Something Wonderful Happens... When I Say YES to Myself

Testing...1-2-3...


Did you hear me?

Really. Something wonderful happens!

Like what you ask? You want specifics? Well, let's see...

About a month ago, you may remember, I told myself, "YES, you may now take classes that are just for your own personal enjoyment."

The next day I quit smoking.

Just like that.

Wow, right?

I also went from being a stay-at-home-do-nothing-all-day-pick-up-my-kids-cart-them-around-then-do-more-nothing kind of a woman to a...

are you ready for this?

...get up, get ready, drop kids at school, go to class, eat homemade lunches, pick up the kids, run errands with them, cook dinner, go out to dance class etc., go to bed by midnight, get up and start all over again kind of woman. I even get up and do stuff on both of the weekend days now too!

I take three different dance classes, two art classes, a Saturday morning golf class, and a phys-ed class with cardio and machine weight workouts. This former smoker can now run a whole mile (on the treadmill) without breathing hard, and, ok, so I'm still pretty wimpy on the weight machines, but I am more toned already and I've only gotten to use them four times so far!

Can you say, "Halleluiah"?

Amen Brothers and Sisters!

So yeah...really...something PLUM WONDERFUL happens when I say YES to myself! :)

But the key here is that these are things that I have wanted to do, but have avoided doing. Please don't think I'm saying that YOU have to start working out or pursuing your creativity for wonderful things to happen. (Although, I have to say, those are pretty great things to try if they are on your "list"!!!)

You can do anything that starts with allowing yourself to do some of the things you've thought about but then said, "Pish-posh, that's silly. I ________________ !"(Insert appropriate phrase here: am too old, am too busy, am too serious, am too just-about-anything really; or the "nots"—am not talented enough, am not tall enough, am not smart enough.)

That's the secret—no more naysaying yourself! The desires of your heart whisper in your mind and you immediately tell them flat out, "What are you? Nuts or something?" And so you plod along until someone says with a sparkle in her eye, "When's the last time you felt joy? BLISS? Perfectly wild and utter abandon?" And you think, "Gee, I don't know."

It's not "idealistic" and it's not "Pollyanna" to plan for joy in your life. It's the difference between existing and truly LIVING! And if you haven't watched Pollyanna in a while, I highly recommend it! You'll remember that it's so so so much easier to smile and give of yourself than it is to frown and hide. And you'll remember how sorry you felt for all the "crabby" folks in the movie, and how you were sure you'd never be like them. (Ok, perhaps I'm projecting. But still...it's a great movie!)

And so that's it. Joy enters when fear (or denial, or judgment) walks out. So many times we don't realize that we're afraid to live. We're holding our breath. Biding our time. Waiting in the wings. Hanging by a thread. Balancing on a wire.

So breathe.
Go now.
NOW!
Let go.
Jump!

The most wonderful thing you could ever do for yourself is to give yourself permission to live the life that whispers to you. That still, quiet voice knows what you want and what will make you feel joy...what will make you feel alive...what will create a life of bliss.

Now if you just read that last part and you heard, "Yeah, right. She sounds like an airy fairy. Doesn't she know life isn't a bowl of cherries? Sometimes it's the pits!!!" Well then, my friend, you need to do something wonderful for yourself. Say YES to your guiding voice and say NO! to that censor that keeps you from "mov[ing] in the direction of your dreams."

Say YES to yourself!

Hold your prism up to the light.

Let it shine!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

There's Always Something to Choose (From)

Determined to be Queen shares...

Well faithful readers, I'm back! And from the title, you should deduce that I've been making choices that don't have anything to do with blogging—or do they? :)

This has been the summer of choices, my friends, and some of those choices have thrown me for a loop...or two. But the nugget of truth that I've been searching for the words to express since it dawned on me is this: there is always a choice. Always.

Now I already knew this, but, as with most startling revelations, I hadn’t known it as viscerally, as deeply, as soulfully as I knew it every day of my three week visit back home on good ol’ Cape Cod. And even after those weeks of watching moments unfold with wonder, I still forgot when I got home.

Becoming the Queen of my domain is hard work!

I’ve been making all kinds of conscious choices for months now and for the very reason that I acknowledge that I have so many choices, I often feel completely overwhelmed! So finding the still, quiet place inside my heart and mind where I can discern which choice to make has been my life’s work here lately. It is very quiet and often lonely work, and it isn’t always something I want to write about.

I’ve learned that I write to think things through and that my ideas about what a “writer” is and does are finally catching up with how and why I write. I have discovered that when I tell just one of my friends, in an email, how I feel, I don’t feel the need to blog. But at the same time, I’ve discovered that perhaps I want to write a new kind of blog. And it may look exactly the same on the outside, but on the inside, I’ll be writing it from a different place and for different reasons.

And it might just have to be another blog altogether. In fact, I started writing an entry at the beginning of the month called “Low Pressure Area” and I was going to post it on my old personal blog, but even that just felt like this, and explanation of why I hadn’t been blogging. Well, the reason is simple. I’ve been putting my life back together like a puzzle and I still don’t know where all the pieces will fit together or IF THEY WILL, and I just haven’t wanted to talk about it until I knew more.

That’s all. Simple. I’ve been giving myself back to me and it’s been good!!!

So hopefully, like I said, I’ll be writing about this new trajectory of puzzling my life back together because I think I’m ready to talk about that for a while. And it may not be that profound, but I think it will be just fine. I hope you agree.

So here we go! My kids go back to school next week and SO DO I!!! I’m finally doing what I’ve said I have wanted to do for the last ten years. I will be exploring my own interests and creativity. Just for its own sake. To play. To experience some of that joy that Julia Cameron has been telling me about these past twelve weeks in her book, The Artist’s Way.

But more about that later!

PS: I did end up finishing and posting "Low Pressure Area" and if you're interested, you can find it here. I put it on that blog because there are more details of a personal nature! Shhhhh!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Commit to Something Completely

“In the quietness of this place, surrounded by the all-pervading Presence of God, my heart whispers: Keep fresh before me the moments of my High Resolve, that in fair weather or foul, in good times or in tempests, in the days when the darkness and the foe are nameless or familiar, I may not forget that to which my life is committed.”

~Howard Thurman, For the Inward Journey

Determined to be Queen shares...

So the title of this blog has been following me around since before I wrote the last entry. Being the commitment-phobe that I am, though, it is no wonder it’s taken me this long to get something down in writing on the subject. I mean, I know full well that the secret to success is commitment, but the fear factor is surprisingly high when it comes to matters near and dear to my own personal success.

Now motherhood is a different story. This Mother’s Day is a landmark for me and proves to me that I have made at least one commitment fully and well. The cards my daughters made for me infused me with great joy and confidence that I have accomplished my primary goal—to love them well.

And not too long ago, a new friend of mine told me something that nobody ever has. She said, “When you talk about being a mom, an air of calm confidence washes over your voice and I just feel how secure you are as a mom. It’s almost intimidating, actually. I can literally tell just by the tone of your voice that you have no fear or doubt about your abilities as a mother.”

It was a lovely compliment, to be sure, but more than that, it really made me think and I realized that she was right. I don’t worry (much) about being a mom. It’s the one thing I love more than anything else and the one thing I do feel good about way more often than not. Sure, I worry every now and then if I couldn’t have done certain things differently or better or provided more opportunities for them along the way, but deep down I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I have loved my children the way I always promised myself that I would.

It’s so easy to love your own children though, that I think sometimes I fault myself for not doing anything above and beyond “normal.” But like I said, this year is a landmark, and I give myself credit for doing a really great job and I award myself early veteran status, since it’s been almost half of my life now that I’ve been a mother (especially if you count the life I am consciously aware of!). Ok, to be completely precise, I have been a mother for 40% of my life. That’s a lot. That’s an accomplishment. And that’s definitely a long-term commitment.

But now it’s time to add something new.

I recently started my own business. I opted in as a consultant for one of those big, home party, direct selling companies. I can’t tell you which one, for legal reasons, but if you know me, you should have received the memo. (If not, let me know!) Now most people would say that the only reason to start a business is to make money—well, not the ONLY reason, but the primary reason. That’s what a business is after all. Offering a service for payment. And yes, I suppose that is in my top five reasons, but I think that the primary reason for me is commitment.

It’s a time commitment. A financial commitment. A learning commitment. And also a social commitment. Now getting a “job,” in the traditional sense, would also be those things, but I wanted more than just a job. I wanted to grow myself. So instead of choosing plain old potting soil, I thought I would go for the Miracle-Gro™ variety. I will admit, though, that being in business for myself, with all of the responsibility that goes along with it, does frequently put me toe to toe with the fear monkeys. But I chose this particular company because the support network is strong and encouraging; I don’t have to learn in a vacuum. There is a wealth of experience available just a phone call or an email or a monthly meeting away! Their motto is, “In business for yourself, not by yourself.” Commitment plus support. Very smart.

But back to those fear monkeys. You know, the ones that jump onto your shoulders, screeching and cackling into your ears, making you all but incapable of moving forward?! No? Then lucky you! But maybe you do know what I mean. Take one tentative step outside that comfort zone and you feel like you’re in a nightmare at the zoo. Sometimes, they can be as subtle as a week-long illness that puts you out of commission when you were on a roll (yep, that’s what just happened to me). They are the self-sabotagers that I think all of us have had to deal with in some area of our lives, at least once!

The only solution is to get back on track, ASAP! Do one little thing. Take one baby step in the right direction. Choose to see the one thing that’s giving you fits in a positive light—or from a new angle. Refuse to make a complaint. Anything that says “DOWN!” to the fear monkeys.

Also, having a single-minded vision of the outcome, complete with the feelings that would accompany that expected outcome, will line your path with banana trees that will distract the fear monkeys and allow you to pass, virtually unhindered, in the direction of your dreams.

And then give the dream your undivided attention. Not necessarily 24/7, but when you spend time on that commitment, do it with your whole heart. Commit to something completely, and you will always be rewarded. By definition, when you commit to something, you pledge to see it through. By its very nature it requires ups and downs, pros and cons, give and take. Focusing on the big picture when the details seem mundane and on the details when the big picture seems too much to bear keeps you moving in the right direction.

And ultimately, if you’ve chosen your commitment wisely, and you are well-suited for the task(s), then it should be enthralling and envigorating to face the challenges. The fear shouldn’t be debilitating, although if you are REALLY pushing yourself, it can be quite daunting!

You know, if you never hear from the fear monkeys, you might have nerves of steel, or, it may, in fact, indicate that you aren’t pushing yourself beyond your comfort zone. And hey, plenty of people get by just fine that way! And some people say that fear is an indicator that they should not advance in that direction—and that works too! But if you’re anything like me, you know that you aren’t doing all that you could do if you don’t feel a fuzzy tail wrapped around your neck and a little screeching in your ear when you start out on a new adventure!

So, in the beginning of my commitment to being a mother, I admit, I was afraid of everything. There were monkeys hiding behind all of the unknowns, and the responsibility seemed out of proportion with my abilities. Then again, any major, long-term project seems overwhelming under the macro lens. What saves us is our ability to focus in on the details, to use our micro lens. One day at a time. I’ve made it fifteen plus years as a mom because I made sure that the challenges of the commitment never outweighed the joys of the rewards.

These days, obviously, I seem to have plenty of banana trees devoted to the mother monkeys, but the business owner monkeys have nothing to eat just yet, so they’re awfully rambunctious. In fact, I haven’t really had a good dose of the fear monkeys since my first semester of graduate school! I’m a little out of practice and catch myself wondering what to do next.

Hey—maybe I can send them over to eat some of the surplus mommy bananas! But I’d hate to start worrying that my business is interfering with my mothering!

Baby steps.


© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Start with Something You Like!

Determined to be Queen shares...

For any of you who are keeping track, it’s been 36 days since I last posted a blog—posted being the operative word. I’ve been thinking about blog ideas, writing snippets in my head, coming up with new titles, but I just haven’t been able to tear away from the living part of my life long enough to get to the writing part.

You see, after “Something Miraculous,” the miracles just kept coming. Cascades of them, overlapping and flowing like molten lava into the dark crevices of my life. It was like a pounding surf…caught in an everlasting moment of tide on the rise.

And actually, it started with another one of those “meditations for women who do too much,” or at least a rising consciousness of one I read early on that quoted Judith K. Knowlton as saying:

“When I keep putting something off, it may not be procrastination, but a decision I’ve already made and not yet admitted to myself.”

For me, this was the equivalent of the angels descending from on high, singing “Glory, halleluiah!”

So what do you do when it seems as though you have secretly decided not to do any of the drudgery items on your to-do list?

Well, first you celebrate that you have better things to do than occupy yourself with drudgery! Hooray and huzzah! Then, you recognize that the only reason you appear to be depressed is that you aren’t choosing to do those things you most WANT to do with your life, and then, you give yourself permission to do only those things that you really want to do. And, why not? Aren’t we always hearing about how life is too short? And don’t we always get a gleam of pride in our eyes when we hear of someone who died suddenly, but doing what s/he loved most in the world? (Steve Irwin comes to mind.)

Life is too short for drudgery, especially when you know better! For heaven’s sake—do what you LOVE! It is the mantra of our times, after all, why not go with the flow for a while? Let’s face it. The people who have lives that we watch wistfully from afar are those people who fill their time with activity that brings them joy! It’s not money, or power, or even fame that most of us long for. It’s JOY! And it’s only one choice away.

Once you give yourself permission to choose joy, your life becomes infinitely simple—a pleasant paradox, to be sure! When you start with something you like, you create a momentum, or a flow of positive energy, that either sweeps through the parts you don’t like and makes them palatable as mere details in the plan for joy, or completely eliminates the necessity of addressing them at all.

An example? Let me think. Ok, here’s one. I need to hang curtains in several rooms in my house because of various curtain rod/sheet rock malfunctions. Part of the problem was that I didn’t like either the curtains or the rods. So when I gave myself permission to buy new curtains for the bedroom—a room that had no curtain rod issues—it led me to find new curtains that look lovely in the kitchen. Now I can’t wait to hang that kitchen curtain rod to complete the look and make the whole room much more pleasing to my sense of color and style.

Actually, the story is a little more complicated than that. There was a larger domino effect that started with a completely unrelated choice. I had decided to do something just for me that would also get me out of the “house of a thousand waiting projects.” I went and had my legs waxed, of all things. And that was at a salon in a part of town I don’t normally frequent—but only because I thought it was closer. So after the wax, which was only so-so I might add, I went driving around to see what I could see. What I saw was a store that I thought might have some inexpensive curtains. Instead, I found fabulous decorative rods for half price. Leaving that store’s parking lot, I saw another store I’d never heard of and went to check it out. I found curtains galore…for my room, my daughter’s room, and, unexpectedly, the kitchen!

In this process that included trying several different varieties of curtains and multiple trips back to the linen store, I discovered that I love curtains! And, of course, now I want to hang them up! (Now, if I can just translate this idea into the creative arts…all that writing and painting I want to do!)

The point of this story though, has nothing to do with window treatments, although it does have everything to do with creativity, inspiration, and beauty. The miracle happened when I let go of the long laundry list of “chores” and let myself dabble in the desires of my heart. Rather than sitting home, beating myself up with a litany of “shoulds” and “have-to’s,” I gave myself permission to follow the lead of my dreams. I don’t want to hang up curtains because I should. I want to surround myself with beauty—with everything from curtains to people who inspire my joy.

Life is too short for ugly curtains and drudgery. And staying home to make myself do something like paint the woodwork just doesn’t work. I balk at the randomness of that particular drudgery. Let there be a reason that makes me say, “The thing I want most to do at this moment is to paint the baseboards.” When I feel that, I’ll probably get it done in a couple of days. Until then, I have better things to do with my life.

So. If you are feeling overwhelmed with a big project, I recommend that you start with what you like and use that momentum to vault you into the arena of things that seem like too much work on their own. Once the dreaded part, painting the trim for example, feels like a finishing touch, it’s easy and satisfying—but as long as it feels like a project unto itself, you, like me, may end up doing nothing at all and beating yourself up for “procrastinating.”

Let your procrastination be a warning sign to you. First, start with something you like, but, if at all possible, do what you LOVE—because joy makes all things possible!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Something Miraculous

Determined to be Queen shares...

Wow! Where does the time go? I think I’m starting to understand what “time flies when you’re having fun” means! Now, if you know me in person, you might be scratching your head right now.

Huh? She’s been having “fun” this past week?

Without going into all the gory details, I can tell you that it’s been a most challenging set of days since my last post. Complete with fits of anger, tears, and long phone calls to dear hearts who understand the real me. But I can honestly say it’s been a FABULOUS week! Why? Because I asked for this.

So to speak.

I want answers, after all. Big answers. To big questions about myself and where I want my life to go. And in order to get answers, you have to open up your heart to any possibility of a reply. I think a lot of times, we say we want answers, but then we try to dictate how we would like that memo to read.

For instance, I wanted to know why I was still having problems in my love relationship. The same spots kept sticking no matter how much grease I gave them. I asked, “What’s wrong?” But then I sat around stewing and expecting him to figure out how wrong he was and how I was doing all the work (after all, I kept offering him suggestions!). I wanted the Universe to teach him a lesson so that I could have what I wanted in a relationship. I mean, it was mostly his fault. If he’d just listen to me, everything would be fine, right?

(On the animal scale of learner’s aptitude, I would probably top out at “mule” level.)

So last week, as part of a spiritual exploration course I am taking, I had to write affirmations. The idea behind an affirmation is that we stop the cycle of abuse raging loudly, or quietly, in our minds by giving that voice a new script—one that acknowledges peace and happiness are just one choice, one decision, away. It’s really all in how we decide things are. Essentially, nothing is good or bad until we make that judgment for ourselves.

Appropriately then, one of my affirmations is: “I am happily married.” I wanted to make this choice because I felt like these recurring issues have been the biggest stumbling block on the path of my personal achievement. How could I have a career if my relationship kept knocking the wind out of me?

Well, this past week, with this new decision in the script of my mind, I had a life-altering moment of epiphany—with a capital “E”. I mean…it was HUGE! I finally wrapped my mind around the idea that what I dislike in my partner is what I dislike in myself. (I know, I know, the three-finger rule all over again!) Of course, I had thought I understood that, but, let’s put it this way, apparently I only understood it when it was easy! But this?! This was sooooooo hard!

But also fantastically healing!

This memo about my still being stuck in the blame game, about being selfish even when I thought I wasn’t, about addictively hanging on to trouble to avoid change, this memo was not the answer I wanted to hear. Like I said, I was hoping that the heavens would open up and my husband would miraculously accommodate me and my idea of “the way things should be.” But that’s what is so great about miracles—they come unexpectedly.

But maybe that’s not entirely true. No, it’s not true at all. In fact, the only time miracles happen is when they are expected. Think of the stories of Jesus’ miracles. About the woman who was healed, just by touching the edge of his cloak. Why? Because she believed. That’s another way of saying expected. She knew—she had faith—that if she could just touch it, she’d be healed.

My husband and I talked about miracles and how they always seem to be a function of the believer. Think about those televised evangelist shows where people are instantly healed (if you haven’t actually seen a faith healing in person, that is). Those people believe they will be healed and they step forward to receive their miracle. Think about all the people who find out that their cancer has “miraculously” disappeared. They believe they can survive it. Think about Jesus’ own words on almost every occasion of a miracle: “Do you believe?”*

Well...do you?

Whatever you truly believe you have, is yours.

And I finally get it! I really understand!

How about you?

Try it this week. Choose. Decide. Have the peace that passes all understanding. It’s yours.


© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

*Jesus said to the woman who touched his cloak: "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering." (Mark 5:24-34)

Finding Something to Say

Determined to be Queen shares...

Sometimes I get this feeling and I just can’t speak. It’s like a wall, or a dam, and not even a trickle of a thought can get by it. That’s how I’ve felt about writing this blog for the past week and a half. Normally, I would have had strong words for myself about being a “wimp” or a “baby” or some other pejorative to indicate my inability to act appropriately—my failure to act at all, as it were. But this time, I used the opportunity to understand a pattern.

I believe that most of us could admit to having a natural rhythm of ebb and flow, like the tides. Sometimes we come rushing in at our life, full of energy and powerful strokes, and then we back off a bit, regroup or tone down some of the intensity, and then come back at it for another push. We wake and sleep. We have lots of verve and then go limp on the couch. We’re happy. We’re sad. It’s humanly impossible to keep barreling through life, full steam ahead, 24/7!! Frankly, we just need to vary the pace—regularly—to survive it at all.

This idea so often eludes the perfectionist in me. I want it all, all the time, all the way. No wonder I’ve spent so much time being exhausted!!! (I’m really starting to see the “woman who [does] too much” in me!)

However, I’m pleased to tell you that I spent the week and a half of blogging silence enjoying the heck out of my life and not worrying about when my next post would be. I let myself believe that the post would come when it needed to. (There’s always another post in me somewhere, right?) I went with the flow, dude, and I must say, IT ROCKED!!!

I was able to spend two whole days preparing my daughter’s 15th birthday celebration. I continued to do my workouts and follow my diet (ok, except for a few indulgences, but that’s another story). I went to an all-day seminar. I started taking a course with my husband (yay!!). I watched a movie by myself during the work day (formerly a big “no-no”). I talked to some friends on the phone, or went and had tea. I paid the bills, bought some groceries, cleaned a little and played with the dog. I even went to the Houston Rodeo for the very first time! In short, I just lived my simple, quiet life and enjoyed it. I didn’t judge it or rush it or over-schedule it or beat myself up because it wasn’t perfect.

I honestly think that I was about twenty-eight years old before I realized how much mental time and space I had devoted to expecting my every thought, word, and deed, to be perfect; although I never used the word “perfect.” I thought about improving things. Oh, this can be better next time and that could be more efficient! I could be more patient or the house could be neater—at least more often! I thought I was challenging myself to be better and to do more, and isn’t achievement and growth a good thing? Why would learning from today and making it better tomorrow be a negative endeavor? Well, it’s not; at least, not in theory anyway.

But when life holds no true enjoyment; no, not enjoyment...but what? When you can never feel satisfied—or when you don’t know what that means—then perfectionism has its hooks in you. I’ve had to learn what being satisfied means over the last decade or so. For me, it means to be able to be still and survey the scene with a smile and an inner “Aahhhhhh!” No judgment (straighten this, add that)…no anxiety (how long will this last?)…no worry (surely something isn’t quite right with this picture)…no expectation (I wonder if this will happen again soon)…no blame (this could have been better if you or someone else had only…)…no nothing…just PEACE—the kind that makes your face beam and your eyes twinkle.

That’s the space where there is no wall. No dam either. And in that moment, there’s no need to say anything at all.


© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Still Craving Something

Determined to be Queen shares...

I quit smoking over four months ago. It was easy! That is, as soon as I started thinking that every cigarette I didn’t smoke was an instance of loving myself, of being kind to who I really am via the body I live in.

I always knew it wasn’t the nicotine I was addicted to—it was the chemical flush that altered my mood when I couldn’t handle life. The boredom of grading papers, the loneliness of my life as a hermit, the pain of not being understood or acknowledged by my significant other, the sadness of living over 1,000 miles away from my entire family. There was always something missing, and I kept trying to fill up the space with smoke!

But, like all the other times I’d quit, I just started eating sugar instead: cake, cookies, ice cream, and chocolate. Oh how I love chocolate! Whenever I have had overwhelming feelings of any kind, I would run for something to give me the rush I needed to keep going. So, not long after quitting the smokes, I became a carb-aholic.

See, it wasn’t just the sweets I was eating too much of. Oh no. I started eating bread and bagels and ramen noodle soup. I ate all kinds of potatoes: mashed (with gravy), chunks in my homemade soup, and lots of French fries and hash browns at a certain fast food establishment within a half mile of my home. When ice cream was two half gallons for $6, I’d buy four at a time so everyone would have their favorite flavor! I bought several boxes of ready-made cookie dough from the girls’ fundraisers. I ate out too often and ate too much. I gorged and gorged.

I consoled myself by saying, “I can’t quit everything all at once, and hey, at least I quit smoking, right?!”

Wrong.

I watched in silent horror as I broke the promise I made to myself two years ago when I’d hit my ideal weight again after losing almost 25lbs. I wasn’t going to do that to myself again. I was going to love myself by eating right and staying trim. But when I’d grown out of all my clothes by my birthday this year, I knew I’d hit rock bottom again. It was time to quit everything all at once!

Five days ago I quit sugar, cold turkey. I started exercising. The good news is, I’ve already lost two inches around my waist. But I can’t tell you how awful the carb withdrawals are! You know you’re an addict when you sneak some extra parsley, celery, and cucumber bites and sigh with pleasure. I’m in lust with vegetables right now because they’re the only source of carbs I’m allowed.

So, now I’m faced with the source of my addiction. The utter longing. What my friend Camellia calls “The God-shaped Hole.” Now, when I’m not “busy” with something that engages my mind and body utterly and completely, I’m thinking about when I can next have some vegetables! I sip herbal tea and black coffee to try to calm the part of the craving that feels connected with ingesting something! I wrack my brain for something—anything—to do that will make me feel better.

Yesterday I did two workouts: 40 minutes of muscle sculpting (can you say lunges?) and 30 minutes of a fat burning, “special occasions” workout. After that, I still had too much energy; luckily it was time for lunch, so I ate and savored every bite of the grilled onion and bell pepper on top of my steak. Then I wandered around trying to decide what to do next. I finally decided to go looking for the diet book, to see when I could start adding in other foods and what they would be.

Apparently, this addiction thing is bigger than I thought! Well, that’s not entirely true. I knew it was big, but I thought it would be easy to kick. Get rid of the cigarettes and sugar…et voila! She’s cured! I thought that if I just put the focus on my dreams, all of this would pass away quietly. I can honestly say I really don’t want to face this part of myself. And by the laws of the Universe, that which we avoid comes back to haunt us.

So it looks like you’ll be hearing more about me learning how to face my addictions head on. I know I have described this blog as showing “the ups and downs of one woman getting a life,” but I think I was secretly hoping to avoid the downs. And that’s another lesson, isn’t it? Can’t have one without the other. Perfection is not an option, but I hear that happiness and peace are. I keep forgetting that I can be happy without having the “perfect” life. And maybe it will be perfect—well-suited—for me, but not free from challenge or change.

Craving perfection just doesn’t make me happy. But, I believe I can transform this craving for perfection into a craving for peace and happiness—one that comes from making good choices to create a life that is, at least, more of what I truly want.

Then again, maybe peace and happiness are already here, like Camellia says, and I'll just let the cravings go altogether!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

Love, or Something Like It*

Determined to be Queen shares...

Karen Carpenter’s lyrics poked at yet another of my sore spots on Monday.

During the bridge, Carpenter says that when she gets these blues—the ones when she wants to quit because “nothing ever seems to fit”—she runs to “find the one who loves” her. But more than that, she suggests that she needs someone else to make her feel better. She can’t seem to console herself. This is a classic sign of the relationship addict. I, too, have found that the chemicals of love can be just as effective as anything in food, alcohol, or drugs. The highs and lows, the mood swings, the delusions of either grandeur or insignificance are one and the same.

Hello, my name is Nicole Williams, and I am a love-aholic.

It hasn’t been very long at all since I tried to control my love interest or felt personally out of control where my emotions are concerned. But the first step is in realizing that I have a problem, and that I am NOT in control. In addition, what I’m learning this year is that I’m just not the victim I think I am.

I’ve been in relationships that might be termed “toxic,” on some level at least, for the past 20 years. I learned early on that “like attracts like,” but it took one failed marriage to really see what that means. It’s like the three finger rule—on crack! (see my blog on Feb. 8th for an explanation of the three finger rule!)

It took a couple years, after the divorce, to realize that I shared in 50% of the responsibility of that relationship. It was easier to point fingers at the behaviors of my partner because they were obviously “bad” ones. Only later did I realize that my bad behavior was just in stealth mode. Not because I intended to hide anything, but because that was the nature of my part of the problem. I had been involved with persons who had extroverted their anger, making it look like I introverted mine.

But I didn’t know this until the Universe served me up another mirroring soul, one more like me. I looked like the feeling extrovert in comparison this time. That’s when the light dawned and I saw myself in a whole new way. I had to take responsibility for my role in the relationship, and I worked on that for a good long time.

Deep below the surface of all of these relationship lessons I was learning, though, there was another current to be reckoned with. What about ME? All the years that most of us spend “finding” ourselves were spent finding group answers. With very few answers about who I was as an individual. Wife and mother were always at the top of the daily to-do list, but that put me below dirty dishes and folding laundry. Needless to say, I was exhausted by the time I got that far, so I kept postponing those me-centered pursuits.

Motherhood tends to have this effect, or so I’ve heard! And it’s true that wives often feel that they compromise more often than the husbands. So what’s “wrong” with that? Nothing at all. And that’s exactly what I held onto for all these years that I’ve been a wife and a mother. But something clicked along the way and I saw that I have, oftener than not, used my dedication to avoid probing my own depths.

In other words, whenever it starts to look like I might have to make my own way and express myself as an individual, I slink back into the comfort zone of my relationships…especially partner love. For me, loving a man is the perfect thrill ride for my insecurity, self-doubt, and fear of failure to set in motion, hoping to keep the focus on things outside the self. Do you love me? Do you need me? Do you want me? Does your world revolve around me?

Ok, right now, this seems pretty serious. But hey, don’t we all do this at one time or another? I bet we all do! But there’s a subtle difference between any substance use and abuse. Use and ab-use. Engagement v. Compulsion. Even good things like exercise and a career and, yes, love relationships can be ab-used. It’s the spirit behind the emphasis.

For me, I just happened to notice that I’ve spent a lot of time using the slings and arrows of insecurity and blame and focusing on the motes in my partners’ eyes to avoid myself. Keeping the instability going and feeling like a victim has created a world of fear that I’ve lived in because it gave me something to fight with or flee from. It’s like a constant state of war. Of death and destruction. Living like that isn’t really living at all.

So now it’s time to create and connect. To take responsibility for myself. To live from the inside out. To be free and fully alive.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.


© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

*I just found out today that this is the title of a Kenny Rogers song. I think the spirit of the refrain fits my idea about addiction to love: “Something's got a hold on me/It's cheap but it ain' free/Love or somethin’ like it's got a hold on me.”

Something About Rainy Mondays

Determined to be Queen shares...

Any time since the late Seventies that there has been rain on a Monday, Karen Carpenter’s refrain plays in my mind. So today, listening to the thunderous downpour outside, I heard that chorus again and decided to look up the full lyrics to “Rainy Days and Mondays.” Lo and behold, I found out that Karen must have felt like I do right now when she wrote it.

The first verse struck me because just this morning I had been “talkin’ to myself and feeling old.” I celebrated my 37th birthday a little over a week ago and for years now I have been using those numbers to beat myself up. Something like, “You are 30-something years old and you should have this all figured out by now; you should be sitting back and riding the waves of success by now, not floundering around in the surf, trying to get up on the boat!!!”

So what really upsets me about Carpenter’s lyric is knowing that she was younger when she died than I am right now.* She was a famous singer with at least sixteen number one hit songs before she was thirty! And she still felt like she’d “like to quit” and that “nothing ever seems to fit.” That same self-doubt even resulted in her own untimely death.

We see it all the time, right? People who, in our eyes anyway, seem fantastically successful, with every reason to be happy, and who self-destruct. Look at Anna Nicole Smith. Ok, so we may not all want to look up to her as a role model for success, but she’s a good example of how fame and fortune just aren’t enough.

But we know that, you must be thinking!

What is enough?

That was the topic of my rainy Monday argument with myself. I became flustered with the nagging coming from the school marm specter in my mind’s eye. She tapped her wristwatch and said, “It’s after ten a.m. and you are still fooling around on the internet. What are you going to do today? Tomorrow? With the rest of your life?” I physically waved her out of my sight and spoke aloud to the cat, the dog, the walls, the mess in the living room, and said, “I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to! Nothing. Nothing more than what I am already doing. I don’t HAVE to be productive to be worthwhile! It’s my time to explore!”

And that’s the part that is so difficult for me. The process. The journey. The taste testing of all that life has to offer until the thing I want most becomes clear to me. I have to keep telling that other part of me to RELAX! Just because I quit my job doesn’t mean I will miraculously and instantaneously know what to do next. Some people might, but how could I? I’ve been avoiding myself for years. That part of myself that wanted things and was always told “NO!” is not going to come running right out, especially if the school marm is still hanging around telling her to “hurry along now; it’s about time you got going.”

Who wants that?

Sometimes, quitting can be a beginning. It took me a year to decide that quitting my job was better than keeping it for the sake of appearing productive. I was finally able to see what I didn’t want and convince myself that the better way to find what I did want was to give myself the time to find it. The time to play and to explore. It’s been a tough transition so far because I’ve been judging myself harshly about it. Almost every day I’ve said, “Maybe I should just go find another job.”

It’s difficult to believe that my job is to take care of myself first. It’s so much easier to take care of other people and blame them for my lack of time to discover what I want for myself. And it’s so difficult to believe that doing the thing that doesn’t reward with a paycheck is the best thing. But I guess I need to believe in the spiritual paycheck more than the monetary one. The bottom line is that it’s difficult for the woman who likes (ok, loves) control, to feel so out of control. I’m uncomfortable, but that’s a sure sign that growth is possible, right?

Hopefully, these rainy Mondays that “get me down” now, will soon turn into the sunny, blossoming days of the spring of my soul.


© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

*Karen Carpenter died the day after my 13th birthday; she was almost 33 years old.

Something to Think About: Three Finger Rule

Determined to be Queen shares...

Do this: point away from yourself like you are scolding someone. Does your thumb naturally grab onto those three extra fingers and hold them back so that they point right back at you? Mine too.

Did you try it?

Come on, play along.

Do it again!

What I love about the three finger rule is that I can see it! In truth, it is just a modification of Jesus’ lesson to refrain from judging others.

The New American Standard Bible says: "Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?” Other translations speak of a “mote,” “grain of dust,” or “splinter” in another’s eye as compared to the much larger “beam,” “bit of wood,” or “plank” found in one’s own eye.

I am so often humbled by remembering this passage; however, I didn’t always remember it at the right time! Because I tend to be a pointer when I am judging someone’s behavior (for instance: husband, children), the three finger rule is perfect for me. The passage now comes to mind immediately, and always, much to my dismay.

I see one finger pointing at the other person and THREE pointing at me. Uh-oh. Does that mean that I’m at least three times as guilty as the person I’m pointing at? Is there a log in my eye? Quick, hand me a mirror!

I won’t lie to you. This rule has made me furious at times.

I AM NOT like them! I’m just angry, disappointed, frustrated, appalled, fill-in-the-blank at their behavior! How could they be so careless, reckless, unthinking, unfeeling, fill-in-the-blank towards me and/or all of humanity (I’m thinking specifically of Houston drivers at the moment!)?? I mean, can’t a person just be upset when someone else doesn’t behave properly without it having anything to do with the person who is upset? I mean really!

The answer is no.

Honestly.

I know. It’s not easy to hear. Especially when we think we really, really get it.

We know this one by heart, right? It’s cliché for crying out loud! Let’s see….there’s: “He who is without sin should cast the first stone.” And, “People in glass houses should NOT throw stones.”
And, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” We get it!

And still, I couldn’t see how being upset with someone else had anything to do with me. I had to start asking myself some tough questions.

One of my pet peeves (besides disobeying traffic rules) was lying. I seethed if I discovered that someone had lied to me—at all. My self-righteous anger welled up and I thought, “It can’t possibly mean anything about me because I tell the truth!!!” So what did my three fingers have to tell me when I pointed out a liar? Turns out, quite a lot.

I don’t think anyone has lived an entire lifetime without bending the truth at some point, especially in the name of tact or politeness, and I certainly knew that I had not lived a life of perfect honesty. But I knew that I was honest to a fault because people would tell me how amazed they were at my honesty with them. In fact, I’m afraid I had a bit of a reputation. (Uh-huh, you hear it coming don’t you!)

Well, at this point in my life, when I felt surrounded by liars, I was desperately trying to find a spiritual way out of the pain. Once I learned about the three-finger rule, I was determined to understand it. For what seemed like a long time though, I just couldn’t.

I wanted to know why, the more I kept pointing out the liars, the more those three fingers kept pointing back at me!

Dear readers, one day I discovered I had been lying to myself. I finally heard those voices in my head that told me I wasn’t good enough, attractive enough, smart enough, fill-in-the-blank enough. I also started to see that people lied to me because I didn’t want to hear the truth. I expected too much from myself and so I expected too much from others, and when they “messed up,” the last thing they wanted to hear was me reminding them, so they lied.

The fact is, being upset with others is a choice we make because we want to control in others the faults that we often don’t recognize in ourselves. So, if you find yourself pointing your finger at someone else, remember that there are always three pointing back at you.


© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved.

A Whole Lot of Something

Determined to be Queen shares...

When my sister gave me Anne Wilson Schaef’s Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much, I didn’t really believe that I was a woman who did “too much.” Sure I tried to tick off several items on my daily list, but those were “normal” things that wives and mothers and teachers had to do every day for heaven’s sake!

So I asked myself, “How does someone who doesn’t have a job but does have commitment issues (me) fall into the ‘workaholic’ category? What do I do so much of anyway?” The answer skewered me to the spot immediately. I do A WHOLE LOT OF NOTHING! I do so much nothing that I never get the great big SOMEthing(s) done!

In fact, my ability to avoid and shirk and dance around big projects with little nuisance-y things has been what has kept me from balancing my life and my time. The little nothings of my average life have been consuming me and keeping me from getting ahead: in my career, in my writing, in my reading, even in my parenting…in everything I say I want to do with my life.

Now, I already knew that 2007 was going to be the do-or-die year for focusing on me and what I want and how to get it. I had my tag words “Discipline” and “Commitment” looming in front of me. What I didn’t see was that there was “nothing” standing in my way. All those obstacles I saw between me and what I want for me were just a mirage, and I was creating all of them. I thought that the journey had to be long and difficult in order to be real, but here I was, presented with this “beam me up” reality.

The life I want is just a moment away.

And one decision is all it takes. Sure, I may have to make that decision repeatedly because it’s an idea that challenges my ingrained habits, but it’s a decision that gets easier and easier to make. Nothing and something are completely subject to our perception, and all that truly matters is that we choose to create the somethings that we want and not waste our time making somethings out of nothings.

For example, it is true that my family needs to eat and that I am the person who hunts and gathers (and cooks) in the family, so grocery shopping is, indeed, something that I must do; however, in light of the reading and writing that I want to do, shopping is much lower on the significance spectrum than I tend to make it out to be. So, if I expand shopping to the point that it interferes with reading and writing, then I am letting nothing become something and thus have nothing of substance to show for my dream pursuits.

(This made me think, Oh, the laundry needs to be changed out and I almost stood up! Like I said, I just had this Shazam! moment a couple of hours ago, so it may take more than a day for it to sink in!)

So in other words, if, at the end of the day, my goal is to have “something to show for” my dreams, then I must continually make decisions about what is “nothing” to me and what is “something” to me—or else change my dreams!

But that’s part of what this year, especially, is all about for me: taking the time and doing what’s necessary to find out exactly what my dreams are. And that’s what this blog is here for—to chronicle the ups and downs, the ins and outs, the overs and unders of my journey to becoming what Allyn Evans means when she says “Queen.” I am learning to establish dominion over my own life and to fill it with fabulous somethings, all of my own divining. So…

I hereby crown myself a “Queen-in-Training” (QT) and banish the somethings that are actually nothing! Please do join me on my journey into and around the Queendom!!!

© Nicole J. Williams, 2007, all rights reserved

Lyrical Universe

This is a placeholder...the article is being revised to conform with copyright laws. :)

The Sponge Theory of Success

Determined to be Queen shares…

S—P—O—N—G—E--!!

What’s that spell?

Sponge!

What’s that spell?

SPONGE!

What’s that spell?

SPONGE!

Doesn’t that word look weird now? Isn’t it funny how looking at a word too much can make it look like gobbledygook—or at least like it’s spelled incorrectly? When that feeling of assurance that the word you are looking at is indeed the word you understand it to be disappears and your mind hesitates and questions—you second-guess yourself.

I started back as a face-to-face college teacher last week. I make that distinction because I also teach in the highly unsatisfactory online environment. Really though, it isn’t the environment that is so unsatisfying—it has more to do with being caught between the corporate, money-making administration’s minions and the disgruntled students who have been thrust into an online writing course against their will—it’s required. But I digress, and I won’t be talking about the very different issues that those students face. No, instead, I thought I would share my newfangled approach to teaching.

I’ve been asking myself the “difficult” questions lately—What do I want out of life? Why? How can I get more of it now?—and one of those question and answer sessions had to do with teaching. It’s what I have been doing for the past four, going on five, years now, and it hasn’t been an incredible source of inspiration and joy; I needed to know why. What am I drawn to and what repulses me in relation to teaching?

Well, for starters, I love the first day! It’s like giving birth. Shiny new faces, assumed potential, a wellspring of love in the heart for the challenges and the nurturing and the growth to follow. I get to have that “new baby” feeling twice a year. It’s addictive. I have to say that I pastor my flock through my courses. I break down previous mythologies, assuage fears, release past guilt, and lead them to the Promised Land. The rest is good parenting. I am compassionate; I care and I praise and coach and cheer and sing halleluiahs to move them from point A to point B. I set up clear boundaries of expectation, blow on and bandage boo-boos when they fall, reprimand them when they should know better. I have multiple roles: pastor, shepherd, caretaker, boundary setter, locater of the lost…surrogate mother.

That brings me to what I don’t like. I don’t like wiping noses or changing diapers or spoon-feeding. After all, these are adults—or at least quasi-adults! When they ask for too much, which is often, I balk, and rightly so of course. And sometimes, parenting or shepherding 50+ quasi-adults can get downright exhausting! My “good-naturedness” spills over into enabling. Or their quasi-adult status plummets to infancy. Whatever the case may be…they push, and I fall over.

So I thought I should have better boundaries. More enforceable guidelines. More logical consequences and fewer exceptions to the rules. But what to do? I mean, this is a life theme…not just a teacher theme…and it’s THE BIG ONE. But still, I thought that teaching would be the place to start experimenting. I had a clear external motivation for change, a captive audience of guinea pigs, and any tangible results might spur me on to a more personal success in the same problem area. Basically, I was looking for insight into this condition, and because I recognized myself in my procrastinating, detached, overwhelmed, and forlorn students, I thought that if I could convert them, then I could do the same for myself. This might be backwards, and it’s definitely a conservative approach, but I thought I would do well to practice “on camera.”

I have to perform as a teacher. It’s my job. It’s what I do. I am accountable to at least 50 other scrutinizing people. Here is where I can prove to myself that it is possible to succeed. So I asked myself what differentiated the successful students from their unsuccessful counterparts. We all know that the answer is never as simple as “intelligence.” In fact, we all know that sometimes, the smartest folks are the ones who just can’t seem to move forward at all. So. I came up with the general stuff...prepared for class, plans (and works) ahead, has drive, is committed…did I mention “doesn’t procrastinate”? Yeah…that’s the big one. Slow and steady wins the race.

All this thinking led to a metaphor or analogy that I “acted” out for them on the first day. These are children of the visual world, so I must be a visual Girl. I set three clear plastic cups on the desk. I produced a bottle of water from my bag and said:

I am this bottle. The water represents everything I know about writing and teaching writing. The cups are your learning environment—the classroom, if you will.

I poured some water into the cups. I set another cup off to the side and told them that this cup represented the “real world”—the world out there that they were striving to get to by going to college. I continued:

I create the classroom environment by sharing my knowledge with you. You bring yourselves. There are three basic kinds of students—Student Rock, Student Sand, and Student Sponge.

I showed them the students in representative form and asked them to guess which student was most successful in the classroom environment. They knew! Just like you do. Student Sponge. So I demonstrated to reinforce the point.

Student Rock comes to class and is hardheaded and impenetrable. I don’t need this class. I’ll never have to write once I’m out of here, so I just need to pass and move on. I already know how to do all this anyway. Hmph!

I put Student Rock in one of the cups. Nothing happened. I took Student Rock out, shook it, and said:

You see. You can’t even tell that Student Rock was in the class. Nothing has changed. And when I put Student Rock into the “real world,” it brings nothing to that environment. It is the same rock it was before and has nothing new to offer.

Then I picked up the bag with Student Sand in it, and explained that it was made of the same material as Student Rock, with opposite properties.

Student Sand can’t get it together. It comes to the classroom in scattered pieces that can’t find their way back together in the classroom. Student sand is bewildered, fears failing, believes that it cannot accomplish the goals of the course, for whatever reason. I swirled Student Sand around in the water. Student sand is overwhelmed by the environment—it can’t make use of the environment because it has no form, no discipline, no consistency. It may try haphazardly, but fails because it is constantly at odds with itself. It rarely makes it out of the classroom into the real world intact. It can’t synthesize and utilize the knowledge it is exposed to.

Student Sponge appears in my hand and everyone is ready to be a sponge. They are imagining sponge-ness. Who wants to be a rock, or sand? (Students may peg themselves, but they may vow to be more sponge-like; after all…most people don’t set out to fail on purpose!) I smile at Student Sponge and hold it up, examining it.

Look! Student Sponge comes to the classroom PREPARED to soak up the learning! It’s READY before it gets there. It’s function…it’s purpose… is to learn.

In goes Student Sponge. It swells with water.

“Look!” I say. It’s taking knowledge out of the classroom! And when I put Student Sponge in the “real world,” it has something to use, to share, to draw on…something to show for its time in the classroom.

I squeeze a little water out of the sponge into the real world cup.

There! It’s contributing to its new environment! It’s obvious that Student Sponge has learned something and taken that knowledge with it into the new environment! So what makes Student Sponge ready?

It is…

Serious,
Precise/Prompt,
Open-minded,
Not willing to quit,
Genuine, (and)
Enthusiastic!

I won’t go on about how those qualities translate into the composition classroom exactly…you can pretty much guess…but I will say that I linked those qualities to the expectations inherent in my syllabus so that they could see that I wasn’t just spouting rules at them. Oh no. I was showing them what to do in order to be a successful student. And now they had this visual in their mind’s eye of a sponge taking water from one cup to the next. And every time I see them, I can say: “I hope you are all feeling like sponges today because we have a lot to learn in the next 80 minutes!” And they will be immediately transported to the visual center of their brains and remember and understand what I mean in a primal, limbic way.

It’s already working for me. I use the sponge mantra on myself. “Are you feeling like a sponge today Nicole? I hope so! Because you have a lot to learn today! And you need to take it with you in order to get to the next level…to reach those goals of yours!”

How about you?

Of course we’ll all have rock and sand days from time to time…but OH! To be a sponge most often! That is my goal. Hopefully it is working on my students too. I’ll keep you posted!

Stay tuned for more on the journey to the Queendom...

© Nicole J. Williams, 2005, all rights reserved

http://www.queenpower.com
Disclaimer

Hurricanes of the Heart

Determined to be Queen shares…

The first line of a poem came to me again when I sat down to write this blog, so I thought I would share it with you. I present to you, John Donne’s “Holy Sonnet XIV: Batter My Heart, Three-Personed God”:

Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor even chaste, except you ravish me.

One of my final courses in graduate school was a 17th Century poetry course, taught by the chair of the English Department at the University of Houston, and John Donne was one of about 10 poets whose work I came to know more intimately. The poets of that time were very much concerned with the nature of the Christian God; they needed to understand, as many of us still do, the relationship between God and “Man”…humans…persons. God, in this poem is “three-personed,” which I find very comforting…God with us…a God like us. But more interesting is the relationship between that God and us—and how apt this poem is in the 21st Century…in my life…in relation to my journey.

In the poem, the human spirit struggles between a love for God and a natural tendency to turn away from that saving Grace. “Reason,” the faculty which reigns in God’s stead in the human mind, is “captived, and proves weak or untrue.” The idea of freedom here is the freedom from temptation…the freedom from the weakness of the human condition…freedom from imperfection in love. The speaker of the poem asks that God storm the human castle and take the soul captive, in order to truly free it from a sinister bondage—that Earthly curse requiring the pain of repeated error and incompetence in things spiritual, loving, and good.

The professor who taught this course is a paragon of intellectualism…known as a GPA “buster.” I took the course, frankly, because it was the only available offering that fit with the final course requirement I needed to graduate. I knew I liked Donne and Herbert and Wroth, off the top of my head, and I love poetry, but the course itself didn’t sound too exciting—it was listed as 17th Century Non-Dramatic Literature—and, as I mentioned, the man had a reputation, and I was determined to beat my undergraduate GPA. (I missed a 4.0 by the equivalent of one course—a story for another day!). Let’s just say that I regretted that I had missed the pinnacle by so small a margin, and so each successive "perfect" semester compounded my secret longing into an ever-increasing goal to surpass that mild disappointment.

And so, I took the course, and it turned out to be one of the best courses of all those I took during my three year stint at the University. It was a small seminar of five women, plus the instructor. Finally, I was able to speak!!! In seminars of 18-22 students who were seasoned and much more talkative than I, my opportunities for contribution had been severely limited. Here, I felt like a graduate student. And I worked harder in this course than in any other. Perhaps I could have done more, but I had two other courses that semester, and I was graduating, and I did the best that I could at the time. In any case, I earned the dreaded
A-minus.

I know, I know. But all of you perfectionists out there are groaning with me …I know you are. So, did I mind? Sure, it’s still a thorn in my paw sometimes…that feeling that I JUST MISSED out on something really exceptional. And a wry expression comes over my face when I think about how my GPA’s match. In fact, if I’m really in a self-flagellating mood, I will think that it just goes to show I’m not quite good enough, or that it's part of the Universe's plan to keep me humble or wanting more. (I told you those little mean voices are nasty!) So what does this have to do with my journey now? Well, that brings us back to the first line of the poem, inspired by recent events, meteorological and otherwise.

Previously, I likened the Queenly awakening to being “born again,” and just as the newly converted are often quickly tempted by the old lifestyle, habits, or “wicked ways,” the newly crowned Queen is quite vulnerable to the slings and arrows from those around her who are threatened by her changing attitudes and behaviors. A new Queen, when she discovers her dream, must make decisions about her life: What will she do? Where will she go? Who will be in her court? The natural consequence of decision is change, and change can be unnerving, to say the least. So, I made a “First Things First” kind of decision of seismic proportions, with long-lasting repercussions, and as the devastating weather stormed into the Gulf Coast shores, my heart was being battered by a hurricane of its own creation.

I apologize for being vague here, but the last thing I want is for my journey blog to sound like a soap opera. Suffice to say that I listened hard to the voices of my dreams and stepped out into the fury that I had avoided for so long. I realized, as the waves came crashing over the levees around my heart, that I had, on a fairly regular basis, “protected” myself out of a life of my own creation. I think that’s where the line from the poem emerged. A friend had told me that life was falling into a pattern of “the same old, same old.” I responded with news of my decision and wrote:

It’s brought up all kinds of things. I think it’s been part of the relentless ache in my heart all these years, but I was unable to recognize it as such because I’d mentally convinced myself that things were “better this way.” And, still, in some ways they were. Now, it is merely the right time.

So…not really the same old same old over here. More tumultuous than the weather really. Hurricanes of the heart.

After writing those last two lines, I started hearing the refrain of “Batter my heart, three-personed God” run through my mind. Now, in this particular case, I am not struggling with my religion—although I know that it is on "the list" of things to address on my journey—but the essence of the poem that I hear right now, in this situation, is that in order to be truly “free,” we must allow that love and passion to overcome us. We have to be willing to be stormed like an enemy castle, or battered as by a storm. We have to weather the transition from the realm of fear and indecision into the Promised Land of strength, conviction, love, and plenty.

Those evolutionary storms of passage may be large, small, or merely imagined, but succumbing to the paralyzing threat is far worse than choosing to live through the turbulent paradigm
shift(s) in our lives. And I promise you—once you find the true path, you will move out of the damaging winds and heavy rains and into that dead quiet center where nothing can touch you. When your “eye” and your “I” align, you can see the future, and the fear will leave you. Each true decision you make will show you the way.

Welcome the storm that leads to the peace of understanding…or, if you will, the peace that passes understanding…but don’t let it devastate you. Rather, let it refine your senses and clarify your thoughts, ideas, and dreams. Let the winds blow, the rains plummet, the hail pelt, the lightning flash, and the thunder roar, but stand in the calm center of your being and dare to dream in the face of it all.

Stay tuned for more on the journey to the Queendom...


Note: My heart goes out to everyone affected by Katrina—this storm of Nature completely surpasses the gravity of any hurricane of the heart I might be living through right now.


© Nicole J. Williams, 2005, all rights reserved

http://www.queenpower.com/
Disclaimer

Where Am I? How Did I Get Here?

Determined to be Queen shares…

Have you ever awakened from a dream, and peered out between your lazy, drooping eyelids, only to feel a sudden chill or thrill of energy run through your entire body? You might even have reflexively braced yourself with fingers splayed and flat palms clapping down on the mattress as you passed through that initial moment of confusion…of feeling as though you are waking in a strange place. Sometimes that happens to us because we are actually away from home, and during the night, the memory of the unfamiliar has been replaced with the warm fuzzy feelings we associate with sleeping at home in the comfort of our own beds. But sometimes it happens in our comfy beds at home, surrounded by everything we know, with all as it should be—or, at least, as we think it should be.

I suppose it is much the same as the archetypal dream of entering a crowded room filled with strangers, acquaintances, and perhaps loved ones…who suddenly begin to laugh at us and point. Yes, you know the one…the naked entrance dream. Dreams like that one have played out in so many of our minds because we are concerned about how others feel about us. I think that the feeling underlying the “where am I” dream comes from that same primal reservoir of fear—it’s a fear of being lost or forsaken, perhaps even a fear that our concept of reality is not true—we aren’t where we think we are in life.

More often than not, however, we have the sensation of “where am I?” during waking moments of introspection. It is the signpost we encounter when we begin to seek a conscious path towards a goal that, at first, may only seem like an inner longing or a stirring of our soul. We may say, “What is that uncomfortable feeling?” Many of us ignore that discomfort and hint of desire brewing deep down inside—for years. But oh! When we finally hear it, and cock our heads slightly to the side and listen to it…. When we let it speak, and engage that small voice in conversation…. When we truly hear what the voice has to tell us, then the whole world opens up!

That is the point at which you join me here. My whole world just lit up like daybreak at midnight! Previously, I’d heard bits and pieces of what the voice was saying, but I manipulated it like a Magic 8 Ball, asking it for speedy answers to essentially yes or no questions. I hushed it when it tried to suggest another alternative, or to remind me of my true heart’s desire—in its desperate attempt to save me from martyring myself with the limited choices I regularly used to barricade my dreams. I’d heard other Queens speak of that magical, transforming moment…the point of no return that they could identify as signifying surrender to their heart of hearts’ desires, but I just never felt it. I thought that I’d had mini-breakthroughs along the way, but nothing ever seemed truly life-altering or long-lasting.

I find myself wanting to describe this transformation by likening it to becoming “born again.” I’m sure you’ve all heard the stories of people who have attended church for years, out of dedication, habit, or just plain love, but who never feel a fire burning inside. Good people who start out good and continue on that path, being servant-like and pious, but not finding that deep spiritual connection.

So that was me. Queen Camellia told me about Queen Power, and her friend Allyn, and how really great women-sharing was happening and was inspiring to her. So I checked it out and thought it was pretty nifty! But I was worn out and didn’t feel like I had time to “play” on the forums. I gave myself a queen name and said hello, signed up for the newsletter, and downloaded the ebook, Catch Your Dream and Live It, read a little bit, but then that was pretty much the end of it. Low and behold, though, Allyn needed a newsletter editor and Donna recommended me. She knew I needed something and knew I’d be amenable to that kind of assistance. So, I became the editor.

Now I had an “official” reason to read the newsletters—from head to toe, and without fail! I really enjoyed them! And I always thought to myself that it was nice to have a “reason”—in my busy world—to read them each week. I started soaking up the message…this Queen thing really made sense, and it sounded great. But it was easy to slip back into that voyeuristic mode and my Eeyore doldrums and think, “Those women are so much better than I am. I’m not like them. I can’t live my dream…heck, I don’t even have a dream. Dreams are frivolous when you have to take care of two kids on your own.” But I kept listening—secretly. I let the Eeyore part of my brain complain and the dreamer (Pooh?) imagine how lovely the honey would taste if I could just stick my whole paw or muzzle into the pot! (There will be more about Pooh later!)

But I got to the point where a little voice started to rebel. It said things like, “You’re always helping everyone else do what they want—you never DO anything yourself. You’re always the maid and the cook, and the sidekick, the grader, the editor…you aren’t WRITING your own stuff.” Of course, that voice was quickly countered with, “Well, you don’t have anything to write about anyway. These women have it all covered. And that science fiction book you want to write? Bah! Kid’s stuff. Besides, you don’t know how to write a book, and no…you can’t learn now, it’s too late. I don’t care what those women say, it doesn’t apply to YOU.” Ouch, huh? Mean and nasty little critter voices in there!

I started to walk away from Queen Power because I was busy…because I thought my “dream job” was in the wings…because I felt so darn inadequate and out of the queenly loop. But even as I began to pull away…I realized I missed it. And then when the job didn’t materialize, well, then something wonderful happened—Queen Power sponsored its very first teleclass! I thought about listening in, and I almost chickened out, but Queen Me said the right thing at the right time, and I made it a date!

Christine Louise Hohlbaum talked about finding a dream and living a passion-driven life. Everything she said made sense, but it was what I didn’t expect her to talk about that caught my attention. The discussion turned towards how to deal with negative people. Christine said, “The people who are the most negative are the ones who want what you have. They are jealous.” Wow! My mind whisked back over all of the little nasty voice words I’d heard in my head about me not being like the other queens, and I knew! I was a negative person and I was jealous because I wasn’t living my dreams! (I was boo-hooing on my end of the muted phone line by this time!)

One of the other ladies on the phone had worked with Christine to find her passion—her dream—and she had had to make the discovery that she did NOT want to teach—it wasn’t her dream. I heard that, and I thought of myself, but I said, “NAAAAH! Now you are just thinking that this stuff has to be complicated. And you’ve just spent all this time convincing yourself that teaching is your dream! And besides, you aren’t like them and everyone can’t be a writer just because they want to!” (Darn those little voices!!!) Well, Christine also happened to mention an author she respected a whole lot—Cherie Carter-Scott, author of If Life Is a Game, These Are the Rules, among others.

This is where the full miracle began to unfold. I looked Cherie up on Amazon.com and saw that she’d written a book called Negaholics. I took the quiz online and scored 98 out of 100—with 100 being a sure sign that you are entirely engaged in a negaholic lifestyle! More tears!!! So…off to the bookstore I went. To make a long story a little bit shorter, I ended up plopping myself down on the floor in the self-help section of Half-Price Books and browsing. I bought two of Cherie’s books, Stephen Covey’s First Things First, and the book that is helping me snap out of my Eeyore ways— Your Own Worst Enemy: Breaking the Habit of Adult Underachievement, by Kenneth W. Christian, Ph.D.

After reading Negaholics and starting in on Your Own Worst Enemy, I could feel something wriggling to break free from the mental chains of my mind. And then it all came to a climax when I started in on the written exercises. My first response was “UH-OH!” when I got to the freewriting exercise that asked, “What would you do that you are not doing now, or have not done, if success were 100 percent guaranteed?” In my 90 second allotment, I wrote that I would write—that science fiction story/novel, poetry, blog articles, a dissertation. It was all about writing—not teaching. I was actually astonished to find out that my mind quickly divulged that secret, and the unrecognized motivation for avoiding writing. I was afraid to fail! No wonder I couldn’t write!

Suddenly, it was as if I were dying… my whole life seemed to flash before my eyes. Ok, not the whole thing, but all the decisions that had taken me away from my dreams AND all the dreams I’d ever spoken that had to do with writing. I even saw, all together, all the times that I became semi-conscious of the fact that, through teaching, I was helping my students overcome the obstacles that keep me from writing. Or rather, I should say that I was constantly frustrated when they did NOT follow my advice and exhibited behaviors that I now see as a mirror reflection of my writing issues—waiting until the last minute, avoiding, not revising, waiting for perfection to come out rather than writing lots and lots of whatever and then playing with it. And I also could see that I so admire the students who play and explore and write like they never knew they could write after taking my advice. Advice I wouldn’t even take myself!

You know…I think part of the reason Queen Power was so attractive AND so intimidating to me is because there are so many women who write. (What a way to put your hidden dream in bas relief!!!) And so many successful women! I felt very small. But you know what? These women felt small at some point, and they remember that. They are generous and gracious and sharing—there is so much to be learned here! Everyone has a different dream, but the common thread is pursuing that dream! I thought I felt left out because I wasn’t a “success,” but I’ve realized that it was because I didn’t know what my dream was. And it can take a while to find it.

I am still working steadily on defining my dreams and turning them into goals with action to back them up and achieve them, but I can tell you that it feels like I live in a whole new world now that I am allowing myself to dream. I wouldn’t give up my teaching experiences, and I will be teaching until further notice from my dream plans, but now I know that it’s not just ok to have a dream—it’s imperative! Again…like the conversion refrain in that familiar hymn: “I once was lost, but now am found—was blind, but now I see!”

Stay tuned for more of the unfolding of my journey to the Queendom!


© Nicole J. Williams, 2005, all rights reserved

http://www.queenpower.com/
Disclaimer