Last week we talked about the “poison” in side of us, the negative thoughts that seem to pop up in our minds with little or no say.  I’ve been having a particularly challenging time getting myself out of the negativity spiral, the negativity bias this past week.  It bothers me more because I’m aware of it and I hate the way it makes me feel, but also because I don’t want to project that to the world any longer.  For a while I thought the world was just happier if I was miserable—everyone seemed to be getting what they wanted and I would cheer for them while silently demanding my due. That, too, is a poison.  The ego demanding what we feel owed.  The truth is I’m human and I fall back into patterns just as easily as the next person.  This is partially discipline, yes, but it’s also about the years of training toward fear, martyrdom, projecting the terrible, etc. But something happened in the midst of all this that stopped me in my tracks.

A friend stopped by my office last week after not seeing each other for a month or so.  She immediately knew something was stewing in my brain—she said she could feel it radiating off of me.  I filled her in on the details of what happened, and now that she is outside the arena I’m in, she completely validated everything I was experiencing.  She then asked me why I was still in that environment and what I was doing to get out.  I explained the exact steps I’m taking toward a new decision and then I felt the words tumble out of my mouth, “I’m tired of waiting for what’s mine.  I’ve put in the time, I was told I would get x, I’m ready for it now.”  First of all, it felt great to actually get it out.  Secondly, as soon as I said it, my friend’s eyes lit up and she told me that was the problem.  She said I could no longer go around acting like I’m owed one particular thing.  She said I needed to be patient and relax into it. I freaked out even more because I’m tired of waiting, I told her.  She told me that is what’s pushing everything away.

She said all of this with love and kindness and absolute certainty.  She’s highly intuitive and sensitive and simply aware of herself—she’s so good with using those skills that we often dubbed her the witch because her knowing is so spot on.  Those are qualities I’ve only dabbled in so I have the ability to touch into that but I don’t use them as she does.  I knew she wouldn’t steer me wrong and she knew that I had to vent those frustrations—she also knows the environment I’m still stuck in.  So her words struck me differently this time.  Normally when I hear the phrasing, “Be patient” I lose my damn mind.  I am not naturally a patient person for nearly anything.  Of course I have my exceptions and know when to demonstrate patience, but there are certain things that will trigger me in seconds and certain things I have expectations on.  But instead of feeling angry when she said it, I felt weak.  I felt my body sag under years of watching people succeed at things I want in seconds while my timing needed to be perfect, years of waiting for my chance, years of being hated for my perfectionism and still not getting what I was promised.  The loneliness, the tiredness, the confusion. 

But what she said was right.  In order to move forward we have to let go of the weight we carry, and for me, that is holding onto the idea of the particular thing I’m owed.  I’m tired in the environment I’m in because the work isn’t aligned with who I am and I’m spending my days doing the same thing hoping for different results.  It’s exhausting.  I’m also fighting against people who have no clue what I do or the potential of the work I do.  While they project kindness and caring on a personal level, professionally they are for themselves and trying to make square pegs fit into round holes to their benefit and it doesn’t work like that.  It’s a daily struggle to be heard.  So it isn’t so much about what I’m owed, it’s about being seen for what I am.  It isn’t about being owed anything, it’s about being aligned.        

When these thoughts take over, in addition to practicing that patience, we need to remember how far we’ve come. In order to practice patience we need to know there is always something to be excited by.  Just because we aren’t seeing the outcome yet doesn’t mean something isn’t in the works.  It may not be what we think it should be, but there are pieces falling into place that may not make sense now but will become exceedingly clear as time goes on.  We can see our minds with clarity and prevent ourselves from getting whisked away by the thoughts and demands and the ego telling us what we feel.  We can let it go.  We don’t have to cling onto each thought that comes in our minds—we can let it float away and simply move on.  So, when we feel some negativity taking over, that may be a sign to simply stop and allow what needs to unfold, unfold.