Best Piece of Stump I Ever Ate, 7Aug11

I spent the afternoon working diligently to make some number behave.  Those disagreeable and troublesome figures in the two databases and several spreadsheets eventually did give up their secrets and coalesced.  I felt exonerated, and, yes, wildly successful.   As I drove home across Tucson, I reveled in the damp creosote scent that we associate with any sort of (even very minor) rain event and marveled at the gigantic cloud formations.  For some reason I was reminded of an image from a book we read in high school.  You probably read it too.  Shane.  The two men work ferociously to dig out an old stump that had been resistant for an indeterminate period of time and then the woman in the story ended up burning the pie because she was ogling at the men pulling the stump, and ended up baking another, entirely from scratch. (They didn't have Pillsbury Ready Pie Crusts in the freezer section in those days.)

What I wanted to have a think about is not "the best piece of stump" but instead why we seem to value accomplishments that are hard, over ones that are not so hard.  I don't honestly have an answer to this question, but it does puzzle me.  There seem to be a couple of contradictory beliefs that are both alive in well in the common psyche.  Or at least in mine, and I think they are pretty ubiquitous.  One, that "if its easy, its not worth much"; and two, "if you are doing what you love, it will be effortless."  There's also a cynical version "only dead fish go with the flow", but I digress.    

I think about successes I have had, yummy meals, quilts that really came out well, projects that went without a hitch, even something as minor as asking for/claiming, and receiving, a remarkably close parking place under a tree when I went to a very popular mall on Friday afternoon.  I tend to dismiss those successes, downplaying them, and most other people dismiss theirs too.  Ahh, another snarky twisted belief pops up, "who do you think you are, thinking so highly of yourself?"  There's an ugly one, and false besides. 

I remember Marianne Williamson's quote “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Apparently, I need to let that sink in some more.

Here Comes the Sun - 5Jul11

I've been part of a group working through Victoria Castle's Trance of Scarcity as facilitators, preparing for book study groups that our church will hold this fall for congregants.  One tiny aspect of tonight's material talked about our old 'stories', where they come from, how we used them to boundary our world and how we unintentionally still use them to create our current reality. 

One of the women spoke about how she used the old story of "Not Good Enough" to motivate her to always try harder which ultimately created in her an incredibly strong work ethic and allowed her to succeed in her chosen field of study/business.  The variant that bubbled up for me tonight was a story called "If I'm Really Smart, No One Will Love Me."  It manifested in my high school years as a perpetual B+.  No matter what I did, how hard I worked, I seldom pulled down an A, but I was fabulous with those 92% and 93% B+s.  So here's the conflicted battleground between "Not Good Enough" and "Smart, But Not Too Smart" which has warred inside my being for years and years.   Zounds.

Marianne Williamson's quote, which has always bothered me and I never knew why:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

What I've come to realize, what I've come to own these past couple years is that I am cheating myself and my world if I am not as bright a light as I can be.  And as I learn to shine even brighter, I know that it doesn't diminish anyone else's light, but instead gives them permission to shine too.

Preach On, Sister.  Preach On!