Attacked by a Gremlin

Yes, it is true. I have been attacked. But not by any normal creature like a dog or cat. No. I have been attacked by a gremlin. While not a real creature, in the sense that it is invisible, it is incredibly cunning. It lives inside my head and heads up frequent attacks of self-doubt and 'shoulds' and insults.

It is not my friend. And nor do I want to make it one. However, I do wish to make peace with it. According to the Master's Course (where I will learn in depth about gremlins), everyone has a gremlin. And I am so proud to be able to say that the course is teaching me to feel when I'm being attacked by it. Before I thought it was a part of me, but now I realize that it's not. When I feel really unsure or hateful or unhappy, many times it's not me that's unhappy, but my gremlin.

Note: My gremlin is named Lyle and he's a crocodile, because I heard that somewhere and said "ha! That's mine!" But I have also heard people reference their inner child as another term for the same thing, so I decided to have a little child too named Cami. Sometimes it helps me to picture a child throwing a fit, other times I like to imagine Lyle rearing his ugly snout.

Just now, Cami had a huge tantrum. She was throwing things and begging me and threatening all at once, and I took a step back and said "wow, this really doesn't feel good." See, another tool I have learned is the "hell yeah" vs "hell no." I was presented with the option of going shooting today, which sounded cool, but the person immediately emphasized that it's super muddy and the mosquitos were going to be vicious. So my first instinct was "hell no." I get bit up like crazy, and I'd rather go on a less mosquito full day.

I noted this immediate reaction and decided to stick with it. But it's so interesting, as the time came when everyone was preparing to go, I could feel the pressure mounting on me that I should go to.

Cami had all of her usual tricks going: "You're being dumb. Just go. You know you want to. Everyone else is going. What are you gonna do at home for 3 hours by yourself? This opportunity doesn't come around every day you know." To top it all off as well, my uncle jokingly calls me a wimp and my head was screaming "ahh!"And as everyone but me piled into the car, I felt incredibly anxious. "What am I doing? Why don't I just go?" I was so tempted to ask them to wait for me right at the last second. But I knew it wasn't what I wanted. It was what my people-pleasing gremlin wanted.

"Oh, don't think I'm a wimp! Wait! I'll go!" it shrieked in my head.

But honestly, I'm the only one I have to please. And my first thought was "you know? I could use a break. I've been around people constantly for about a day now and I'd like some down time. It doesn't matter what they think of me. They're not me."

So, here I am writing a blog post comfortably from my living room :) I was able to say no. My stomach is pretty tense and my brain hasn't quite calmed down yet, but it's definitely progress.

As the Master's Course has emphasized, the ideal is to be able to honestly say "I love myself NO MATTER WHAT." Love should not be conditional. I want to get rid of the "Well, I'll love you Erica, but only if you go on this shooting trip. And wear these clothes. And be the perfect host. And blah blah blah." No. Screw that. I am perfect AS I AM. And I have choices. While I do want to go shooting this summer, I do not have to beat myself up about choosing not to right now. There will be other times.

I give myself permission to do what I want. I give myself permission to reject people's opinions of me. I give myself permission to love myself even though I didn't go shooting. I give myself permission to do what is the most delicious thing for me at this time :) That's really what it comes down to.

And at this moment, writing a blog post is the most delicious thing I can think of :) It's helping me to calm down. Because I am the kind of person who usually says no to a lot of things, people are used to guilting me into it. And now my gremlin has taken over that role.

It also helped me to think "20 years from now, what would I be most proud that I did right now? Went shooting or stayed home?" And to me, since I knew staying home was what I really want, I would rather listen to myself than fulfill a goal on a list.

However, my gremlin still hasn't totally calmed down. I can fill this graspy energy whenever I think of my uncle now. I feel like I have to prove to him now that I'm not a wimp, since he called me one. People-pleasing at its finest ;)



Ha! Ok, I am now finishing this post exactly an hour and a half later than when I started it. . . Well, I know why I wanted to stay home . . . I just had a fascinating conversation with my mom that really fulfilled me :) So, listening to what I wanted turned out awesomely!

Life is wonderful! And everything happens for a reason ;)

Love,
Erica

To Be Happy . . . Or Not

You are the creator of your own reality

While I have heard this phrase many times, and even thought I knew what it meant in the past, I have to say that I was slightly mistaken. Have you ever really taken the time and thought about it? You are THE CREATOR of your own REALITY. So it's not your Mom, or your long-lost sister-in-law, or your pal Fido who's tweaking the gears on your life. It's YOU. YOU have complete and utter control of your own life.

Wow.

What a thought, huh?

So. . . What does this mean? Well, it means that we are responsible for our own lives. Another saying I've heard a billion times: life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you make of it. Life is not about what happens to us. It's about what we do with what happens to us.

As you may imagine, for someone on the path of self-improvement, this was a huge wake-up call to me. I have actually had this realization in the past, but it has never sunk in to this extent before. I have a bad habit of bombarding myself with information and not actually taking the time it takes to actually use this information to improve my life. Basically, I spin my own wheels. "Oh, I'm improving! See, look at all this new information I found!" But as Parelliers say, knowledge starts at the eyebrows and then it filters downwards. Or another tidbit that I actually learned in my psychology class. Learning is defined as "a semi-permanent change in behavior resulting from experience." Therefore, even though I have found all this information, if I have not actually used it in my life, it is worthless to me. I have not learned anything. It simply serves to keep me stuck.

See the reason this is so incredible to me is that I have already known this. I have become more self-aware as of late, and I realized that I had to change. But I am afraid of the unknown. Going outside my comfort zone is scary. And so I would have a huge realization like this, write it down, but then not change anything in my lifestyle. . . .

Unfortunately, that is not how life works. If I want the life of my dreams, I am responsible for making it happen.

As an example, one of my goals in life is to be fit and active. All advice books out there anywhere would tell you that being active is huge for increasing your overall happiness level. I KNOW that. I've felt it myself when I do exercise. And unfortunately (or not . . . depending on whether you want to stay stuck), there will never be a note taped to my door "Erica - you should exercise now" and then I just get up and start exercising. What I'm saying is that the motivation for exercising has to come from inside and it has to come NOW.

Ok, spare me a moment, I'm going to go on a tangent for a second. It's along these lines, I promise. One of my HUGEST things in my life was, and continues to be, finding my passion. I feel as if I've looked up and down every nook and cranny of my life in order to find it (though that's not true). About every few months, I'd have a breakdown time where I'd be so frustrated and grovel "God, why can't you just TELL me what I'm meant to do?!? That would be SOOO much easier!" But I started to think about that. . . What if that actually did happen? Could you imagine? What if I woke up one morning with a voicemail, "Hey Erica, God speaking, just wanted to let you know that you should be XYZ. K love ya, bye!" It'd be absurd! What if I didn't have any interest in doing XYZ? Or what if I didn't do it on purpose, just to see what would happen? So I realized that having someone tell me what to do wouldn't work at all. It truly does have to come from inside.

To be honest, I tell you all this with a weary heart. I would compare myself (minimally) to someone with a disease who is now told that they are cured but doesn't feel happy at this revelation. It is a wonderful thing to know, because now I am literally free to do as I please! The world is mine! But it makes me sad. I was so comfortable in the unhappiness of my old life. Was I happy? No. But I have gotten used to the discomfort. Kind of sad, right?

Anyways, I thought I would post about it and tell you all so that I am more accountable. A small part of me is tempted to just file this information away yet again so that I can play the victim once more in my life. . . However . . . that WILL NOT lead me to the life that I want to live.

So, here's to learning! And change! And being uncomfortable!

Love,
Erica

P.S. There's more to this story. I didn't go into it here, but there's a book in particular that caused a big part of this revelation and I will share it with you in another post :)

P.P.S. Also, I have yet to tell you about this wonderful self-love course that I am currently a part of . . . So stay tuned ;)

Hello Blog!

Long time no see!!

I guess I should apologize, seeing as I have not posted anything in literally 2 years. Though I doubt it is of utmost importance, so I shall refrain :)

So . . . . 2 years!! A lifetime in some ways.

I have changed a ton! It astounds me to look at my old posts and to see even how incredibly self-critical I have been of myself. No wonder I never had any fun :)

A little update: I am currently at college and am almost done. I actually just had my very last class as a freshman, so I am in the midst of many changes whilst preparing for finals.

Thus, for what reason am I writing a blog right now?

Frankly, because these past few weeks have been the most transformative of my life. If you notice above, I posted that quote by Anais Lin, because it fits me perfectly at the moment. If you have ever read the book Broken Open by Elizabeth Lesser (and if not, I highly recommend it), I have and still am going through my own personal Broken Open period right now.

College is an amazing tool, and I have become very reflective as a result. I have relatioships with wonderful friends and professors who really challenge me and the way that I live my life. It is fascinating. Being an intellectual and always looking for self-improvement, my soul rejoices in these conversations. All of my classes this semester have been eye-opening in some way or another, and I really feel changed as a person.

I know that I am not perfect, and I also know that I will never be, but it has really taken me almost all of these 2 years without a horse to kind of find myself. I am still slightly lost, but much less so than I have been. I've realized recently, with amounting pressure to decide on a major, that life really is what I make it. I can be whoever I choose, I just have to decide. And well, even that is kind of a lie. I don't HAVE to decide, technically. There are many options. Ok, better phrasing. I have the choice to pick my major and then the choice to be satisfied with it. Because sooner or later, everyone in college has to pick something. And there is no such thing as a perfect major. Also, I recognize that whatever I pick will be perfect, simply because I have chosen it. So there is much less pressure to find the perfect major.

I have a very strong inner critic who loves to berate me on my choices, because I have come to realize that I am quite a perfectionist in the way that I plan my life. I generally want to have the 'perfect schedule' with the 'perfect major' and graduate in no more than 4 years and get a wonderful job. But life is messy! And while those are wonderful goals to have, they are not always feasible. Do I want to have some sort of direction? Ideally, yes. But there are people who graduate from college with no idea what they want to do, and that is okay too. Do I want to avoid that? Yes. But if it is what happen, then it must happen.

That being said, I do have some interests in mind. Currently, I am a Spanish major and I intend to keep that. So, as of right now I think I shall be a Psychology and Spanish double major with a minor in Communication Studies. However, I am also going to be doing a lot of exploring over the summer to see if that is what I really want.

Because if I want to change it, that's fine. But it gets to a point where I just have to accept that it is what it is. In picking my classes for this semester, I changed my schedule 8 times. 8 times!! That is an insane amount of switching and it caused me a ton of anxiety! Thus, I don't want to do that again. If I need to take time off to figure things out, then I will. But I respect myself now, and my worth as a person.

The biggest thing that I have come away with this semester is self-love. Love yourself for who you are. That is #1. Absolutely #1. Because hating myself is pointless. I cannot be happy with my life if I hate the person who is living it. That is counter-productive and does not make sense. So I have worked really hard to examine my life and work to change my mind. If only you could see my desk right now :) It is littered with post-its all over, entirely devoted to positive self talk. I have found a lot of support from friends and many on line articles as well as a few books that have really changed me. It also helps that I love quotes, and Parelli actually came to me, too, in my journey to heal.

Quotes I can't help but share:

• "It's not about the _________, it's about the relationship" (one of the basic, if not THE basic point of Parelli, all Parelliers have heard it, but have you ever stopped and applied it to yourself? That was a huge revelation for me.)
• "You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it."
• "Happiness is a choice." (I've heard this one many times as well, but it has really sunk in recently.)
• "Feel of, feel for, feel together." (another Parelli-ism, but have you ever applied it to relationships with people?)
• "Forgiveness is a reflection of loving yourself enough to move on." (if you have trouble letting go of things that you blame yourself for, like I do, really think on this one. It'll change you.)
• "Being happy doesn't necessarily mean smiling and skipping around 24 hours a day. It means finding a way to be passionate about what I'm doing or not doing it." -Linda Parelli (this is something I have also thought a lot about in the context of choices and 'get to' vs 'got to.' A lot of time, I will think things like "ugggghhhh I have to go to class,' but I have to examine that thought. Is that true? No one is making me go. The professor doesn't care. So I have to take back that thought. The truth is I chose to be here. I chose to take this class. And I am privileged to have this education. It's a much more positive energy, because it shifts me out of being a victim into being an empowered person, which is much more satisfying.)
• "If not now, when?" (ever thought about this? Now is all you've got . . . .)
• "Life is unfolding exactly as it should."
• "Sanity begins the moment you admit you're powerless over other people."
• "Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment." (then, there are no shoulding or regrets: my psych professor actually quoted someone the other day who said that we have to stop "must-erbating and shoulding all over ourselves." Very clever, but true. If something happened, it must have needed to occur. Or in other words, "what's done is done." So accept it and move on.)

So, with all of this, I have done a lot of soul-searching the past month :) as you might imagine. And I am happy to announce that I actually do see myself as a pretty damn cool person ;) I found this meme on Facebook that I just loved: "I have a problem with low self-esteem, which is really ridiculous when you consider how awesome I am." Haha! That totally fits.

Another huge thing I've learned this year is not to judge. And even that it goes both ways. I've always empathized with victims of situations, but I have to not judge the person causing the bad situation, too. I have no idea what they're going through or why they acted that way, but it is not my place to judge. I have to do my best to be there for either individual, and treat them as I would want to be treated. That is imperative. Accept people for who they are.

I have really seen how important it is to love and accept people for who they are without judgment. It is amazingly important, because we are all important and have gifts to bring to the table. I believe if we didn't have a reason for being here, we wouldn't be. So then, everyone has something important to contribute, and everyone has lessons to teach me if I will be humble enough to listen. I'm not perfect, by any means, but I will try my best to be there for people and love them as they are. That's a promise :)

Lastly, I just want to touch on Parelli. I looked back and re-read my post entitled Clarity and I really do think I was on to something there, it has just taken me this long for it to really sink in. See, I rarely ever cry, but as a result of this transformation that I'm going through, I've been much more emotional than I normally am. It's kind of exciting actually :) So as a result, I got to thinking last weekend about Moose. I have never cried over not having him, or even mourned his loss or anything. Once I sold him, I thanked God that he was off my hands and I moved on with my life. But I completely ignored the fact that he was, quite literally, my best friend for 2 years of my life. I had sold my best friend. And so the tears finally came :) I do not feel ashamed of selling him, because I know that it had to be done. I was much too busy and had things to figure out about me, and I did not have the capacity to have a horse at the time. So I accept that it had to happen. And I also accept that he is no longer mine. He was an amazing mirror and will always have a special place in my heart :)

Anyways, after my cry about Moose, it did get me thinking. And I am being very gentle with myself on the topic, but I am wondering about Parelli. Horses are a big commitment, and I know that I love them. But then, I also have to admit that I am scared of them. I have been ashamed to admit it, but I had fear issues with Moose even.

Haha, I apologize. My thinking is quite sporadic (typical RBE for ya haha). My point originally in bringing up the post Clarity in the last paragraph was to talk about freedom. I mention this horse I rode in 4th grade named Johnny where I was cantering and I felt free. I want that feeling back. And I accept that I could find it in other manners, possibly, but I am playing with how much heart and desire I have towards horses. Thus, I have to be honest with myself and acknowledge that horses are a big commitment, but I'm leaving the door open to whatever I decide.

They have been in and out of my life for years. I get into horses, I get out. But I know that I love them. They are beautiful creatures. I love people and I love animals. But I just am waiting until I know what feels right to me. If I get back into horses, I am going to do so because I want to, because it's fun, and because I love my horse and want to do right by him. I want to do things right. And I am going to respect myself too. I actually made a list of the ideas that scare me:

• Electric fences (my horse touching them while riding/ on line)
• Other horses near my horse (what if my horse reacts poorly? so alpha horses = scary in particular)
• My horse leading too far behind me (what if I get run over)
• Getting my foot caught in the stirrup and getting drug
• Saddling up my horse poorly and he is uncomfortable
• My horse stepping on his lead rope and freaking out (like Moose did)
• Sitting on the ground near my horse (what if I'm stepped on/ can’t get out of the way)
• Being out of control in general (More specifically, I feel out of control when 1 rein riding/ no rein riding: ok, I feel out of control when riding in general, which could be solved through a focus on getting my balance better)
• Being outside of our pasture with my horse

It's pretty extensive. And none of these ideas make me panic or sweat or anything, I just feel uncomfortable. But it is still fear. It would still cause me to be an ineffective leader for my horse. It is a mix of safety and trust issues, and I recognize as well that horses will always be horses and if I want to get back into the Parelli world, I do have to accept this fact. There will never be zero risk in being around horses. They are prey animals and accidents do happen. However, I also have a lot of control over my confidence and the situations that I expose myself to. If I want this, I could overcome it.

And to be honest with you, I feel like I do want it. I really do want that connection with a horse. That look and loving acceptance that tells you you're doing something right. That permission to be myself and not be judged. And the opportunity to grow even more as a person. I'm just so afraid of believing in myself, because I'm afraid of failing. What if I can't ever get over these fears? What if I am doomed to be the person stuck on the sidelines forever, loving horses from a distance? Or what if I get into horses again and decide that I want out immediately?

Tons of what-ifs. "Breathe, Erica. You know in your heart what you want." And I do. But fear is scary. It involves opening up and believing and exposing myself to risk. It's stepping outside of my comfort zone. And my logical brain would like to chip in here and add that "failure is good, that's how you learn." If I get back into horses, even a little bit and I can't get over these fears, so be it. I will have gained immense knowledge of myself and who I am. So it won't be for nothing. I will just feel like I have failed, but I can overcome that. Failure is learning, it's nothing to be afraid of.

On the other hand, what if I succeed? What if I get over all of these fears? What if I actually can accomplish my dream? What if I can get to canter, safely and with trust? What if I can develop an independent seat and be respected as a rider? What if I can be so much fun for my horse that he can't wait to be with me? And what if I can have so much fun with my horse that I'm no longer afraid? What if I could do that?

Hmmmm . . . . Lots to think about, for sure. I'll update again when I next feel like sharing :)

Until then, have a good one!!

--Erica