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Apparently, I have a weakness for being codependent.
I’ve been told as much before in the context of no context; then in Ennagra-speak: Twos are the type most inclined towards codependency; and tonight my friend Kristina shared that a Priest told her that priest-ing (note: and priestessing) is the perfect codependent career. Hm. Some food for thought (although perhaps not so interesting as the question, “What context on God’s green earth led to a priest sharing his thoughts on codependency with Kristina!?”).
From what I understand off the top of my head, codependency is what occurs when the needs of two people become so intertwined that one cannot be fulfilled without the other, which is not nearly as romantic as it sounds (or did that only sound romantic to me . . . ?). Codepency can be a vicious cycle of enabling, ripe with furtile grounds for frustration and resentment. Becoming codependent is the exact opposite of actually being helpful to someone.
Yikes.
Kristina (a psychology major and wise woman to boot) also suggested that codependency is essentially self-forgetting. But if that is the case, how does codependent self-forgetting differ from spiritual self-forgetting–the kind advocated in nearly every spirtual tradition I’ve studied thus far?
All along I’ve been hearing the messages: think of others before yourself, give more than you feel you can and it shall be returned to you, as you give, so shall you receive. Could it be that giving to myself might actually be a way for others to receive, too?
My Enneathought today alterted me to to possibility that “One of [my] sure-fire ‘hot buttons’ is to resent other people’s boundaries;” then asked me to consider, “how can you accept the reasonable limits set by others?”
Although this doesn’t pertain exactly to our topic of codependency, it does give me a tactic to use that is at least in the general vicinity. So, if i feel like I can’t figure out this whole codependency schtick and thus I continue to be codendent with people without any boundaries. . . at least I might begin reconsidering my behavior with those with “reasonable limits.”
There’s hope for us all.
The following is an offline blog I wrote on the first day of that workshop I attended that caused me to be “out of the office” for a solid week. I believe the date was November 12, 2009 . . .
Today was the first of a four day workshop I am attending called the REAL Life Optimization Program. They passed out homework at the end, three assignments with the instruction to choose a minimum of one to complete.
The first option was “Tell three people that you are doing this workshop.” Since three is just about the number of people that read my blog daily 
I figured this was a perfect way to complete my assignment.
As I understand it, the purpose of telling people about our involvement in such a program is to strengthen our own understanding of why we’re doing it. I suppose it also spreads word of the REAL program, but even if that’s the case, I don’t mind doing a little advertising. I feel good about supporting the people behind this project.
I heard about it in the first place from Tyler, who went through the program with his betrothed last June. He found it highly relevant and encouraged Mom, Dad and myself to go. I probably wouldn’t have, being the high and mighty (and poor) Naropa graduate that I am. I felt like I’d gotten a lot of this “getting real” at the contemplative university where I earned my degree, and I just plain couldn’t afford it.
Then, local therapists John Cunningham and Doug Carter decided to offer the program as a gift to the Mt. Shasta community for a pittance of $200. It was an opportunity not to be turned down; and my folks and I all decided to take it.
That my parents would be participating also made the opportunity a greater one. I saw participating in the REAL program as a chance to develop and hone a common language to use within my family unit. We’re close and we get along well most of the time, but there are fissures, of course, which I ache to see fused.
I mentioned once before how to the town of Mt. Shasta I appear to be a very happy and positive person, but that my parents, obviously are privy to a different perspective that allows them to see me sad, angry, critical and disrespectful.
It’s ironic, and I don’t think I’m alone when I say that the qualities I aspire to most are the least apparent when I interact with my family. Sensitive, kind, loving, compassionate and respectful I am not always, when I’m with the people to whom I am closest.
I think that’s in part precisely because we are close and all the details fuzzy from a distance come into clear focus when they’re near. I think it’s because we’re comfortable and all pretences are put aside. With my family I can push away from the dinner table and undo the top button of my jeans if I’ve eaten too much. The same is true for my emotional jeans.
The difference, I suppose, is that the tendencies I contain with my top button in public can hurt the people I’m close to—the very last thing I would ever want to do. Yet I unintentionally did so again tonight, in the vulnerable and tender aftermath of the REAL program.
. . . which is why I’m still a very real work in progress. Thanks for listening.
I’ve been a little preoccupied with my future again as of late. I think it might have something to do with being so energetic and happy most of the time these days and wanting to hold onto that.
Beware attachment! My Buddhist training warns. I heed it. . .
I also hear the resounding bells of discovering several of my passions over the last few months. Along with them is an urge I’m not used to, to go deeper into some things rather than skimming lightly across their surfaces.
The clock reads 5:55 as I type. For the past few weeks I’ve noticed repeating 5′s on a daily basis. Call me cuckoo, but I take the clock as a sign that there is truth in what I’m writing.
Until recently, I pretty fully embodied the tendency of Twos and Sevens to jump from one topic, experience, or area of focus to another, without really delving into any of them. Both enneatypes like the freshness of newness and fairly dislike the tedium and strain of sticking with what’s familiar.
The tendency, like any, has both positive and negative sides. For me, the positive side of skipping rocks has been that I have been exposed to a variety of people, places and things; I have a plethora of experiences under my belt to make myself and my life more interesting. Further, all my skimming has helped me decide which oceans I don’t need to cross . . . as well as, I suppose, which ones I do.
This is the hard part. Although I say I’m feeling the urge to go deeper, as I contemplate what step to take next into my future, I am made to recognize the way I’ve been fly fishing all over this great big world and that it might not be easy to stop. It feels like each time I verge on making a decision and beginning to let that lure sink, I change my mind.
I’m lucky to believe it’s all part of the [perfect] process. Even though over the course of the last two years I have had enough extravagant ideas to write a million blogs, I really have been narrowing the scope and becoming less interested in trying to see and study it all.
Now, I’m paying attention to the places in my life where the passion flows upward. I’m beginning to recognize my personal Old Faithfuls–spirituality, dance, guitar, singing, writing, language, laughing, friends and family–as well as the fact that they can only shower me with their joyous flows as long as I’m standing beneath them and not running amuck somewhere else.
Although I could probably dance beneath them too, because there’s always a little wiggle room!
A day to remember, in reverse:
I’m currently propped up in bed wearing a seafoam green flannel nightshirt with monkey’s all over it that my mother sewed for me. Zoe, the feistier of my two cats, is resting sweetly atop my outstretched legs. I’m drinking red wine and just finished relishing a delicious dark chocolate covered macadamia nut straight from Hawaii (hand-delivered to me by Carl and Kathy). In the background, Pink’s “Please Don’t Leave Me” is on repeat; it’s been stuck in my head since I worked out at Curves (“For Women”) earlier this evening.
I started going to Curves when I was 16 and still in high school. I remember being so impressed and happy with the program that I wanted to write articles in favor of it. These days I’m not so enthusiastic about it–although I suppose I am about just about everything else. Actually, as I hopped around on one of the Curves recovery boards today a gal whose seen me there a time or two before said, “Geez, you have too much energy all the time!” Thankfully I’ve learned, sort of, not to take things like that too personally. . .
Prior to going to Curves, I visited with my new friend Coreena at the SAC gallery. She relieved me at 1 p.m. as the coop member on duty for the afternoon and I came back around 4 to help her finish up the day. Together we looked at photos of her family’s holiday hideaway, “Hikers Rest,” on the big island of Hawaii. Corree had a c.d. playing in the background, “Have you heard of Rob Sexsmith?” she asked me.
“No. He’s good?” I replied.
“Oh, yeah! Plus he has ‘sex’ in his name.”
“And smith! As in ‘wordsmith.’”
“Or ‘locksmith. . .’”
I let Coree look through the clothes of mine the local consignment store had just rejected. “They didn’t take this!?” She asked, bewildered, as she tried on a pale blue corduroy jacket. The jacket was a hand-me-down from a Bostonian friend of mine, seasonally appropriate, cute and in good condition. I couldn’t see the problem either, but to each their own.
Shopping at Trading Places became a favorite pastime this summer while my big brother Tyler and Allison were in town planning their wedding. Neither my new sister-in-law Alli nor I are big shoppers, but somehow we created one fabulously fun experience after another at the little store. No doubt it was largely the influence of TLC’s What Not to Wear. Passing comments like, “Stacey and Clinton would NOT approve” back and forth resulted in each trip becoming highly entertaining. It also made it easier to provide–and receive–honest opinions about potentially poor choices in clothing.
I like to think Alli, Stacey and Clinton would all approve of what I came out with today: a gray Daisy Fuentes sweater-dress, a melon cardigan and a pair of black ballet flats, all for $17.50–and I didn’t pay a penny because I had $26 credit for clothing I brought in previously! Consignment, I tell you, is the shit! Please pardon my Français.
Prior to shopping came work at the gallery, and just before that I met for a most inspirational cup of coffee with a longtime family friend, Nathan. Being at similar places in life, we discussed the pros and cons and proper timing of grad school, travel, and just enjoying our little hometown. I tried to refrain from imparting any unprecedented wisdom to him, but Nathan seemed to welcome it. So I shared how when I finally slowed down and began to be present in my parents’ house in this teeny town of Mt. Shasta, life came to meet me, instead of the other way around. I explained that when I finally stopped “should-ing” all over myself, my passions just burbled up to the surface. It’s beautiful, really, and I wish the same for everybody . . .
As our morning together drew to a close, Nathan and I suddenly touched upon an idea to collaborate with many of the other motivated, creative and inspirational young people in town. Now, it looks like all the lovelies I’ve been spending time with–Coree, Joe, Nikolas, Royce, Nathan, and others–may all get to come together and create something beautiful.
Time will tell; and so will I. Stay tuned.
Today’s blogging challenge is going to be to not focus so much on what somebody else might want to read as on what I want to write. This is actually the challenge of everyday, paired with the fact that as an image type I am A) concerned with keeping up a good rapport with my audience and B) not always sure of what I actually desire, being conditioned as I am to tuning into the needs of others . . .
It was Tessa I tuned into, though, when I decided to go ahead and tell my Arts Council boss I was applying for a job in Santa Barbara. Everyone around me was saying, “In this economy? Are you crazy? You can’t just go around telling your employer that you’re looking for other work. It’s not smart.”
Despite it, my conscience and I were adamant about being honest. If nothing else, lying just isn’t worth the trouble and energy! So, I told Lauri the whole truth: a fantastic opportunity had come up, I was driving to SB to pursue it; I might be leaving the Council soon but promise to give plenty of notice if I do. Of course, as you may already know, I didn’t get the job and I did receive my two weeks notice a few days ago.
So, everyone was right, huh. By looking out for the other guy and not for myself, I got the short end of the stick. Lesson learned! Or was it . . .
The very day I was given my notice (I wish I could just type “fired;” it’s so much more succinct) my friend Royce came by to visit and told me they might be looking for bakers at Berryvale.
Getting its name from one of Mt. Shasta City’s prior christenings, Berryvale is a local alternative grocery store with a culture all its own. It smells of herbs and patchuli, and more often than not there are small clumps of people (who also smell like herbs and patchuli, and sometimes herb) gathered in it’s vicinity. Inside, although you’ll almost certainly encounter dreadlocks, you’re equally likely to find logo-t’s and bike shorts. If there is such a thing as an intentional grocery store, Berryvale is it. They even provide metal rings for looping leashes and a stationary bowl of water out front for dogs waiting while their people shop.
Royce has worked at “Berry” for about a year now. He’s a checker, re-stocker and occasional dishwasher. He’s also a schmoozer, and the people there love him. So, when they needed a baker some months ago and he gave me a wholehearted recommendation, it seemed I was a shoe in.
As fate had it, I slowly let the Berryvale ball drop and got lined up with work at the Siskiyou Arts Council. Now here we are, six months later with Berryvale needing bakers and me needing a job. . .
Hearing the news, I recognized this as an opportunity to pick up the ball I had dropped in April and grip it tightly. I promised myself I would be diligent about returning to Berryvale on a regular basis until they hired me.
I made my first trip in on Thursday morning. The head baker Emily wasn’t there that day, but an Art History teacher of mine was (do you like the irony? The Arts Council, for me, History!) and he sent a whole new ball rolling down the aisle of my imagination. But that’s a story for another day.
I returned to Berryvale on Friday, this time catching Emily in the back room. I was prepared to go into great detail about my passion for baking and desire to join the Berryvale team. But, thanks to my loyal friend Royce, she began talking about scheduling and training before I hardly had a chance to say word!
One of the owners joined our conversation halfway through it. “This is Tessa!” Emily said, introducing me. Belinda nodded and handed me an application. “Just fill out the basics,” she suggested, “name, phone number, etc . . . You can include your previous employer if you want, but don’t worry about phone numbers there. I won’t be calling anyone.” And she disappeared into the back.
I floated out of the store, giving Royce a bear hug and a thank you on the way out. . .
If this experience hasn’t convinced me to follow my thread of truth and have faith, I don’t know what will.
As Mom would say, it’s “D.R.O!”
D.R.O.: an acronym meaning Divine Right Order.
I must confess, my commitment to making a nightly entry in my blog has waned. And I owe it all to Dan Brown’s latest publication, The Lost Symbol. After turning my nose up at The DaVinci Code I never expected I’d enjoy this one, yet I’ve been finding it fabulously entertaining. Just another reminder to stay open, huh?
Speaking of, I spoke with Kristina this evening (the good friend I’m planning to move to Santa Barbara with come January) and she asked whether I might be interested in relocating sooner. What with the approaching holidays, my fa-abulous ballroom dancing class and a wondrous slew of new friends, I told her it didn’t seem terribly appealing at the moment. But, I added, “I’ll stay open.”
As our conversation continued, we got into discussing our most recent potential career picks. Currently, Kristina has her eye on studying Nutrition & Psychology at Bastyr, but that degree program requires a number of math and science prerequisites (the university she and I attended offered literally one math class and two in science) and she’s begun to doubt whether such subjects agree with her.
Following her down the path of playful contemplation, I voiced my concern about studying psychology–namely that I might find myself cramped into a westerly facing psychological box. “I’m interested in spirituality and different dimensions.” I proclaimed. “I want to study consciousness!”
Together we reasoned that I would surely be able to incorporate my broader interests into a narrower field by attending a school like CIIS. Then Kristina suggested that perhaps it was three days of utter immersion in the works of Dan Brown that was making me think this way. . .
When I got home I had an “EnneaThought for the Day” waiting in my inbox. The first line of it was an urging to all enneatypes to be aware of the transformational process; then came the following quote from Understanding the Enneagram:
Being receptive to spirituality can vastly accelerate the process of healing the deficits in our early development. And using the tools of psychology to heal the gaps in our development gives us the capacity to sustain spiritual states of consciousness.
I would say that fairly addresses my concern, no?
Thank God for synchronicity–and receptivity at that. Again I say it, I am so grateful!
Well, well, well. I think this blog may turn out to be even more interesting than I thought it might when we began.
. . . It’s actually all so uncanny and overwhelming that I’ve been trying to write this blog for the past hour and have let myself be happily interrupted repeatedly because I feel like there’s so much importance in what I want to say that I won’t be able to adequately convey it . . .
So, I’d like to go back to the concept of coincidence I discussed in my post Seasons Come & Seasons Go. I am currently in the middle of reading Deepak Chopra’s book The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire, with my bookmark right smack in the middle of the segment called Nurturing Coincidence. In this chapter, Chopra writes about how putting attention on coincidences will attract more coincidences and how “In this way coincidences become clues to the will of the universe, providing a way for us to see its synchronicity and take advantage of life’s boundless opportunities.”
I have been focusing a lot of my attention on coincidences lately, but even though I started doing so long before ever reading any Deepak Chopra, I am still amazed by the multitude synchronicities that have prevailed as of late.
Unfortunately or not so unfortunately, you choose, I’ll have to go back a ways to bring us up to date with the events of the past few days. Please amuse yourself by trying to follow the thread of what are [to me] very clearly connected events:
In 2005, I:
1. Encountered yoga
2. Encountered yoga teacher, Dustin
3. Learned about Hellerwork from Dustin
4. Heard about Naropa University for the first time from my godmother Kathleen and for the second time, from Dustin.
Fast-forward to 2008, when I:
5. Graduated from Naropa University with an Interdisciplinary degree in Writing, Music and Yoga
6. Began the Hellerwork series with a practitioner named Kimberly
7. Became the Baker for Village Books, formerly owned by Kathy L.
8. Started my “career” as a friendly neighborhood house/dog-sitter
9. Toyed seriously with the idea of incorporating massage/bodywork into a future–more sustainable–career, partially because of my Hellerwork sessions.
In the spring of 2009, I:
10. Sold ads for a Visitor’s Brochure to be distributed amongst local businesses
11. Called Carl M., founder of the Enneagram Institute of Ashland and husband to Kathy L., to inquire about interest in an ad.
12. Ran into Kimberly at local cafe and had a spontaneous conversation about my new house-sitting occupation
13. Learned about a couple often in need of a house-sitter from Kimberly; the couple was Kathy and Carl
I will pause the timeline here to explain that Carl never returned my call about the ad. He did, however return my e-mail about house-sitting with a phone call, and asked me bluntly, “Do I know you?” I responded that no, he didn’t, and explained about Kimberly and the circumstances. We agreed to meet up for tea the next day to discuss potential employment and then continued talking for a few moments, during which I discovered:
14. Carl was familiar with Naropa (a school known of by a only fairly selected group of people) and
15. Carl graduated from CIIS, the very school I was most interested in applying to in that moment
He and I met the next day and hit it off as I have with very few people, quickly developing an extensive friendly rapport. . .
In the summer of 2009, I:
16. Met some peeps at a potluck and played a game of, “Let me guess your name;” only tried on one person, guessing one boy’s name to be “Tyrone;” his name is Tyson
17. Had a conversation with Tyson in which he told me about Esalen, a retreat and massage training center in Big Sur, CA
18. Quite spontaneously interviewed for a friend’s old position in Santa Barbara, California (did not get said position)
19. Learned that Carl lived his early years in Santa Barbara, and Kathy her middle ones, and they both still visit often.
During the late summer/fall of 2009
20. Began seeing movies with Kathy
21. Was lent Deepak Chopra’s The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire by Kathy
22. Watched Julie and Julia and cried at the end because I don’t know what I’m doing with my life
23. Started a blog shortly thereafter because, well, why the hell not?
Then, in the last two some-odd days, I:
24. Blogged about synchronicity
25. Had a conversation with a girlfriend living in So Cal about moving in together in Santa Barbara come January
26. Learned about balancing relationships with career, etc
27. Blogged about career
28. Became Facebook friends with Tyson through an actual friend’s new girlfriend’s friend list
29. Facebooked Tyson about Esalen
30. Went online to research Esalen and saw on their website “Trigger Point Massage”
31. Googled massage schools in Santa Barbara and came up with the Santa Barbara Body Therapy Institute – A School for Holistic Massage
32. Perused website and immediately saw, “Trigger Point Massage”
33. Discovered that Carl also attended the Santa Barbara Body Therapy Institute
34. Discovered the first comment on my baby blog–thank you Dr. Susan Bernstein!–in which she recommended to me a school in Santa Barbara (a city never previously mentioned in my blog!) . . .
And when I went to the school’s website, almost the first thing I saw was a link to “Esalen.”
. . .
So, there you have it.
Since I don’t know yet what it all means, I’ll leave us both with some final words from Dr. Chopra to consider:
When a coincidence arises, don’t ignore it. Ask yourself, What is the message here? What is the significance of this? Ask the question, and the answers will emerge. . . Perhaps you will meet a person who is somehow related to the coincidence that occurred. An encounter, a relationship, a chance meeting, a situation, a circumstance will immediately give you a clue to its meaning. . .
Chopra, Deepak. The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire. Three Rivers Press, New York, 2003. 301 pages. Quote from page 140.
I promised a blog about my future career. Ugh. I still find it incredibly boring to talk about. Although, some-times I get a little tiny bit fluttery in my heart area when I think about certain aspects of becoming certain types of professional.
For the time being, I’m most seriously considering studying psychology. It’s a slightly iffy job prospect, because I don’t actually find psychology in and of itself all that terribly interesting. That’s a little worrisome, hm? Anyway, the aspects of the field that interest me are:
1) Helping people in a way I feel I might be successful at and actually enjoy
2) Working with the mind/body/spirit connection to create happier individuals and a happier planet overall
3) . . . what I’m really interested in is consciousness, and in raising it. Is the field of psychology a good place to do that?
Well, when I consider going back to school (a truly exciting prospect for an aspiring life-long student like myself), it is only at spiritually influenced specialized institutions like Bastyr University: “At the Heart of Natural Medicine Education,” Pacifica, an institution specializing in Depth Psychology as developed by Carl Jung, and most of all California Institue of Integral Studies (CIIS), a school which offers degrees programs like Transformative Studies and Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness.
The program at CIIS that has been tugging at my heartstrings most tightly is the M.A. in Somatic Psychology. On a personal level, I connect very deeply with many things “somatic” (definition: of, relating to, or affecting the body), yoga, dance, and massage to name a few. Because I’m kind of a brainiactic heart-guided young lady, accessing my body can be a big challenge for me–yet every time I put out the effort to do it, I’m greatly rewarded. So, I would love to help other people “go deeper” in some of the same ways that have worked for me.
Further, the program is described as offering, “Learning counseling practices that include verbal and nonverbal work with body, mind, and spirit.” This is a concept that of infinite importance to me. Big fat mental note here.
But even as I’m drawn so strongly to Somatic Psych, as always I’m trying to remain open to other possibilities. This evening my attempts to stay open manifested first as a perusal of Bastyr’s website. A few minutes into looking at the number of science prerequisites each of their programs required, I hmphed to my mom and said poutily, “I don’t wanna do this kind of stuff as a career” (which was, of course, my ET4 heart point showing itself).
So, I fairly quickly moved on to my reigning favorite CIIS’s website, where I lingered on the Somatic Psychology page momentarily but then discovered an M.F.A. program I hadn’t noticed before in Writing and Consciousness. Which . . . seems kinda appropriate, doesn’t it . . . ? What with my interests in, well, writing. . . and . . . consciousness . . .
Yep, I often say that the bane of my generation’s existence is having too much choice, too many opportunities. Such problems . . . ! Now, I’d best be off to bed to count my many, many blessings lest God/the Universe/the field of non-local reality hear me and shift my gifted existence. Rest well, all.
