Good Energy

Last weekend someone said to me, "You have a really good energy." It was a completely unexpected comment, not something I'd ever even dreamed of hearing someone say to me. It meant a lot. There are a few things that people have said to me about myself over the years that stand out in my memory for the positive feelings they evoked. In my late 30s I played softball (3rd base) on a team with my physical therapy school classmates, all of whom were at least a decade younger. Out of the blue, one of my classmates told me that I was very athletic. The opposing team had made a comment about my "golden glove" and my ability to throw runners out at first base. It was a compliment that changed my perception of myself. When I mentioned it to my sister, she said, "You didn't know that you are athletic?" For years I had valued athleticism and dreamed of being good at sports, but always felt mediocre and unsure. I had no idea how others viewed me. When I found out, I felt really good. That was more than 10 years ago and the words still boost my self-esteem.

Until last weekend, it was the best compliment I'd ever received. When the compliment about being athletic came, I was just playing the game, doing my job, focusing, and being present. When Angie made the comment about my "good energy," I was not aware of or even thinking about how I was being perceived. I did not realize that I was having an effect on others. I was not self-conscious. This is a change for me. I was just being. However, I had noticed in the days before that people seemed to be responding to me differently than what I am used to. I had been having an unusual number of positive interactions with people and I did not feel as if I was behaving differently. So many people seemed to be uncommonly happy and friendly and helpful that it was making me feel really good about the human race. Something was different. I could feel it but could not explain it. It was happening so often that I'd started to think that maybe the difference was me, the only common denominator. Maybe something in me has changed and it's having a positive effect on people around me.

Maybe some of the spiritual/emotional work that I have been doing these last few months is making a difference. Self-esteem and worthiness have been the main areas of focus. I have struggled with these issues for as long as I can remember. It has been so difficult that I have contemplated suicide on many occasions. I even attempted suicide once when I was 14 years old. I hesitate to admit that because it scares people, but it's the truth. It is not something I would actually do. I have been on the other side of suicide; my uncle killed himself when I was 17 and I know what that does to the people who are left behind. I would never put my loved ones through that. I've also come to believe that our souls have certain lessons to learn and if we don't learn them, don't face our demons and expand ourselves through these difficult trials, then we will have to face them again in the next incarnation. I look at it as if I have no choice--I have to deal with these issues sooner or later. They will not go away, ever. I can choose to remain unhappy, sad, unfulfilled or I can choose an expansive, fulfilling, soul-nourishing life. It's really not a choice.

One of the things I realized is that self-esteem and feelings of worthiness come from within, but I've been trying to get them from outside myself. When I was in school, my validation came from good grades and kudos from my professors. When I was married, I lived for validation from my husband (which gave him a lot of control over me as I now see). While external validation can be helpful, it is just that: validation. It confirms something that already exists, that is already valid. In my case, I've spent most of my life trying to validate my own worth. Here, approaching a half century in, I am truly starting to recognize and accept my own value. For people who were born with (and then never lost) or whose families instilled this sense of their own worth in their psyches, it may be difficult to understand this concept. But for me, it is only recently that I have begun to recognize that I am worthy, I am valuable, I am good enough simply by virtue of the fact that I am.

I think this shift started when I entered physical therapy school. My classmates and I joked about the first semester of PT school being "PT boot camp;" where they break you down and then mold you into something new and better. Getting into PT school was extremely competitive and stressful. There were over 300 applicants vying for 62 spots. So we were all pretty much the cream of the crop academically. And then we started that first semester of anatomy. About half of us struggled to the point where we were offered special help. We were put in what they called "the elite group." All these academically gifted people from all walks were now in one place and a reshuffling started to occur. No longer was I at the top of my class, I was in "the elite group." There were lots of people as smart as, and obviously, smarter, than I. It was public. For me, it was emotionally devastating because my whole self-concept was wrapped up in my academic accomplishments. Yet, what came out of this was more valuable than any other learning I received from a book or classroom.

What happened was that those of us in "the elite group" bonded. We studied together. We started carpooling together, having lunch together, socializing outside of school hours. I had not felt part of a social group in so long that I had forgotten how wonderful it felt. (What I realize now is that my self esteem was so pathetic that I did not know how to be part of a social group.) We cheered for each other and were there for each other. I remember one day we had a test, and my friends finished before I did. When I left the room, they were waiting in the hall for me. I was stunned, and touched so much that I remember it still. What I had observed so many times from the sidelines, what I thought only happened for other people, was finally happening for me! What other people expected and took for granted was huge for me. They waited for me because they cared and they were my friends.

I had given up ever expecting something as commonplace, as normal, as that. Most of my life I felt insignificant. I knew my family loved me, but I felt irrelevant to the rest of the world. One of my strongest memories is from when I ran in my very first 10k. I had never been a runner (remember how that compliment about being athletic was such a big deal), so training for this and getting up enough nerve to enter this race was challenging. I was really looking forward to it and was very excited. The morning of the race, my husband got mad at me. I have no idea why; I can't remember the details. I remember the big picture. The big picture was that at the last minute he decided not to go and cheer me on. I rode to the race with a friend and her husband, who finished ahead of me. When I crossed the finish line, I wanted to cry from my excitement of this accomplishment. I watched other people cross the finish line to cheers from their friends and hugs from their loved ones. When I crossed the finish line, I was alone. My friends were not waiting for me--they were off listening to the band. My husband had not come because he wanted to punish me for something. Which he did. The excitement faded and the accomplishment was hollow.

That's how I came to expect everything to be. But now people were waiting in the hall for me.

"PT boot camp" took away the validation I had always gotten through my academic performance. It gave me the opportunity to start finding validation within myself. The Universe provided some amazing people to help me begin this journey. They saw some value in me just because I was me. And when my husband decided he wanted a divorce, the words, "well, you've got your school friends" and "you're just going to leave me for someone you meet at school anyway" told me that he sensed a change in me that shook the foundation of our marriage. My value to him was that I needed him to provide my sense of self-worth. In that way, he was important. When I started to develop some self esteem, I lost value because I did not need him for that any longer. I did not realize this at the time, of course. It's only in hindsight that I can put it all together. That was the start of "Me, Part Two" I believe.

Obviously, I have always relied on other people to make me feel good about myself. If they deem that I am worthy, then it must be so. If they deem otherwise, then that must also be so. I gave, and still give, that power to other people. That was the case with my ex-husband, who I allowed to manipulate my feelings about myself for many years. It has been the case in many of my relationships, both romantic and platonic. In fact, I think it is the reason that many relationships have never developed at all. While my ex-husband used to call me a snob and labelled me "antisocial", the real reason that I have trouble initiating friendships is that I have not felt worthy. I would not call people or invite them to do something with me because I did not feel like I was good enough to do so. If they thought I was good enough to be with them, they would reach out. How could I presume to walk up the street and just start talking to the neighbor uninvited? What gave me the right to call someone's home? Somewhere along the line I started to look at other people and wonder, "What makes them any more valuable than I am?" The answer has started to emerge: nothing. Nothing makes them any more valuable than I am.

It has been a long, painful, and very lonely process to exhume positive, loving feelings toward myself. They are down there; I must have been born with them and learned to bury them. I'm an expert at it. Although I have come a long way in the last few years, with a huge acceleration in recent months, I still fight a constant internal battle. It is more natural for me to think that I am secondary and other people's opinions are more important, their desires are more important, their inherent worth is greater than mine than it is for me to think that I am as important and valuable as anyone. It takes a conscious effort to keep from sinking into that dark abyss. It is getting easier. I am starting to accept that I have an inherent value to the world. It is not enough to realize it, I have had to actually accept it. It's okay to believe that I am okay. And believing that I am okay, that I'm actually pretty amazing, makes me a better person to be around. It leads to good energy.

Although I do not rely on other people's judgments of me anywhere nearly as much to determine how I feel about myself, it's still really nice to hear, "You've got a really good energy."

Finding My Voice

Somewhere deep inside me there is a writer. She has a strong voice that will speak to and for many people, including myself. I know that. Right? In moments of inspiration I get some clarity about who I am and what I want to say. I get excited and an idea of what I will say and how I will say it forms. Then I get to my computer, or find a private moment to write it down, and it fades. I sit and stare. I worry about who will want to read this, what people will think of me. I worry about people I know reading it and judging me negatively and then having to face them. I worry about offending people. I have a strong fear of opening myself up too much, of letting people see too deeply, too intimately, and how that will affect my life. Yet, I've found many times that doing just that opens doors and leads to amazing relationships and experiences.

Could that be the biggest thing that is holding me back? Fear? I've dreamed of being a writer since I was a little girl. I remember being in grade school and enthusiastically attacking any and all writing assignments. I do remember stumbling when trying to create fictional works--I have come to realize that I am not a fiction writer--but still I always loved to write. I fancied myself being a writer when I grew up. Somewhere along the way I let that dream get lost.

At the end of this year I will turn 50. I do not feel old, but the number, the sound of the word "fifty" is blowing my mind. How can this be? In my mind I am still the little girl in school excited to tackle a new writing assignment.  I'm still taking a high school journalism class and considering being a reporter. I am keeping a daily diary, which I eventually edit and turn in to fulfill assignments in college classes on relationships and self-knowledge (I was going to become a family counselor by that time). The feedback I got on those assignments was always encouraging, validating. My professors got to know me on a very intimate level, but it did not extend past them--no one else saw that deeply into my soul. And I moved on after a semester and never had contact with them again. It
was actually pretty impersonal.

This writing has been a catharsis that fulfills my need to express myself. But I need more. On those few occasions when I have shared, my readers have responded in ways that have touched me and made me feel that I was helping them, too. Although I often feel like I'm the only one who feels a certain way, or notices something a certain way, when I do dare to share my perceptions and the related emotions in writing, I get feedback thanking me for expressing something that someone else has felt and been unable to express. Or maybe they just felt alone and it helped to know they are not. Recently I got what I consider to be my first fan letter. It was an email from a friend that I had not had much contact with in years. She had read my Christmas letter, which I send to old friends, and was touched by something I said. I mentioned how, despite all the amazing experiences and other facets of my life,  I wish I could find a life partner. I hesitated about including that statement in my letter, but I opted to do so because I wanted people to know that my life is not perfect, no matter how awesome it sounds in those letters or on Facebook. I have dreams and unfulfilled wishes, empty spaces. This friend related to that and felt the need to thank me for those words. I was thrilled to receive her email and even now, months later, I am tearing up thinking about it.

To get back on track...I was talking about fear. I've been doing a lot of spiritual work these last few months as I try to make my 50th year the best year of my life so far. I am following two programs developed by Debbie Ford. I am working on "The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse" and "The Best Year of Your Life." One of the things that Debbie asks is if I am acting from a place of faith or a place of fear. I am trying very hard to only act from a place of faith, but I have to admit that fear is holding me back in this particular area. It's not completely irrational. In my mind, I am also still the teenage girl with overwhelming emotions whose mother read her diary without permission. I burned that diary. I wish I still had it; I would really love to be able to recall who I was and how I saw the world then. I would like that tangible piece of my personal history. I am also still the grown woman, almost 40 years old, whose boyfriend snooped in her stuff and found her journal, then used things he read against her.  Even now he still has copies of pages that contained very personal revelations that it took courage to write even believing it was for my eyes only. There are reasons for my fear. And blogging, not to mention writing a book that might get published and reach thousands of people, really puts me out there. I need to express the truth, I need to be authentic, but it sure is scary to think that some of my most intimate thoughts, dreams, feelings will be on display, public. And yet something is pulling me in this direction. I feel I have something to give.

Today I will start to face that fear. People often ask me how I have the nerve, the courage, to do some of the things I do. (As this blog unfolds you will hear about some of those things. The most recent was a trip to Nepal to hike to Mt Everest Base Camp.) "Aren't you afraid?" The answer is an emphatic, "Yes!" I am afraid. Often. But that does not stop me. It may slow me down, but it does not stop me if what I want is truly meaningful to me. Today I am starting to face the fear that has prevented me from sharing what I have to say. Maybe my voice will be a voice for others, will help others find their own voice.

This is my first blog entry. This is the start of Me, Part Two.