Aliveness

Ego message (9/13/10 continue): I know what you mean. Biting the bullet, growing thickened skin. I think that a year ago, I would have have taken the bait, grit my teeth, baring what feels hard because I know I'll come out stronger. A challenge is a challenge, and I would do no wrong in proving that I can do it. Now all I want to do is to take care of myself, be gentle, truly care and love myself. Don't get me wrong. I love that fierce willingness to that on what is difficult. But I haven't been honoring my boundaries. I didn't even know I had boundaries. I didn't know that in order to take on all of these challenges, I was inherently saying no to the part of me that needed to be safe and nurtured - I was self-destructing under the guise that I was going to be made better, stronger. I feel like there's a battle within my integrity. Whether or not I say no initially, and later, when I fall apart in small brutal ways because I'm truly not able to take what I'm doing to myself - I'm not strong enough, or not standing ground to my word or who I'm suppose to be. Working in this economy, in this day and age is wearing me down. I know what my ideal work environment would be. It would look like me creating, planning, collaborating. I lack the marketable skills to do just that, but I've had real live experience creating full shows - I am a stage director, goddammit! My pride is shot; I just want to create, but I have to fucking eat and pay rent. But I know when I'm an extremist in this. For instance - in relationships. I don't want to be with men who coddle me for every tear I shed, but I don't want to be with men who use me and ignore me and emotionally abuse me. I've been with both. And sometimes, they are one and the same. I want a man who is willing to help me strong on my own by being strong. I want a strong man. I want to create a strength in myself to attract that strong man and also create the job that I want. I don't know what this will look like. I knew my integrity was compromised when I was working for Zynga. The waste, the corporate ideals, the brainwashing, the bribing, just waste, waste, waste. It wasn't serving the world, just me, and everyone involved, making their ends meet, making money, being selfish, but we were digging another hole into the earth to pile our meaningless waste in, and I wasn't okay with that, no, but I wanted to pay rent and take road trips and eat good food. So I made excuses for how it was beneficial on a global scale, but those were all lies - only I was receiving benefit. What's wrong with me??? Why won't I let myself be somewhat selfish? I want to be selfish in the sense that I want to serve the world, but what will that look like? I want to impact it. I want to nurture it in the same way that I'm so desperately learning how to nurture myself. Serve myself, serve the world. Create palable nurturing. Or even, just go out and have compassion and love. I just want to love. Myself and others. That's not marketable, isn't it? Especially when I'm still a student of loving. My roadblock is still fear. If I can inspire myself out of fear, I can inspire others out of theirs, maybe. Oh God, the anxiety, the fear. This sucks.
Update, later: Faced some fears. It doesn't quite suck as much as I thought. I'm still living and breathing, fuck yeah Baby.

Ego message (continued): I want to talk about what my body is saying. Most of the time, I'm not listening. But it's been taking over, trying to get heard, causing me, in my estimation, to lose control. The chi nei tsang practioner heals by putting her hands on my belly. Last Tuesday, she touched my pelvic bone, and I felt pain all along my hips, my spine, shooting down to my ankles and up to my head. There were no words, but later I asked if my childhood molestation and abuse might have been relevant. Of course!, she cried. I told her that I didn't know if it was connected; after all, I have no emotional or mental triggers around thinking or addressing my abuse. Just the byproduct of my constant need and withdrawal in relationship and hatred of self. Then she told me to be with what comes up and to be gentle with myself. That my body kept all of that memory and its feeling (rather than the emotion or the naming of it). So I went home, and I sat with it. I sat with how I'm feeling. And you know what my body wanted to say (wow, there's so much resistance - this parenthesis represents my going to the toilet, making tea, getting the cat to purr for ten minutes, and playing around my phone for another 10; THEN putting my hands on the keyboard, realizing what time it is, getting up, washing my face, changing my clothes and now back again - RESISTANCE! My mind goes to familiar anxiety, goals, what am I doing - I would love to shut my masculinity right now, thanks.)? To be continued. Confronted.

Ego message (9/16/11): I think I'm going nuts. He's distant again. I hate it when he won't look at me in the eyes, won't talk to me, won't let me touch him. It hurts, it hurts like hell. Yesterday I asked him if I can just borrow his canteen. It was sitting in the third room, empty. I would fill it, drink from it, and give it back, full, I said. He replied, I'd rather if you use something else. My protest got caught in my mouth. I can't argue with him if he doesn't want to let me borrow his stuff. I don't like it when he's in this place. He's stinging and cold, and I feel so separated from him, like he's a whole 'nother person, someone who doesn't care about anyone else other than himself. It's so painful. I thought I've been doing well, really well. I've been going to yoga, feeling my body, noticing my anxiety around money and craziness around not doing anything that is "productive." Yesterday I was at InGroup (One Taste's Games Night), and it was so good. I shared several things about my sexuality. Most of it was around contraction, a lot of it was around what I desire. I shared for the first time in my life that I think I "check out" during intercourse. That I just melt into the sensation, but I'm not fully there with my body, I'm not there with my partner. "Even though she bled every month, she always had someone to blame; while he noted that each time he touched her, her body was there, which had not always been the case with her predecessors." (Harryette Mullen, A Gene for Music) I think I fantasize or dream that I'm elsewhere. That's so nuts. I've always thought that I love having sex, can't wait to get into bed. But during the actual act, I disappear. There's something too painful to feel. I also shared that I wanted someone who can be with me and touch me as slow and as subtle as I want. Lots of things to think about.

Arjang messaged me, like he has been doing for everyday for the past year. Today, I didn't ignore him. I responded. And immediately this well of sadness arose in me, and I messaged Loomis and told her that I was sorry and that I missed her. Oh God, I miss her. I feel so terrible to have pushed away everyone that have cared about me so far away. Now I understand Schober, and I feel so much empathy, and yet he has to choose to not be alone, he has to hurt as much as I am now hurting.

Ego message 09/19/11: Currently uninspired to be. The nagging Doing keeps coming up. Unwilling to do, too scared to be.

sharp
bold
courageous
loving

Ego message 09/22/11: Women. Women are the teachers of my self-nourishment. Today, Briana looked at me in the eyes and said, you want more women in your life? - you got it. You have the gift of feeling the way that you do, Girl, you don't have to ask or do anything. They'll come to you. I'VE come to you. Just be you, and you're done. Feel you, and you're Nurture itself. Briana fucking opened my heart with blasting energy and held me in a way that I've always imagined a powerful sister can do. I'm blessed. We OM'd in the morning. She was gentle with me, checked for what level of intensity that I wanted. Afterwards, she worshipped me; she was turned on, and so was I. She told me that my pussy was like a blossoming flower, that there were four petals surrounding vagina. There were two beautiful pink inner labias bordering your clit, she said, and the outer is the color of malt chocolate. She was in awe, and wondered aloud why I wasn't proudly being in the world, proud of my beauty. I almost wanted to cry. This woman is celebrating the most painful body part for me to love! In that moment, my shame began to fade, and love took its place.

On Sunday, I went to Pescadero with Becca and Carrie to meet up with some of the Train the Trainer family. After a few minutes of the beach, the attention quickly turned towards me. I expressed my desire to be nurtured, and I wanted that to come from women. Suddenly the circle became a mediation between me and Becca, and for the first time, I learned that my resentment and jealousy and fear of women showed up in relationship, and other women felt it. She cried in front of me, telling me that my unconscious repelling has been so painful, and as much as she wanted to love me and support me the best way she knew how, she hurt too much to come close. It's knowing that you love me, she sobbed, that prevented me from not staying away from you totally at all. It was then that I knew that I really want to love myself in order to be okay with women growing close to me, because I want to heal, goddammit. I want women to hold space for me, and I want healing and self-love and to feel the universe and to hold and reach out to others - I want to be everything, man!