Recently I have been blessed by connecting with two old friends of mine that both share something big in common with me: we are all "D" personality types. I've discussed this "D"istinction in previous writings, but in short, a D personality type is one who thinks fast, acts fast, scares the crap out of other people because of their quickness and ability to vision. D personality types are also extremely hard on themselves but don't let ANYONE know that because that would mean others might know they are actually human. Personally, I think we are D's not because we were born that way, but because of some tragic event that happened to us in our past, resulting in our ego going into super ultra protection mode known in the psychological world as the D.
That being said, the following is an email response to one of these friends. I thought that maybe it might help some of my other D personality types, and other women of other personality types, with our foolishness and help them to also relax a little bit.
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"I understand completely your frustration and confusion on what direction to take. After leaving my old, busy, goal-driven, organized life, it has taken me almost 2 full years to get to a place where I can take a day and lay in bed and read, knowing that peace and relaxation are a necessary part of my life; that I don't have to be "doing" in order to feel worthy; that I can feel worthy just "being." It's been a difficult lesson to accept.
When I did that on this past Monday, lay in bed reading Willa Cather's 'My Antonia', at about 9:30 a.m., after reading for about 30 minutes, I started "shoulding" on myself. My ego was all over me in a flash: "Anita, you should be writing for your clients. You should be making money for our trip in July. There won't be enough money to go if you don't get writing. You have to make $1200 this month to save for the trip. You do not deserve to lay here and read that book no matter what! No matter that you think it's beautifully written and you are getting inspired! Stop it and get up now!"
I thought of Sister Marie Micheletto, that incredibly insightful soul, and asked myself if I would talk to anyone else like I had just talked to myself. The answer was "No."
I asked myself to, just for a moment, entertain the thought of what I would feel like if I had planned to take 6 hours in the middle of a Monday to read and relax. Instantly I was smiling and happy, overwhelmed with excitement. I knew I had a choice to make: either be depressed and fearfully driven to make money, believing in lack, or, I could feel good and treat myself to a very special day, enjoying a book, being enlightened, loving the sun coming through the ancient glass of our bedroom windows, spilling out over me and our doggies piled up on the bed. Just like Sister Marie envisioning she was in Hawaii, on the beach, listening to the radio and smelling coconut tanning oil on her body, all the while sitting in the lawn chair in her backyard in Omaha with her size 11 feet warming in the Nebraska sun.
Isn't it crazy? To think that my ego thinks that the world can't get along without me, that our finances will crumple, that I am so important, that I can not take 6 hours and relax? lol! Oh my friend, we are so foolish to think we are so important!
My ear is available to you, both as a sounding board for what your vision is for all of the facets of your life, and even more importantly, as a friend who cares about you and more than understands where you are at. And yes, you do fight depression, like all of us. The difference is that our character/personality (aka ego) takes every chance it can to let us know that it is not okay to feel low, sad, or any other feeling that normal women feel. It tells us that we are sissies for being weak and berates us for it. "You don't need to rest! Rest when you're dead! Come on!" I'm learning to embrace my fits of depression instead of duking it out with them in the ring; coddling them like infants in my arms against my chest, stroking the crying Puritan until it goes to sleep.
Also, know that the changes you are making in your life will all work out, even if they fail - there is no such thing as failure you know. If you don't step out of that comfort zone, then mediocrity sets in. You become comfortable and afraid of change to the point of bitterness. To quote Cather, ". . . but I have found Mrs. Cutters all over the world; sometimes founding new religions, sometimes being forcibly fed - easily recognizable, even when superficially tamed." Mrs. Cutter had face that "was the very colour and shape of anger." I came dangerously close to being a Mrs. Cutter.
Know that you do not have to change everything at once and can implement, test, try things out in pieces, letting them fall into the natural order that already exists. Just because a jigsaw puzzle appears to be un-whole when it is dumped out of the box onto the table does not mean that it is not whole already. It just needs a little help, that's all, once piece at a time, and sooner or later, all the pieces go together. It doesn't have to come out all at once, like child birth. Besides, it's really not that important. The puzzle is still whole even if it doesn't make sense to our eyes. That's what the cover of the box is for, to remind us that there is a solution - whether we find it or not - sometimes just is not important. Yes, there is tweaking to be done on specific things you want to convey in your life, but there always will be tweaking; life is just one big tweak.
Again, I am available to brainstorm with you on what the puzzle may look like. I don't know if you know this about me, but I am a jigsaw puzzle hound, well, snob really as I only collect and put together Springbok puzzles. I probably have 50 or so of them and pull them out when I need to stop thinking so I can think. And I never look at the cover except for 2 challenging ones that required it. The reason I don't look at the cover is because if I look at it, my brain automatically starts processing and thinking of what I'm looking at and my spatial, pattern-recognition abilities, stop dead in their creative tracks.
Call me if you need to.
Love and hugs from one perfect, albeit *ucked up, D to another! LOL!"
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