Elevators

I have been having a hard time recently. It's not right to say that I have felt disconnected, but I haven't been feeling quite right. Definitely more right than before I went to Hoffman, but now I am having a hard time reconciling that. I know I have said that before, but I wanted to say it again, because it is important you remember that for understanding my day.

Good news! I woke up at 7 AM today. SEVEN AM! I almost find it sad that that is exciting to me. But it was just so civilized. And I felt so rested. I haven't slept that well in a very long time. I was almost still full from the night before, eating that much hot pot. It took me about an hour and a half to convince myself that I should go out and get breakfast. There was no cold soy milk at that point. Really. This is getting ridiculous.

I regret to say that when I called my mother today, I slipped back into all of my old patterns. Instantly. My excuse is that I was still half asleep, and still hadn't eaten breakfast. I get a little cranky in the morning, and a lot cranky when I am hungry. You have been warned. I felt so bad for snapping at her, and getting back into all of my old habits, that after I had showered and eaten, we did a redo. I called her again, and it was so much better. Awareness is the first step, right? I felt a lot better after the second time I called her. She is in La Paz right now. Tough life right? I wouldn't mind spending a week on the beach. I"m going to sound like a girl, but I really do have the most horrendous tan lines right now. From mid thigh to mid chest is completely white, while the rest is brown. What am I supposed to do about that?

One of the friends that I had met here, Jan, texted me to see if I wanted to get breakfast, so I met up with him and one other person, Bo, to get some food. We wandered around looking for a specific kind of food (unsuccessfully) before finally ending up at a Starbucks. We figured, the program hasn't started yet, we can still eat Western food. Who is going to know. Then all I wanted to do was go back to my room, so I did. I had phone calls to make.

I hung around my room for a while, trying to decide what to do, because I was not feeling so steady, when I finally got to talk to one of my Hoffman friends that I have been trying to connect with for a while. It helped get me much more centered. And it felt so good to talk to someone who went through the same thing as I did. If anybody from Hoffman is reading this, I miss you a lot. I wish that I could see you all again.

After getting off the phone, I realized (with a little bit of help, obviously) that I needed to get my shit together. So I did an elevator. And wrote down five more that I wanted to do. It really is a tough business. I did the elevator, went down three times, and wrote each one down. (For those of you who don't know what elevators are, they are ways of finding out what negative patterns are getting in the way of you doing something. That probably sounds like complete gobbly gook, but trust me when I say that it works.) I felt a lot more stable, and relaxed after I did the elevator. A LOT more stable. It was amazing.

I then made the terrible decision to go to Starbucks to get a cup of tea, and analyze the patterns that had come up in my elevator. Bad mistake. Why? Because I was so elated by the success of my elevator, and feeling so stable and centered and happy, that the overwhelming noise and bustle of Starbucks scared me out of my wits. It was loud and abrasive. I drank my tea as fast as possible, and after writing down all of the patterns I had seen, I left, and fled back to my room. I just wanted to be away from people, and just bask in the feeling that I had gotten back, that I really haven't had since I left Hoffman. I realized again that all the things I have been doing are just patterns, and I have control of them. So I recycled those buggers.

I wasn't hungry for dinner (the humidity seems to have robbed me of my appetite) so I skipped dinner, even though someone was kind enough to invite me out so I could meet more people. But I wanted to lay low, and for once, I didn't feel guilty for doing it. I was in bed before 10. So very very civilized.