{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

today, i want to tell you a story.

the trouble is that i’ve written the story two times so far this weekend and in two different ways and both times it wasn’t right so i deleted it.

you see, i’ve already written the story – it is the story behind images to go – and it seems that it doesn’t want to be rewritten here.

so today, my thoughts about radiance are on another page.

i hope you will click here and enjoy them.

i got an astrology reading from chris zydel a year or so ago. brilliant, by the way. one of the things that came up was that i needed to be taking a lot more risks.

truth be told, i had a hard time thinking of things that i could do. there are not really a lot of things that scare me. the idea of doing them might freak me out a little but i would still do them if i felt the urge. if i’m not doing them, it doesn’t really have anything to do with fear.

except i was avoiding the one thing that does scare me. it turns out that the thing that scares me is relationships and vulnerability and using my words.

it makes sense. the thing i am afraid of most of all is rejection (possibly this is true for many of us). to me, any form of using my words in relationship has the potential to result in rejection, so i avoid it at all costs.

this morning, it occurred to me that, since i am practicing using my words, i could do so by sending an email to someone to request that i be taken off a distribution list. i am a fan of the group that sends them. i know how to reach them. i just don’t read the emails and like to keep my email at a manageable level. i have wanted to make this request for ages. what did i do instead? i created a rule that sent the emails directly into a folder so i wouldn’t see them. except i did see them – i don’t like when things remain unread so i would pop into the folder to mark them as read – and every time i did, it felt slightly dishonest and even unkind to be hiding them away instead of just making the request.

i sat down and wrote an email and sent it.

immediately afterward, i felt nauseous. my insides were churning.

when i felt into it, there was a sense of fear, of panic, of terror. i could see a little girl hiding in the corner and saying, “you can’t say things to people! you can’t just say things without knowing how they’ll react! it’s not safe! don’t say anything at all! ever!”

i sent her love and safety, but goodness, it does make sense that i don’t like to use my words in close relationships when this is my response to using them in the most distant of distant ones.

still, yay, me. i am practicing.

maybe you can relate and you want to practice with me?

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

i was feeling lonely one evening last weekend. i didn’t really know what to do with it – i am more of a day person than a night person – so i decided to send some mail to friends. unfortunately, i only had one stamp left and it was earmarked for a bill, so my mail didn’t go out until today’s visit to the post office.

as i was standing in line, it occurred to me that sending mail might be even more fun than receiving mail.

when i send mail, i get to show someone that i care about them, even if i don’t say so specifically.

when i send mail, i get to show someone that someone is thinking about them.

when i send mail, i get to imagine it showing up in their mailbox as an unexpected surprise.

there is something so very satisfying and comforting and heartwarming about the act of sending mail.

it reminds me that there are people in the world that i care about and that care about me. it makes me feel like they aren’t so very far away after all. it makes me feel less alone.

every once in a while i want to send mail to someone, but for some reason, i talk myself out of it. i realized that the reason i do this is because it feels too vulnerable. if i’m not sure how someone feels about me, it’s hard to let them know that i care, that i’m thinking about them. what if they don’t care about me and don’t want to hear from me and i am annoying them.

reaching out – letting people know you care about them – can be scary.

the thing i am trying to remember is that reaching out is important. vulnerability is important. it’s true, they might not feel the same way about me, but everyone likes to be remembered.

so yes, real mail. i am a fan.

that’s really why i make and sell cards. i mean, i like making cards – the act of making them and the act of pairing images and the act of finding names and descriptions for the sets. but mostly, i like thinking of people sending and receiving little bits of love, via their mailbox.

you don’t need anything special, you know. you can just find a piece of paper and write, “i’m thinking of you. just thought you should know.” and pop it into the mail.

but if you do like cards, i have an offer you might be interested in.

(i just finished this post and i am giggling because i cannot figure out how this relates to radiance. i thought it did when i started out but now i cannot see how, so i am wondering if i got confused along the way. it’s what was on my mind so we will pretend it does relate, yes?)

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

i read a book a few weeks ago about finding and hiring talent. it was called the rare find. (true, i’m neither a recruiter nor a hiring manager, but i am a sucker for non-fiction that includes case studies.)

i copied this from the book into my journal.

The key question stops being: “Are you good enough?” Instead, it becomes: “Is there a chance you could become spectacular?”

if you want to know what i think – what i really think – i think that there is a chance that i could become a spectacular artist. the form might surprise and delight me – for instance, it could be in the artistry of my business itself – but i do think there is a chance.

it is going to be hard for me to publish this post, but i am going to do so anyway, because it allows me to talk about one of my biggest stumbling blocks with radiance.

the trouble with radiance, at least for me, is that it feels like the act of recognizing or acknowledging or honoring my own light somehow diminishes other people.

it’s as if i believe that there is only so much light to go around so the only way i can shine is by dimming other people’s lights or by comparing myself to someone or someones and saying that i am shining because i am shining brighter than them. it’s as if i believe that we are all in competition with each other.

it seems rather telling that the situations where shining your own light is encouraged and accepted are in situations that do feel like competitions: from job interviews to annual reviews to college applications.

it makes perfect sense that i would want to avoid this. i don’t want to hurt other people or make them feel small. i don’t like competition. i am afraid of rejection and judgment. i don’t want other people to dislike me. i have been taught implicitly and explicitly that saying (thinking, also, but definitely saying) something good about myself makes me a bad person.

at the same time, when i see something good in myself, it has nothing to do with anyone else. i am not comparing or contrasting or in competition.

when i like my own work, for example, i don’t like it because i think it’s better than anyone else’s work. i like it because i like it.

when i have an idea that i think is genius, i don’t think it’s genius because it’s better than someone else’s idea. i think it’s genius because it’s mine and i am really really excited about it.

when i say that there is a chance i could become spectacular, i don’t mean spectacular in comparison to others; i mean spectacular in terms of fulfilling my potential and following my mission and sharing my vision.

i believe that we are all extraordinary – that we can all burn brighter than we can even imagine.

i also know that if i cannot see the good in myself, it doesn’t really matter whether other people can see it.

i want to be my biggest supporter and cheerleader. i want to see my own goodness and potential. i want to show up in the world, to not shrink, to be as fully myself as i can stand to be, and to be a force for beauty and light.

i am not afraid of my shadow. i am willing to go into my darkness and take things out and turn them over and look at them closely under the harsh light of day.

for too long, i have been afraid of my light.

from now on, i very much want to be brave enough to face it.

i haven’t talked a lot about my experiences with reiki here, at least not directly, other than to say that it is a daily practice.

and yet, one of the things i offer is reiki, and there are reasons why i believe in it enough to offer it.

when i was six years old, i had boiling water accidentally poured on me in the sauna and i spent a long time in the burn unit in ann arbor.

after that, saunas were not happy places.

except i grew up in northern michigan, the land of the finnish. saunas were a staple.

every saturday, we’d visit my grandparents for a sauna. every saturday, i’d sit huddled in a corner of the sauna, staring at the stove and hot water barrel, watching and waiting for something bad to happen. i never felt safe until i was back in the dressing room, but i could never tell anyone how scared i was.

later, my friends had saunas, and they were hard to avoid, especially since things like baking in the sauna + jumping into a freezing cold lake were supposed to be fun. i pretended they were.

in the beginning, i tried not to think about it at all. i certainly couldn’t talk about it. as time went on, i figured that it happened in the past and i certainly should be over it already. after all, it was a long time ago. after all, it could have been worse. after all, there were people starving.

then, i discovered reiki, and i started doing a reiki session for myself every night. slowly but surely, i discovered that i was not over it at all. all of the pain and fear and guilt that i had spent 25 years trying to ignore was suddenly right there, staring me in the face. it was like a gigantic knot that was tangled up with every single thing in my life.

to say that facing it wasn’t fun would be an understatement. it felt more like i was falling apart and i had no idea what to do.

i did the only thing i could do – i kept doing reiki sessions for myself. i had lots of crazy experiences during those reiki sessions. once, i felt a wave of intense heat everywhere the water hit. that was neat. i cried. a lot. (a fortunate or unfortunate side effect of this was that i now have no problem crying in public.) i had insights. it got easier to talk about it.

slowly, the knot began to unravel.

for much of the time, it really did feel like i was falling apart. however, the thing i started to notice was that every time something hurt, it would hurt for seconds, sometimes minutes, and then it would end. it felt clean, healing. afterward – always – i felt lighter, more free.

it’s been four years now. i think.

the knot is not completely unraveled. maybe it never will be.

it’s funny .. all those years, i wished that the accident had never happened. that i was me, but without the memories and the scar.

but it did happen. it’s part of me. it shaped me. and now that i am on the other side, i am profoundly grateful that it did happen. i can’t even be sorry that i spent all those years discounting the validity of my feelings. painful as the healing was (and is) at times, i learn so much about myself in the process.

in the end, it is this experience that – more than any other – taught me that whether i understand how this energy thing works or not, there is something to it.

when I say that i believe reiki works because i have seen what it has done for me, this is mostly what i am thinking about.

when we were walking through the summer palace at the alhambra, my sister teased me about my absorption in a patch of yellow flowers in the garden when to my left was a view of the alhambra. it got me thinking about the photos that i like to take.

when i am visiting somewhere new, my favorite photos are often ones that are not necessarily pictorial representations of that particular place. people who are watching me take photos will often comment that i could have taken those photos anywhere. i suppose that’s true, but when i see them, they bring back the place and the moment to me in a way that photos of the place itself often cannot.

really, i want to capture the feeling or the essence of the place. that’s what helps me remember it long after i return. that’s what helps me remember how i felt when i was there.

in the alhambra, those feelings included beauty and inspiration and awe.

a dear friend of mine moved to portland a while ago. i get to see her often, which is the loveliest thing ever. it reminds me of high school and college, when i would spend as much time as possible with my friends. of course, no matter how much time i spent with them, it was never enough.

one day, that changed, and i spent much more time on my own than i did with friends. i could blame the 8-11 hour work days, but that wasn’t entirely it.

the stories i told myself were that i was an introvert, that i liked spending time alone, that i liked spending lots of time alone, that i was fine with seeing my friends only occasionally, that i needed lots of alone time to replenish.

hahahahaha.

my pure unadulterated delight at spending all this time with my friend is making me rethink those stories. it turns out, none of them are entirely true.

the thing i realized is that i need to spend much more time connecting with people than i have ever allowed myself to admit. i need true, deep, rich connections.

it turns out that i have spent a lot of my adult life feeling lonely.

only i never realized it.

if i had realized it, i don’t know that i could have admitted it, even to myself.

it is hard for me to admit that i need other people. that need involves other people. i like things that i can accomplish on my own; they feel easier and safer.

things that involve other people make me feel vulnerable. vulnerability is scary. (scratch that. it’s bigger than scary. vulnerability is terrifying.)

the biggest reason i would never have admitted that i was lonely, even to myself, is that i was ashamed.

as if feeling (being) lonely was something to be ashamed of.

i don’t know why this is, but i suspect that it has something to do with low self-worth and the belief that loneliness is visible and self-perpetuating. as in, if i need connection, clearly i don’t deserve connection; if i deserved it, i would have it already and wouldn’t need it.

this reminds me of an episode of frasier. (i am slowly making my way through every single episode. i love that show.) in this particular episode, frasier was analyzing his relationship troubles with the help of the voices (in his head) of two ex-wives, an ex-girlfriend, and his mother. finally, he says something like, “you mean it comes down to fear of rejection?! you mean i’m alone because i’m afraid of being alone?!”

yes. something like that.

the thing i can see, in retrospect, is that if i had admitted to myself that i was lonely, maybe i would have been able to do something about it. maybe i would have made time with friends more of a priority. maybe i would have made finding kindred spirits more of a priority. maybe i would have felt the loneliness and learned that it wouldn’t devour me.

the thing i can also see, in retrospect, that if i had admitted to others that i was lonely, or that i needed/wanted connection, that it would have been a way of letting people in. letting people in is something i am not terribly good at doing. i am much better at keeping people out.

this feels like a very messy ending, but this is not the sort of thing that i can tie up with a nice neat bow.

this is a thing that is very hard for me. it is hard for me to admit. it is hard for me to work on.

it feels big and scary and messy – but it also feels important, and so i am practicing reaching out and being vulnerable.

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

when i was young – maybe in eighth grade – it was time to change or end a friendship. i didn’t know how to navigate that transition, so i just stopped speaking to that person.

i have regretted it ever since. until this week, i felt so much guilt and shame about what i did that i almost never talked about it to anyone.

right before my senior year of high school, a friend of mine stopped speaking to me. i never knew why.

it also made perfect sense. i believed i was worthless. when she stopped speaking to me, it seemed proof that i really was worthless. of course she stopped speaking to me. i wondered that she had ever been my friend at all, or that anyone else ever had.

when i talked through the two experiences with a friend, the thing that struck me is that i use what i did as proof that i am a horrible person, while i would never think that about my old friend. i hold what i did against myself and use it to beat myself up, over and over. i also use it as a way to beat myself up for having been on the other side, because clearly it was doubly deserved.

from this vantage point, i feel so much compassion for younger me. she was struggling with worthlessness and a sense of not belonging anywhere, even in her own skin. it was a very hard age. she really was doing the best she could.

i also feel so much compassion for all of us. we are all holding stories inside, feeling scared and ashamed and alone, and our stories grow bigger and bigger and bigger until they consume us.

it makes me wish that we could let things into the light a little more, where we can see that we are all doing the best we can in any given moment, that we are almost always our own worst critics, and that even in our darkness, we are never really alone.

as i was resting in child's pose on my bed in a hostel in marrakesh on the morning of my 35th birthday, one of the thoughts that crossed my mind was, "i wonder why people like me?" not in a "i wonder what it is" sort of way but in a "i can't imagine why they would" sort of way.

almost immediately, it was followed by the realization that it was actually an old thought and i don't wonder that anymore. i could see that i have a good heart and that people might like me. not that i think everyone likes me, or that i think everything about me is likable, just that i am starting to see the good in me too.

it was such a lovely thing to realize as i turned 35 that i cried a little. better late than never, i guess.

i hope you can see all the good in you.

{a photo project honoring radiance, one of my words for 2012 :: 52 photos that represent radiance, 52 photos that represent luminosity.}

today, i offer up a musing on radiance from my journal.

do i have a sense of myself as sweet and steady? not really.

i notice [redacted], wherever he is. do i have that same sense of myself? definitely not. i feel like i go unnoticed, am passed over, which would explain why i like to be funny. humor draws attention and i am afraid that people won't notice me otherwise.

i think about friends of mine – i think they would be noticed no matter what because there is something about them that stands out. you just feel better because they are there. i don't have that same sense of myself and i think i try to compensate.

that's related to radiance. what if i could trust that i was enough, and i was visible, and the right people are attracted to me. i wouldn't feel that same need to be funny. not that i might not be funny anyway, just that it wouldn't feel forced.