, buried things that were about to surface. If this stuff came out too suddenly, being spewed all over my life for example, I would not be able to handle it. That is why the road to healing is long, to give yourself time to become reacquainted with this stuff, accept it, and change it.

I often tried to run and hide. I ignored the promptings from my subconscious to look at things for what they are, not this rainbow and skittles lens I wanted to put on it. My life was a mess, I encountered problems at every turn. I tried to do things that were good, beneficial and positive for myself, but I was never happy. I always felt as if something were missing. I despised myself as I constantly measured myself against others and always determined myself as lacking. I always wanted to be the best but nothing was ever good enough. The showroom of my life had become decorated with huge elephants standing in the middle of the room that I kept trying to look around and never wanted to talk about.

Through journaling I realized that everything is connected, how you do anything is how you do everything, and all problems you have are merely symptoms of bigger problems. Basically all problems are the fruits of the tree. We keep attacking fruits and expect the tree to die. But that tree will perpetually stand because it has strong, deep roots to sustain it.

Healing As A Process

At the beginning of 2008 I was beginning a phase of major healing and renovation of my personal, physical, mental, and spiritual life. I looked at the road that lay ahead and thought, "wow, this road seems so long, I am afraid I will be ugly until I reach the end." I then realized that the destination of this road was ultimate, complete and total healing, not of one aspect but of all aspects of my life. Like any road there are pit stops along the way, places to rest and recuperate in preparation for the next leg of the journey. Healing is a process, not a get well quick scheme.

But if it was a process why did it have to be so slow, why couldn't healing occur instantaneously? I then realized that, in thinking about it, you allow changes to happen gradually in your life, to ultimately assimilate this new picture of you. Our view of our self will not support sudden life changing, earth shattering changes, because we will still view ourselves as sick. It is not that healing cannot occur instantaneously, but our thoughts need time to come into alignment with this new way of existence.

The other reason for the process has to do with the idea that how you do anything is how you do everything. Therefore any positive changes made in one area will inevitably affect you in other areas. The converse is true as well, negative changes will affect you negatively in other areas. So by making positive changes in one area, that then affects other areas. Pretty soon I will be exactly where I need to be, pursuing my purpose, doing all that I am capable of, and complete and total health will reign in my body. This cannot happen until all things have been addressed, things that have many facets. Many things are buried deep and need to be unearthed. I have to be willing to take complete responsibility for my life and these things. This is the path to realization as a Child of God.

Things I Believe In

A month or so ago I was asked to write out 2o things I believe in. I thought this would be difficult, turns out, once I got started I had more than 20.

1. My purpose in life is to constantly reach for the attainment of all the potential God created me with.
2. I was put on this earth to be a good steward, to mess with it as little as possible.
3. If you find yourself judging someone, ask to see them in a different light, you might actually understand where they are coming from, if you listen.
4. If someone makes you mad examine this because, more than likely, you possess the same trait only you don't want to admit it.
5. I love being a parent because it makes me want to be a better person.
6. Our children are mirrors of us, good and bad.
7. These mirrors are calls to change.
8. My role as a parent, is to facilitate the growth of my child by creating the most conducive environment for exploration and learning.
9. Part of this means self examination, is there anything I am doing that stands between my child and the reaching her potential?
10. I SIMPLY CANNOT RELATE TO MY LIFE BEFORE BECOMING A PARENT!
11. Everything happens for a reason, there are lessons hidden in everything if you are seeking to grow.
12. Using the word "accident" indicates that you were merely a victim of circumstance and had no control over the outcome.
13. Accountability, Self Control, Self Discipline, and Organization are the keys to finding success in every undertaking in our life.
14. In trying to be a better person, I often feel I am escaping from a muddy pit.
15. Worry gets us no where.
16. Progress can be difficult to ascertain sometimes.
17. Ignorance can kill, what you don't know can hurt you.
18. Questioning the beliefs you hold can be very illuminating.
19. You don't know what you have until it isn't there.
20. If you are not growing you are dying.
21. Everyone has a voice, but few people take the time to speak, and fewer still take the time to listen.
22. Everyone has a piece of the truth if we are willing to get over ourselves long enough to listen.

My Prepared Enviornment

My house is Celina-Lin's house just as much as it belongs to my husband and me. We share it, so out the door goes any magazine spread style of decorating and in comes what is best for the space, my family, and embraces my creativity. It may seem cluttered, "what toys in the living room?", but a least she puts the space to good use! I strongly dislike wasted space, every bit of space that can be used gets used. I cannot do anything drastic like knock out walls or paint pretty colors since I rent, so I had to get creative. I also have a very small space to to lots of stuff in, so my design is multifunctional.

I said before, reading Barbara Curtis became a launching point for me to create my "prepared environment" as she said. Get creative when doing something this drastic, don't be afraid to step out of the mould and create an expression of you. My house now says Tiffany, it is an expression of me.

We have a small, three bedroom, house. Two of the rooms are occupied by my dad and sister, leaving the third room for Celina-Lin, Isaac and me (we co-sleep by choice, not forced circumstances). This poor idea of a master bedroom houses two computers, two homemade work centers/bookcases/desks, mine is bigger because it holds my craft area, our roll up floor bedding, a television, three 6' bookcases, and exercise balls for computer chairs. A lot in such a small room. Any way, under the largest desk I have a collection of Celina-Lin's toss pillows for her to lay on, arrange, bury me, build forts, or whatever her heart desires to do with them. At the end of the desk is 6' bookcase with the lower half for her to put her books on. I have two computer accessories for her to use on my computer, one is an art center and the other is an educational game system. The TV is for her shows.

In my stairwell, I began hanging pictures I drew in high school that I used to think weren't any good, now I think they are neat. These were framed and hung at her level so she could appreciate them. She has her own gallery here as well. At the bottom of the stairs I have three small mirrors, hung at her level for her to look in. I also hung a coat rack here at her level.

My downstairs is part living room, part play room, part homeshool area, part dining area, and part kitchen. All her toys are down here organized nicely into pull out baskets in a grate/cube thing I created. Each basket has a specific type of toy with a label on it for her to identify where each thing should be put away at. She also has a play kitchen with plenty of play food and a real ceramic tea set for her to take care of.

Across the room from the toys is her homeschool area. This also has a cube/grate set that serves as open storage for all of her exercises. On top of this area she has her own collection of breakable things as well as some silk flower arrangements I have made for her. She also has another real and breakable tea set here as well. These breakable things that teach her grace of movement are her responsibility to take care of, a challenge she is living up to quite well. Here also is a small child table with four chairs, for her to paint at, work at, draw at, eat at, whatever suits her, it is hers.

Beginning to Homeschool

At the beginning of this year I began homeschooling my daughter. Ever since birth I knew that I wanted to homeschool, but wasn't quite sure how I would get there. There is so much information out there that it is easy to get bogged down by all the specifics. One question leads to more questions and pretty soon you are in a maze of information where you don't know which way is out, what you really want, or even how to get there. One of my hangups that has kept me from achieving success in various things is called analysis paralysis. I think about things too much, do too much research, quickly get lost, don't know how to get started and ultimately never get started. As three approached I was drowning in information and time was dwindling down. I had to make a decision, to homeschool or send her to public school.

Like all dilemmas, problems we turn over to our mind to figure out, we eventually stumble across a solution, something to help us with that dilemma. This solution is usually found in the last place we would have ever looked, because, by this time, we have moved onto something else entirely. I don't remember exactly what I was looking for, but I stumbled across a website called http://mommylife.net/ . It talked about the "prepared environment", creating an environment that is conducive to your child and facilitates their learning. It said to look at things from their perspective, small people in a world more than twice their size, and take steps to be more accommodating to them. Basically, what you are doing is: speaking directly to your child, not at them; taking their needs, wants and opinions as valid; and creating an entirely new form of communication between the two of you. Communication that can lead to peace in the household.

Barbara Curtis has twelve children over 30 some years, homeschooled most of them, was a former Montessori teacher, and an author. She seemed to know what she was talking about, it seemed correct to my heart, in fact it spoke to me, so I decided that I would apply Montessori principles to homeschooling. Boy what a relief that was. Now we can focus on the important stuff of really making this work for us. I will talk more about my "prepared environment" in another post.

Progress Not Perfection

Too often in this world, we come face to face with feeling inadequate. We meet someone who is doing something better than we are so we judge ourselves as lacking. Our focus needs to be on growth, expansion and foward movement. Our focus needs to be on what we know is best for our children, ourselves and our family, not what someone else says is best. After all who else knows all your circumstances, only you, so only you can say that you are ok with what you are doing. Accepting where you are does not mean stagnation. It simply means "I am fine where I am, I know where I am going, and I am taking steps to get there".