December 4, 2011

The following thoughts were the lead-in to susanna conway’s weekly newsletter.  She’s one of my favorite bloggers–a whimsical photographer with interests in a million areas.  Anyway,  her thoughts made me mindful 🙂 to stop, take inventory, and see how i felt this morning.  And today, unlike yesterday (when I was feeling confident and excited and creative), it resonated.  (Aha–the voice in my head said– I am unstable!)  I could feel myself this morning moving into a place of insecurity.  Two friends are coming by to see  my new offices and that raised issues which started out with ‘my group room isn’t going to work to be a group room; I should have done it all differently’; which morphed into ‘who do I think I am’ and ‘this isn’t going to work’ and ‘i’ve been too confident at times and that’s why I’ll fail’ (this one was hidden waaay down).  And on and on–it took about a nanosecond to see that many of these thoughts were lurking right below the surface, waiting for one tiny disappointment to free them to jump up and say GOTCHA!!

So i’m keeping this reminder close for a while–to reread when fear shows up, and i’m run over by the voice in my head that says my dreams are too much.  Susanna wrote:

I will not be beaten down by my hormones, by the sinister slippery way they convince me I’m not worthy.
I will not be beaten down by time, by the rush and the panic and never-enough.
I will not be beaten down by my own expectations, by thinking I should be something when I already am so much.
I will not be beaten down by others’ expectations, by how their judgements of my situation reveals more about theirs.
I will not be beaten down by my inner critic, for it is only fear that comes out of her mouth.
I will not be beaten down by that fear, by how I purposely trip myself up when things are going well.
I will not be beaten down by the shoulds, because that way disappointment lies.
I will not be beaten down by the past, because it no longer needs to define my future.
I will not be beaten down by myself, because when all is said and done, I am my greatest ally.