Surviving the Backlash

I don't know about you, but whenever I decide to make a change in my life things go very swimmingly for awhile and then BAM, I hit a roadblock. Month two of this new "allowing" and I'm still new to it. Last week was tough. It wasn't as if good things didn't happen, but I viewed almost everything as if I was walking around under a dark cloud. Instead of appreciating the previous weekend away to San Luis Obispo I pined for its green rolling hills as if they represented freedom and mourned their loss. I felt crowded by my work obligations. My messy studio was driving me crazy but I was overwhelmed with the concept of just where to begin the clean up.

What I realize now (with the brilliance of hindsight thank you) is that my old way of seeing myself and how I go about my life and my new "allowing" philosophy were knocking heads. The old mostly-focused-on-work-and-leaving-little time for Melissa way does not want to go quietly. It has ruled my own life since I was 22, and it ruled the atmosphere I grew up in as well.

Workaholicness has had a long and successful reign in my life, but this new "allowing" way wants to blossom and grow and flourish now. And in it's impatience to bloom and grow I am not always graceful. I felt incapable of verbal eloquence. I was impatient and short and basically felt just as under a pressure cooker the same as I've felt the times I've tried to take steroids to reduce my use of headache pain medication. It wasn't pretty. My gentleman friend and I growled and snapped at each other. I felt like I was trying to communicate in a new way about new things but only awkward old language came across. I craved sugar like a mad woman, I ate ice cream and entire boxes of Milk Duds by myself and still wanted more. 

Saturday I let the workaholic reign and spent all day going through my 2010 finances so I could finish my taxes. Something about the ease of Turbo Tax egged me on. I worked myself into a bad tension headache but found out that I may not owe anything and might even get something back! Yipee. But still the dark cloud persisted.

Sunday, however, I rose with my sense of peace restored. Looking around my messy studio a little light went off in my head, "why not focus on what will make your space more beautiful?" It was tempting to do more tax work but I resisted, accepting instead a feeling that I'd been given one of those "Permission Slip from God" moments. So I focused on one small section, my "living room" and cleaned off my little table that I use for dining of all the paper work I had piled on it, took the piles of read magazines gathering dust around it down to the recycle, cleaned off my mantle and cleaned and dusted all of my picture frames, vacuumed, dusted, tended to the beautiful roses my gentleman friend had just bought for me and voila. Now I have a place to rest my eyes, to see my beloved friends and family members in photos, to appreciate pieces of art and the lovely restfulness order.