Day 555: Not Drowning

God, it's good to be naked at home (sorry, Nikki, sorry Nikki's cat, Tiny). I'm not naked that much of the time - it's cold and I'm not going to abuse the heating just for the sake of nudity - but getting out of the bath and not having to worry about covering anything, god, that feels good. 

I have noticed over the last few days how easy it is to slip back into old patterns of thinking, about love and money in particular - specifically, if subconsciously, that there isn't enough of either to go round, so I'll need to make do on very little. And this despite evidence to the contrary. And it's really effective. Believe this long enough and hard enough and you'll have it all around you. When love is there, you won't see it. When money is there for the scooping up, there'll be something else that gets in the way, or something that suddenly needs to drink it up before it's even come in.

When you move a mirror, you find out how often you check yourself out, even if you didn't know you were doing it, and I swear you're likely to keep looking at that empty patch of wall long after the mirror has moved. I've never given myself a hard time for doing this. 

If I was coaching me like a client, I'd suggest seeing it more like this: Instead of being cross and feeling like I'm slipping backwards when I notice these things, I can use them as useful indicators - thank you for letting me know that I'm still thinking that way - thank you for it now reaching up into the conscious mind instead of doing its pervasive work in secret in the unconscious. This is an opportunity to change the pattern. Each time that 'not enough money' and 'not enough love' for me to have some comes up, I get to spend a moment fantasising about what I want instead, what that feels like, sounds like, tastes like, what the sensations are and where and what else comes up. It's all material and it's all useful, and noticing this stuff means it's moving. I'd also encourage me to think of it with the neutrality of moved-mirror glancing. That's all it is. An old habit taking its last breaths - fighting for its life, maybe, but it's just doing what it does. There's no intention behind it and no right or wrong hidden underneath its skin.

When I think back to the painful two or three years that happened before I finally stopped drinking alcohol every night... I realised there was an issue in 95 - I honestly didn't think of it that way until that point. I ignored that for two years, then tried really, really hard to change it for another three. I took such huge steps. I stopped smoking during that time and made lots of other good changes, but I still felt like I'd got nowhere. And then, with very clear intention and with help from other people, it stopped. I stopped. Drinking alcohol left. Lots of other stuff came in, and it was hard for another few years rebuilding social patterns and having to see the stuff that alcohol had blinkered out, but it was so much easier without the stuff itself messing with stuff. It was a change I couldn't visualise - I actually couldn't imagine my life without it, at the time, as most of my relationships were built around it. 

So, change makes waves. Waves are to be noticed, surfed, ridden, swum in and sometimes, sucked up. Whatever they feel like, thank god for them. 

Thank you, then, amidst all the change, for a fabulous start to 2014, surrounded by delicious people. Thanks for abundance, change and movement. Thanks for the things I struggle with, to keep me flowing. Thank for the ease too, and may it be remembered and valued as much as the struggle. Peace is good too. No need to choose camps. 

No reason

Thank you for playing and talking with some fine women - J, Fiona, Kate, Pudding, Cat, Sue, Dilly, assorted Betties. Thank you too for a meaty meeting with Grundel and Veal - fine men with fine minds and a willingness to try shit out, which I'm very pleased about. I wonder what will come of this collaboration. And thank you for this rain. Fuck it, you can't beat it. Enjoy it.