I miss me
I just read over my old journals and they brought strongly to mind memories of a few years ago and the changes that had occurred in my life.
Something happened inside me around the time I quit smoking, at least that's the time I ascribe to it. I began a process some call an "awakening". If you Google "what is an awakening" you'll get over 49 million English pages. In them will be everything from dictionary definitions to some pretty far-out-there explanations. Essentially, an awakening is the opening of a person's heart and consciousness to the truth of everything. Of course, truths can vary from person to person, and part of the awakening process is becoming aware of that truth so that all people can be embraced equally without me inflicting judgment upon them if their truths differ from mine.
Whether my awakening triggered my quit, or my quit triggered my awakening is a chicken-an-the-egg question, and is truly moot. I remember in my teenage years my guy friends, few as they were, would come to me with girl or family problems. I never understood why, but they'd dump on me and I'd either comfort them or advise. Like I had any experience or expertise in such things to qualify. But somehow it always worked. Bud even brought another friend of his to me a couple of times, he thought I was so helpful. I never knew where what I would say came from, but I'd hear their story and would feel inside what they needed to hear.
When I quit smoking I joined an online support group. I thought it would be helpful to have people who were going through what I was going through and, maybe more importantly, who had just been there, supporting me. Yeah, like that happened. What I discovered were a bunch of people stumbling along, totally oblivious to what they were going through, tossing out mindless platitudes such as "Stay strong", "You can do it", etc., but not giving any (to me) meaningful support. What I wanted was someone to tell me why I was feeling what I was feeling and what to expect as I progressed. Amazingly and disappointingly, they didn't have a clue.
I began researching smoking and learned (yes, not from the support group) that nicotine was a drug addiction. As I learned more about recovery from nicotine addiction I branched out, quite naturally, into other addictions and the inner workings of the addicted brain. Meanwhile, I began sharing this information on the group and giving, as I believed it to be, real support. It was very well received and helped a lot of people who were in the same boat I had been.
As time progressed, I discovered (or rediscovered) that I was very good at helping people. Like when I was teenager, I would read a post and could feel inside what that person needed to hear to get through whatever they were going through. Later, I realized that I was actually experiencing the emotions the person was experiencing when they wrote the post. People who can do this are called empaths. I'm not a mind reader, I couldn't really tell what another is thinking to save my life. And I couldn't tell the emotions from all posts, only the ones where the writer was "open" while writing. This usually happened when the writer was highly stressed, such as in the middle of a killer crave, and it was usually women. I have rarely been able to feel anything from men's posts, even if they were struggling, but that's another topic.
Helping people via support group posts was rewarding, but there was usually the inevitable time lag that sometimes spelled doom to a struggling quitter. Those times were very hard for me. If I had just been there, I could have helped. If they had just waited until I could write a response, they wouldn't have slipped. If, if, if. So I began helping others in real time on Yahoo IM and learned that what I did was enhanced. I moved out into other areas, helping people with depression, anxiety, self-image, and interpersonal relationships.
All along this time, my awakening progressed. I began seeing things in a whole new light, so to speak. A spiritual path I'd started in my twenties was remembered and resurrected. The energy interconnection between everything became very apparent to me, as did the co-responsibility all have to the well being of everything. The Native Americans have known this all along. For example, there are no independent species. Everything on earth has a purpose. Lose one species and everything has lost that species' contribution and everything suffers for it on some level. I became sensitive to the plight of animals and the earth and began doing what I could to help.
I had a guide, of sorts, through this' the beautiful spirit I mentioned in my early blogs. She instructed me in protecting myself as I counseled people, so they couldn't drain me energetically (which had been a big problem), she explained the changes I was going through, and pointed me in directions of information to supplement her teachings. In spite of us, we fell in love. She fought it because I was married and I fought it essentially for the same reason, but also because I didn't want to be the cliche' midlife-crisis-leave-the-wife-for-a-younger-woman. In truth, I would have eventually left my ex because I'd already come to see that relationship was toxic to me (she lived in fear and was controlling).
In December of 2006 I quit eating meat. Beef went first because the blood just grossed me out and it tasted like a dead animal. This change took about 2 weeks and I had no active part in it. Pork went next because my body rejected it violently for a few days, so I just quit eating it. Over the next year I lost interest in chicken and finally fish. I felt fine, nourished and healthy living on veggies & soy products.
In January of 2007 the beautiful spirit and I came together in the physical. We had dreams we'd shared, the main one being a website for helping people quit smoking. There were a lot of restrictions on the one we'd met on and any discussion outside of explicitly quitting smoking was forbidden and would be deleted. Other sites we'd seen were very cliquish, some down right rude to newbies. So we came up with a unique plan that we hadn't seen anywhere else and built a concept around it. I was working 40+ hours a week and knew nothing about HTML; she is fantastic with graphics and has built websites before. So it was agreed that she would do the building of the site. That didn't happen.
After we came together everything began falling apart. I've wondered many times if we did the right thing, or if we should have maintained the physical distance. We both made a lot of mistakes, communications issues, etc., and I believe we are equally at fault for the failure of the relationship. But along with the relationship failing, so did my awakening. I began closing up, shutting off. Walls inside me that had crumbled over the past year and a half went back up.
We've parted ways now, after I quit my job and we moved to Oregon with the hope of things being better here. The constant grey, cold, and rainy weather knocked me into the deepest depression I've ever been in and that was the final straw for her. I am the person I was before I quit smoking, I just don't smoke now. I'm back to eating pork, fish, chicken and turkey (still can't make the stretch to beef). I honestly don't care if the whole world starts smoking and blows itself up in the process. The ego is fully in control and I really don't give a @#$%. I've been doing some writing and discussing on another site, but it's not the same as what I used to do. It's a blend of spirit/metaphysics and psychology theories. There's no heart in it. That was the key to who I was, the heart. But my heart is now buried under the ego again and I don't know how to dig it out. Quitting smoking and helping others was the impetus before. I don't have that path now.
I read back over my early posts here and remember how I was, and I miss the person I really am.
Something happened inside me around the time I quit smoking, at least that's the time I ascribe to it. I began a process some call an "awakening". If you Google "what is an awakening" you'll get over 49 million English pages. In them will be everything from dictionary definitions to some pretty far-out-there explanations. Essentially, an awakening is the opening of a person's heart and consciousness to the truth of everything. Of course, truths can vary from person to person, and part of the awakening process is becoming aware of that truth so that all people can be embraced equally without me inflicting judgment upon them if their truths differ from mine.
Whether my awakening triggered my quit, or my quit triggered my awakening is a chicken-an-the-egg question, and is truly moot. I remember in my teenage years my guy friends, few as they were, would come to me with girl or family problems. I never understood why, but they'd dump on me and I'd either comfort them or advise. Like I had any experience or expertise in such things to qualify. But somehow it always worked. Bud even brought another friend of his to me a couple of times, he thought I was so helpful. I never knew where what I would say came from, but I'd hear their story and would feel inside what they needed to hear.
When I quit smoking I joined an online support group. I thought it would be helpful to have people who were going through what I was going through and, maybe more importantly, who had just been there, supporting me. Yeah, like that happened. What I discovered were a bunch of people stumbling along, totally oblivious to what they were going through, tossing out mindless platitudes such as "Stay strong", "You can do it", etc., but not giving any (to me) meaningful support. What I wanted was someone to tell me why I was feeling what I was feeling and what to expect as I progressed. Amazingly and disappointingly, they didn't have a clue.
I began researching smoking and learned (yes, not from the support group) that nicotine was a drug addiction. As I learned more about recovery from nicotine addiction I branched out, quite naturally, into other addictions and the inner workings of the addicted brain. Meanwhile, I began sharing this information on the group and giving, as I believed it to be, real support. It was very well received and helped a lot of people who were in the same boat I had been.
As time progressed, I discovered (or rediscovered) that I was very good at helping people. Like when I was teenager, I would read a post and could feel inside what that person needed to hear to get through whatever they were going through. Later, I realized that I was actually experiencing the emotions the person was experiencing when they wrote the post. People who can do this are called empaths. I'm not a mind reader, I couldn't really tell what another is thinking to save my life. And I couldn't tell the emotions from all posts, only the ones where the writer was "open" while writing. This usually happened when the writer was highly stressed, such as in the middle of a killer crave, and it was usually women. I have rarely been able to feel anything from men's posts, even if they were struggling, but that's another topic.
Helping people via support group posts was rewarding, but there was usually the inevitable time lag that sometimes spelled doom to a struggling quitter. Those times were very hard for me. If I had just been there, I could have helped. If they had just waited until I could write a response, they wouldn't have slipped. If, if, if. So I began helping others in real time on Yahoo IM and learned that what I did was enhanced. I moved out into other areas, helping people with depression, anxiety, self-image, and interpersonal relationships.
All along this time, my awakening progressed. I began seeing things in a whole new light, so to speak. A spiritual path I'd started in my twenties was remembered and resurrected. The energy interconnection between everything became very apparent to me, as did the co-responsibility all have to the well being of everything. The Native Americans have known this all along. For example, there are no independent species. Everything on earth has a purpose. Lose one species and everything has lost that species' contribution and everything suffers for it on some level. I became sensitive to the plight of animals and the earth and began doing what I could to help.
I had a guide, of sorts, through this' the beautiful spirit I mentioned in my early blogs. She instructed me in protecting myself as I counseled people, so they couldn't drain me energetically (which had been a big problem), she explained the changes I was going through, and pointed me in directions of information to supplement her teachings. In spite of us, we fell in love. She fought it because I was married and I fought it essentially for the same reason, but also because I didn't want to be the cliche' midlife-crisis-leave-the-wife-for-a-younger-woman. In truth, I would have eventually left my ex because I'd already come to see that relationship was toxic to me (she lived in fear and was controlling).
In December of 2006 I quit eating meat. Beef went first because the blood just grossed me out and it tasted like a dead animal. This change took about 2 weeks and I had no active part in it. Pork went next because my body rejected it violently for a few days, so I just quit eating it. Over the next year I lost interest in chicken and finally fish. I felt fine, nourished and healthy living on veggies & soy products.
In January of 2007 the beautiful spirit and I came together in the physical. We had dreams we'd shared, the main one being a website for helping people quit smoking. There were a lot of restrictions on the one we'd met on and any discussion outside of explicitly quitting smoking was forbidden and would be deleted. Other sites we'd seen were very cliquish, some down right rude to newbies. So we came up with a unique plan that we hadn't seen anywhere else and built a concept around it. I was working 40+ hours a week and knew nothing about HTML; she is fantastic with graphics and has built websites before. So it was agreed that she would do the building of the site. That didn't happen.
After we came together everything began falling apart. I've wondered many times if we did the right thing, or if we should have maintained the physical distance. We both made a lot of mistakes, communications issues, etc., and I believe we are equally at fault for the failure of the relationship. But along with the relationship failing, so did my awakening. I began closing up, shutting off. Walls inside me that had crumbled over the past year and a half went back up.
We've parted ways now, after I quit my job and we moved to Oregon with the hope of things being better here. The constant grey, cold, and rainy weather knocked me into the deepest depression I've ever been in and that was the final straw for her. I am the person I was before I quit smoking, I just don't smoke now. I'm back to eating pork, fish, chicken and turkey (still can't make the stretch to beef). I honestly don't care if the whole world starts smoking and blows itself up in the process. The ego is fully in control and I really don't give a @#$%. I've been doing some writing and discussing on another site, but it's not the same as what I used to do. It's a blend of spirit/metaphysics and psychology theories. There's no heart in it. That was the key to who I was, the heart. But my heart is now buried under the ego again and I don't know how to dig it out. Quitting smoking and helping others was the impetus before. I don't have that path now.
I read back over my early posts here and remember how I was, and I miss the person I really am.
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