Queen of Dreams Radio
Posts Tagged ‘Letting Go’
Yesterday, as the sun went down, Mark and I sat in the back by the pool talking about his business, talking about my next project (at least one book about manifesting and the principles of creation), talking about marketing and what we see clients doing and also moving to a new house. The conversation was like many between long-time married couples who drift easily from subject to subject without transitions – a seeming long list of ‘to-dos’ that we will work together to create.
In the middle of the conversation, the subject of ‘we’ and ‘my’ came up. I tend to say ‘we’ for many things, and ‘my’ for ‘my projects.’ He always gives me a hrrrmph when I do that because he says it is ‘ours.’ This bone of contention ran through my business years, too, as he would say ‘our’ clients when ‘I’ was the one doing the work, ‘I’ was the one dealing with the personalities that came along with the work, ‘I’ was the one that was doing all of the administrivia and on and on. I didn’t feel that his occasional run to FedEx with me in tow at 9:45 PM to mail a client’s project ‘counted’ enough to be ‘partners’ and the business, as I saw it, certainly was not ‘ours’ though the money from it was shared willingly and freely for all those years I had it.
Yesterday, in the lap of our backyard with the blue pool at our feet, surrounded by the roses and holly berries with me maybe eight or so years wiser, I let my guard down around the subject and opened my mind to consider what he may be seeing or feeling.
I feel at ‘one’ in nearly every other area and expression in my life – Why not this one? Why is it that I feel the need to stake claim?
As we peeled back the layers, I finally said, “Well, I’m the author of this creation – that’s why it is mine.”
He replied, to what was already streaming through my mind, “Why is it that you are always fine with being about ‘oneness’ and it takes all of us to get to where we are going, and you TEACH this, but when it comes to your writing you act like it’s all yours?”
I have to admit…I didn’t know why. I just had this feeling in the pit of my stomach – a perceived truth to his words.
Then, he said, “You just don’t get it. Everything is all of ours.”
He began to give me a list of things he does to make my writing life possible. He listens. He responds to me when I ask, “Does this make sense to you?” He cooks my meals (and always has). He brings me coffee in the morning.
I can do all of those things for myself I reasoned. They are nice, but I don’t have to have them. But to write! There’s so much to do… listening and listening and gathering the drops as they come in, and the putting them on paper – actually getting them out of my consciousness and into this world! There’s work to do!
I jumped to something that came to me in my inner defense… “I have no need to claim anything you are working on. Your business is your business. I enjoy helping you and I don’t need to be considered a ‘part’ of it. I give freely.” There it was…separation. This time I couldn’t ignore it.
“Maybe that’s true, but you are. What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine.”
I bristled. “But you aren’t the one doing the work to write and to reflect and to collect all of these little messages that are coming in all day every day!” I exclaimed.
Then he said it. “Writing is easy for you. You write books like some people write articles. It just flows out of you like water.”
I swallowed hard because it was true – at least that part was true. And, somehow coming out of his mouth in actual words I felt like it discounted the process – the writing. That maybe it is too easy.
We drifted to another topic content to agree to somewhat disagree and somewhat to agree.
Later that night, I realized the writing IS easy for me…like breathing. I listen and follow. The structural part is more challenging. Putting myself out there even more so. The facing the business aspect from my true core as a creative soul has been the greatest challenge – even though I know what to do! I know how to run a business. I know how to grow businesses, but when I’m in my creative heart, I tend to be like other creative souls.
Our conversation simmered in the back of my mind. Something Mark said to me, “At the end of the day, Tina, you can’t be like everyone else. You can’t just forget that you have a business mind in there somewhere. That’s what makes you different, and what won’t allow you to just let things go.”
I wondered, Is that true? I remembered the feeling when he said it – solid as a rock. True.
This morning, as I ready myself to write. I see now what is at the core of all of this. Magically, it’s what is at the core of everything else around me right now, too. It’s about work. Who does the work?
Whomever does the work is the one that owns something. The belief that has been the fly in the ointment for far too long.
Wow, what an outdated notion. Puritanical for sure. A rush of thoughts comes to mind in this moment. I used to argue that an executive’s wife deserved as much out of a relationship because the person behind that person contributed as much to the creation as the one who actually goes out in the world and ‘does the work.’ So Mark is right…about me.
Funny how beliefs work. We can consciously think one thing and be running and living another.
I do believe in oneness… this is how I write – in response to what others are asking for. Yes, I’m the messenger, but the message is not mine. Like a baker who bakes a cake with flour and eggs and milk…the farmer, the land and many sun-filled days brought the flour, the chicken sent the eggs and cows lent the milk. Even those who ensured the chickens ate everyday contributed, the delivery people who took these to market… and every step in between… who sent water to the field? Who ensured the water pipes were laid? On and on and on in an infinite circle of creation… and, with me? If there were no questions for others, no desires for what I am writing… well, I would be a messenger without a message to deliver. 
I remembered how when I first started writing – back in elementary – I used to think, Is this writing? I’m just listening and writing down what comes to me. Is this cheating?
This has affected me my entire life, but until today I didn’t know why. It doesn’t ‘seem’ like work, and true to this belief that has been driving this part of me (the one who does the work owns it), how could I lay ‘claim’ to something if it wasn’t ‘work’ if ‘work’ is the only thing valued? I would, based on this belief, create more ‘work’ – ouch!
Time to let this one go.
Wow. I feel free.
Looking for a Dream Life:
http://www.tinaferguson.com/phoenix-rising
This link provides the last ‘entry’ of my mini novella I’ve been writing about ‘letting go.’
When I arrived back from the workshop in Idaho Falls, I expected something ‘to happen’ as I had followed my intuition and felt much better, though nothing really had changed in the financial mess I was in.
What I know now that I didn’t see or recognize then was lots of ‘somethings’ were happening, but I just couldn’t see or acknowledge them. Instead, I held steadfast that I had to come up with the answer. That I had to figure this puzzle out.
I awoke a few weeks later to a steady chant that I heard of “let go” “let go” “let go” and I felt so infuriated with Spirit. I HAD let go…the credit score was hard enough! Wasn’t that proof? I have shared I have been demanding and honest with my conversations with Spirit. I yelled, “I don’t UNDERSTAND! What am I letting go of? WHAT?”
But, to speak of letting go of the ego when you are firmly married to it is like saying, Put your clothes on and let go of them.
A few days after that, I awoke realizing the ‘let go’ was to ‘let go’ of trying to figure everything out. Let go of managing the process. Let go of making things happen. Let go of kidding yourself that you are going to figure this out when you haven’t in the past year, and this whole insane circle is not going to get you an answer.
Ah, okay, but how?
Quit trying to force everything.
Ah, okay, but how?
This was the gateway to remembering my essence, my nature… yet even with this, I still had a long way to go to find solid ground and to remember who I am.
For nearly a week now, I’ve been feeling the urge to clean out my business storage closet. This closet holds all of my ‘stuff’ for business – CDs, t-shirts, books, relevant past issues of magazines, supplies for workshops.
I have felt pulled to that closet repeatedly. I say to the nudge, “Yes, yes, I feel you. I’ll do it when I have time.”
I just arrived home after an artist’s playdate with Minette Riordan, my friend and creative playmate, (we are following Violette’s Journal Bliss Video workshop) and once again the closet beckoned. Okay, okay, I’m looking, I’m looking.
I pulled out the five boxes of books I had neatly organized, labeled by genre and tucked away several years ago. There they were…at least 10 books I’ve been looking for the last month! Ah, I get it.
There is no worry about delay, no need for self admonishment as this time is always the perfect moment for what is calling to us and what we are reaching for as well.
I can’t wait to dive in to each one of these again!
P.S. These are not my books…this is a photo representation! 
Back in 1996, I was a 27-year-old contemplating ending the marriage I knew wasn’t right to begin with. I had entered into the relationship 8 years earlier knowing I wasn’t in love, but I was desperate to leave the safety of my grandmother’s house and the marriage seemed like as likely a ticket out as any other. I didn’t believe I could do it on my own…I had tried that once with a roommate right out of high school and attracted all kinds of experiences that found me racing back to her within 6 weeks. To say I entered a marriage for convenience may sound cold and harsh, but the reality was that my then-husband and I were good friends, had enough in common that days were never boring and we could stand long stretches of time together without wanting to kill each other.
During that 8 years, I gained 73 pounds. Nearly 10 pounds a year, on average. With him, I found a sense of ‘home base’ and began to slowly make my way out into the world. Though I felt infinitely confident in my own abilities, I had many fears about the world at large. With my home base set, I could venture out little by little and begin to grow my courage.
What I didn’t know then that I know now was that as confined as I felt to my grandmother’s support and apartment – her space – I just transferred that self-created prison to my new husband and the marriage. Suddenly, there I was, venturing out more and more, feeling more adventurous and yet always feeling the tether back to home base that would call me back time and time again. I was never, ever quite ‘free.’
My husband struggled with depression. He seemed to always be up or down. There was no in-between. Thank goodness he wasn’t bi-polar, his tendency seemed to be directly tied to his every day experiences. If he sold that day, he was up. If he didn’t, he was down. I had unknowingly entered into my mother’s life’s story. I dutifully played the part by working two and three jobs just like she and my grandmother did. I literally was too busy to even contemplate whether or not I was happy. I ran around working 60 to 80 hours a week ensuring we could pay our bills. I often would come home to my husband asleep in bed at 5 pm.
One day, I came home and just ‘knew’ it was time to go. After that, I left a hundred times in my mind before I uttered the words. By the time I did say them, I had no emotional fight, no compassionate reserve for the depression, I simply had to go. I had grown enough to feel that perhaps I could make it by myself. My mother’s life story always surrounded her dependence…on her mother…on her husbands. I figured, I can always go live with mom if I can’t do this. I have to try.
I looked at my house, I looked at my dogs and I said good-bye to my ex and all of what I had spent nearly a decade creating. I felt alive in a way I had never felt. I had nothing except the car I just paid off and a few pieces of furniture, my clothes and books.
A wave of thoughts, ideas, longings and unmet desires met me at the doorstep that evening. It was as if all the things I wanted to do came bubbling up with the energy of freedom. I thought, I could move anywhere. I could move to Florida, to Illinois, to New Mexico. I could go to school anywhere. I realized my ex-husband didn’t ‘do’ any of this to me. He didn’t keep me confined…he didn’t say no…it was all the stuff in between us that was said in a conversation, a fleeting remark where I had taken each one and labeled these “he doesn’t like this” and “he doesn’t like that” and the death knell…I have to bend myself into a pretzel to live within all of these spoken twigs that weaved themselves into a prison cell.
The freeing moment … the moment that allowed me to leave that relationship despite my faith and fear of condemnation was looking at the situation and telling myself the truth. I had been hanging on to this home base for support when, in reality, I was the one supporting the home base. I supported it financially, emotionally, spiritually and in many physical ways, too. My ex is a dear, sensitive soul, and I knew he deserved to be in a relationship with someone who adored him. I had held on to his potential for years…clinging on to what I could see so clearly inside of him…urging him to live it, but the anguish of watching him over and over again start to soar and then plummet to Earth was more heartbreaking than any person should ever have to bear. I loved the man he would come to be…I did not love the man he was in that moment.
I do not mean to imply I was any rose at the time, either. We were a match at many levels…and yet, his unwillingness to grow actually gave me the strength…the gift to do what he would not. When I let go of the marriage, I also let go of trying to help him see his own light. When I dared to accept him just as he was…to let go. That’s when I entered into my own acceptance.
How I would not know how much farther I had to go to fully let go!
Looking for a Dream Life:
Why is it so hard to say good-bye to things we love even when we know it is time? I’ve had my computer armoire for more than 10 years and it is time to do something different in my office.
A couple of months ago, Dusty Rose (a.k.a. Mom) called and told me she would be happy to take it off my hands if and when I got tired of it. Here it is behind my desk. Yes, I have another armoire right next to it that holds my printer and fax machine. Soooo much … tooooo much wood everywhere. MUST shift the energy!
I painted the inside of the doors with chalkboard paint AND magnetic paint so I could write on them with chalk or hang things up with magnets. When I’m talking on the phone or brainstorming, I like to have many inputs…and quotes, pictures and favorite things inspire me.
I’m not sure what will ‘replace’ this piece in my office. I just know that I have too much wood around me. I’ve known this for a long time, but have not been willing to part with this favorite piece … until now. I believe…so says my spirit.
So, why is it so hard to let go of old friends?
Good thing I’m giving her to my Mom…at least I’ll get to visit!
I’m not quite to the place of looking forward to what I’ll gain. That will come after I let it go completely.
This piece of furniture has been with me through many, many experiences…she has been a great partner.
Now, to find a place for all my client thank-you letters and such, and of course, Elle Woods Barbie!
Sometimes we know we are growing into a new direction, and yet its hard to celebrate because we haven’t quite made the transition yet.
To be continued!