Category: self-care

courage · love · responsibility · self-care

Arrangement

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

One phrase a single woman should never utter: Cat, stop
eating my flowers.
I bought myself flowers this week, as I now do periodically, and the
man at the flower stand, who went off on a very long monologue about the
upcoming new year for his religion, which I believe I gathered was Russian
Orthodox, told me that he’d been thinking about me. This older gentleman, who I
didn’t believe worked at the stand the first time I saw him there, and I
waited for the woman who I normally interacted with. I thought he was some sort
of flower stand hanger-on, or the woman’s husband (which he is), but a person
who didn’t know much about flowers or flower arrangements.
That time, he began to randomly pluck flowers from their
black watery bins, and show them to me, “This? … This?” and as I shook my
head, I became more convinced that he did not in fact work there.
Turns out, he did, and he does, but that first time, I
waited for his wife anyway, and walked away with a beautiful spray of day
lilies – the kind that smelled, as many in California do not, I found out from
the woman – that the kind that do, come from places where the land does get
cold in winter – like back in New Jersey, where we grew them along the side of
my house, and every summer the whole length of the house smelled of day lilies.
So, I always hunt for the ones that smell.
This week when I went, it was just the man, and his strange
information about seven things that they put on an altar for their new year,
including hyacinth and some sort of branch, which he said is why he’d been
thinking of me – that it was all very beautiful, but not as beautiful as me. …
Now, I play along, I’m charming, and he’s very delightful to have made up this
story on the spot, or maybe it was true. But it was a strange ending to this long religious info session. And
I walked away, with my bunch of flowers.
These flowers, this arrangement, is not pretty. It’s got
some spiky, scaggy deep purple sprays of some sort. An anemone-looking orange
one that probably eats live things in its other life. A stalk of not-so-fresh
looking sunrise flowers. A few branches of pussy-willow, and one stem of day
lilies – the smelling kind.
It sort of looks, overall, like a thanksgiving/fall style
color palette, and it is not pretty in the conventional way that I usually like
my flowers to be. But, it is beautiful in its own way. It is not something I
would have chosen.
I suppose I’m moved to write about it, them, this
interaction, because it sort of speaks to a few things for me. The first is
that, when someone compliments me, I assume it’s bunk. That it’s to get
something from me, like more business in this case. The second is that I knew I
wasn’t liking the arrangement he was making, but because of his compliment and
certainty in his work, I let it go, and took what I was being given. And third, of course, not all beautiful things are pretty.
The third, I’ll accept. It’s true. Things in this world are
to be marveled at, but they’re not always attractive in conventional ways, and
you may have to squint to see its beauty. So, this is partly about letting go
of my ideas about things in general. My proscribed black-and-white, good/not
good, thinking.
To the second, I ought to have said something. Just because
I was complimented doesn’t mean I have to take
what’s being handed to me. I am glad I have the flowers, but I do wish I had
asked for something other than a handful of motley and slightly craggy plants.
This, speaks to many things in my life and how I’ve lived it up to now.
And to the first, about dismissing compliments, well, that’s
back to the accepting support thing that I’m working on currently. To believe
that I am worthy of notice, support, love, and encouragement. And that perhaps people aren’t pulling my chain, or trying to get something from me, that perhaps I have something genuine that people like and are attracted to. To believe, as it were, that not every
rose has its thorn … 

family · love · maturity · recovery · self-care

Family Planning.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

(oh, who doesn’t love a little tongue in cheek!)
I spoke with my mom yesterday. It’s a new record. Twice in
6… well, more like 9 months. It went well. Better than with my dad at least,
but I know part is that she was simply excited to talk on the phone with me and so was on “good behavior.”
I’ve had to watch my balance between “maintaining boundaries” and silent
scorn/punishment. Because I can tend to tip the scales toward the latter, still
making my parents make up to me things they don’t know need to be made up, and
punishing them for things they do naturally, as if punishing someone for
breathing.
But, it’s becoming, and had become, time to step back into
our relationship, and hope that this is a dance floor not a boxing ring. I’ve
needed to time to cool off, to solidify my ability to say things like “That’s
not my business” or “I’d rather we didn’t talk about that.” And, as yesterday
at least was proof of, I am becoming better at it.
This isn’t to say there weren’t the few tinges of the same
old, but, they were few, and I wasn’t thrown by them, as I’ve been so easily
thrown into the drama of despair and self pity that my family is nuts, always
has been nuts, and ever thus shall be, amen. Including myself.
There’s been a lot of need for differentiation work. My life
being mine, and not a carbon copy of hers, or dictated by the mandates of my
father. Coming to believe that the life I’m living is actually my own …
well, it’s been harder than … it is for some people.
It’s something I’ve been repeatedly told over the last few
years. Don’t you understand that you are
the one doing the living? Don’t I understand that these are my decisions to make?
It’s been hard to take that ownership. To believe that I actually am the captain of the ship, or the one
doing the breathing of this body. When much of early life is focused on the
needs of others and falling in line with those desires, the questions as, “What
do I want?” take on magnum
proportions.
Although the aim of school was to accomplish a number of
goals, one of them was to really do what I
wanted. This decision, let me tell you, was NOT supported in some corners of my
nuclear family, and they were very
vocal about that. About telling me that I was making a wrong decision, that I
was making a mistake. That I couldn’t have what I wanted. And that I was stupid
to think something I did want was a viable option. … Only the first two were
actually stated – the others were interpreted by me, and my fear brain which
loves to tell me much the same thing.
I will here state, however, my mom has always been in my
corner around school. She hasn’t always understood what I’m doing creatively, she
hadn’t always supported it (or been aware of it, is more accurate), but she is now. And she has for a few years.
And part of my untangling my knot of self-sabotage is to
begin to see the support in my life around my creativity – and although it’s a
“nice to have,” not a “need to have” that she supports me, … well, it’s
*really* nice to have.
She’d contacted me earlier this week, perhaps the day after
I had my activating conversation with my dad, to ask about coordinating for the
graduation – my graduation. And, so, I told her I’d call her. And I did. And we
talked, and when it was getting a little maudlin, I kept it light and aimed
toward getting off the phone. And when she mentioned her retarded work schedule
(by which I mean 12 hours straight with no breaks, so that she sits with
clients while eating a Clif bar as lunch… <– no judgment there, eh?) I didn’t tell
her what I thought. I didn’t make suggestions. I didn’t, in fact, tell her she
was doing it wrong.
The thing which I so despise being told.
There were a few other minor things like that, where I
wanted to say, WOMAN you are marvelous and talented and beautiful and
intelligent and hilarious and creative and brilliant – OF COURSE you can find
something nice to wear for the graduation day. Of course you deserve to treat
yourself better than your work schedule. Of course … Well, Of course I love you.
Which I suppose is what it boils down to for all of us. All
of us, in this nuclear family, and all of us, us.
So, yes, it is nice to be having my mom coming out to visit.
To celebrate. She agreed she and my father (and his fiancé) will be cordial,
and that’s all they need to do.
I’m looking forward to putting that phone call in my
experience bank, diminishing the deficit of my negative thinking around both of
our “brokenness,” and letting myself live my own life, as I begin (continue) to let go of hers. 
anger · family · integrity · letting go · self-care

Gaslight

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

*spoiler alert*
Gaslight is an old black and white suspense movie in which a
wife is tricked into thinking she is mad. Things disappear from her dressing
table. The lamp lights in her room dim and brighten without her touching them.
And her husband tells her she’s crazy, and says here’s your purse, you left it
x, even though she could have sworn she left it y. She is basically told that
the things she thinks are happening, which we as the viewer see happening, are not, in fact, happening. This, one can
imagine, produced fear, worry, self-doubt, and eventually a crack-up. This is gaslighting.
It’s funny that I’d been telling someone else about that
term yesterday morning, which made itself into regular parlance (like
“catch-22” from the book title) or at least made itself into my mom’s parlance
from whom I learned it, because later that day, I was gaslit.
On the phone with my dad, who’s wanting to coordinate about
my graduation, etc., as you may recall, I’d been anxious about him and my mom
being at the same place at the same time. So, I let him know this. I told him
that I know that he and my mom don’t have the most communicative relationship,
but that I hope we can all show up with a spirit of celebration. I told him
that I was anxious about them being here together, and that I hope they can get
along in a civil way.
He said, I have no idea what you’re talking about.
He said their relationship is fine; there’s no hard
feelings; that I must have gotten the wrong idea, and that, in essence, I was
wrong and there’s nothing wrong.
I reminded him of asking me to tell my mom about his
mother’s passing because they “aren’t talking,” and he had no recollection of
saying this. I said that he asked me to tell her, but I said I didn’t feel
comfortable doing so, and he said okay, Ben can tell her.
He has no recollection of this.
So, I got defensive, feeling like I was being told that what
really happened hadn’t happened. And he got defensive feeling, I imagine, that
I was attacking him for behavior that he doesn’t recall. I got a little
offensive in my “lightly insistent” reminder of his recent behavior, and he got a little offensive
accusing me of making things up.
And, so we got off the phone after reverting to the
“everything’s fine here” light, fake, cover-it-up tone.
I’ve never been divorced. And it became, now, less about my
parents’ interaction than about my interaction with my dad. This is usually how
it goes – it’s either, Everything’s fine, or it’s antagonistic. It’s either,
Gee my life’s swell, or it’s Oh wait, I’m not in control, I better use my vast
resources of rage and anger to intimidate it back into order.
This is the way it’s always been. To varying degrees of
each. He can barely ask a waiter for more water without it sounding like a
threat.
But, I’m also hyper-attuned to it, as his daughter.
So, moral? I told him what I hoped could happen at
graduation, he said things will be fine. So, needs voiced, needs heard. 
I know what my experience has been,
and I know the truth of things as I see them. And I have to have enough value
in my own experience that it doesn’t matter whether it’s verified by him, or
anyone else. It is not my job to break through someone else’s denial; to
instill in them proper manners of communication that do not swing from hot to
cold; it is not my job to change my dad. It’s just my job to not be gaslit by
him; to allow the conversation to hold contradiction, not have to “be right,”
and to let it go.
Not sure I have all of the “moral” here yet today, but I’m
pretty sure this is a lifetime process.
Next, it’ll be time to tell the same thing to my mom. … I
may need to do some work before I take that phone call on! … Or maybe I don’t need to call her on this at all. ?
community · compassion · gratitude · recovery · self-care · spirituality

Hold the Space

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

It’s a very good thing I don’t have to do this on my own,
that I’m connected to friends and fellowships, and to a Higher Power that can
help me to hold the space for others. Because Lord, if today is not the day of
expanding that capacity.
Already today, I have sat and listened to the chaos and pain and
sadness of several people’s lives. I have been on the phone with someone who
asked to be given the space, for me to hold
the space, for her to share her grief. And then I sat one-on-one with someone
in chaos and pain, and offered action steps, encouragement, and hope.
I’m … well, I guess I’m not exhausted, because I haven’t
been doing this on my own power. Luckily, I have enough experience to know that
I cannot hold others’ grief all by
myself, and so I’ve taken moments here and there during this morning to call
upon the inner resources of strength to help me be present – not to check out
while they’re sharing, or to be in judgment of them, or think about my opinion about what they’re saying – but to really be present and listen.
I found it hardest first thing this morning, when for an hour that was the theme, and there were a few people grounded in their chaos, feeding
on it, and looking for relief in a way that felt toxic to me. That’s always the
hardest type. A friend informed me that Eckhart Tolle (whom, by the way, I
cannot stand…but that’s a story for another day), but that he had a concept
called the “pain body,” and it goes something like, when someone wants to share
their pain in a way that they want you to get stuck in it too – that they want
you to take it on. To stand nearby to someone, just aching to share their pain
body with you.
You probably know people like that – perhaps you are even
related to them. But they don’t want you to “hold space” for them; they want
you to become mired in it with them. A misery loves company kind of thing.
It’s hard to stand on top of the quagmire of trauma and
grief and sadness and suffering, and not get sucked down by it. One thing that
helps, and which has helped me today is gratitude.
For all the drama around school and finances, and even
around my trauma recovery, I am not where those people are, just for today. For
today, I am grateful that I woke up early, got to meet my commitments, and will
head this afternoon to the chiropractor and later to meet up with a lovely
group of cityfolk.
For today, there isn’t active drama or chaos or grief in my
life. And I am hugely grateful for that. I’ve heard it said that it’s a good
thing we’re not all crazy on the same day. Sometimes people hold the space for
me when I am in it. When I’m snot-bubble
sobbing the Ugly Cries and I can’t see the end of the abyss. And people hold
the space for me to cry it out, and likely sit in compassion and gratitude
themselves.
We’re not all crazy on the same day, nor are we all grieving
on the same day.
The other thing that I’ve found helpful today as I sit and
let the grief of others dissipate from around me, is that I did my dishes. All
of them. I vacuumed my apartment. And I will eat some healthy lunch before I
head on my way. Because no matter what resources I have available to me from a
Higher Power or from my community, if I’m not taking care of my basic needs,
I’m not at all available to others.
Water, Food, Recovery, Compassion, Gratitude. It’s been a
big day, and it’s only noon. But tomorrow someone may do it for me. 
commitment · dating · faith · Jewish · recovery · self-care

Standards

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yesterday as I was walking to catch my bus to the movies
with friends, a young man walked out of a nearby store and was walking just a few
paces next to me in the same direction. It was obvious we were going to be
going the same way for a while, so I asked him what he’d bought at the store –
it’s a little Italian food and cheese shop.
We ended up chatting and laughing a good bit on the way, and
as my bus came into sight, and he was going to continue on his way, I
introduced myself and held out my hand. He did the same, and then he asked, Do
you want to get together some time?
I smiled, and said, Actually I’m not dating right now, but
thank you. And he looked a little quizzical, but accepted it, and as we crossed
the street, I said maybe I’ll see you around. And I got on my bus, with
a grin on my face.
This young man, about my age, attractive, and I
picked up a Jewish vibe (my Jew-dar is pretty good with men). But, he was about
5 inches shorter than me. (I’m close to 6feet tall, if you didn’t know.)
I told my friend about the interaction later, and she said, “he wasn’t up to my standards, no pun intended…” But, unfortunately or not, it’s
true. I’ve tried to make good enough good enough, and it just doesn’t work for
me. I’ve tried to make almost the right fit into the right fit, but it’s like
Cinderella’s sisters’ bleeding toes. Eventually, the truth will out.
I felt glad that I was approachable and attractive. I felt
bummed that it wasn’t the right fit. But, I suppose it’s progress that I’m
approachable.
I still think about the Catholic and our incredible first
date in January – like something out of Before Sunrise.
I’ve been noticing I really do have a type, a physical type, at least. Blond and blue eyed. So, a blond blue
eyed, tall Jew. Right… But, as someone once told me, the Universe will either
fulfill your desire, or take it away. Or, as I’ve also heard, G-d has three answers: Yes, Not Now, and I have something better in mind.
For my reluctance to write this in an open forum, before I
met my last boyfriend, I felt like and said that I felt ready for “the one
before ‘The One,’” that I wasn’t quite ready for white-picket fence land, or to
be fully emotionally available – but that I was ready to try for the almost.
And believe it or not, I believe that’s exactly what
happened. It was almost right. It was in many ways also very not right. But I
got to practice being in a relationship; noticing my patterns, my alternation
between a desire to control and be approved of, and a desire to reject. I got to see that I wasn’t
a half-bad girlfriend, which was good, considering my self-esteem’s attachment to my sordid promiscuous past.
And, ultimately, I got to see that the difference between “almost” and “yes,”
though small, is also a canyon. Not easily crossed or bridged by any amount of
force or desire.
I’ve had a few approaches by “almosts” in the last six
months or so. And I’ve gotten to play the tape – the recent tape of trying with
an almost. It included tears, pain, “breaks,” coercion, frustration, despair.
(Of course, it also included joy, humor, contentment, and creativity.) It was
not enough. And so, I’ve had to practice saying no.
I’m not sure that I like using the phrase “I’m not dating
right now,” which had been true for the last few months, not being emotionally
available to date. But I feel that that’s changing. So, we’ll see. Maybe I will
get the opportunity to say Yes sometime soon.
(And, by the way, part of the reason for today’s blog is all
a ‘note to self’ about the inappropriate
dude-I-feel-like-a-13-year-old-lost-in-my-gawky-body-when-I-talk-to-you crush I
have on an blue-eyed acquaintance, who is non-jewish, short, taken, but oh so …
yummy.) 😉

change · laughter · life · self-care

Red Light, Green Light, One Two Three

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Remember that game? It was a schoolyard game when I was a
kid, and I recalled the above phrase as I was folding my new hand and dish
towels onto their rack in my kitchen yesterday afternoon.
I took down my red towels, and put up my new green ones. Spring,
country, moss-colored luxury. Red light = Stop. Green light = Go. It felt
rather metaphorical.
I’d bought the red ones several years ago for my last
apartment, to go with the black, white, and red theme I wanted to have. And I carried
them with me to this apartment. But, yesterday as I stood in the abundant
radiance of Bed Bath & Beyond… I was attracted to the green. Apparently,
with my few other purchases yesterday, I am moving from that former color scheme
to a new one in my kitchen: mossy green, blond wood, and white. I like it.
It feels like spring. It also feels like change.
To me, the red now feels stark, instead of sexy or modern as
it used to. The green feels soft, and cozy, and just a bit cheeky, like it’s
about to tell you the punch line to a roll-your-eyes joke.
Last year around this time, I was invited to read some
poetry of mine at a friend’s art show opening. At the time, I was in the thick
of the awfulness of break-up land, and would rather slice my eyeballs with a
razor than produce art. For me, art is a product of health and at least some
healthy passion – be that anger, joy, or even contentment. As it was, I was
quite depressed and lethargic, and “producing” anything felt like a Herculean
effort. But I agreed.
During that time, as I was aware that I was not in any mood
to create, that I was still in the contracted, inverted phase of winter, I
noticed the copse of tall trees that I see out my kitchen window. Every day I
see them as I write my morning pages, tall over the building next door, at
least a hundred feet tall, and observe them going through the seasons of the
year.
One of those March mornings, I noticed the trees were
beginning to bud. I gasped. I’m not ready!
I’m not ready for production, expansion, greenery. I want stark, barren,
lifeless.
But, bud the trees did, and read poetry I did.
This week, I got an email from a woman at school inviting me to again participate in their annual open mic at the end of the month. And this year as I watch the trees begin to bud again, bolstered by their augur of Spring, I identify with their quiet expansion, and I
answer, yes.
I can’t wait to see what I’ll write. 🙂

balance · creativity · recovery · self-care

I cannot do everything all at once.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Bummer.
I can perhaps do most things, and many things, and maybe
even “all” things in turn, eventually, in time, but all at once? Not so much.
I met with a beloved teacher of mine on Sunday, and she said
something which my dear friend Chris had once said to me, You’re going to have
to choose.
OH! How I Hate To Hear That!
To give some grounding information to this broad
proclamation about the reality of physics (unless it’s quantum physics, in
which case they can be in more than one
place at once, but I digress). Yesterday, I had to cancel the final of my 4
scheduled auditions for this month. A) I was pooped. Too much outflow energy,
not enough restorative. b) in contemplating whether to go to the audition or not (by two
buses in the rain), I read the performance details, and the performance
overlaps day for day, word for word with the month before my graduation. Which
means rehearsal is right then too, which means I’d be doing school, writing a
thesis, and rehearsing for a real play? (Assuming ofcourseofcourse I got
cast.)
It was all too much. And I asked myself that if I were my
own best friend at the moment, what would I tell myself about going to the
audition? I would tell myself to take care of me. And so I did. I wrote and
called the casting director, full of chagrin and appreciation, and then went to
meet up with my fellows. Which is really what I needed to do anyway.
There, I was given the divine opportunity to hear a woman in
pain, and asked her to coffee after the meeting, and now we’ll be meeting on a
weekly basis. Werd. Go G-d.
In reference to Sunday, and Patsy’s comment about having to
choose; she was saying this because I came to her exhausted already. I’ve learned there’s a
lot of externally flowing energy involved in theater auditions. And until
you’re working with the other folks in rehearsal, or on stage with an audience,
it’s really one-sided. Once you’re with those folks, it becomes symbiotic, and
you exchange and feed off and are buoyed by one another’s energy, but, it’s been too
much all at once for me.
I also told Patsy that I was already overwhelmed by this HALF CREDIT class I’m
taking, the 2nd half of the workshop I’m implementing on Creativity
and Spirituality (um, someone ring an irony bell?). I was feeling ALL kinds of
WHOA BUDDY, it’s a half a fucking credit, back off with your emails at midnight
demanding information.
None of my business when other people want to send emails
(though my judgey judgerson wants to be like, hmm, lady, that can’t be
healthy). But hey, some people work best at midnight. I’m not one of them.
In fact, I’ve gotten into the wonderfully cozy habit over
the last few weeks of going to bed around 9pm. Yep. Lame, but I really really don’t feel that way. I realized it’s about 3 hours
after the sun goes down, or after it’s dark, and my body and brain are like,
alright, shutting down now. It’s been nice to not force myself to stay up till
some “normal” hour, which is what I usually do.
So, that’s a form of self-care. So was canceling the
audition. So was not emailing my
professor back a snipey email in answer to her questions.
It’s all information, I guess is my point. And however
loathe, really truly so uninclined to
admit it, I can’t do everything.
I can’t audition for plays, rehearse for the one I’m in,
start working with a woman on my financial stuff (which I begin this morning, in
fact), meet with the girls I need to meet with, go to class, prepare and facilitate a
workshop, write a thesis, do my homework ….. (without a car at least, sneaks in
the thought). But, with or without a car, I have to choose where my energy will
be going, and choose places where it’s not just outflow, but inflow.
Like my painting class yesterday. *Joy incarnate.* We, or I,
practically shoved my hands into the paint and began to finger paint with it. I
was so relieved and thrilled to be back to it. I love it. We were doing some, “Don’t think too hard about it” exercises, and it was marvelous. I could spit
rainbows I was so … in my element.
I know too, from having taken a similar class last year, that
by the end of the semester I was done
with painting, that there’s, with me, a burn-out with everything. I used to say I
need crop-rotation for my brain. A few months art, few music, few cooking.
Give my brain a new toy, let the land rest, refuel.
But, friends, I hate to not be able to do it all. The
painting, and the acting, and the writing, and the modeling, and the running in
and out of the city, and the meeting up with folks, and going to see music, and
keeping my home orderly. Mostly, I can’t do all the art at once.
This does not mean I
cannot do all the art – I just don’t agree – my constitution is not made that
way. My friend Chris had said, choose one thing, and that’s it, you do it,
and you’ll succeed at it. I don’t work that way, or maybe I don’t work that
way yet. I like crop rotation. I like playing in all these pockets of my brain’s
creativity. I just can’t do it all at once. In order, one season of crops at a
time, perhaps. One at a time, I can.
So, theater, for now, (as I head into rehearsals and my
acting class, lol), I’m going to lay you down. For now. I thank you. You’ve been
thrilling and helped me be brave, and open, and walk through fear, and have fun
anyway; but for now, you’re moving down my speed dial. I’ll call you when the season
has turned. 

acting · friendship · love · persistence · self-care · synchronicity

In All Its Forms

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Yesterday, I got to cross a few more “Serenity Moths” off my
list, including letting my apartment get messy (kitchen, another story); no
fuzzy socks (my clothing allowance this month will now be worn on my very
toasty happy feet); and not using my art and craftyness.
Today is the birthday of the woman who I have known longest
in my life, second only to my family. We met when we were both three-years old
in a story both our mothers love to tell.
Soon after my brother was born, my family moved from Brooklyn to northern New Jersey. Maybe that same or maybe next day, our new door bell rang.
The story goes, that the little blond girl who lived just next-door stood on the door-step, looked up at
my mom, and asked, “Does a little girl live here?” I peeked my head out
from behind my mom’s legs and we have been friends for nearly 30 years. (wow, I’d initially wrote 20!, but no, it’s 30!!)
Like most friendships, it’s seen its fair share of trials,
but through a fair share of miracles, we have found ourselves to be strong friends again,
across the sands of time and Minnesota.
So, yesterday, I made a crafty little gift for her. I took
out my tools I laid down since my Christmas card puttering-out, and infused as
much love as I could into it.
I also put up a handwritten sign in my apartment, just below
the very tall almost 12 foot ceiling: “Love, as much as you can.” And put little
hearts around it. ;P This was the edict, the command, and the hope, from the
workshop I did a month or more ago when we meditated to ourselves as really old people, and asked ourselves what lessons we needed to learn. Today is the final of the 4 in the
series of workshops on relationships. Spiritual Contracts and Inner Archetypes.
On the note of that type of work, I did get an email back
from the Sacred Stream meditation school, and they do have a scholarship, but
it’s itty bitty, and I can’t afford the course right now – particularly after I
pay the security deposit to the Bay Area Modeling Guild, which I found out last
night that I got in to 🙂  But,
that’s alright, I feel like I’ve got enough spiritual shenanigans happening
around and in me at the moment, that I’m not quite sure
now is the right time to blow the top off myself anyway. Sometimes, I just need
to regroup. Ground myself again.
So, doing these sort of “of the earth” type activities has
been nice, cleaning my apartment, making art, finally in-putting my numbers on
what I spent in December. (which, I was probably right to fear! oh holiday
spirit…) 😉
On another note completely, so, I’d been praying for an
acting coach. That was the suggestion I got from my acting friend in SF, and
although I’d been half-heartedly looking, I’d also been dragging my feet
feeling that I didn’t have the money to really afford a coach.
Then, I went to my Thursday afternoon class. Acting
Fundamentals. I had completely forgotten that I’d signed up for this course.
But I had. So, maybe I don’t have an individual acting coach, but I now have an
acting teacher. Included in the price of all that I’m already paying for school.
She’s the casting director for Berkeley Rep, and has been teaching acting
forever, and has acted forever, and although at the moment she seemed a little sharp at the
edges, I think this is just what I’ve been asking for.
After class, she said that it seemed I had more experience
than the other girls, and I said, I’m open to any help she can give, and she
said she tries to challenge and meet people where they’re at. I also found it
rather hilarious that I’m more experienced than anyone in my theater experience, as I feel like such a
novice I can’t even tie my shoes straight!
But, it’s not about comparison. It’s about what I can learn,
and how I can inhabit my body and my emotions more fully. It’s about WAAAAYYY
tuning down the cacophony of my heartbeat in my eardrums when I stand in front
of a panel at an audition. I think the audition is the hardest part – for me at
least. Good thing I have two more over the next two days. 😉
So, here’s to Love, which finds it’s way back to us, over 30
years of friendship, in the form of a needed teacher, and in the self-care
which buys me these awesome fuzzy socks. 
healing · joy · meditation · self-care · spirituality

Drinking the Kool-Aid

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Well, folks, it occurs to me that I’m not sure what I will
write about today. I just did a morning meditation – a shamanic journey, in
fact – and I’m a little cock-eyed and raw at the moment.
I usually choose not to do the journeys by myself, partly
because they’re really powerful, and sometimes I just want the assurance of
someone more experienced in case I come out with questions or concerns. And
partly, I don’t like to do them on my own because they are so powerful, and
sometimes I get so thrown by them, like today. It’s hard to put the pieces of
normalcy and reality back together – it’s like waking up from a very deep
sleep, it takes a while to orient yourself to where you are, and mainly, who
you are again.
It occurs to me that this is what I meant when I talked
about being in school as giving me the time to get centered in myself and my life. Not rushing to a
job at 8:30am, not being distracted by the water cooler, or exhaustion, gives me
the space to do this work.
Granted, people who work 9-5 can also find time for spiritual
enhancement 😉
I said yesterday that I’ve been doing work around “soul
retrieval,” and I’ve heard and consider this practice as a way to re-own and
integrate those parts of myself which I have dismissed or which have been
sliced away through trauma. Well, this retrieval seems to be happening more often lately.
It happened on the New Year’s retreat two weeks ago, and it happened this
morning, both in shamanic journey meditation. (I bought the CD of the shamanic
drumming about 2 years ago, and so I listen to it on my iPod when I do it on my own – otherwise, “in real life,” someone actually drums.)
It’s not for everyone. Well, that’s not true. More accurate
is that not everyone is into it, interested in it, really cares, or believes in
it. But, that’s neither here nor there. When I began this practice about 4
years ago, I wasn’t so sure it would “work” for me either, but, consider me a
believer. I’m no expert, and won’t try to explain it here, but you can look it
up. Also, my teacher’s teacher runs a school that does this work called the
Sacred Stream in Berkeley (laugh, scoff, roll eyes, or vomit if you must). I’m
not here to convert anyone, it’s just a tool that has been offered to me, and
which I’ve picked up, not “with abandon,” but with tentative, frightened,
continuous longing.
I was speaking with a woman on the phone this morning before
the meditation, and she was telling me a bit about one of her spiritual practices.
And honestly, I think it’s marvelous that there are so many. A wrench for every
nut, as they say. Or, all rivers lead to the ocean.
I actually emailed Sacred Stream the other day to ask if
they had any sort of scholarship or volunteer program that I could do, so that
I could participate in their upcoming Intro to Shamanic Journey 2-day course. I
haven’t heard yet, but several women on the retreat with me suggested this woman.
I asked why. I mean, I get a lot of juice from my
teacher/friend, why see/try someone else. I was told that it’s like the
difference between two artists, it’s just another view, instead of getting it
all from one (and putting the one I have on a bit of a pedestal, I admit). She
also said that it’s just neat to be in this woman’s presence. That she’s got
the juice, and it’s infectious. Spiritually Infectious Juice. Sounds like
something you pick up in India and ties you to the toilet for 10 days.
But, for now, I’m going to keep juicing this fruit, and
patch my soul back together one lost bit at a time – because maybe all the
king’s horses and men couldn’t do it, but we’ve got a bit more power than that on our side.