I resolve to make no resolutions

I'm tired of self improvement.  Always trying to be more and better.   No new improved me this year.  This is where I am: I'm fine they way I am.

Every new direction or insight always meets with someone ready to burst my bubble.  Every philosophy, every religion, every theory, every practice, every hunch, has it's naysayers.  "That is not the right way."  "Our way is better."  "You are not doing it right."  "Only we can give you the correct path."  "Have faith."  "Don't have faith."  "Search."  "Don't Search."  "Pray."  "Don't pray."  "Sit."  "Don't sit."  "Sing." "Don't sing."  "Do this." "Don't do this."  "Do that."  "Don't do that."

I'm sick of it.

I don't know why I am here but I know how I got here.  Finally, that has to be enough.

No one has THE answer.  Perhaps, there is no answer.  Either way, I'm going to stop looking for it.  I'm trying to accept what is.  That is not easy.  What is appears to be imperfect.  I'm told it is perfect.  I briefly saw it as perfect too but that moment has passed and faded.  That moment may have been a decoy, a trick, a ruse, a diversion...a haha not aha moment, who knows?

That's right, who knows?  Some men who lived thousands of years ago and didn't write it down?  And now, thousands of story tellers, agendas and translations later we think we know what they meant if they even existed in the first place?  On top of that, we bicker and fight and kill each over it?  I ask again, who knows?

I hang on to some bit of faith (right or wrong) that things are they way they are meant to be.  I don't like that but anything else is just beating my head against the wall and I have a headache.  

So, I'm a meaningful and purposeful spec of sand on a massive beach that someone is walking on.  Ok, so what.  I don't care who is walking on me, where the beach is or how many other specs of sand there are.  I feel the others specs of sand around me pushing and shoving and the rolls of waves bashing us around over and over.  That is all I know.

::looking up::  Hope you enjoy your damn beach!

There is an analogy that we are travelers, that this life is just a hotel stop on a long endless journey for the sake of the journey.  Well, I'm tired of traveling.  Call me lazy, I don't care.  I might get bored, so what.  Someone will kick me out of this hotel eventually.

Happy random-day-selected-as-the-beginning-of-a-new-calendar year!

(BTW Why didn't they pick a random day in a warmer time of year, like spring!  Now that would makes sense!)

All I want for Christmas is some emptiness

It's Sunday afternoon and I find myself sitting in a Ben & Jerry's sucking down a Chocolate Therapy shake looking out the window at all the people rushing about and I start crying.


I've finished all the gift shopping, I'm leisurely doing errands and stop to treat myself guilt free and I get all teary eyed. Am I PMS'ing? Am I crazy?

Oh, that's right, I'm a woman. These things happen. 

Complicating gender induced emotional turmoil is that I'm an empath. At times, I pick up on the crowd or a person and a wave of sadness, loss, anger, etc. leads me to tears. I wish I could identify the culprit, raise a fist and yell, "Hey you! Keep your emotions to yourself, will ya!"

It usually happens in a reflective moment, when I'm trying to be in the moment and not caught up in my own thoughts. Not that my own thoughts don't cause me to tear up, they can, but I can usually tell when an emotion is not my own because it doesn't make any logical sense to have arisen in that moment, like when I'm savoring the chocolaty decadence of thick milk shake.

Alright guys. I can hear you laughing...women's emotions don't make any logical sense in ANY moment! Yeah, yeah...go turn on the football and watch some "logical" anger issues arise that make perfect sense.
[rolling eyes] 


Yes, sometimes I empath some nice emotions, like love or joy or amusement. I'll feel warmth in my chest or feel like smiling for no apparent reason (see my Smiling post and you'll understand why it is a strange behavior for me). I feel grateful for these particular waves and send out a thank you to the universe and a wish that all beings can feel this way all of the time.

Is that the right thing to do? Is there a right thing to do?

Does it really matter where the emotions are coming from? I just have to deal with them no matter the source.


So, I'm trying to enjoy my Chocolate Therapy shake [insert professional therapy joke here] and the more ways I try to deal with the latest wave of emotional turmoil, the worse it gets. Trying to feel compassion, appreciation or anything mindful just causes more tears to flow.

I know that if I can overcome the self-consciousness of crying in public and steal a meditative moment to reflect on emptiness, I can find a moment of peace. I try to remember that all things, including emotions, are an appearance to mind and that they lack inherent existence. True peace is the absence of all conventional reality.

Who am I kidding? I can barely grasp emptiness on the cushion much less sitting in a Ben & Jerry's having a sugar rush.  ;-)

Something easier that helps shut it down is to stop being mindful and consume my mind with some mundane to do list or political resentment. In other words, turning off the compassion switch and becoming self-absorbed...

...Oh, so that's why we do that.
:-\