Self Acceptance and Enjoying Life's Adventures

On the surface, this past year has seemed to be one of the hardest of my life. On the surface, I have never felt that I looked more lost. On the surface, I have often felt that I have little to recommend me. On the surface that may be true, but perhaps just to me.

Almost every day, I catch myself thinking that I should be something else that I’m not: more settled, more secure, more mature maybe? I have friends around me that are married, having children, in good jobs. I see these things, and I think, “I am doing something wrong because I don’t have these things.” From somewhere deep inside comes something else, a faint voice that is nevertheless fully audible: “Says who?”

There is no one that tells me to my face that I am doing something wrong – that my erratic path doesn’t seem to be the right one; that I had better knock it off and get down to business. No one says that to me, but I find myself imagining that there are plenty of people thinking it. I am finally tired of making room for these people in my head, when none of them have actually asked to be there, and none were consciously invited in.

I was recently at a dinner where a woman was lamenting her son-in-law following his dream of being a musician. He builds houses, but hasn’t been able to find much work in the recession, so he took advantage of the situation and has started putting his energy into his music. He’s no small-time player, either: he’s been touring the country, opening for Bon Jovi and other well-known bands. With investments and other sources of income, he is still providing for his family financially. The problem is, however, that while he’s touring, his wife is working a full-time job and raising their three children at home. Although he is aware of how hard this is on her, the fact of the matter is that he’s not there.

When I first heard this story, I wanted to take his side. The courage to get up and follow your dream is hard to gather, and I found myself angry at his wife (and mother-in-law) for not understanding. Then I thought about how hard it has to be for her to still be married but essentially raising the children by herself. I have decided that I don’t need to pick sides in this situation, because there is no right answer: both people have their reasons, and both are right. Fortunately, I don’t even know them, and even if I did, it’s not my problem to fix.

I am lucky enough not to have this problem. I have many, many dreams, but one big one: to write a book about the life I have led over the past four years: all its trials and tribulations and what I have learned. Although I feel a need to write this to process it for myself, I also hope that what I have to say might somehow help others in similar situations.

I do not have to worry about taking care of my family while I strive for my goal; I do not have to worry about the selfishness of making a decision that might negatively affect those around me. Although my friends may miss me when I disappear for months or years at a time, none of them need me to feed them while I’m gone, and none of them rely on me alone for emotional support.

I have often wondered at the way my life has turned out up to this point. In my low moments, I have wondered why I’m so unlovable, so unable to make a commitment that, when seemingly everyone else is in a relationship, I am alone. Often I have wondered why I can't settle into the lives that other people have, even when a part of me knows that I don't necessarily want that kind of existence; that I am not capable of enjoying it. Instead of worrying about this, I am making a decision to accept that it happened for a reason: so that I would have the time, space and freedom to create what I need to create.

So, in rewriting my inner dialogue to better accept this plan, here are the things I have accomplished this last year, on my very unique and adventurous journey:

I finished and published a second cookbook! Savoring Leavenworth introduced me to many amazing people, some fantastic food, and has taught me even more about publishing, marketing and the satisfaction of creating a product that people enjoy.

I am infinitely healthier than I was at this time last year, when I couldn’t eat anything, and was trying to recover from four different stomach problems. I have learned what my body does and doesn’t want to eat, and when I listen to it (which is happening much more often than previously) I live an amazing and active life.

I spent the summer at an yoga retreat center in British Columbia, and learned a lot about myself…a lot more than I expected I would learn, for that matter. Not only did I gather courage to show parts of myself that I used to hide, I also learned a ton of new and delicious vegan and vegetarian recipes, and many alternatives to wheat. 

I have made many friends that I share great conversations, experiences and laughs with in Wenatchee and Leavenworth and beyond.

I have learned how to say no when it will be better for me, and yes when it makes my heart sing.

Related to the last one, I have learned that almost any problem can be solved with solid, healthy communication, where I state what I want instead of wondering why the people around me can’t read my mind.

I have learned the power of positive thinking, of reaching out to the people who can support me in times of crisis, and that burying my feelings and emotions in a dark hole just means that they start to rot and stink and eventually must be dug up and allowed to air out.

Most of all, I have learned what unconditional love looks like, and that I have to love myself unconditionally, despite all the fears and doubts I have, in order to step forward with confidence and pursue my dreams.

So there you have it, invisible audience. I am going to continue on my merry way of living the adventurous life I have to live, and I thank you for your support. I wish you the best of luck on your own journey, and please know that I support it, whatever it is, whether I say it out loud or not.

Love and adventure kisses

Morgan

Mourning Who He Thought I Was

Author's note: this is not a post about any single ex-boyfriend, rather an analysis of my romantic relationships in general. This is my view of my experience and should not be taken as a commentary on anyone but myself and my own process.

It seems like a simple concept: you date someone, you break up, and whether or not it’s amicable, you go your separate ways and continue on with your life. In a perfect world, you accept that there are things about you that were not compatible with aspects of your partner’s aspects, shrug it off and go on your merry way, looking for someone whose aspects meld better with yours. Right?

I actually think this might be the case for many people out there, but that’s just a theory. I know people who claim this is their process; I have read books that say that people should feel this way, but I cannot actually claim to have experienced this in a breakup, ever. 

I have only just been able to determine what it is I feel instead: that my persona has been eviscerated. You know…like some witch woman took a really long scary looking knife and slit open my belly, letting all my guts pour out onto the ground, then cackled loudly and kicked them aside for the cat to eat.

Gross, I know. Gross, but please don’t misunderstand what I mean. This has nothing to do with my heart; I am not heartbroken by every man that has ever broken up with me, or whom I have broken up with, for that matter. In fact, there are some men that I haven’t even liked all that much, and yet when the dreaded end of the relationship comes around, regardless of whether it was amicable, there lie my guts, a slimy heap on the ground.

What exactly do I mean by this disgusting mental image? I mean that during a relationship, I have started to define myself by my boyfriend’s idea of me. I have started to keep track of the attributes he has complimented me on and played up on those; I have started to hide my strange habits or insecurities so that he sees only the best side of me. I gather his comments like clues, and use them to build a version of myself that is the kind of woman that I think he wants me to be, for better or worse.

Once I’ve done this, there is little room for error. With each piece I add to the puzzle, I become more strictly defined; confined. It isn’t long before the strain gets to be too much, and I suddenly try to break out of the box I have fit myself in. At that point, my boyfriend is surprised by my outburst because it’s so unlike me.

So here’s the kicker: for better or for worse, this constructed person of me isn’t the right construction. It can be my feelings, or his, or both, but suddenly something is wrong and it’s over. As I said, regardless of how much love was involved, the evisceration scene occurs, because I realize that I have lost track of who I was before the relationship.

I am not this person, and yet this person was dropped by my now ex boyfriend. I am destroyed, literally. Suddenly, there’s room for the real me, but that person is nowhere to be seen – she went on vacation, and has decided not to come back until the tourists are done gawking and she can have her space all to herself again. She must be coaxed, and often, this takes a long time.

I consider myself a slow healer when it comes to relationships; I am not one to jump from one into the other, or even have more than one a year, for that matter. I used to think it was heartbreak, but if that was the case, why was it so hard for me even when I didn’t love the person? Ego? Pride? Perhaps, but it was also the process of recovering my sense of self – of no longer defining who I was in someone else’s eyes. Once I get used to seeing me as he did, it takes a long time for me to find the real me again after he’s gone. In a sense, I am not actually grieving for losing him, I am grieving that the person I built for him was tossed to the wayside, and then trying to pull my real self back in – the one that he fell for in the first place, and that I chose to hide.

Yes, that’s right, invisible audience: I do this to myself. No one asks me to reinvent myself; no one tells me that I must change to be loved. I’m not sure, but I would hazard a guess that most of my ex-boyfriends wonder what happened to the funny, strong, independent woman they met at the beginning, that was less concerned with pleasing them in ways they didn’t ask for and more about wringing the pleasure out of life however she could. I don’t know what they think, but I think that ultimately the breakups have more to do with my inability to be authentic than they do anything else.

That doesn’t really matter, though. What matters is this: it takes me a long time to get over an ended relationship because I must recover the person I was before the relationship, and mourn the rejection of the persona I created FOR the relationship. We can’t all be Sybil: my personalities are slow shifters.

So, what can I learn from this? That it’s ok to be me. That I will ultimately save myself a lot of time and energy if I can be my authentic self, and allow someone to either love or leave me for that person. I can also learn that my worth has nothing to do with others’ perceptions of me and everything to do with my perceptions of myself. If I love me and let the me in me shine, it won’t matter what anyone else thinks. Their perceptions of me can fade into the night, and I won’t even know they’re gone, much less mourn their passing. If I can do this, I can keep my guts intact.

Love and gutted kisses

Morgan

Communication Gives Me Zits

Communication gives me zits.

Okay, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I just pick at my face when I’m stressed out, and communicating in a mature way stresses me out, which makes me pick at my face, which makes it look like I have zits. It’s an evil, evil cycle.
Off and on, I have wondered what exactly made me different from other people, because I certainly have never felt as if I truly belonged. Over the years the things that made me self-consciously different have changed: I’m tall, I’m red-headed, I read too much, and at one point I wanted to teach cats to write with pens taped to their paws.
Today, I am probably most self-conscious about my total lack of ability when it comes to good, healthy communication.

Sometimes, it is incredibly obvious to me and others that I am failing at that whole “communication” thing: my face gets red and I mumble something incoherent, then back out of a room as fast as possible. This is usually what happens when I am put on the spot and I want to say no to whatever is being asked of me, but I can’t bring myself to do it. This is especially true when there are other people watching the scene.

Other times, I will think that I have communicated quite well, but it turns out I am less capable of using the English language than I thought, because whoever I said whatever I said it to acts as if I never said anything. This is very similar to the scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Toula’s mom asks her fiancé Ian if he’s hungry.

Mom: Would you like something to eat?
Ian: No thank you, I just ate.
Mom: Okay, I make you something.

My third communication predicament is definitely the one I am most guilty of. This is the case of the “You Should Know.” I realize it is incredibly ridiculous, but I suffer from a terrible disease where I am surprised – angry even – when someone doesn’t know something I haven’t told them. Basically, I am somehow thinking that I telepathically told someone something, (I can’t communicate out loud, but I am definitely good at communicating in my head; are my brain waves not loud enough to hear?) so I am surprised when they ask me to do something or assume something about me that is WAY off the mark of what my actual goals are, what I want out of life, or what I want for breakfast. I mean, I know what I want, shouldn’t they know what I want if they hang out with me, even on a semi-regular basis?
To escalate the problem of the “You Should Know,” I have to admit that even when confronted with a misconception about me, I rarely just out-and-out correct the person. Instead, I seethe and blame them for not knowing what I haven’t told them instead of spitting out two simple sentences to remedy the situation, something like, “No, you are wrong. I do not actually know all the words to Thriller.”

It’s amazing I have any friends at all.

Basically, I’m not sure I could communicate myself out of a paper bag. What makes this worse is that now I recognize these little “anti-communication strategies,” even as they’re happening, but I’m still not quite at a point where I can change them yet. It comes one small piece at a time. Right now the piece is “recognition;” I haven’t quite moved on to “corrective action.”

So bear with me, invisible audience. I’m working on it – communication, that is. I’d say that I’ll let you know how it goes, but who knows if I’ll be able to tell you?

Love and You Should Know Kisses,

Morgan