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Regardless of the extent to which you are following my words right now, you may be asking, ‘Who the hell are you to say I’m not living up to my true potential?’ And one better than that, ‘Who the hell do you think YOU are to be making such an unbelievable, unrealistic claim as you are making with your greater-than-us “calling”? What are you some sort of choir girl, goody-two-shoes, egotistical, know-it-all jerk-off trying to wipe our faces in your energy superiority?’ Geez…why do I keep coming to this lunatic’s site?’
Thank you if your thoughts were less harsh but that is completely cool if your thoughts were similar to those above or even more severe. It is completely okay. Again, I can take it ’cause it ain’t nothin’ compared to the messages I told myself for the better part of 25 years. Here are some examples, just so you know I’ve already gone there with myself. There is no question, criticism, concern, worry, fear, judgment or other such thing that I haven’t yet already been asking myself about this entire journey of mine. And I did so for the majority of my life – from every angle possible.
I am not sure how to properly punctuate the stream-of-consciousness paragraphs that follow, so my apologies. Taking the time to look that up right now would completely upset my flow of thought and when you think about it…how ridiculous is something like this anyway? Makes me think of the many frustrating hours I spent in undergrad & grad school formatting papers into APA style. Not a judgment – just an opinion pointing out how much time we spend on something that does nothing to affect the context of the thoughts trying to be expressed. Allow this to serve as the first of many more examples to come. Examples demonstrating what I believe to be completely wasted energy (for there is absolutely no added value) that could be focused elsewhere and result in something FAR more beneficial given the efforts extended.
I digress. Back to the inner thoughts of the world of my past. The Alyson who was living (if you can call it that) in self-assessed 95% core-level darkness. These are the questions I’ve posed to myself over the past 30 years regarding this seemingly arrogant, egocentric belief that I’ve felt inside since I was 6. The belief…the feeling…the voice that has been informing me since then of the opportunity I have to be some sort of teacher for the world. These questions arose due to the necessary & valuable perspective I held about myself and about our world up until 2 years ago.
That was a world where I couldn’t yet see that this is all really just a big game. I was nowhere near the understanding of the operations of my ego. The ego, which was preventing me from knowing that something so much greater than me existed within. The ego, forbidding me from seeing the truth – that I am simply a vessel in this life for that greatness that is there inside of us all. These questions came from a place when I hadn’t yet learned how to get out of my own head and thus out of my own very troubled world.
Here we go…entering the old-story mind of Alyson…(written pretty much as straight stream-of-consciousness with very little editing, which is how my mind operated all day, every day for 25 years) Warning: foul language may be more prevalent here than in previous posts. Rest assured…after this posting, I will not revisit this again until the writing of my book, as I am not a fan of revisiting these thoughts & certainly not to this extent. However, it is necessary. For you to understand from where I am coming and also because I whole-heartedly believe that MANY of my messages to myself will be messages that many of you recognize as some of your own personal favorites. It isn’t going to be pretty. And I’m not sure how long it will go because I am intentionally editing very little. But this is the next logical step in laying this out…*deep breath*
Who am I to be thinking and feeling these things? How in the world, out of 7 billion people on the planet, could I possibly be one of the relatively few to be deemed to have the skill set, the talents, and the opportunity to make such a difference? Who made me so special? Why you? What did you do to deserve this? You know the family of which you are part? You know how much talent and intelligence is there and none of them have ever had the audacity to share such grandiose beliefs about themselves. How can you expect anyone to take you seriously? How can you expect anyone to believe you? You know you’ve been here before when you think you have the idea that is the “one” – the one that will finally free you from your crazy mind and your inability to find your way in the “real” world. You know how many people in your past have witnessed Alyson getting all excited again. Stoked about something else new in her world and believing this will be “it” – whatever “it” is to her. She is just crying the metaphorical wolf again.
And how cocky does this make you sound? How incredibly audacious? You know how much you DETEST any sense of anyone acting as if they are any better than anyone else? This may be the thing you hate most in the world – when someone actually believes that they are better than anybody else. Doesn’t the nature of your “dream” inherently translate into you believing you are better? What kind of person believes they are meant to be on a stage like the one you talk of? Change the world? I know, right? This is why I must be bi-polar. Because everything within me feels so intense & happy when I first begin something new and that intensity & joy is real and I LOVE it but I can’t find any way to maintain that at any job beyond 1-2 years. I can’t find a way to feel that fulfillment and to make a living. No job out there even comes close to making me feel like I am achieving what I am capable of achieving. So, then I feel like shit – worse than shit.
All I want to do is make the difference that I know I am here to make. I want to be challenged. I want to be busy. I want to be fulfilled. I want to see & feel the difference my work makes. And damn it! I want to be paid what I am worth too! I may not have followed the same path but it isn’t for a lack of trying!! And my path has a shit-ton of value too! If I had been able to get my crap together, I too would be earning mid six-figures and then I would have the money to escape and do what I want. Because I KNOW what I will do with that money. I’ve ALWAYS known what I would do with money.
But I can’t do this. I can’t put my time in this world to climb that corporate ladder that I know I am capable of climbing and sacrifice so much of what I value, including my happiness. I also can’t settle and work for someone else when I know how much of a waste of ME each work experience is because no one can see what I know about myself & what I am here to do. Shit! Okay…How else can I get the money? Because as is becoming more and more evident EVERY single day, the ONLY way to play this fuckin’ game in order to change it is with money. But I can’t seem to find anything that doesn’t compromise my values that pays me more than $40,000. At that rate, I won’t be able to leave this game until I retire. So, I must wait until I retire to begin living the life that makes me happy? To begin doing what I really want to do? How in the hell have we all agreed to this HORSE SHIT?!!!
All I want is to make the hurt stop. I want my hurt to stop and how crazy is it that my hurt will stop when I get to begin to get paid to help others stop hurting. And no…I am not doing it for $30,000/year! That is flat out wrong!! How is it possible that our world economically values so little the helping of others?! Why does all the stuff I value most fall under the non-profit category? I go nuts in the non-profit world – I’ve been there in a couple of job stints. That doesn’t work for me either!
If I have the ability to make lots of people feel better who will then go and do amazing things with their own lives as a result of feeling better, how in the hell is that not deemed as valuable as being a lawyer or a doctor? And no…I am NOT going back to school for another fuckin’ degree in therapy or social work. My life experiences have immense, immense value when coupled with everything else about me. How come I can’t just put all my skills together and do what I do best?
How is my ability to inspire as I did in my brief two-year public-school teaching career and the 70+ hours a week I worked to do so only worth $39,000? With a Master’s degree and 10 years of “adult” experiences. Are you serious? And you honestly think an appropriate explanation for that is that teachers get summers off? Are you kidding? If you have never spent an entire year in a classroom than SHUT THE HELL UP!!!
Why? Why do doctors, lawyers, and corporate employees get so much more? And then because of that of course they are going to begin to believe that they truly are better and thus their ways of life are “better” than those who are different. After all, they are at the top of the food chain. Isn’t that what that means? And really, all you middle managers out there are doing EXACTLY what I did as a teacher – inspiring, encouraging collaboration, teaching teamwork, providing feedback, and ensuring your “students” are staying on task. The only difference is the task. Inspiring young minds, influencing the citizens that they will become and trying to help them find their true voices – nah….that isn’t worth the same as giving you a $5 cup of coffee, I know. They are just kids anyway, right?
I know I can make a LOT of hurt cease. I can do that with all that I am right now. With my experiences comes understanding. And with my understanding comes genuine, honest empathy. And with empathy, people heal. I can’t seem to find anyone else out there that understands me but I sure as hell know I understand what a LOT of other people are going through out there because I’ve gone through it!
Not everything, of course. In fact, TONS that I haven’t gone through. But I’ve experienced darkness to almost the greatest extent possible. And in our world today, there are many, MANY more folks out there who have felt darkness than who have felt the light. In fact, as I was made aware of every day of my young life, there are billions and BILLIONS out there who are worse off than me. How can I ever justify being sad or being upset by not getting something I desire. Alyson…don’t you know how fortunate you are? Every time as a kid I tried to seek understanding for why I felt badly about something, it was completely invalidated because we lived in Detroit. We only had to open our door to see hundreds of people less fortunate than us. I am so lucky. I am so lucky. I am so lucky.
Then, how come I feel like I would rather just die than continue to try to figure out how to be an honest, genuine, loving person doing something that challenges me, that I enjoy doing, that makes an actual fuckin’ difference, and allows me to make enough money to finally begin to live life? Because I’ve been trying a long time now and I thought I had it with teaching. Until I discovered that all of the stereotypical adjectives I used to use to reference corporate America were absolutely applicable to my two -year teaching experience in the public schools of the state of Florida.
I was sure I had found a career that could allow me to morally sleep at night – something that wasn’t contributing in some way to worsening all the injustices of our world. Then, I get there only to discover the environment was one of the most toxic in which I ever worked. Surely then, I can say something, right? Because this is a school…the same games played in the corporate world can’t be part of this world. THIS IS A SCHOOL! WHAT?!!! Here?! Even here I find myself blacklisted because I stand up and state the obvious when no one else will because of how it looks to others & how it may affect their jobs. I couldn’t NOT say anything – this was on behalf of the kids, which is why we were all supposed to be there. NOT FOR THE SYSTEMS!!! The world is completely insane…everything is backwards…and I am made to feel like I am the outcast?!
What is wrong with you, Alyson? You’ve always been a little out there, you know. Go to another therapist…even though you know all the therapy in the world won’t work unless you actually are READY to make real changes. What else can change, though? What else can I do? I’m so confused…I don’t know what the hell I want/need/am. Take some drugs. No…not those drugs but the ones we pretend are “good” – Paxil, Wellbutrin, Zoloft. Caffeine, nicotine, alcohol. Yeah… because all of those things help me hide and bury this crap.
The problem is I can’t stand any of those habits, with the exception of my diet soda addiction. What do I care that aspartame has been proven to cause cancer? The rest of the world seems to be ignoring the obvious – that all this artificial shit we are putting into our bodies is absolutely the root cause of cancer but the lobbying power of the insurance, meat, dairy, and big agriculture industries are pretty much unbeatable if you want to fight fair. And due to my truly amazing parents who raised 3 incredible kids, we have the complete inability to compromise our values once we are made aware of what is REALLY going on. In other words, we have no idea how to not fight fair.
What can I do then to run and hide? Ahhh…yes, I do indeed love working out and eating – always have – always will. Those are two areas that I surely can hide behind for awhile. But man, this exercise bulimia is exhausting as a coping mechanism and quite frankly, it is making me more insane. I am seriously going to try to live every day burning off every single calorie I eat? This is certainly a way I can find some control over something in my life but is it worth it? I can almost make this make sense but again…at what further cost? This isn’t too far a stretch because I really do love to exercise. However, from whatever it is I am running…I feel the need to go faster. It is gaining on me. I can’t slow down so I’ll just do more – half-ironmans – perfect. That is another achievement that makes me look like a bad-ass on the outside to everyone. Cool – bought some more time to hide.
Great…now I flippin’ hurt myself because you know, running 70 miles a week sounds pretty impressive but you can’t out run the forces of the Universe. Can’t do it. So the Universe slaps me upside the head by causing an injury that then began a whole slew of new stresses in trying to diagnose it and treat it so that I could get back to my running away. Huh?!! What? We can’t seem to find anything wrong. But it fuckin’ hurts when I run and I gotta run! Well, in my all-or-nothing world, if I can’t run, I’m not biking or swimming either. I’m just going to sit at home, watch a ton of TV, eat, and pout.
Screw it…fine…I can’t work out. Now what do I do? Since I feel like crap about my entire existence I surely am not going to spend any time with my friends. I will pick up one of the few remaining, extremely common, coping mechanisms to try to mask all my pain…I’ll eat! And eat and eat! Now, in addition to exercise bulimia mentality, a perfectionist personality, a body image disorder that dates back to 4th grade, and a severely damaged relationship with food, I can add a binge-eating disorder. Sweet! I am teaching kids about following their dreams & finding their truths while every day the lie I am living grows bigger and bigger. I am barely keeping my own shit together and somehow I have to stand in front of these kids as if I have all the answers? The hypocrisy of my life when I was teaching was in and of itself almost too much to bear.
So what do I do? I decide to educate myself more on all the injustices of the world. Awesome idea! Let’s get super familiar with our present day political system – how incredibly inefficient, corrupt, fake, wasteful, dishonest, and controlled it has become and not at ALL what our founding fathers intended it to be! And THIS is supposed to be the way to fix things?!! Am I alone in this world? How are we not revolting in the streets? How have we grown so complacent, so blind, so scared to admit what is so obviously going on around us! I gotta get out of this state!
This was 2008 and how I avoided a stay at a hospital is most certainly evidence of the immense strength I possess. This was the lowest of my lows at the time. I was dangerously close to losing it completely and then…I moved to Sarasota. And the healing process began. Things would certainly get even worse before they got better but the energy of the situation completely shifted when I landed at the farm and became the student of one of the greatest teachers of my life thus far. My entire world perspective was about to be blown out of the water!!
To be continued…
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