I know what it feels like to be emotionally abandoned as a child due to circumstances beyond control. I know what it feels like to not feel safe and secure in your own home as a child (due to outside city environment of, in this case, Detroit). I know what it feels like to have worry, anxiety, guilt, and fear as the most prevalent emotions in one’s life for the better part of 30 years. I know what it feels like to be a kid that never got to be a kid. I know what divorce of my parents feels like as a child. I know what the remarriage of parents (to one another) feels like as a child. I know what divorce between your same parents feels like for the second time, as an adult. I know what it feels like to be a star student and a star athlete. I know what it feels like to be super popular. I know what it feels like when you then are less popular. I know what it feels like to contemplate suicide.
I know what it feels like when all of your girlfriends begin to get boyfriends but you find you are not in the least bit attracted to boys your own age. I know what it feels like to fall in love for the first time with someone I couldn’t have and to never have had the chance to fully experience that love. I know what it feels like to be a college athlete. I know what it feels like to be an abused college athlete. I know what it feels like to have eating disorders and to hate one’s body for the better part of two decades. I know what it feels like to be married – and to be married when I had no flippin’ idea who I was. I know what it feels like to go through my own divorce.
I know what an overseas living experience, traveling alone and with a friend, feels like. I know what it feels like to accomplish a lot of physical feats – half marathons, half-ironmans, and training that pushed my body to limits I never knew it could go. I know what it feels like to be alone – physically and emotionally. I know what working on a farm entails. I know what it feels like to completely rewire one’s brain – going from underlying, dominant belief patterns of 95% hatred of one’s self to creating new beliefs of 100% love & acceptance of one’s self.
If you have gone through any of the above (and this list is far from exhaustive) I know those feelings! I know those emotions and associated thoughts that you repeat over and over again in your mind. I get it at a level that you only get as a result of going through it. And as someone who has been searching for decades for others outside of me to get it I can tell you the freedom lies in not needing that. However, to get to that point will definitely entail work. I know, from experience, that it is so much easier if you find someone – anyone – to validate the most painful, damaging experiences of your past. You can and will eventually get to the point of validating it for yourself but it can take so much longer. And I think we are here in no small part right now to help one another save a lot of pain by sharing our stories. I know that by sharing my stories I will be providing to others this solace I’ve spent so much of my life seeking. I was reminded on the evening of the 17th yet again how amazing it would feel to get that relief. If I only help one person with each story it is worth it.
I am highly empathetic to others but there are certain experiences I will never know. I will never know what it feels like to be adopted. I will never know what it feels like to lose a parent to death while still a child. I will never know what it feels like to struggle in school academically. I will never know what it is like to have a sister for a sibling instead of brothers. I will most likely never know what it feels like to birth a baby and consequently, that primal connection between a mother and her child. I will never know the depths of darkness associated with particular addictions. And the list can go on forever and ever. But I have had very close relationships with folks that have had many of these experiences, which took my level of understanding up many notches. It isn’t the same as experiencing it and I will never claim to be able to fully understand experiences I’ve never myself had.
Make no mistake about it. I think the desire to be understood perhaps trumps even the desire of love. One is a subset of the other but for many, finding just understanding alone could drastically alter their lives. And the power of reversing that energy from negative to positive is unlike anything you can probably yet imagine. Honestly…the power & energy that results from living out of love vs. fear is the power that creates new worlds. Let’s create a New Earth!
Thanks for reading!
Dedicated to all my past experiences for providing me the vast, range of emotional life experiences. If not for all of it, I would not be so perfectly qualified for the job at hand. I am nothing but grateful for every single experience. Appreciation & gratitude – the keys to freeing yourself from the prisons of the pain.
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I am rolling out a business plan unlike any other. I don’t have actual empirical evidence for the following claim, but I am fairly confident that there will be very few, if any other for-profit businesses that are being “operated” such as mine. (Hopefully, this will soon change – more on that later). The unfolding of the foundational philosophy will alone take a few weeks. Then, there are my own hundreds of specific ideas, which include at present at least 5 different sub-business visions. Finally, there are the infinite possibilities that exist when I begin to factor other players into the mix.
Each day, I have a new starting place allowing for brand new ideas to form & older ideas to mutate. My business will continually change throughout its entire life because that is the only way to allow for the magic & power of the present moment. Don’t worry. This will all become much clearer as the next couple of weeks progress. In the meantime, the impetus for yesterday’s blog-writing surge was the experience of yet another intense night back home here in Seattle. This trip has been wonderful, but I have been reminded – again – that there is no way I could have predicted all that has already happened.
Two nights ago, I reached all new, unprecedented levels of one particular, not-yet-manifested desire – the desire to be understood. Wholly & completely understood by someone. There have been many times – especially since going public almost 3 weeks ago – when I’ve just wanted to be with someone with whom I didn’t need words. I longed for someone whose presence alone soothes me. I haven’t yet met that person.
Don’t get me wrong. I am extremely blessed with quite a few very close, amazing, incredible friends who “get” me on many levels. However, there is still not that one person who just knows. With whom my energy merges in such a way that it is just perfect for that time – if only, for a short period.
You may say, ‘That is your Hollywood-influenced fantasy coming through, Alyson’. And here is my response. A quote from Pablo Picasso – “Everything you can imagine is real.” You will need to be patient for the details of this explanation. Suffice to say for now…I have imagined this for 25 years and I know it is real. It may end up being found in one or in many people in my future, but I absolutely believe it already exists.
Back to my night of focusing on the absence of said person/people. For some reason, I was remembering how many years of my life (up until just 2 months ago) I have spent trying to get someone – anyone – to completely understand the pain of my past. The specific experience of my past for which this desire of understanding was greatest? The pain and lifelong ramifications of having my childhood essentially end at 6 and to serve as an emotional parent in one’s family from that young age. Again, this was my experience given circumstances that resulted from everyone in my family doing the best they could at the time. This is not about blame. It has never been about blame. It has always been a search. Solely a search for true understanding.
Everything in my life after that point was affected by this experience – EVERYTHING. If no one truly understood that experience than no one truly understood me. That pain was unbearable to the extent of leading to suicidal thoughts in high school. It is during those times when one vows – or at least this one did – that I would do anything I could to help make it so not another soul would feel such deep, emotional loneliness.
I now know that my continued focus on this effort to convince and show others is exactly what perpetuated it. My attention on it fed it and kept it alive. (There will be much, much more on the idea of focus in future posts). What I tried to imagine 2 nights ago – for what seems like the millionth time – is the level of positive energy I will feel when one – just one person – will fully understand any one of the many experiences of my past for which I never found it. What I’ve learned in this new game of life is that I haven’t yet been able to come close to envisioning how powerful the positive energy is when a particular dream comes true. As great as I have imagined other things will feel…when they have come true over the past 18 months, each time I am blown away by the fact that the feeling is 10-1000 times grander than what I could have imagined to be the best possible one! It has been ridiculous! Well, this desire to be understood…it’s a doosie and every once in awhile, for some silly reason, I sub-consciously decide that I am going to go to the place where I focus on the absence of it. Never exactly an exercise resulting in positive emotion.
The difference between now and just a few months ago is that I am no longer waiting on it & monitoring its lack. I have made peace with all from my past and no longer await that particular acknowledgment/understanding from a specific person. Nope – not any longer – not from anyone regarding anything. Everything happened exactly as it was meant to happen. But I know that this understanding is coming from someone in my future. It could be someone from my past reemerging in my life or it could be someone I’ve not yet met. The details matter not. All that matters is the knowing & the believing.
A huge part of my company is fulfilling that vow I made during all those dark times. To follow is a list of the life experiences I’ve had for which I know the unique, vibrational energy. THAT is the understanding we are seeking. I believe there is a unique energy with certain life experiences that I think people share – I think it is how our connections – specifically, the strength of our connections – are in part, determined. It isn’t exact but I feel there is range of emotions associated with specific life experiences. If two people are both anywhere within that range, their energies connect uniquely on this experience.
Take childhood divorce. You must have experienced this to be able to even remotely understand someone else’s experience with it. Yet, within that similar experience of childhood divorce, there is a massive range of combinations of the experience details – custody arrangements, remarriages, siblings, holiday details, etc. The more details 2 people have in common, the greater the ability for them to be able to help one another move through the emotions if either hasn’t yet done so. I believe that I can provide to others – through my stories and my writing & speaking – that understanding – that energetic validation for many different life experiences.
The following is just a partial list. See how many experiences you share with me & ask yourself (for those that know me) if you believe that correlates with your assessment of our connection. Whatever “strength” you assign to our connection is completely up to you – only you can decide. But see if it adds any clarification to a particular feeling you get when around me. This is just a list (in paragraph form) of the experiences themselves. We won’t yet visit all the specific emotional issues that generally result from all of these experiences or the common coping mechanisms. I know – and if you have experienced any of the following things, you too know – that many if not all of these, one cannot fully understand unless they’ve gone through it themselves. And if you haven’t gone through any of these…well, I guess for now I just encourage you to never judge anyone because you just don’t know their stories. You have no idea what obstacles they have had to overcome. With that said…here we go:
Continued in the next post...
Dedicated to Thomas at the Peet’s in Fremont, WA. Tonight he became the first new person I publicly told (face-to-face) about my writing. He pleasantly asked how my day was going. I said, ‘Amazing, how about yours?’. After replying, he made a few more comments and then inquired why my day had been so great. When I explained that I had had an incredible day creatively with my writing he further inquired. He asked for the name of my company and would you believe I didn’t have my business cards on me? I had my first order of cards sent here but haven’t handed a single one out yet. Thomas became the first one to whom I would have given one, but I am a moron. Then, I went to write down the website only to discover I didn’t have a pen. Seriously? Thank you Thomas for reminding me that opportunities are everywhere all the time & that I most definitely should never not have my cards again. Thanks also for putting the cherry on top of my already amazing chocolate sundae day!
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Could it be that some of the greatest loneliness that we encounter isn’t at all tied to having someone physically with us but instead having someone (or many) who we feel truly ‘get’ us? Isn’t this what causes so much pain beginning in adolescence? Think back to your pre-teen & teen years. How many times did you scream (outwardly or hold it in on the inside) at your family, “You just don’t understand!”? Will Smith expressed what almost all could identify with in his popular song, “Parents Just Don’t Understand”. But parents are just the beginning of a list that does nothing but grow as you age. Add friends, significant others, bosses, neighbors, and strangers. While you are so busy trying to make everyone else understand you, you completely lose touch with being able to understand yourself.
As you get older and have more life experiences, who you are becomes more complex. With more complexity comes a greater likelihood of confusion and not being understood by others outside of yourself. Couple this with the fact that we live in a world where we are trained and encouraged to look outside of ourselves for validation of who we are and our worth & the insanity of things right now may make a bit more sense. Is it not obvious why so many seem unhappy, unfulfilled, confused & lonely? Again, I say the crux of the problem is our old approach. We (and our systems) continue to work under the assumption that it is the job of someone else to make us happy – our parents, our kids, our partners, our governments, our employers, or our friends. We believe that we need to control the behavior of others to help make our lives better. Friends…this can and will NEVER work!
Here is the harsh fact I finally learned 2 years ago – it isn’t anyone else’s job to make us happy and/or fulfilled. We need to learn how to do that ourselves and not many here in America know how to do this very well. In fact, most have absolutely no idea how to find the key to it all – self-love & self-acceptance despite everything and everyone outside of you. If someone found a new approach to this goal of a happy, healthy, fulfilled life, don’t you think that may be of some value?
Here is what you must understand to be true: Everyone is doing the absolute best they can based on 3 things: their knowledge, their understanding, and their awareness. I will repeat this often because by simply reading these words, you will not yet be able to grasp what I am trying to convey. It will likely take repetition and multiple examples for it to truly resonate. Everyone at the level of their entire being – consciousness & subconsciousness – is doing the best they can given their knowledge, their understanding, and their awareness.
I am just beginning to introduce ideas that most will not at first understand. Lack of understanding will result from a lack of knowledge and/or a lack of awareness. Knowledge comes from experience. I don’t care how smart you think you are in this world, you do not know it all. In fact, there is a hell of a lot more you don’t know than do know. And many (most especially the highly educated) are guilty of believing that the knowledge they possess is “better” or “greater” than many others’.
If you believe I may be wrong in this assumption, contemplate this example. Who is more valued and gets more respect in this country…a top executive at a big corporation or an organic farmer? Which has been determined to be “better” to strive for in this world? To have the experience & thus knowledge of a business person or to have the experience & knowledge possessed by a farmer? You know as well as I do that if you son or daughter wanted to become a farmer, chances are likely that you would do everything in your power to convince them otherwise. Yet, the last time I checked we actually need food to survive.
Without a corporation – and I don’t care what the corporation does – you aren’t going to die. Life may change dramatically if some of the bigger companies were to somehow disappear but people wouldn’t die from a business closing it’s doors. If you don’t eat food you die. Does this not make the work of the farmer pretty much one of the most important jobs out there seeing as it provides a basic human need? And finally, folks are coming around to the idea that perhaps our ridiculously over-processed, pesiticde-infested food choices are quite likely the culprit for the massive increase in diseases & illness. This, making the value of an organic farmer even greater. Yet, given these facts, I would bet not many of the business folks would readily acknowledge that the intellect/knowledge of the farmer is even remotely equal to the knowledge they possess let alone believe it to be greater. This matters. A lot!
There is always something to be gained from new knowledge – even if it is to decide that you don’t want that new knowledge to be part of your life experience. That is growth and it too matters if only to make you more aware of what else is out there being lived by others. As I am beginning to discuss, there are tons of experiences being had out in the world that each of us has NOT experienced for ourselves. I didn’t begin to have, witness or learn of many of these until I broke away from the mainstream world 4 1/2 years ago. What I have learned is that if you haven’t experienced it, you can empathize, but you truly cannot fully understand. And honestly, the credibility and thus validity of your opinion on said experience has to then be put into question.
If you don’t consciously strive to educate yourself to some of these other experiences how in the world can you really connect to people other than those highly similar to you? And if you don’t have the awareness that there are a lot of folks NOT like you out there, you truly know no better. But, like it or not, we share our space with lots and lots of people. Some think they can bubble away in their gated communities and private schools but we are all still out here sharing space. It is in the best interest of us all to try to understand one another better. I can guarantee you this will not take place by watching the TV news and believing that you are being told the whole story. You aren’t even being told 5% of the stories out there taking place. Again…we need a new approach.
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I will be posting Part 2 of “Finances & Economic Value” soon, but I think it is time for the first blog post (perhaps more than 1) that doesn’t take 8-10 hours to compose and edit. I love writing but it takes me a great deal of time to organize my thoughts & words as I desire in order to convey to my audience whatever it is I’m trying to communicate.
My thoughts are like a massive web. Until I began to meditate 2 years ago, my mind NEVER stopped while I was awake! Thinking was a natural, coping mechanism. I didn’t consciously say, ‘I’d like to think a lot in order to make sense of my world.’ It just happened. As a consequence of the ideas crossing over, going back and forth, and mating with one another, my web is very strong. To this day, if I’m not meditating (which I still don’t do nearly as often as I should) I still think ALL the time about EVERYTHING in ways, that will soon be revealed, unlike many others. The web is still being constructed. Believe me when I tell you that I will be explaining and connecting each and every idea and story because it all connects in one way or another.
However, in order to convey this beautiful, interconnected complexity that surrounds us in the world, it needs to be explained “simply” and logically. It needs to be built – slowly and purposefully. I read and re-read every single word knowing that an entry weeks down the line will connect with at least one or two thoughts expressed in today’s post. And guess what? I’ve never before built this pyramid of ideas that I am beginning to unveil. I don’t claim to be any expert. I don’t claim to be better than anyone – no way! But I am viewing this world in which we are living in a very, very, VERY different way. I’m Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, standing on my desk. And all I am ultimately doing is trying to inspire others to take some new, different perspectives on things in their own lives and watch how the world around them changes.
If you are afraid of heights, don’t stand on the desk, go underneath it. Either way – I guarantee you that when you change perspectives your mind will be blown. Especially if you are willing & able to do this in as many areas as possible in your life. At first, it may be scary because it is brand new and thus unknown. And we like our habits – even if they are destructive and unhealthy. They are known so that somehow makes it the better choice. If you can trust that you are most definitely strong enough to work through the unknown in order to make it across to the known, the rewards are indescribable.
The possibilities of your life, the beauty, the love, the opportunities to create a different world…that ALL lies on the other side. And it ALL comes from understanding, compassion, trust, happiness, appreciation, and love. So, I do not take my work lightly. We are living in times where there are such unbelievable, horrific, atrocities being committed to humans by humans, that many have lost hope for our world. If there was ever a time when we needed new perspectives, it is now, folks.
Our society is absolutely, positively, completely out of balance in terms of what we value and to what we give attention. Society, however, is made up of US – all of us individuals. If you want it to change – you MUST begin and focus on your own life – that is the only way it works. Watching the news (which, by the way, is controlled & not nearly representing how much beauty there is in the world) and taking in all the horrible, negative, things that sell the best… I can guarantee you that isn’t the way to change things. Giving it more attention only helps to perpetuate it. And going back to your same-old, same old – not seeking out opportunities to see things from a different viewpoint? That isn’t going to change a thing either. You MUST begin with you. And every single one of us out there has multiple areas in our life where we could do this – right now. How? By opening your mind.
It begins with simply opening your mind to a viewpoint unlike your own. My words come from my experiences. And my experiences are pretty vast and in the past 18 months, very much in the minority out in our world. I guarantee you I have some viewpoints different than yours. My words are intended to do nothing but either 1)give you a new perspective on something and/or 2)to comfort you in the fact that you are most definitely not alone when feeling certain ways or thinking certain things. I will be the one who expresses that which many are just too fearful (for many reasons) to say aloud. We are here to share experiences in order to learn and grow in order to create better. We will not eliminate the horrific actions by talking more about them & giving them more focus in the same ways as we have always done. We must change our approach. And I have some ideas.
These suggestions come from the only place anything within us comes…from our own life journeys. It all begins with the relationship that you have with you. That is all you can control. You can not control your spouse, your partner, your parents, your siblings, your friends, or your kids. You can only control the perspective you choose to take on something, the object of your focus, and the thoughts that result. And EVERYTHING comes back to your thoughts.
Less than 2 years ago, I was so unfilled in my life and I now realize that it was due to what I was giving focus. I was focused on everything that I wanted and desired but didn’t have. I was focused on the absence of my desires. And underlying all of these thoughts, I now know was the belief at my core that I was unworthy of my dreams and desires. I spent so much time comparing myself to others and living my life to please others that of course I wasn’t connected to myself. I didn’t know me and thus didn’t accept or love me. I was perpetuating my own drama without having any awareness of this fact.
When I began to open my mind to finally trying a new approach my entire world transformed. When I learned that we do create our own realities via our thoughts, everything was thrown upside down in my mind. EVERYTHING had to be reconsidered. I learned that I controlled it – and now that I knew this to be a universal truth – applicable to us all – there was no way I was choosing to remain unhappy any longer. But in order to make this transition – in order to learn how to have different thoughts and beliefs, I had to rewire my brain in pretty much every way possible.
My journey over the past 24 months has resulted in a shift that one can only understand if they have been through it. I can say now that at my core, what is driving me is 100% love & acceptance of myself – right now, today, of who I am. Not who I will be once I achieve this or earn that or lose that weight or buy that. Right now. To go from a core belief of 95% hating yourself to 100% loving yourself in such a short period of time is quite likely to result in a whirlwind of life experiences – MANY, if not all, being lived and felt for the first time. Should you choose to undertake any adjustment of a belief pattern of yours, you will soon see what I mean.
I don’t think it is a stretch to say that a very large portion of the American population is in a similar place that I was in 2 short years ago – not at all knowing how to break free from all the craziness and lack of love & acceptance within. How I made this transition is only relevant and important to you if you identify with anything I say. If you are presently in a place that makes you more unhappy than happy, I’ve been there. If you have a desire to be happier, I believe you will pull at least one thing from the thousands of things I will be sharing that will benefit you in achieving this desire. I am not doing any of this to convince anyone of anything. I am putting energy out there (right now, with my words more than anything) that will attract those who are ready. And for those folks, the sharing is essential & necessary.
I know by sharing I will be aiding a large number of people. However, this is now a sharing with a purpose unlike any of the sharing I’ve done up until this point. It is quite different and it is the unknown becoming the known. As such, I am learning as I go and I discovered last night that I very much need some posts right now where I just let myself go without making it an ‘A’ paper. If it appears to be a bit unorganized…if it doesn’t all make sense…if it bounces around…I don’t care. I NEED a few of those posts right now so that it what is coming today.
Happy reading.
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