Where I suck and gaze at my navel
Kammie has a post up at her blog, Passion Meets Purpose, about how you think of yourself, and it’s got me thinking. With so many changes in my life in the past decade, I’ve found myself in an ongoing identity crisis and often have to work extra hard to not give the negative thoughts about myself air-time. For months on end, I’m tuned to the Anne Lamott station KFUKed 24/7.
I suck. I can’t focus. I’m a fraud. I suck. My stomach looks like a dead puppy. I suck. I can’t write. I suck. I’m a fraud. I have too many ideas and no follow-through. I suck. I’m a bad mother. I have a potty mouth. I eat too much sugar. I suck…etc…
oh, and I suck.
But when I can find the focus and when I keep the suckage for Higher Purposes (hi honey!,) I find that I’m pretty happy in my skin, easier to live with, and I enjoy my life a whole lot more.
I’ve had opportunity this vacation to face a whole lot of my familial patterns and reading Kammie’s post added another level of, well, self-love to the process for me. Sometimes an unexamined life is easier, but an examined one is so much richer.
Uuuurp.
"Grass is the cheapest plant to install and the most expensive to maintain."
~Pat Howell
August 17th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Kelly~
I hear ya sista! It can be tough when we wanna fall down that negative spiral staircase. And yes, sometiems I wonder if ignorant bliss might be better, but as you said…an unexamined life might be easier, but an examined one is much sweeter.
Keep on keepin’ on,
Kam
August 17th, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Can I join the “I have to many ideas and not enough follow-through” club? I constantly struggle with remembering that the “I suck” is not the price of admission there. Instead, it’s okay to daydream about something you’re never going to do or to do it half-assedly just for the experiment of it.
You’ve got a lot going on…hope you can find a way to take it easy on yourself for a while. And it’s all relative you know b/c I have had the actual thought “Kelly from herablehands is going back to work, so should I, (here it comes) I suck!”
Um, also, I’ve been eating my first tomatoes out of my garden (Kelly planted dozens of tomatoes, I only planted 6, arrrgh) that I planted largely because of finding your site. So, thanks.
August 17th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
. . . oh, yeah, and you also rock
(remember the whole rock-suck duality thing is merely the human hard-wired capacity for up-down, left-right hemispheric qualities when referring to both serotonin and norephinephrine reuptake inhibition in SuperFly Hot Mammas like yourself . . . )
August 18th, 2006 at 6:14 am
Oh, but you are FABULOUS! We can all go to that sucky place but just not the place to go. It’s like quicksand. I think it’s a mental discipline to stay in the positive but it makes things positive so worth the effort. Anyhoo, you—you are one of the loveliest, wittiest, most open and interesting people I know and I know too that focus is difficult when we have young children, are moving house, planting gardens, cooking, sending kids to new schools and starting a new job! So—one day at a time. When the dust settles you’ll find you’re more focused than you think!