Qigong AF - Days 13, 14, and 15
Chris, seriously, why do you gotta make a girl cry?
I just finished day 15 - yes half way!!! - and I freakin cried during the practice. Why did I cry, you ask? Well because Chris Shelton made me, that's why!
Today's practice was centered on the "Heart Healing Sound", AKA "Haaa." The deal was that you call up some kind of upset or trauma from your past and then you breathe.
Yeah, I know. That NEVER turns out well!
Here's some math for you:
Feelings + Breathing = More Goddamned Feelings = Tears
So, there I was remembering my most recent slight - being rejected by employers YET AGAIN - and I started to freakin cry. I mean, the job probably wasn't right for me anyway, but I'm getting so sick of being rejected! I am a freakin awesome person with good brains and a nice ass. Why can't anyone see that?
Every time I get rejected for a job, I question whether I'm on the right track or not. I mean, I never, ever, once as a child imagined that I would be anything other than a singer - an opera singer to be exact. And never did I ever consider the possibility of become an administrative cog either.
The point is, that I keep feeling like I missed my calling in a major way and I don't know how to get back on track, especially as my body slowly loses it's fight with gravity and the world begins to make me invisible because I'm a woman entering middle-age.
What I REALLY want to do is something far more inspired and creative than working in an office cubicle five days a week. Now, admittedly, I've so far managed to avoid ever having a job ala The Office, so I do have that going for me. Unfortunately, I still haven't figured out quite how to do what I really, really, really, REALLY want to do without the noise of other work getting in the way. What I would like is to be a fully paid, multi-disciplined artist/housewife/coach/performance workshop teacher/crazy tea lady... or something like that. That would be pure magic. Is that too much to ask for?
And dangnabit! America told me it was my birthright to be "whatever I want to be!" America told me to "live the dream" to "not give up" that "if I try hard enough, I'll get rewarded."
OMG, if I hear another "I made millions of dollars selling dreams on the Internet and you can too!," I will take a bat to my dying iMac and smash it into the next century!
Seriously America, will you shut up already? Not everybody has it in them to be the next top model or scam artist or schmoozer or whatever you want to call it. You know that your words are a Titanic-sized, earth-mover full of horse shit. You are the biggest liar I have ever met and I don't believe you anymore, so there!
Wow... so that's me having a little tantrum all over the page... just pretend that didn't happen...
But seriously, this job search makes me a little crazy and it's obviously triggering and not very good for my delicate heart qi.
The truth is that when I was a lot younger, I was very talented (aaand I'm still talented, obvs) and I was on track to BE the opera singer of my dreams.
My beautiful dream was bolstered by well-meaning teachers, mentors, my parents..., by the fluffy lies of the American-dream narrative, and by my own naivety. I did give it a good go, but I couldn't cut it. Not because I wasn't good enough, but because I was heartbroken.
Because I didn't have good life skills.
Because I was distracted
Because I was weak.
I became a lost girl on the road to operatic tragedy... I never even made it there.
The dissolution of my dream was the worst kind of heartbreak and being already heartbroken, I became a mere shell. In a stupor (mostly from booze), I stumbled through my 20s trying to find my True North again, but come it would not. At least not in the shining light, V-day, liberating sort of way I was expecting. This made me feel like an utter failure at every turn.
It took a host of operatic level tragedies during my early 30s - unfortunately, none of which happened on a stage - to knock me back into myself. These trials helped me start to see the progress I'd made in my 20s towards rediscovering myself and my dreams, but now I was under a heavy blanket of PTSD and I had to claw my way out of the hole I'd fallen into and try to get back to where I'd started.
Shittonnes of counseling later, I'm here, edging painfully close to 40, trying to find a job that my heart qi isn't 100% sure it wants, because I want the thing that will make me happy, the thing that I'm called to do. Because, I'm tired of being a shell.
I'm tired of being lost.
I'm tired of being distracted.
I'm tired of being weak.
And I'm goddamned tired of chasing a dream in a world that says I can have it all, but doesn't want to pay for the beautiful, soul-healing art that people make - except where it is sanctioned, where it is staid, except where it is an extravagant distraction created by the famous.
I'm tired, yet I can't seem to give up on the dream.
Damn, America, that's some fine crack you've served me over the years! Like a junkie, I am constantly jonesing for my fix of dream-seeking. There's always a, "What if I pursued this idea? Or... what about that one?". I tell myself to be rational, to go for the secure thing... a J.O.B. with benefits and all that fancy stuff - I mean, I do have a child to care for and all. How selfish is it for me to want to pursue my silly, pie-in-the-sky, artsy-fartsy dreams?
Besides, artsy-fartsy dreams betray you, they break your heart...
Look at me - I get rejected by a job and my heart qi goes all wonky, Chris Shelton makes me cry, and next thing you know I'm having yet another existential crisis.
I can't tell if the constant job rejections are a message from the Universe that I am not on the right track. I can't tell if what I should really be doing is finding a way, SOME way to answer the calling of my heart for once - this time with better life skills, more strength, and better focus. What if these rejections are a story telling me to get creative, dig my heels in, and do whatever it takes to become that crazy tea lady/multi-disciplined artist/housewife and get paid for it? What if America isn't completely a lying bitch and I can be anything I want to be? Should I really keep drinking that Kool-aid?
It's hard though...
I do not have youth in my corner anymore. I do not have a straight-forward work history of 9-5s and water cooler gossip and Sysiphusian latter climbing which led to a healthy stock portfolio that can fund my dreams. I do not have an abundance of time that is my own anymore. I do not have a plethora of resources which would make entrepreneurial ventures more adventurous journies and less masochistic pilgrimages. I own a car that is worth under $1000. That is the ONLY thing of value that I own. I don't get child support. My parents and family are tired of my "hair-brained" ideas and just want me to get a fucking job already.
Whatever way you hash it, I do need some kind of job, some way to bring home the bacon. I just wish my sweet, sweet, baby heart qi could get behind one way or the other so that I can get me some dead presidents already.
PS: Day 14 made me feel like a giant.
I just finished day 15 - yes half way!!! - and I freakin cried during the practice. Why did I cry, you ask? Well because Chris Shelton made me, that's why!
Today's practice was centered on the "Heart Healing Sound", AKA "Haaa." The deal was that you call up some kind of upset or trauma from your past and then you breathe.
Yeah, I know. That NEVER turns out well!
Here's some math for you:
Feelings + Breathing = More Goddamned Feelings = Tears
 |
| Don't you love crying? I know I do. Especially when you leak eye color. It looks so cool! |
Every time I get rejected for a job, I question whether I'm on the right track or not. I mean, I never, ever, once as a child imagined that I would be anything other than a singer - an opera singer to be exact. And never did I ever consider the possibility of become an administrative cog either.
The point is, that I keep feeling like I missed my calling in a major way and I don't know how to get back on track, especially as my body slowly loses it's fight with gravity and the world begins to make me invisible because I'm a woman entering middle-age.
 |
| "Get back in the corner because I'm almost 40? Oh, hell no! It's you who needs to get in the corner, honey!" |
 |
| "I'm artsy AF. Can I just get paid already?" |
OMG, if I hear another "I made millions of dollars selling dreams on the Internet and you can too!," I will take a bat to my dying iMac and smash it into the next century!
Seriously America, will you shut up already? Not everybody has it in them to be the next top model or scam artist or schmoozer or whatever you want to call it. You know that your words are a Titanic-sized, earth-mover full of horse shit. You are the biggest liar I have ever met and I don't believe you anymore, so there!
Wow... so that's me having a little tantrum all over the page... just pretend that didn't happen...
But seriously, this job search makes me a little crazy and it's obviously triggering and not very good for my delicate heart qi.
 |
| My heart qi is all brown, dried up, broken, and it is apparently a leaf. |
My beautiful dream was bolstered by well-meaning teachers, mentors, my parents..., by the fluffy lies of the American-dream narrative, and by my own naivety. I did give it a good go, but I couldn't cut it. Not because I wasn't good enough, but because I was heartbroken.
Because I didn't have good life skills.
Because I was distracted
Because I was weak.
I became a lost girl on the road to operatic tragedy... I never even made it there.
 |
| "Shit! I forgot the roadmap to success! But I do have this map to failure... I wonder where that will take me..." |
It took a host of operatic level tragedies during my early 30s - unfortunately, none of which happened on a stage - to knock me back into myself. These trials helped me start to see the progress I'd made in my 20s towards rediscovering myself and my dreams, but now I was under a heavy blanket of PTSD and I had to claw my way out of the hole I'd fallen into and try to get back to where I'd started.
Shittonnes of counseling later, I'm here, edging painfully close to 40, trying to find a job that my heart qi isn't 100% sure it wants, because I want the thing that will make me happy, the thing that I'm called to do. Because, I'm tired of being a shell.
I'm tired of being lost.
I'm tired of being distracted.
I'm tired of being weak.
And I'm goddamned tired of chasing a dream in a world that says I can have it all, but doesn't want to pay for the beautiful, soul-healing art that people make - except where it is sanctioned, where it is staid, except where it is an extravagant distraction created by the famous.
I'm tired, yet I can't seem to give up on the dream.
 |
| The dream is my opiate. (Source: Wikipedia) |
Besides, artsy-fartsy dreams betray you, they break your heart...
Look at me - I get rejected by a job and my heart qi goes all wonky, Chris Shelton makes me cry, and next thing you know I'm having yet another existential crisis.
I can't tell if the constant job rejections are a message from the Universe that I am not on the right track. I can't tell if what I should really be doing is finding a way, SOME way to answer the calling of my heart for once - this time with better life skills, more strength, and better focus. What if these rejections are a story telling me to get creative, dig my heels in, and do whatever it takes to become that crazy tea lady/multi-disciplined artist/housewife and get paid for it? What if America isn't completely a lying bitch and I can be anything I want to be? Should I really keep drinking that Kool-aid?
 |
| "Hahahaha! What did you put in this mom?" (Source: a4gpa) |
I do not have youth in my corner anymore. I do not have a straight-forward work history of 9-5s and water cooler gossip and Sysiphusian latter climbing which led to a healthy stock portfolio that can fund my dreams. I do not have an abundance of time that is my own anymore. I do not have a plethora of resources which would make entrepreneurial ventures more adventurous journies and less masochistic pilgrimages. I own a car that is worth under $1000. That is the ONLY thing of value that I own. I don't get child support. My parents and family are tired of my "hair-brained" ideas and just want me to get a fucking job already.
Whatever way you hash it, I do need some kind of job, some way to bring home the bacon. I just wish my sweet, sweet, baby heart qi could get behind one way or the other so that I can get me some dead presidents already.
PS: Day 14 made me feel like a giant.
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