over the rainbow

“To love is to risk not being loved in return. To hope is to risk pain. To try is to risk failure, but risk must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”

so making daily entries sometimes is challenging for me. of course, there is no contract here, so i am not required to post daily, but somehow i am almost entrenched in that pattern. maybe i kinda feel married to this process now. honestly, i'm not sure.

i know that there are times, quite evident undoubtedly, that i have no clue as to what i might write about when i sit at the keyboard. sometimes, i look to the music to inspire my thread. sometimes, especially when i've been emotional, i will be as if i am located inside a plexiglass box and all my reactions to being stuck and being
visible are without camouflage and completely out in the open.

i don't know how to describe today. i had a good day, albeit a bit roller-coaster like. i am coming in contact with a new level of grace for my life. finally, i may be finding it normal to have emotions around mistakes that i make, and not get lost in a quagmire of self-judgement. i am understanding that i don't have to live up to standards that are impossible for me, and my world will not fall apart and find me dejected and spent when i blunder.

strange for some who may read this to understand just what i am relating, but please be assured that i have lived with inner chaos my entire adult life and have always (since age 11) been medicating these thoughts and inner patterns described here. slowly though, i am thawing, and hopefully (i mean hope above hope or hope squared) the barricade to my heart is receding and the path to my willingness to be naive is reappearing.

you know, maybe this seems elementary to some. i certainly would prefer it did to me. but this is a spiritual experience for me. soft and quiet. without regret. not overwhelming or hard to reach. but definitely somewhere over the rainbow.

sound choice today.. jennifer hudson giving some love back to patti labelle with "somewhere over the rainbow"

take me away

i will be arriving in la later this evening. the itinerary includes a trip to southbay- manhattan beach, including at least one (possibly 3) amends left from the tweaking days. i have faith that my intentions are good and that i can withstand any direction these may take. i have support in place, too. then i will attend a conference for a couple of days including workshops and meetings. i will be afforded the opportunity to spend time with some friends, including marc the trash whisper, and then i want to visit another fellow blogger who has been an inspiration to me. he has a blog titled aids-write and spearheads an advocacy program for medical marijuana. his name is richard kearns. he writes poetry, he is an activist, and he is a long term aids survivor. hopefully i can interview him a little and i will try to post it on the international carnival or somewhere along those lines.

"what's next" is a question rolling around my head even through this lovely weekend. and to tell the truth, i honestly don't know what is next. i am trying to get right with that fact. that i really don't know and that no matter what, not knowing is okay. and not knowing is where i need to be.

i do have faith that something really wonderful is beginning to happen in my world. i cherish that idea and hopefully am making room for that to move into my life.

and truth be told, i have been immersed in one segment of my life the last couple of weeks. it's been pretty hard to really look beyond that little nano-drama. and this is something that needs to change soon.

theoretical model of change

creating change in my life is not a simple endeavor. it can be very easy to decide to change, and it is not difficult to desire something different, or to visualize myself in another situation. i can even go so far as to make plans on how to get to that place of change. this is not complicated. i.e.- i want to bulk up in my chest and pecs. i will start to go to the gym a little extra time and spend that time concentrating my energy on building those body parts. i can picture my arms with bigger guns (or grown up puppies as it were) and with my long ignored almost man-boobs having shrunk and firmed up so tight that i can bounce a quarter off them.

all this is easy. and it's fun, imagining this change in my life. and i have imgagined change just like this on many occasions in many different areas of my life. the difficulty for me is taking the steps to make that change plan work. getting up earlier every day and actually spending that time concentrating on those body parts. doing the time at the gym and working those muscles. tracking my growth so that i not only imagine the change and the growth, but documenting it so i have proof and i have extra incentive. and if i get to the space i want to be with my body, then diligently keeping up the work that it took to get me there.

this is the difficult part of change. action stage and maintenance stage in the stages of change model. taking the steps, doing the work, and continuing to do the work to maintain the benefits. it has to become part of my life if i want it to stay.

the beauty of this to me is that i can begin this at any stage of my life. and i can use this model for change in almost every aspect of my life. including the way i think about and treat myself. i am soooooo thankful for the insight this little model gives me. thankful too, that i get a chance to attempt to be a better person.