Truth—What is it?

            Last September in a presentation on blogging and websites, we were encouraged to write a manifesto.  At the time, I decided my declaration of purpose would be to write the truth.  But, (imagine a manure-eating dog-like grin on my face at this moment.) I forgot all about writing a manifesto and just started blogging helter-skelter.  Today, I realized the manifesto for writings by karen will be just that—anything goes.  I knew now I wanted to include the important things in my life, my writing life, my family, my recovery, my walk with my Higher Power.

            So what is writing my truth?  There’s no wonder my brain has taken a few ninety-degree turns since I started blogging and writing the first draft of my novel.  My truth changes from time to time; sometimes it changes from minute to minute. 

            A new truth I have learned is I can't tell another person how or what to feel.  If I am capable and have the right of choosing how I feel about something, then who am I to dictate another’s feelings?  I mean think about it; don’t you hate for someone to tell you not to feel sad when you feel sad, or that you shouldn’t be angry when you’re clearly angry?  (When I am pissed off and someone tells me to calm down, I just get more pissed.) Wouldn’t you rather they just listen?  But still it’s hard sometimes to keep from telling a person she or he ought not to feel something when I can see they are in pain.  I understand now when I do relapse into trying to control another it’s because I feel uncomfortable and powerless over their feelings.  Coaching another person how to feel or not to feel is controlling in order to make me feel better.  (Just a note to parents, I am talking about adult-to-adult relationships.)

            But will such a personal truth of not controlling others get in the way of writing fiction or non-fiction?  I mean, my goodness, when I do that god-like thing of creating characters (who feel like real people in my head as I think about their positive and negative traits and how they might react to this or that) and set them up to have conflict and tension—that’s not just telling them how to feel, but making them feel it. 

            I have mentioned in the post Commitment about my going to Codependent Anonymous (CoDA) for several years.  This recovery group has taught me another amazing truth—there is a God and it isn’t me.  Actually, getting back to the idea truth changes, it makes sense to me my changing truth comes from my limited vision of the nature of God.  My human understanding of a Higher Power is restricted, but finally now it takes in the idea of inclusion.  My truth and your truth may not be the same, but our kaleidoscope truths are all in the arms of something bigger and better than any person.

            I would love to hear what saying, feeling, or writing the truth means to you.

Love,

Karen 

Commitment

            This past week my mind’s ruminated on that word, commitment. What is it?  How do I balance it with my own needs?  What is healthy and what isn’t?  How does it fit in with God, with my writing, and my friends?

            I have to say that in my life, I’ve had all sorts of commitment-phobias.  I got married too young.  During my marriage I went to college; I changed career directions twice and still got a degree in something that I never used afterwards.  After my divorce, I stayed single for fourteen years before re-marrying because being committed just scared the hell out of me. 

            What does commitment mean?  Two definitions are that it is a pledge to do something and that it is a state of being bound emotionally or intellectually to an ideal or course of action.  In the last eighteen years, I have continually pledged to live my life with a man that changes from time to time.  I say continually most sincerely; marriage is a long effort.  In the last twelve years, I have lived in one place as a homeowner and have been seriously committed to getting that mortgage paid off.  For ten years or so, we have been members of a church.  Eight years, I’ve been going to codependence anonymous meetings and working the steps.   I’ve worked numerous jobs, but work has been a steady effort.  So I suppose I have gotten over my fear of commitments, somewhat.

            Writing for me has never been about commitment until this past year when I quit my regular job and started the first draft of my novel.  It has been about something as basic as breathing.  I have always used the action of pen-to-paper as a method of meditation, prayer, figuring out what was in my head, making a decision, putting off a decision, coping with grief, and expressing my joys.  You name it, writing has been my friend.  But now that I am devoting more of my life to writing, I’ve found that my commitment issues of youth seem to surface.  I have a god-zillion doubts about my abilities and wonder if anyone would be interested enough to read my work. 

            Doubt has been my biggest component of quitting something.  Those doubts have now surfaced in my church attendance.  I am in grief about church and the Easter season.  This is a hard time of the year for me, but I’ve usually been able to just go along.  I’ve either been very busy at church during Easter, or I’ve been very quiet.  I haven’t openly revealed to them that my father killed himself so close to Easter, although if they have read my blogs, they know that now. There’s a thing about grievers-of-suicide, they don’t open up much about that subject, especially not to church friends.  It’s too easy a fertile ground for human judgments.  And there’s that crying thing that happens with grief—the uncontrollable shit that scares the life out of me.

          I think maybe my new writing direction in life has cracked me too open.  Lately, I’m too vulnerable in church during Easter.  Realistically, I want to give up Easter for lent; actually, I just want to give it up for good. I’m not very good at giving myself permission, I guess.  I wonder how well my Christian friends would think of me after hearing that decision, even if it is for my own self-care.  The idea that Jesus died for me isn’t uplifting; it’s terrifying. 

            Amazingly, my relationship with God hasn’t been affected by my fears.  I believe God loves me with whatever decision I make on Sunday mornings, and doesn’t pet me piteously on the head as if I were just a poor lost soul that can’t get over her father’s death or the post-trauma of it. 

            My soul is secure with God, as I understand God.  Part of turning over my life and will to God has to do with being true to myself.  I believe God’s will for me is to be easy with myself in my grief and worship God however I can.  God’s big enough not to take offense that I don’t want to celebrate the death of Jesus.  Worrying what others think of me in this issue is unhealthy. 

            But  I have to say, I’ll be glad when Easter is over.

Love,

Karen

What I Believe

             I didn’t get a chance to write my journal pages this morning.  I woke up thinking about a scene that I had trouble with yesterday and figured I’d better get down on paper what came from my subconscious before it evaporated.  Usually in the mornings, I will get a cup of coffee and sit with a spiral notebook and just start writing.  I’ve done this morning journaling since I read Julia Cameron’s The Artist Way.  “Morning pages” she calls them. 

            The things I write in those pages are monotonous but sometimes enlightening.  One thing I try to do is to jot down my feelings at the moment, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual feelings.  That’s what I am, you know, a person with all those feelings.  The trouble with me is that a lot of times I can’t identify them.  I don’t have a lot of trouble understand what is going on with me physically; if my head hurts or my feet are cold, I know it.  But if my emotional feelings are hurt, I have the habit of denying them.  Sometimes, I hide from the idea that I feel disconnected from God.  Sometimes I hide from everything, isolate and zone out so much that I don’t know what’s going on.  It takes a lot of work to become self-aware.

            Lately, I’d say for nearly a month now, I have been writing daily planned to-do lists in my journals.  Over the weekend, I read about three weeks worth of posts and realized that my plans and intentions are being written, yet, I’m not acting on them.  I have been getting lost in the day, filling my time with writing on my novel, eating, and watching TV.  After reading those posts, I realized something. I have been adjusting to a new way of life and I’m not so sure of the way.

            Over the course of the month, I have had too many headaches, and a childish need for approval from too many people.  I have worried what people think of me.  I have isolated.  I have sat in front of my TV and munched on unhealthy snacks.  I have made plans to go to the library to write so I could be around people, to go to the recreation center to workout, to call friends and just have a long conversation, yet those things haven’t happened as much as I would like.  I believe this is called a codependent slip, indulging in unhealthy patterns as a way of coping with my present unknown.

            So yesterday in my journal, I decided to stop planning on things that I don’t seem to be doing anyway.  I decided to write some of my beliefs as I really know them.  Here’s what I wrote: I am a spiritual as well as a physical being. I believe in God, and I have doubts that Jesus is the only way to get to God.  I know that I can write and that it is a wonderful gift.  I believe that words are holy and powerful things.  I believe that I will be ok.

            Have a great day!

            Love,

            Karen