"I deserve"....or not

  

   “I deserve….” I was in my mid-twenties the first time I dared say those words. At that point, it was a revolutionary act. Using that language was part of my moving away from seeing myself as less than. It was a declaration to the Universe that I’d begun to value me.

     Two plus decades later, the idea of deserving holds a different meaning. In early April I wrote a brief message on a friends Facebook page wishing her an awesome birthday because she deserved it. Even as I as typing the message I found myself cringing at the word “deserve.”

    As I sat with my reaction I realized the internal flinch had been present for a while. I just hadn’t noticed it. In my twenties “I deserve” was a shift into respecting and valuing myself. At forty-nine it’s not about valuing me. The word “deserve” now shifts me away from gratitude and toward entitlement.

     Dictionary.com defines “deserve” as:

1. to merit, be qualified for, or have a claim to (reward, assistance, punishment, etc.)
because of actions, qualities, or situation: to deserve exile; to deserve charity; a theory that deserves consideration.
2. to be worthy of, qualified for, or have a claim to reward, punishment, recompense, etc.: to reward him as he deserves; an idea deserving of study.

   Even the dictionary equates “deserve” with something I have earned or am owed. When I receive something I’m owed, it’s not a gift. It’s my due; something I’m entitled to.

     When I announce that I deserve I’m telling the world and the Universe that they owe me something just because I exist. How is that any different from thinking my favorite coffee shop owes me a cappuccino just because I walked in the door?

    If I believe I have food and shelter because I deserve them, what am I saying about people who don’t have those things? Do I really believe the homeless man asking for money outside Walmart doesn’t have shelter because he doesn’t deserve it? Why do I think being alive makes me entitled to something he doesn’t have?

    When I say “I deserve” I’m making a judgment. It’s a sneaky sideways one, but it’s a judgment about my worthiness vs. the worthiness of others. That judgment comes from ego. We tend to think of ego as the thing that leads us to an inflated sense of self-importance. Ego is equally involved when we see ourselves through a lens of inferiority.

     Bottom line – the world and the Universe were around long before I showed up. They owe me nothing. When I believe the Universe owes me, I am out of right relation.

    The concept of right relation is one I learned from years of participating in sweat lodges. When I live in awareness of my right size in relation to the rest of the Universe, I am in right relation. I am one of seven billion small, vulnerable two-leggeds supported by the generosity of a much larger organism called Earth.

     I am a tiny piece of something vast; an integral part of the larger whole. Being small does not make me insignificant. I see that reflected in the way my body functions. A deficiency of one single vitamin or mineral can affect the way I think or move and even cause pain. If I believe “I deserve” I am not in right relation with me let alone the rest of the Universe.

    I’ve also noticed that “I deserve” is a place where I dig my heels in. I usually say “I deserve” with defiance and anger. Under those emotions is a tinge of victim that comes from thinking I’m not getting something other people have and/or I should have.

   I deserve X or Y damn it and I’m going to stand here till the Universe brings it to me. Yeah…good luck with that one.

   When I dig my heels in like that, I give my power away. I project my want and the responsibility for making it happen onto the Universe. Essentially I’m saying to the Universe “fix it.” Working with clients for a decade, I’ve been on the receiving end of the “fix it” projection many times….and I don’t like it.

    I can’t fix anyone. I don’t have the proverbial magic wand. If I ever find it, I’ll use it myself first. My intention with clients is to support, witness, assist and provide tools for growth. That’s very different than “fixing” or doing it for them.

    How sustainable is fixing it? For years I had a quote on my wall that read, “The greatest harm you can do another person is to deprive them of the opportunity to grow.” (Apologies for not attributing this. I don’t know who said it.) What am I doing to myself when I slid into entitlement and demand that Universe “fix” something for me?

    Although “I deserve” may sound like a demand, I’m really asking for something. How does my ability to receive figure in? Deserving is tied to something I believe I’ve earned or am owed. So making a request from the “deserve” mindset leaves me locked into judging whether or not I have earned what I’m asking for. Like many people, my sense of whether or not I’ve done enough to earn something is pretty skewed at times. I can’t help wondering how often my judgments about my own worthiness push away what I’m asking for.

       “I deserve” is not where I want to live. I’d rather live with gratitude, appreciation and an awareness of grace. Those choices don’t include believing that I am owed or entitled to anything.

Chocolate and my inner critic

    I confess I wrote this last night. Over the five months I’ve been writing this blog I’ve often wondered what would happen if (when?) I hit a week where I had nothing to say. This is my third attempt at pulling together a post. The first attempt screeched to a halt at 500 words. The second sounded like a fourth grader wrote it.

    The fertile creative space I depend on for writing seems to have left. I miss it. So where did it go? It’s been temporarily banished by my inner critic. The critic is the antithesis of creativity.

    In addition to not writing a blog post, a number of other things aren’t getting done. The house needed to be vacuumed last week. April is national poetry month. I have written no poetry. My business partner, Pam and I are working on a video for Pryanta Healing. I seem to have the attention span of a gnat…not conducive to editing video. I blew off going to the gym yesterday morning. Chocolate is the only thing I want to eat.

    Everyone has weeks like this. Beyond the intense energy of April’s cardinal grand cross, nothing external happened to set this off. It’s just where I am. The grand cross is magnifying and exaggerating a lot of things, including my inner critic.

    At first I tried to quiet the critic down. I did yard work, shamanic journey work and drew. The critic didn’t care. I tried chocolate, computer games and a marathon of Criminal Minds reruns. The critic still didn’t care.

   I tried immersing myself in video editing. After mangling the same clip four times, it hit me. The critic wants my attention and wasn’t going to quiet down until I listened. Okay, let’s dance.

    Numerous psychological studies have been done on people’s relationship to their inner critic. These studies show that people who are more self-critical have less motivation and less self-control. Self-criticism often triggers a vicious cycle.  It creates a need for comfort which pushes a person back toward the behavior that initially triggered the criticism. So giving the inner critic my full attention is a bit tricky.

    After making myself sit still and listen to my critics litany of what I’m not doing well I made a startling discovery. The more I heard, the less impact the critic had on me. In fact, as soon as I consciously gave the critic my attention, it lost some of its charge.

    My critic derives strength from remaining hidden and staying in the shadows. When it murmurs and yelps in the background, it seems larger, stronger and more authoritative than it really is. When I drug the critic into the light by giving it my attention, it shrank.

    When I really hear what the critic says, much of it is ridiculous. Not vacuuming doesn’t make me a degenerate. Not having a great idea for this weeks blog post doesn’t mean the muse has left for good because I’m a crappy writer. I know my brain is predisposed to interpret my experiences as saying something about who I am, but this is pretty extreme.

     So not only does my inner critic thrive on remaining unconscious, it lives in exaggeration and fear. Funny, that sounds just like my ego. Oh….the inner critic is my egos voice. That explains why, as I listened to the critic, it sounded more and more like frightened child.

    A couple years ago a dear friend of mine came up with an image for her ego that I’ve used many times. A little red-caped imp sitting alone in small room trying to direct the Universe with a tiny wand. The imp truly believes that room is the entire Universe. Anything beyond the small room is unknown, dangerous and must be guarded against.

   My inner critic is reacting to CHANGE. Even my daily routine is in flux these days. I’m doing my best to stay with the unknown; the awareness that I am not in charge of squat. My critic wants things categorized, identified, delineated and orderly. It has no concept of a bigger picture. For it the idea of releasing the illusion of control and surrendering feels like a death sentence.

    Initially my critic being loud enough to chase me for days until I listened seemed like a dubious opportunity. However if the critic hadn’t cornered me, I might not have given it my attention long enough to hear the frightened child under its rant. It’s easy for me to respond to the criticism by getting defensive or angry. A frightened child evokes a completely different response in me….compassion.

What the &*$% is going on?

     When I posted “Finding Your Own Way” last week I intended it to be the first in a two part series. I was working on a post about trial and error and paying attention to your personal trajectory, but the Universe had other plans.

    The Universe having other plans seems to be a frequent theme this month. Most people I’ve talked to are using the words “chaotic”, “insane” and “crazy” to describe what’s going in their lives. Yep. April is filled with speed, urgency, upheaval and pressure. What the hell is going on?

     Astrologically we’re experiencing the effects of a cardinal grand cross involving Pluto, Jupiter, Mars and Uranus. All four are powerful planets on their own. When they square off with each other in a cross the friction between them creates a dynamic, evocative environment. It’s all about disruption, acceleration, transformation and expansion…in other words CHANGE.

     I talked to a friend over the weekend who described her experience as being like drinking from a fire hose or being in a car that’s going 150 mph and she’s not the one driving. Yep. Opportunities, emotions and unresolved conflicts are coming up with the speed and force of a tsunami.

     My ability to be flexible and go with the flow is getting a work out. I’ve lost count of how many days have been repeatedly rearranged, often before I even leave the house. My emotional landscape is highly charged. The focus of the charge shifts hour to hour or moment to moment. Conflicts that simmered for months or weeks are boiling.

     My body has decided that 4am is a good time to wake up most mornings. Rather than fight with it, I’m going to bed earlier. I’m physically tired, but feel as though I’m plugged in to a high voltage electrical socket.

    The April forecast from the Power Path School of Shamanism talks about the theme for the month being intensity and bids for power. This is about personal power, not power over. The current grand cross brings with it a lot of shadow energy. Shadow is where we hide our power from ourselves. So this bid for power is about facing off with ourselves and reclaiming what we’ve buried.

    In shamanic terms a bid for power has to be made decisively. It’s either “yes” or “no”….no trying, waffling or leaving myself a back door. Maybe is an energy leak that leaves part of me attached to an option I’ve already moved past. To make a bid for power I need to be as present as possible and all in.

     My mind is the carrier of thoughts about what I do and don’t want, but a bid for power isn’t mental. It comes from my whole self. My mind participates, but I need to move gut and heart first.

    In a shamanic journey a bid for power is a quest, a battle, an obstacle course, solving a riddle or all of the above. It can also show up as an animal or spirit willing to help me or give me a gift after it devours me. Bids for power honor destruction and creation equally.

    Although bids for power look different in the physical world, the same principle applies.  If I want to step into the new, I have to let go of the old. The movement of destruction includes the art of falling apart. I can’t make a bid for power if my hands are already full. Being decisive about letting what no longer serves fall away without grasping out of fear is a bid for power in and of itself.

     This is an opportunity to sacrifice mindfully. The original definition of sacrifice is not about giving something up but about making it sacred. What I let go of now I release in a way that honors its importance rather than merely throwing it away.

    This is a time for clearing. If I respond to that impetus by cleaning out the closet and having a garage sale without going deeper, I’m missing the point.  Destruction and creation serve each other. The challenge is to look below the surface of the destruction; stay in awareness that the falling apart is making space for creation.

     A bid for power is a “use it or lose it” situation. I have to run with what I’m given. Opportunities wash in as I clear space for them. Am I ready for this? No. So what. I don’t ever feel prepared for intense change. Prepared is a mental state related to my ego believing it has some control over the known. A bid for power made from a place of ego will serve only my ego.

    Is this hard? Absolutely! Some days I feel like I’ve been stretched beyond my resilience. Mixed emotions are constant. Fear, exhilaration, uncertainty, grief, anger, amazement….yep. I felt all of that in the last five minutes.

     I want to pause when opportunities arrive to weigh the pros and cons. But if I do, I lose the flow. I put my mind in charge rather than my gut and heart. So the pause is a breath to return to my gut impression.

     I am way out of my comfort zone. I suspect when I return, it won’t be comfortable anymore because it too has changed.

      I am extremely grateful for having a larger context for my experience. Without an inkling of the bigger picture, I’d be fighting not to take what’s happening personally. It’d be easy to look at what’s falling apart as something that’s being done to me.

     Yes I feel the struggle, upheaval, chaos and pressure…but it’s not about me. Monday night the same stunning lunar eclipse filled the sky over all of us. We’re all in this together. The personal piece comes in the choices we make. Ride the tsunami, resist it or drown.

Learning Your Own Way

     I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about how I learn new ways of being and doing. I’m pretty good with head learning. I can follow directions when I’ve read them. I can repeat a series of steps once someone shows me what to do.

    But is that really learning? When I follow a set of directions I often feel like I’m imitating someone else. Yes, that’s form of learning but it’s shallow. It’s following a script but without real content behind it. Until I take the steps and make them my own by figuring out my way of doing it, I’m mimicking more than I’m learning.

     I’ve had this experience with attending workshops or going to a teacher to learn something. When the instructor emphasizes teaching a specific technique over sharing how s/he developed that technique I usually end up in one of two places: a) I have a great experience doing what’s been taught during the workshop and then can’t recreate it at home or b) I pick up something new that works for six months or a year and then suddenly stops working.

    The most valuable things I’ve received from workshops, teachers, mentors, therapists, etc. are tools I can use to find the way that works best for me. If all I pick up is a technique, then what happens when it stops working? I’m left looking for another person to teach me his or her way of doing it.

    There is a limit to how much I can learn from another’s experience. No one else can tell me what will work best for me. I have to find that for myself via my own experience.

    Pretty simple, huh? Simple… but not as easy as it sounds.

    First I need to dig up and release the expectations, beliefs and ideas that prevent me from exploring, including any notions I have of what everybody does or what I think “most people” do. Do I want to be “most people” or do I want to be me? When I hang onto other people’s choices, experience or actions as norm or an indication of what something is “supposed” to look like, I leave myself no room to explore.

    I also have to throw out the idea that there is a “right” way or only one way. Bottom line – there is rarely a “right” way and never only one way. (Never is a word I use sparingly.)

    Letting go of “right” or there only being one way doesn’t magically remove those thoughts from my head. They’ll still arise as soon as I do something that looks different from what other’s do.

     This opens me to being conscious of where I’ve buried my way under habitual ways of being and doing. Habit and routine are not “bad” things. Human beings are creatures of habit. Habit and routine allow me to get dressed and do the dishes without having to think those actions through each time.

    Habit and routine give me the comfort of familiarity. They can also become constraints. When something becomes a habit, I no longer think about what I’m doing, how I’m doing it or pay attention to the internal dialogue that accompanies the action.

    The first challenge in looking at habit and routine is just that…getting a look at it. To see what I’m doing I need to become mindful in the places where I don’t usually pay attention. I start by taking a few basic habits and temporarily breaking them. I brush my teeth with the opposite hand. I put my shirt on first when I get dressed rather than my jeans.

     The mild discomfort created by doing a couple things differently is enough for make me more conscious of what’s happening in the habitual places in my life. Then I can begin asking questions about my habits.

     Is this really my way of doing this or am I following a script from some external norm? Do I clean the house the same way my mother did because I’ve taken that on as the “right” way to do it? If I vacuum before I clean the bathroom, do I hear her voice in my head telling me to do the bathroom first?

     Ultimately how I chose to clean the house is irrelevant. It’s not about the action. The important piece is what goes on internally. If I am wedded to obeying someone else’s instructions on how to clean the house, how much room do I give myself to find my way with something bigger?

     Most of us cringe at the idea of being obedient. When we do something a certain way because of a societal norm, social or parental expectations or based on a rule, that’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re being obedient to someone or something outside ourselves.

     This is rarely a conscious choice. It comes from taking what we’re told and what we see at face value. Mom says this is the best way to clean the house. We accept that without questioning and adopt it.

     Being aware of my obedient places is vital because to find what fits for me to I have to shift out of giving my authority away. The best way for someone else is not going to be what works best for me. I can use another’s experience as a place to start but to find my way I need to listen more internally than externally.

    Whether I’m learning to live like a gypsy or looking for a new way to respond in an old situation, the process is the same. Creativity, curiosity, exploration and lots of trial and error.