Supported

I'm writing you from my new and improved desk chair (Henry Miller). I've adjusted everything - arms, seat, seat height, back angle, lumbar support - the works. YAY! In addition, I'm learning about this other, more internal support system. In the nether regions of my consciousness, i've been doing a little spring cleaning.

Like most of us, my childhood was an imperfect one; and i am a recovering perfectionist. Through bodywork, therapy, insight training and art, i have begun to dismantle the armour i used to navigate a hostile world of impossibly high standards. Naturally, my own standards were the most punishing of all.

Now that i am learning to take myself less seriously, i can stop aiming for the stars and accept support and useful feedback from people around me. As soon as i threw up my hands and decided that my contribution to humanity would have to be sandwiches and the odd pot of chicken soup, new opportunities to share and inspire opened up. I should give up more often.

Perhaps the support i was looking for was waiting for me to let go my deathgrip on impossible expectations, so that i could open my hand and accept the possible. Nature is wiser than i; i don't know why the fatal attraction to planning and control. Nature is the God that shows up, and she is pretty darn clear about what works. I am learning to look for support in ways that work, rather than in theories and constructs that don't adapt to reality. This is the new lumbar support in my world.

I've had to grieve a bit for the relationships i HOPED would work, but wouldn't. I've had to mourn some for the mistakes i made, causing others pain and dislocation. I've had to make myself soft and vulnerable, which can definitely send up fears! But only by trying again, with more trained radar, can i open to the subltler impressions from another sphere, always seeking to guide and support, that i couldn't feel when i was all well armoured. Harder than anything, i've had to risk the pain all over again, when every cell in my body is saying, WHY Would you do that? Another thing to give up, oh well.

Now that i've done all that giving up, i can see better. I feel better - like, more skillfully. I feel what i am, and what i am not. I am in touch with a more authentic configuration of whatever is the center of me, without all those trappings of aspiration and posturing. I'm smaller now, reduced by all this giving up of armor and falseness. But i feel the touch of support, and that's a fine thing. Thanks to friends, therapists, and Henry Miller's people for teaching me about support.