Monday, November 03, 2008

how does one generate emotional capital to make changes

this is what i am working on...generating emotional capital. it cannot be generated in a day or a week. it took a long time to destabilize my accounts by the choices I've made or been afraid to make and now i must recover the emotional capital to make changes in my life. i believe i can secure this emotional capital needed to move me into a space of belonging, that space where i can walk in joy, and that gives me the freedom and desire to partner out of strength. but it will take me some time, some opening of myself, risk taking and practice to lay hold of this capital and to not let it slide through my fingers because they become slick with the sweat of fear. but i believe it is in me, that the strengths is already there, i just have to relearn how to use it, to exercise it. i believe that time is not a deal breaker, but in fact allows for healing and growth both for me and those i love. each of us must do some of our own work so that we can move forward and then at the right time work with our partner aiding one other over the bumps that take more than one in this path called life.

i continue to look at the role of making, writing, mentoring and loving in my life. and looking at how to grow in the areas that have atrophied and trust the areas that are strong.

quoting from my own journey into becoming ...
I have reached that space in life where my strength of ego and self-will allow me, draw me, to take the risk of “becoming.” Becoming who I am, not that self defined by “shoulds.” Change is difficult. Self sabotage common. Yet, I am moving into that self that has been simmering below my surface for a very long time.
I am consumer, lover of stuff.
I am female, pink appeals.
I am forty-four, decay has begun.
I am visual, language challenged.
I am seeker, life teaches.
I am designer, anally fixated.
I am watcher, society astounds.
I am pattern seer, micro macro, macro micro.
I am dysfunction, I function.
I am spiritual, Christ calls.
I am tactile, let me touch it.
I am American, arrogance assumed.

This surfaced self binds together the fragments of my many selves into a unit, into a whole. And as I step into this whole/fragmented self...I find myself. Deep satisfaction. Maturation.

My should self has never known passion. My ... self has been safe. An electric current of fear courses through me as passion moves to the forefront. Art informs my design. Design informs my art. AND ALL THESE GOD USES TO INFORM AND TRANSFORM MY LIFE. I step to the edge of change and waiver there. The safe and unsafe are merging and I am becoming. (2005)

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NOT TO BE SAFE

I step to the edge of change and wavier there until my own demons pull me back. No. I choose to follow them back. I give myself over. Change is screaming to me and I know it is what I need, what I want. What I CRAVE!

Simultaneously, the lure of safe sameness calls to me, beckoning me back from the edge, yet I find that my toes curl tightly to this edge. I am stretched, torn, yet, I am not returning to the safe sameness! I will process the fear, redirect it. I am not beating my head on the same wall, or at least it looks different, feels different...is different?

What is not different are the demons. They are not new. Every time I step into/toward change, they approach me­—steal my thoughts, riveting them on old fears. I require, demand, to push through, not to give in, NOT TO BE SAFE.

I have chosen not to dream, but now they break over me in a rushing onslaught. Not the dream of sleep have I fled, but the dream of future-casting. And now I taste the dream rolling across the back of my tongue and it scares the hell out of me! (2006)

As scared as I am of my dreams and to move away from safety, I cannot allow myself to be swallowed by fear. It is no longer an option to be paralyzed by fear, it is no longer an option to allow my roots to remain thirsty, but i must also understand that within myself the cultivation of emotional capital to change requires more than a week or two and i must be willing to do the work.

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