Positive Feedback Loop: Hope–Options

Options create hope. Hope perceives options.

When this loop is feeding back in a negative way:

When we feel we have no escape, no recourse, no redo, no options…we lose all hope.

When we accept that there is no way out, when we believe there is no way but down, when we lose all hope, we no longer are capable of perceiving any further options that might present themselves.

But what if there is an option? One decision, that can …

Reverse the direction of the loop to positive:

Decide to stay open to the possibility that there are options, even if none can be seen currently, keep looking for something that can be shifted or nudged to set into motion even more options.

When there are options you are again driving your life. Make your best choice and stay open to more. Now you have hope, and are increasingly resilient and able to see and respond to opening doors, potentially even transforming hope into the knowledge that you are creating more options with every movement.

Fear, and The Cost of Protection

(A sunny Saturday afternoon conversation with my husband Quai resulted in this post)

Once you conquer your fear of death
the only thing stopping you from taking a risk
is fear of the pain that will result

Every day is full of pain for people anyway
because pain is part of life

Building a fortress around your garden will cut out all risk that comes from “out there”
meanwhile what you seek to protect dies on the vine
Separated from sun, water, food, attention, vital nutrients…
thriving stops, decay sets in

There is risk of pain and loss inherent in not building a fortress
(a fortress even made of intangibles like avoidance or the broader impact of things like lifestyle)
but the loss of freedom and growth is the cost to life when you choose to build protections (not take risks)

The will to live and the will to grow/thrive are synonymous and all living organisms possess the seed of it
It is the nature of life to complete it’s birth/growth/death –it’s life cycle

Only humans fear the mere concepts of loss and death
Animals experience it, but the fear is in the moment, it is not anticipated
It springs from the inherant will to live, the survival instinct

The preditor and prey rest and drink beside each other before and after the hunt
with full knowledge of the other’s nature
They do it with awareness but at the same time, at peace, without fear

Having the will to live and fearing death are not synonymous
Once you conquer your fear of death, only fear of pain is left

Aging

“I’m not going to miss out on the experience of being 50 just because other people are uncomfortable with it.”

Here’s how I got to the point of making that statement…

So it’s a new year, and I’m 50.  (That happened in October but I’m still figuring out what it actually means to me.)

Naturally, this is an adjustment and I’m thinking a lot about my age. Odds are pretty pretty good that I’m past the halfway point of my life. Typically, a deeper awareness of the inevitability of one’s mortality usually comes to us via some kind of health wake-up call, regardless of how many friends or family have gone ahead to the happy hunting ground.  (love that metaphor for some reason…hehe…sounds like C.A.R.P.)

I had a bunch of problems with shortness of breath and dizziness over the holidays and I’m grateful I didn’t have a lot of gigs scheduled because I would only have had to cancel.  But I passed a pulmonary machine test, 95% blood oxygen in fact, no signs or elevations that indicate infection or inflammation in my blood work, no diabetes, chest xray was clear (thank you Universe) tho they did hear a bit of wheezing, I’m pretty sure now it was my “volcano” vaporizer that was causing or at least exacerbating/compounding whatever is going on.  She’s still sending me to a pulmonary specialist, even with that confession.  This week I have a nerve conduction test in four limbs for suspected nerve compression and also a bone density test and something else…losing track. heh.

But the point of all of that is that they discovered inadvertently, that I have hypothyroidism.  They don’t come right out and say, “You have hypothyroidism,” although probably if I was in the office getting the news instead of phone I would have been handed a pamphlet called “Hypothyroidism and You.”  I’d put money on that one.   Instead they have a nurse tell me, “Your thyroid is low, which pharmacy can we send the Synthroid to?  Come back in six weeks to be monitored with another blood draw.”  That’s it. I gave it the name all by myself.

Okie dokie, so according to THE INTERNET it’s most likely an autoimmune thing where my body will just progressively destroy my thyroid tissue and doctors will compensate with synthetic thyroid for the rest of my life.  Groovy.  But I’m actually freaking GLAD there is a reason for feeling so shitty all the time that you can do something about without creating more symptoms from side effects (unlike FMS) and equally fearful that this treatment,too, will prove not to make any damned difference at all.  I had been given it therapeutically in the past by different doctors based on symptoms alone, before having the symptoms set blamed on candidiasis or fibromyalgia.  But not one of them ever told me how to take the hormone so it would actually be absorbed, and no one ever said they wanted to monitor it. I didn’t have insurance so after a few weeks or when the first bottle ran out I would not get more because I could not discern enough difference in how I felt to justify the cost.  But as it turns out if you don’t take it exactly right and for at least 6 weeks it can’t be absorbed or reach a therapeutic level.  Sigh.

blah blah…I won’t bore you with anymore details on my health picture right now, but anyway…hmmm…hypothyroidism.  (Took my very first pill last night. I woke up feeling very strange–what I think people mean  when they say they “rested.”  Placebo effect? Seems too soon to feel such a dif … ) Which brings me back to my original inspiration for this post…

I’m aging. I’m aware of it. I’m working to make peace with it.

Part of the struggle is changing my interpretation of different labels.  Like “submissive” for instance.  When I picture in my brain a submissive…well fuck me…what I see is a skinny 20 something on her knees.  Not a fifty year old woman with sore knees. When I imagine thin, someone, me, that loses the weight I need (not just want) to lose, I imagine myself in my 20s, or 30s….again…not the reality that significant weight loss at my age makes you look significantly older, not fit and young.  When I think of singers that actually perform the kind of music I write and like to sing, my music which ranges from comedy to smokey to downright comehitherandfuckme, I again picture youth, and what youth usually means, such as energy, no chronic pain…things I haven’t had access to for most of my life., but still, like everyone else, associate with successful performing female musicians (especially those just starting out), espeically ones that create and try to express erotic ideas/content, which I do. No matter what else I accomplish for the rest of my life, I cannot be young ever again.

Accepting my age  also involves accepting and forgiving myself for the unnecessary damage I have done to my body to age it faster and write my fate for the second half of my life.  I cannot undo the damage of sunburns to my skin that now tries to kill me (I’ve already had a melanoma), nor whatever I’ve done to my lungs from that 8 years of smoking cigs or 30 years of smoking cannabis off and on might have done (for both treating physical pain, depressions and anxiety, and yes, for fun). I can’t undo the damage in my knees and feet that carrying too much weight my whole life has done.  I probably can’t remove any sludge I’ve already deposited in my arteries, or the carcinogens I knowingly ingested because I liked how it felt or tasted (like char-grilled meat).  Add heredity.

And that’s just the health stuff.  There’s also the whole “omg…what have I done with my life?  Who am I?  What does it all mean?  I was supposed to have done X, Y, and Z by now. Oh God I may NEVER do X, Y, OR Z!  Where do I really belong in the world? Where am I going? Wtf happens AFTER this?  Will there be enough money to get to that point without undo suffering?”  It’s actually pretty similar to the first time around when you are in your early 20s thinking of all that, but minus the “it’s late or about to be too late” and the “OMG I’m actually going to die some day, probably from a disease!” factors.

Then there’s how people treat you.  It changes.  “The Golden Girls” did not help, in my opinion.  I’m not entirely sure “Desperate Housewives” did either.  I no longer think Cher is actually human so I can’t use her as an example either.   Well at least it opened the door to sex after 50 being a plausible concept, and even made it OK if it’s a bit sexy, kinky even.   But I guess I still don’t feel represented.  I tell myself there are others that might feel that way so maybe “I” can represent that for them.  Maybe that’s my role, my place in music’s underground.  But I have had people call me “Ma’am” lately.  Shivers.  And another musician wrote to me to say, “wow, you’re old. I’m sorry for you.”     I think pity or thinking I’m just “cute” for trying is the worst thing you feel coming at you.  And then down the line you also get to be considered increasingly useless and in the way.  Can’t wait.

So I’m putting a stop to this bullshit line of media induced thinking right here.  They can dish it up but I don’t have to ingest it anymore. I am sexual and erotic and musical and outspoken and full figured because I am, not because I have permission to be from society.  I welcome society to embrace me or go fuck themselves, whichever it might enjoy most.

I’ve always said, “I don’t want to lie about my age. I want a medal for every year I pull off.”   I’ve never meant that more. Because I’ll tell you something…
Aging takes courage.

Respect, Ren

Preparing to Die – A Life Affirming New Year’s Message

The best way to prepare to die, is to live well.

By “live well,”  I mean do the things daily that you would do if you were told your death was imminent and you wanted to prepare to die.  You would have information for your loved ones in order and accessible.  You would tell them you love them. You would try to make amends and say you were sorry where you could. You would perhaps take risks you never had the guts to take before.   If we live this way everyday we will always be prepared to die.

Live well.

When my mother was passing away in hospice she said, “I don’t mind dying, but there are so many things I haven’t finished yet!”  She was 83 and in the 43 years I got to be her daughter on this planet, I never heard her turn down a project.  When she said that I just held her hand and laughed, and said, “Mom, if you had another 50 years of perfect health granted you right now, you would be saying the same thing at the end of it.”  She laughed with me and I think that gave her peace.  It gives me peace.  There’s a few things I need to do, accomplishments like record my music, the only tangible thing I have to give, my legacy, if you will, is my music and whomever’s lives I have touched, in good or bad ways.

I don’t want to spend my life fearing death.  I choose to embrace it by accepting that death is an inescapable reality for every single one of us and by being my complete and authentic self every moment of every day. That means speaking what I feel, taking risks, accomplishing as many goals as I get lucky enough to get in before then, and leaving people better off for having known me, and not wondering how I felt about them, or without my forgiveness.

May each and every one of you really live this year, starting with this moment.

Respect, Ren

Thoughts of this Season – It’s going to be OK

I hope you are all having a great holiday.   Whoever this post reaches, it was intended for you.

Thoughts on enjoying this season, especially as it comes to a head this week with family, travel, and parties:

1. Pace yourself; in all the excitement and doing for others, remember yourself. You are precious to others so take care of yourself.
2. Be grateful for everything, even the things that annoy you every year.  When those people are gone you will miss even those things.
3. Think about what you actually remember and cherish from holidays of the past, whatever it is you celebrate, whatever your culture and traditions.  Some feelings and memories stick with you years later…let that be your guide this year for what you choose to value and let go of trying to make everything “perfect.”  There’s never enough time for everything,  so pick those things.
4. Make a commitment to carrying what they call “The Holiday Spirit” into the new year for as long as you can, which in truth, is just one of kindness and helpfulness and giving…and an openness to the possibility that we’re really all OK, that we are all forgivable.  Maybe you could choose a charity to champion in some way this coming year.  Anything.  No matter how old or young or challenged you are you can experience the great feeling of helping someone, or perhaps giving the gift of forgiveness to someone that is suffering and in need of it.  Just suggestions, I’m sure you can think of something. 🙂
5. Consider that going into debt buying gifts and making things “special” cannot fix relationships or “prove” love.  That requires communication and willingness to really listen to each other in ways you may not have been willing to before. Think about what you are really trying to achieve before spending money you can’t really afford to spend and consider other ways to express your feelings, like spending time just having fun and playing like kids. Isn’t time the most precious thing we have to give each other?

Be well everyone, stay safe and grateful and remember that it’s going to be OK.  Maybe even better than that!

With Respect and Blessings of the Season,

Ren

 

 

 

Enough

 

My thoughts thus far on the holidays this year, expressed in what currently is a poem, tho there’s always danger of morphing into song lyrics, naturally.

Enough (created 12/19/12)

there are so damned many musicians
in this stressed out world
digging for the same nuts
hidden by the same squirrels

there are so many budding artists
standing around in Rome
making notes about everything
noone will care about at home

there are so many imigrants
with their swollen hopes
make a little more room kids
we all have to cope

but there’s a beauty in belief
in the eyes of the new
we can receive these gifts they bring or
nurse the bitterest brew

there are so many bodies’ crammed
into such a small space
while the vastness of our earth
slowly degrades into waste

there is so much food
tho some just dream of that
and while the rest of ’em starve
we’ve made disease out of fat

Born into excess
but to us we were poor
because we couldn’t keep up
with the people next door

Today we are with each other
today we are fed
today we are safe
with a roof over our heads

Happiness, my friend
is not about what you’ve got
Happiness, my friend
is not about what you have not

It’s having enough:
nourishment
saftey
challenge
and love in your life,
and being so blessed as to recognize that you do,
and sense enough to be grateful for it.

Where have you been, Freestar?

Damn good question.

It’s not that I run out of things to say, contemplate, comment on, etc.  It’s just that I withdraw now and then.  There are a few names I could probably give it that would give my excuses some kind of clinical legitimacy but that’s just so much noise between me and the question, so here’s my best answer.  I withdrew. I’m back.  Maybe I can use my “creative license” and just call it the artist’s ebb and flow.   I like that more than the word depression, although the word itself is benign enough; the stigma is not.  But the NOW is where I’m paying my focus today and right now I’m neither depressed nor withdrawn, nor even particularly stressed.  That’s pretty impressive for the week before Christmas with a full week of gigs.

I love performing, and often it’s healing, but sometimes it takes more emotional and physical energy than I have to offer.  Sometimes a full sim will pump me with energy I didn’t have otherwise.  Sometimes an empty sim frees me to let go and those are some of my best performances.  I am an emotional performer, and that has it’s pros as well as cons.  I am inconsistantly and alternately brave and fearful about performing, depending on energy and where my head is at about if I have anything worthy to offer the music world.

Hence it amazes me when now and then someone refers to me as a diva.  Oh to be so secure as to actually have earned such an insult!  *stops to actually laugh for a moment*   Let us not confuse “full of herself” with “self-absorbed.”  You can actually think very little of yourself while thinking obsessively about yourself.    Sorry if you had to read that last sentence a few times before it made sense…hee hee.  But not sorry enough to change it for you.

So yeah…just another artist stewing in their own juices, nothing to see here. Help yourself to the coffee.

(I’ll try to drop my randomness in here more often and stop non-consentually subjecting people in SL to it in IM!)

“It Can’t Be This Easy.”

Trusting the Universe:

Sometimes it seems like no matter how hard you try, all you get is obstacles, objections, limitations and rejections.  If you apply the universal “sky cam” view that I am personally trying to spend more time in, it seems it is because you are going down the wrong path, that the lesson is to either change direction or try harder, and you have to evaluate it, but either way, it means hard work, more effort, more struggle, more wondering why you even try when you don’t get anywhere for it all.

At other times it may seem that you do one small thing…maybe something you always felt a calling to do but never dared, something held you back.  And it seems like the world responds like crazy!  Everyone gives you validation at every turn.  You feel like you are on fire, have the magic touch, and find yourself swept up and riding this wave where you think it and it seems to manifest for you.  It’s exhilarating, up to a point, but can be kind of scary too, if given a chance to take a breath and digest what’s happening.

It may actually be easier to trust the Universe when it when it says, “no, wrong direction” or “no, you’re not ready for this yet” than it is to trust it when it gives us a resounding “Yes!” Those are the times when just a little bit of effort nets overwhelming results, as if the path is not just clear but paved with “can’t go wrong.”

I’ve backed away from that, it was too easy, and didn’t match the paradigm of past and current morality stories related to “having faith when times are hard.” Simple gratitude does not seem proportionally enough to stay in the good graces of overwhelming easiness. It should be harder, we should suffer, and we should only then overcome and THEN we can say thank you legitimately.

Heh.

More contemplation required!

Respect,

Ren 😀

I Asked the Universe #2 – “Have I changed?”

So carrying on from the last post, I Asked the Universe #1 – “Could you be more obvious?” where I shared the lyrics I’d written and forgotten about for exactly one year, minus 1 hour and 40 mins in a state of pretty strong despair about where D/s fits in my life, who I was, what I was going to do next, after the failure of an attempt of going from an SL D/s relationship to a RL poly situation.  That song lyric was called “Resolution” and is not yet a song.

Random fact: March 4, in my 24th year, was the day I moved into my own apartment (apartment 4, on 4th street, with four more 4’s in my new phone number) for the first time, no roommates.  It was the same day that only 166 miles away, Zeke was being born.  Twenty-four years later, living 3000 miles away. give or take, and joined Second Life  where I met him in the 4th month of last year, and has become an amazing and major contributor to my life story and the current blessings of my life.  He’s also inspiring a lot of songs!  Oh Universe…you’re so much fun sometimes.  Did I mention his favorite number happens to be 4?

More random facts: It was a really crappy apartment but very safe and it was MINE. I’d have been happy with a closet I could lock at the time.  It was while living in that apartment that I first ventured out to perform my music live, that saw me learn to cook, through the ending of a 4 year relationship with someone that did not support my music, 3 bands, 8 years of folk festivals, 3 cats  (found homes for two, one died), 8 potential career paths (house cleaning, original refrigerator magnets and dollhouse miniature food, daycare aide, leotard inspector, water-based die mixer, head of shipping and receiving in two companies, custom bass guitar carver, musician), one surgery, and finally met my first husband, K, that talked me into moving to the south where we divorced and I married Quai.  That’s just while in that appartment.

As to the question, “Have I changed?”  The jury may still be out, but apparently the Universe would like me to take a closer look. I know that since Zeke entered my life, change has come much much more rapidly!   OK…yes..yes I have.  I HAVE changed, you crazy ole Universe!  And you know it!  But yes, yes…I’ll think about it harder.

Here’s the lyrics to the song “No Better” that I wrote a year after “Resolution.”

1.    We can’t fight each other’s battles
we can’t wage each other’s war
we can’t claim a part in victory
if we aren’t there for the fall

We can try to work together
we can try to take a stand
if we take it toward each other
we will surely end up damned

2.  I agree we must be stronger
I agree I didn’t trust
and I’ll say it if I’m wrong
Sometimes I’m still removing rust

and if not for all of these …good intentions
we’d be turning back to dust

CHORUS I:

I’m amazed that we are poetry
I’m stunned that we exist
I’m ablaze with erotic imagry
I’m debased with erotic twist
I’m clouded in my judgement
I’ve never seen so far before
I’m aghast my past is loosening
I’m lounging on the floor
I’m struggling in my stupor
I’m endorphined to the bone
I’m not lost when I am with you
I’m no better found alone
3.   We can try and find the limits
We can push until we fall
It’s ok to fall together
if we’re tearing down the walls

There’s a lesson in here somewhere
there’s a gift to be unwrapped
I’ve submitted to correction
I was wrong in my attack

4.  I agree there is a reason
and I see I didn’t trust
among the roots that I’ve been digging
I’ve uncovered faith in us

and if not for all of these …good intentions
we’d be turning back to dust

CHORUS II:

I’m amazed how well you know me
I’m stunned how well we sync
I’m ablaze with the heat of everything
I’m focused on only this
I’m giving up my judgement
I’ve left regretting at the door
I’m eager for more exploring
where I haven’t thought to go before
I’m soaring in the space you take me
I’m endorphined to the bone
I’m not lost when I’m without you
I’m no better found undone

Perfectly Me – A Thought and a Lyric

Like most things I think to post about, it comes from interaction or conversation with someone else.  Today’s thought: How other people handle their business is not my business to judge.  I can only decide if I want to be around it and expose myself to it.  We always have that freedom to choose.  I could instead be around people that on whole inspire and support me, don’t drain me or doubt me.

I wanna be around people that live and create with abandon
I wanna be around charactors serving up dishes of random
I wanna be around individuals that inspire and support me
Don’t wanna inhale the air of those that doubt and drain me

I wanna be digging down into my righteous freedom
I wanna be soaring like the hawk with perfect vision
I wanna have a sky cam view of all that I encounter
I wanna make every moment something to remember

I see the span of roads that I could be taking
spread out before me in a vast array
this is no crossroad; it’s a tree of decisions
but there’s one light that’s ahead of me

and it calls…

and it calls…

me to be

to be perfectly me

—–

This sounds like a song lyric to me….yep it is 🙂  Song coming soon. Will link here as well as on my blog’s music page.

Here’s to non-judgement and self-acceptance,

Ren