| Subject: |
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Consequences |
| Name: |
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Debbie |
| Date Posted: |
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Jun 1, 04 - 7:53 AM |
| Email: |
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tigtink@comcast.net |
| Message: |
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About a month ago I wrote about hearing from my old college roommate, Ginny. The day I wrote the post, I sent her an e-mail answering her questions about why I had moved to Michigan, what kind of work I was doing, and whether or not I was in a relationship. I told her in brief about my relationship with Dottie and my interest in becoming a professional astrologer. It has been a month now and I’ve not heard from her again. I suspect it is because I did not become the person she once thought I would be. I don’t think she expected me to fall in love and find happiness with a woman and use my mind and abilities to study something as obscure as astrology.
Something Julia wrote the other day has been running through my mind:
--I’m feeling so tired and having to face the consequences of my feelings..I’m trying to follow my heart but it’s so hard to deal with the consequences of that decision...those consequences make me doubt the kind of person I am and that hurts so much..—
Gary Zukav quotes a Sioux Indian friend as telling him once that “the longest journey you will make in your life is from your head to your heart.”
Certainly, that has been true in my life, and I’ve had many moments of the kind of doubt Julia describes during those many, many times in my life when who I thought I wanted to be was turning out to be a lot different from the person I felt myself becoming. So often my heart leads me one way while my head frantically tries to point me in a different direction.
My early life was so chaotic and turbulent. My Mom was mentally ill, unpredictable, sometimes even violent and psychotic. My Dad was too emotionally weak to protect me and my sisters. And the world around us seemed not to notice or care what was going on inside our household. All I wanted was some stability and security. My dream was to grow up, get away from the craziness, and live a normal, productive, happy life. I saw myself working hard in school, going to college and learning a profession, establishing myself in the work world, and earning respect and financial security for myself—all things my parents failed so miserably to create in their own lives. I imagined myself meeting a special man, marrying, building a happy life, and one day having children of my own who would have the kind of environment growing up that my parents were never able to give to me.
What I thought I wanted turned out to be very different from what my soul actually yearned for and needed. My head wanted a structure of outer stability, but my heart and my soul were searching for something more real—an inner peace and emotional stability that would allow my creativity and love to bloom. Yes, I needed to love and be loved, but no, it would not be through a traditional marriage to a man, with kids and a white picket fence. Yes, I needed to make a contribution to the world and find a way to use my talents, but no, it would not be as a successful businesswoman with all the money and status that I thought would make me feel secure. Yes, I needed to find a stable home and supportive family environment, but no, it would not look like the home I thought I deserved but was denied as a child.
Mostly, the consequences I’ve found hardest to face have been about giving up the image I had created for myself of who I should become—and trading in my need to control every detail about the course of my life for the rewards of a life true to my own inner self. It always comes down to making a choice between mind and heart, and there are always consequences for those choices. I sometimes disappoint people in my life, and a lot of times I disappoint myself for not having achieved certain goals I thought were important.
What I have learned, and am learning to do, is make choices based not on some image of what I think my life should look like in form, but rather on what my inner compass tells me is real and meaningful in substance. When I have not listened to that compass, like when I chose to become a CPA, I’ve experienced disappointment and frustration. Whenever I’ve found the courage to follow my heart, like when I opened myself to Dottie’s love and when I chose to study astrology, I’ve found the kind of inner peace and happiness my soul has longed for. Those are the only consequences that really matter. It still hurts to have an old friend not approve of the choices I’ve made, but I like myself a whole lot more than I would have if I had lived my life to please her or to live up to some self-imposed image of the person I thought I was supposed to become. |
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