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Week 10 of 52 Changing from Memoir to Blogmoir

September 10, 2012 //
5

REFLECTIONS

I’ve had a week to ponder why I was drawn to an exploration of  the unified field theory of the world versus particle theory. Until now, I have found it somewhat comforting to embrace particle theory because it accounted for the physical phenomena in my environment. Objects are solid and inert, immobile and  stable and change only if something is done directly to them. No mystery here. Logical! If A=B and B=C then A=C  This works with numbers so I extrapolated this logic to the rest of my life. This is what particle theory has told me… everything can be explained. ..everything that happens is a result of direct, observable, analyzable, cause and effect.

Particle theory remains, not because it is accurate, but because I, like most, prefer theories that match my reality. If, as quantum physicists maintain, the world is one massive energy field, unifying absolutely everything and not a series of discrete parts, well, I can’t see, touch, count, weigh or measure that, no one can, so believing such a preposterous idea, would take a leap of faith. Maybe this is akin to the resistance the average person had, to the spherical world theory. Pythagoras postulated the earth as round in 570BC, but it took 20 centuries and a reality check (thanks Columbus) before the non-scientific community  would embrace a round world. Scientists today know Newton’s Theory is simplistic and incomplete (it can’t explain electricity or nuclear reaction), but the shift to believing the theory of Quantum Mechanics is slow for the rest of us.

I was going to send Alex Paterson a note of gratitude for his elucidation of the complex scientific theories of Newtonian vs Quantum Physics, but he deserves the full orchestration.

Embodying The Other Woman via PARTICLE THEORY

If I want to embody The Other Woman, I must first  identify her attributes and then, I must create a list of appropriate actions to achieve these attributes, and then I must execute these actions. BINGO!! I will be The Other Woman! Simply put, through the principle of cause and effect, I will transform.

So I began.

In July, when I launched The Other Woman Blog, I asked my delightful friend Suzanne for her help. We attended a Writers Workshop, abuzz with women. Independent of each other we tried to spot this alluring creature, The Other Woman. After some woman gazing and a discussion, we realized that Other Woman-ness was not easily quantifiable. Such a woman would possess an essence that we felt we would recognize when we saw it but she defied simple description. Intriguing to men and women alike, The Other Woman is so much more than a simple inventory of desirable traits.

So began my problem with Particle Theory. I needed specific attributes so that I could create my action plan. Would The Other Woman be thin, full-figured, or muscular? Different action plan for each of these. Would The Other Woman exude sexuality, sensuality or androgyny? Very different looks, very different action plans. Would she be high spirited or contemplative? Would she literally have to be someone’s mistress to possess The Other Woman energy? I felt deeply frustrated in my inability to quantify her characteristics. Without a list of qualities, I could not have a clear action plan, which meant defeat before I even started. This defeat forced me out of my comfortable world of the known, into the mystery of the elusive. Who exemplifies this enigmatic woman?

Embodying The Other Woman via Quantum Mechanics Theory

Does the image of Mona Lisa epitomize The Other Woman? She is often described as enigmatic or mystical, her image eliciting conversation 500 years after its creation by Leonardo Da Vinci. Her silent communication with her observer seems to welcome him/her into a place of unfathomable depth. Might a journey with Mona Lisa take one to places yet discovered? Just as the painting’s roads, river and mountain pass, have no clear end, neither can the journey of one’s life nor the journey with another. So I’ve begun to accept that The Other Woman is not a simple list of quantifiable characteristics. She has an unfathomable mystique, unique to each woman and discoverable through exploration of the mystery within oneself and the rest of the world.

Mona Lisa

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 10 OF 52

CHANGING FROM MEMOIR TO BLOGMOIR

Two years ago I met a lovely woman named Deb Dewar. She intrigues me because, without fail, I feel better about myself after being with her. The other day, she asked me what the impetus was for writing my Blog. I vacillated on what I would say, but finally decided on the truth.

Marital betrayal started my obsession with ‘the other women’. Years of anger, rage and feelings of unworthiness filled my life. These very negative emotions became the reality through which I saw the world, while my pride compelled me to project the persona of a happy, fulfilled woman. Denial is really much more than a river in Egypt! My obsession and my rage consumed me, resulting in me becoming extremely ill.

To release some of this pent up emotion, I wrote pages and pages in journals, with accompanying art work. After some years of Jungian analysis and more years with my Herbalist, Annette, I underwent a physical transformation. The debilitating arthritis that had crippled my body and made me blind subsided to a great degree. During my 5-6 year physical transformation, I was frustrated by the lack of memoirs detailing recovery from crippling arthritis. Books on cancer abound, but in reading these accounts, I found I didn’t relate. So I promised myself that I would write a memoir describing my path to the restoration of my life.

Although I have always wanted to be a writer, I have never written much other than To-Do lists and journal rants. Until 2 years ago,that is, when my husband, in a loving gesture of support, bought me $200.00 worth of  Elizabeth J. Andrew’s time. She is a Spiritual Memoirist. She is also that rare combination of intelligence, heart and beauty, and has gently guided me to myself in my writing.

Writing is a solitary endeavour and although I can happily spend more time alone than most, I needed a more interactive medium in which to write. I needed an audience!  In the many years of singing and reciting and accordion playing in festivals, the single event I loved participating in, was story telling. The only time the audience didn’t wince in empathy for my discomfort, was when listening to me recount “Bad Mousie” by Martha Ward Dudley! I loved telling this story!

My daughter has been writing her Blog, called dearandersoncooper, for some months. I liked the format, so under her guidance I launched my blog! I thought I’d coined the word Blogmoir, silly me…some young’n was there ages ago!

So for Week 10 of 52, I will write with honesty and remain open to the communiques from my soul and the ephemeral world!  The whole is so much more than a sum of its parts!

Between2Marys

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Categories Arthritis, Jungian Analysis, the other woman, transformation

WEEK 9 OF 52 Changing from Newtonian to Quantum Physics

September 3, 2012 //
2

REFLECTIONS

I had a eureka moment this morning as I sat down to write. Maybe this new thought has been obvious to everyone but me! The Other Woman energy that I am trying to find this year is not ‘out there’ somewhere.

Have I been looking beyond me, as a continuation of a pattern established in dressing myself in ‘parent sanctioned’ personas throughout my developing life as a child? What came into my consciousness today, from the grace of the Universe, is the joyous feeling that I can stop trying to become some externalized vision of perfection that is created from a conglomeration of parental and cultural constructs. Naturally my femininity felt contained as I attempted to reflect the various faces of others’ ideal feminine. I’ve tried on Virtuous Vera and Alluring Alicia as a teen;  followed by Intellectual Inga during university semesters and once the summer break came, I tried on Sporty Sue or Fun Farrah. This seemed natural to me as a youth. Where else would I learn which behaviours are acceptable, which careers are worthy and which lifestyles are to be coveted, if not from my parents and my surrounding culture?   Of course I knew the sentiment behind the 70’s “Free to Be You and Me” movement, and if asked, I would have said, without irony or disingenuousness, “I am Virtuous Vera, Allring Alicia, Sporty Sue and Fun Farrah!” I did not have the knowledge that I was using other people’s reality as my reference point.

So I continued this pattern of personality and behavioural acquisition into my adult years.

In my efforts to find and keep a man, I’ve tried to be as thin as Twiggy, as full figured as Marilyn, as good a cook as Julia Child, as wonderful a home decorator as Martha Stewart, as conversationally engaging and informed as Christiane Amanpour, as athletic as Dorothy Hamill, and as funny as Gilda Radner. ..and all of this simultaneously! Sadly, this isn’t even the entire list. There was also the pressure from the Woman’s Movement, where I felt I had failed if I had not achieved a perfect balance between excelling in my career and raising my children. And ‘raising’,  meant my  children must experience as rich an environment as was provided by a ‘stay-at-home’ Mom.

Of course I never came close to achieving the level of competency any of these women attained, but the surprising part is, I continued to try. I felt an internal pressure to be as successful as a dizzying array of highly accomplished women.

Twiggy
Marilyn Monroe
Julia Child
Gilda Radner
Martha Stewart
Christiane Amanpour
Dorothy Hamill
Stay-at-Home Mom
Inside My Head

 

As I ponder these images, another thought occurs to me! I realize I would never have expected Gilda, for example, to be a culinary marvel, nor a first rate figure skater, nor a news anchor. Nor would I have thought she should even attempt to be anything but who she truly was! So why did I expect these Super Woman feats of myself? Why did I feel I was failing at being a woman, if I wasn’t a conglomerate of many successful women??

So now I am giving myself the opportunity to reference my own soul to create within me, the woman I was born to be…a truer me… to allow my unique inner self to flourish! The conflict I have felt between my inner self and the external, created self should, in time,  cease to exist. A major recalibration is needed, as I have felt an unease with my judgements on what parts of me are good or bad and what actions are right or wrong. So to actually believe my body can shift energetically, I had to examine my underlying beliefs about how our universe operates, the Universe which includes my shoulder and my concept of me. This segues nicely into Week 9 of 52 of  The Other Woman.

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 9 OF 52

CHANGING FROM NEWTONIAN TO QUANTUM PHYSICS

Last week’s post on finding a resolution to my shoulder pain, gave me an opportunity to compare two very different views of our world’s physical structure. I have been an adherent to Newtonian Mechanics, where all of the Universe, including my body, is part of a massive mechanical system of solid, discrete objects. The chair I sit on is as separate from my physical body as I am from my computer and as all three of these entities are from you. This immutable or fixed view gave me the belief that all phenomena in my life(including the nebulousness of pain or consciousness), were the direct result of observable and measurable interactions between these separate, mechanical parts. My perception of reality is that everything exists in 3-dimentions, time is linear, and every object is separate from every other object. My heart, kidneys and lungs, or shoulder, for example, have predictable, discrete ‘functions’ so when a part breaks down, a doctor with a patch kit is brought in to fix it, thus restoring this perception. But what if this is only how we have learned to perceive our Universe, because this is how schools teach Science…the world is broken into parts. Doctors learn about the body by taking it apart, but Scientists know this is an extremely outdated and limited perception.

Mending My Shoulder Newtonian Physics Style

1.Visit Rheumatologist – get anti-inflammatory pills and pain killers because of the belief that my shoulder is a discrete joint in my body, unrelated to me, the person.

This method may give my shoulder relief, leading me to believe it is repaired, but there is not a doctor around who can help me with an abstract issue like personal transformation, and that’s what I think I need  to truly relieve the pain. Because I believe my shoulder pain comes from the burden of carrying around the expectations of the patriarchal father, I know mere pain relief will not do any thing but mask the underlying issue. This leads me to Quantum Physics!

Just like the best things in life, the theory behind Quantum Physics evolved when Scientists where trying to prove its opposite…serendipity at its finest. So as scientists were looking for the smallest, most elemental and discrete building blocks of the Universe in support of Newton’s Theory, they instead discovered that this theory is hogwash…meaningless…The Universe appears to be an undivided whole…a dynamic web of interconnected and inseparable energy patterns…a unified field. This means that matter or solids as I call them, are just ‘slowed down’ forms of energy, not separate, independent, discrete parts. Logically, there is no such thing as a part. I am not separated into parts, nor am I part of a whole…I am the whole. You are the whole. 

My shoulder is not a discrete joint to be healed separately from the rest of my body and my experiences. This belief gives me hope that transformation awaits me!

Mending My Shoulder Quantum Physics Style

1.Visit Annette, my Herbalist, who has spent years trying to pry me away from my Newtonian stance, into a belief of Oneness. In a room of people we connect physically because the air we breathe out becomes the air others breathe in… an example of how we are all The Whole as we sit separately on our chairs.

2.Visit my Myofascial Release Therapist, Maneesha Madan, who believes that the fascia is a very complex 3-dimensional structure binding all of the body together…more like the unified field theory of Quantum Physics than the particle theory of Newtonian Physics.

This was a long, hard post, but it is Labour Day!

So for Week 9 of 52, I will remember that any transformation is possible, as I am the Whole, not a part of The Whole.

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Categories Jungian Analysis, love, the other woman, transformation

Week 7 of 52 Changing From Willful To Blooming

August 20, 2012 //
0

REFLECTIONS

It occurred to me, the other day, why I have children. Some reasons are obviously self-serving and easily identifiable…for example, having someone to love me unconditionally and having someone to grow old with and now that I am in The Blogoshere, having someone to keep me up-to-date with technology.

But a positive, less apparent reason, centres around the role they play in pushing me towards the ‘better’ me, the less self-righteous and omniscient me.

Mother doesn’t always know best.

For example…last week’s Blog Post was not going to include the real and graphic image of me fully engaged in escapist behaviour. I intended to merely create a tidy, unrevealing list of my behaviours. 4 items: British Mystery Shows, FreeCell, Food and Alcohol. I did not feel anxious or exposed by this list because it didn’t reveal the depth nor the intensity of my efforts to escape. In the readers’ mind I may have watched just one show, while I played one game, while I ate one slice, while I drank one G and T.  While ambiguity prevailed, my ego remained intact.

But when my Editor (tech-savvy brilliant daughter) read my post before I published it, she asked the one question I didn’t want asked. “What happened that prompted this Post? You have to show not tell when you write!”

Hyperventilating, I answered, “No way! That would be embarrassing and anyway, I’m already at my Blog limit of 1000 words.”

And here is the blessing in having children. My daughter not only knows me better than most, but does what all children do instinctively…she called me on my ego and my lie! She was right on both counts! Blog Posts have no defined length, but my ego goes on forever!

The greatest gain I felt from last week’s challenge, Changing the Power of My Escape Artist, came from revealing my behaviour, not in list form, but in story form. If I had attended an Escape Artists Anonymous meeting, such a revelation would have been simple for me, because I would have felt safe(ego intact) in a group of like-behavioured individuals. But to reveal escapist behaviours to the world at large, initially bruised my ego, but I soon felt surprisingly liberated. I became aware that my need to ‘look good’ imprisoned me behind bars built by my fear of other people’s perceptions. In accepting that I may now be perceived as a loser…my worst fear…I was no longer held captive by that fear! Doing the work of the soul, definitely damages the ego, but it is becoming apparent that living a less egocentric life frees me to experience the mystery, the awe-inspiring synchronicity of my world.

Repression and denial of that which embarrasses me, not only zaps life force, but is a major factor in the cyclic nature of addiction.The vagaries of life will always present me with unwelcome events. If my reaction is to escape this reality, and then feel horrid about methods used to escape, what choice is there but to try to escape again in hopes of dousing the feelings of shame. A Merry-Go-Round called Denial. But the cycle is brought to an abrupt end when I stop feeling badly about escaping. So thank you to my daughter/editor and to all of you who bear witness to my truth.

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 7  OF 52

CHANGING FROM WILLFULNESS TO BLOSSOMING

“The living self has one purpose only: to come into its own fullness of being, as a tree comes into full blossom, or a bird into spring beauty, or a tiger into lustre” DH Lawrence

I was reminded of some wisdom I learnt from my dear Herbalist, Annette. She suggested I plant a bulb in a jar in the dark of winter and watch it transform into a blossom by spring.

The purpose of this exercise was to show me how slowly transformation occurs. No matter how many times I bribed the bulb with treats, threatened it with punishment, or read it excerpts from The Power Of Positive Thinking, it progressed excruciatingly slowly. The salient point being, it did progress.

Of course this lesson was challenging for me because it put into question everything I believed about personal growth. I believed thoroughly in the principle of Mind Over Matter, which is the power of the mind to control and influence the body and the physical world. For example, if I had the desire to become more compassionate in my interactions with my friends, I would just act more compassionately…easy as that. So any thoughts, feelings or behaviours that were contrary to compassion, were just ignored, stuffed away, and repressed. Mind over matter! But transformation needs the death of the old, the planting of the new and the long, slow period of gestation, before new growth manifests.

Today, when I was enjoying a vase of blossoms from my garden, another profound truth flooded into my being. The potential for the blooms exists in the seed. The seed was not in the ground with a list of attributes it wanted for its flower. 

“Let me see…I think I’ll be black with white polka dots this year…and I’m tired of the tear drop look, so I think I will look like that tulip I saw in last month’s Home and Garden.” I’m laughing at how preposterous this sounds. I accept unequivocally that the bloom on a fuchsia will look as expected, with negligible variation.

 And yet I have trouble accepting that the same principles hold true for me. So this week, the 7th of 52 will centre around me accepting the attributes I was given, instead of trying to be a tulip, when I was born to be a fuchsia!

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Categories the other woman, transformation

WEEK 6 OF 52 Changing The Power of My Escape Artist!

August 13, 2012 //
3

REFLECTIONS

Was it worth it, I ask myself? 5000 kilometres, 2 weeks, 10 beds. Why did I have to actually experience the town, the house, the street, the school, the people,  where I spent my first 12 years? Wouldn’t it have been enough to look up the town’s news on Google? Check out my old house on ‘Street View’ of Google Maps? If I wanted to change my perception of my childhood in the hopes of feeling more positive about it, why not just try some of the suggestions from my .28 second search that produced 137,000,000 sites about positive thinking!! For example:

  1. Always use only positive words while thinking and while talking. Use words such as, ‘I can’, ‘I am able’, ‘it is possible’, ‘it can be done’, etc.
  2. Allow into my awareness only feelings of happiness, strength and success.
  3. In my conversation use words that evoke feelings and mental images of strength, happiness and success.
  4. Before starting with any plan or action, visualize clearly in your mind its successful outcome.
  5. Associate yourself with people who think positively.
  6. Always sit and walk with my back straight. This will strengthen my confidence and inner strength.

 I would have spent the 2 weeks reciting positive aphorisms, instead of having the real experience if I believed it would have resulted in any real, long lasting change. But I know, because I learned it the hard way,  that there is a real difference in thinking about a potential experience and having that experience. 

My drive towards The Pas occurred with the brakes on…virtual brakes…internal brakes…ones that screamed “I don’t want to go there. Bad things happened there. Dogs died, kids cried, goblins lived under the beds.”

And then I was there, my daughter behind the wheel, driving into The Pas. We passed the town Cemetery where I celebrated Birthday parties. The grounds were lovely with massive oak trees, rolling hills and beautiful grave markers. Nearby hills of sand provided a setting fit for a party! No longer did I question my Mother’s choice for the location of my party. This was the first shift in my perception of my childhood.

Then we drove down Constant Avenue, my family home mid way down the block. In my ‘Story’ about my childhood I have always used the street name ‘constant’ to reflect the constant despair I felt as a child, the constant practising I had to do, and the constant work as child labourer I endured.

But now the street looked so pretty with flowers in neatly kept yards,and shade tress welcoming a traveller to come and sit awhile to enjoy the peace. Unexpectedly, I began recalling happy childhood events;  riding up and down the streets playing Chicken on my bike…you know where you drive as fast as you can towards another biker to see who turns away first!

Then I remembered the countless games of marbles I played and the skipping and hoola hoop games I created with my friends Marilyn and Jocelyn.

I could almost picture the walls of snow in winter where I built huge snow forts, with a kitchen and living room, the hills for sledding and our rink in the back yard, that Dad built for us each winter.

Where were all these positive memories before? Why now? What has allowed me to feel the joy and happiness of my childhood now? Why had I clung only to the pain of my childhood? Where was the balanced view? The mix of the yin and yang, the good with the bad, the dark with the light?I am not entirely sure why I can see both sides now, but I hope I come to understand this during my exploration of The Other Woman. No doubt my past adherence to my ‘Story’ contributed to my ‘stance’ on life, the one that has had me repeating patterns of behaviour that were destructive to me and those I love.

My most unexpected experience in The Pas though, was the attitude others had towards my Mother…they loved her, unequivocally. I heard this from my childhood friends and from kids who had lived on our street and from her friends, and from people she sang with in the choir. Why had I held such a jaundiced view of her? Had I not experienced her love as they obviously had, or did I just get stuck, like a burr on a bear, to the negative?

ASPIRATIONS FOR WEEK 6 of 52
 
CHANGING THE POWER OF MY ESCAPE ARTIST!

We cannot change anything until we accept it.

Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

– Carl Jung

via Every form of addiction is bad, by Carl Jung.

The first step of any 12 Step Program centres around admitting one’s powerlessness over something. But this step presented a conundrum for me. Being the First Step it was apparent to me that the next 11 could not be attempted without acquiescence to the first.

But feeling powerless made me feel weak and weakness is obviously not an admirable trait, so I skipped over the step and have asserted my will over most everything and everyone in my life…for years.

I pictured myself as The Little Engine that Could…do anything if I tried hard enough. And as I am a Romaniuk, I have a very strong will.  I willed my way through life, bulldozing what needed to bulldozed, building what needed to be built…with me as architect/creator! Well I did this until my body cried “Uncle” and quit cooperating with willful Contrary Mary. 

Surrender to your fear so you may triumph over it.Choose me,open your soul to me, and embrace the Devouring.”

― Simon Holt, The Devouring

So now I have come to believe that admitting powerlessness is more akin to surrendering my wilfulness than being weak willed, I can admit when I am powerless in a situation.This brings me to MY ESCAPE ARTIST.There is a transition point between believing I am in control of a particular aspect of my life or a person in my life and the acceptance of the fact that  I am not…that I, in fact, was NOT put in charge, and that no amount of cajoling, browbeating or flattery is going to make things go my way.This transition point can last a nano-second  or days or years if I am honest. I call it a TRANSITION because eventually my will is broken, and I succumb to the truth, that there is a power greater than myself in charge.The purpose of my ESCAPE ARTIST is to submerse me into unconsciousness. When I don’t want to accept life as it presents itself, I choose to escape this reality by:

  1. Watching British Mystery Series. American series don’t work.
  2. Playing FreeCell on my phone
  3. Eating 
  4. Drinking
  5. Under Dire Circumstances…Do All 4 Simultaneously

For example, when I arrived back home from my emotional roller coaster ride to The Pas, I felt some disquiet, some dissonance. My Childhood ‘Story’ has been safely tucked in my hip pocket for ready access whenever I needed some sympathy, some ‘ahhh, poor you’ directed my way . But now a new picture was emerging and I wasn’t comfortable with its prettiness.So first I hit the couch and watched the waves, hoping Nature would calm me down…when that didn’t work I found a British Mystery Series to watch…and when that didn’t distract me enough my Escape Artist reminded me that I have FreeCell on my phone …and when that didn’t work I added a loaf of bread…and when that didn’t work I mixed a very large Vodka/Tonic and promptly passed out. I’m a little shocked at the lengths I would go to avoid feeling only to wake up and have the feelings there…still waiting to be acknowledged.So, for Week 6 of 52 and for the rest of the year, I will live in the moment as it is given to me, in an attempt to side-step and outwit the Escape Artist.

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is?  Surrender to what is. “― Eckhart Tolle

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Categories 12 Step Program, childhood, love, the other woman, transformation
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