On Being Me

[trickykitty]

I began to think this morning about not wanting to get close to anyone else so as to prevent them from becoming tools that my enemy (that ego voice in my brain) tries to use against me. I started realizing that it's really everyone, and everything, that I need to look upon that way, at least for a while. I'm blocking myself off, but in a way that is very different from running into my defensive shell like I used to do. This is more like putting up a mental wall to keep people out and protected from the bad, hurtful me. I'm gradually cutting off that voice from having access to anything on which to feed. I realized that that's what I've been doing with this cleaning stage all along. (I've been working to clean the cobwebs out of my life - just haven't been posting about it.) I just wasn't really aware that this was the goal I was heading towards. I'm going to suffocate that voice from within.

Putting up that wall and pushing people out does mean that I might come off as aloof, perhaps even uncaring. I know that I am not though, and I know that this is what's in the best interest of everyone around me - it is right to do this, not wrong. There is a worry (brought on by that ego voice) that pushing people away means that they will no longer approve of me. This is fallacious thinking. It makes the base assumption that people are expecting me to behave a certain way in order to approve of me, therefore, I must behave that certain way in order to to receive that approval. That right there is the crux of the power behind that voice.

I must behave a certain way in order get someone's approval. = WRONG

Now, obviously, if I behave a certain bad/negative way, then I will NEVER get someone's approval. I cannot expect to be a lying, cheating bitch and have friends for very long, not unless they are other lying, cheating bitches, and I really don't want people like that in my life, let alone as friends. But to think I must behave a certain way, especially a way that runs counter to my native existence, and still receive acceptance, is wrong. Yet that is exactly what that voice in my head has been saying, and I've been playing along with its game.

From the Forward to my copy of Tao Te Ching: "Softness means the opposite of rigidity, and is synonymous with suppleness, adaptability, endurance."

I am always a certain level of rigid, as prescribed by my preference for perfection, maximization, planning, and OCD. I am also always a certain level of Surrounded By Things, as prescribed by my preference for materialism. However, this level of rigidity and material ownership is what is natural for me. It is my version of doing not-doing (wei wu wei), and it is MY level of Softness. It is not rigid to me. When certain things are in place everything else flows in my mind. It is when things are out of place that the road gets bumpy, things don't make sense, flow gets stifled.

I mentioned above that I also must treat everyTHING as a tool of the enemy. My material nature means I will want to own things. It is important for me to keep that ego voice away from that process. I must want to own something because I really, really, really want to own it for myself, not so as to impress someone else. If it does impress them, then that's great, just as if my natural being impresses them, then that's just fine and dandy as well. But I cannot live (and buy) just to impress someone else. I need to ensure that I am doing it because it is my natural state of happiness.

So it is with my native being. I have my own softness and flow that I must reach for myself. It is not someone else's flow. I do not walk into a room and act as others act and still manage to feel as though I am being true to myself. I must act as I act, and then, and only then, can I feel at one with Nature. Then, I will feel at home - that feeling that I've been trying to reach and that's been blocked by that voice in my head. That voice does not know HOME. Only I know Home.