Trust & An Orange Lantern Box

I never used to trust myself.  It sounds funny to admit or to write, yet it is true.  I morphed through the world, through time and space, understanding my impressionable self, predominantly in how other's viewed me. The reason I write about this, is because so many of us can relate to trying to fit a mold or carrying our hearts in a way that will please on lookers.  From an early age, we want to please mom or dad, friend or even foe.  How would we know differently than to please?  My parents are two wonderful hardworking people who I adore, they did a great job raising me yet still they taught me more often than not to say "yes."  I will most likely teach my children when I have them to say "yes."  Yet as I have grown up and as I near thirty, I learn more and more that it is more than ok to say no.  No is a tricky word but it's not nearly as sticky and damaging as yes.  The reason why I bring all of this up is because my inner trust became skewed as I was trying to keep everyone else happy and much of that resulted from not being able to say no and in that assert my personal needs.  There are patterns that carry from generation to generation.  Most often you can do something about them, you can be the one that takes the tide and carries it in a new and healthy cycle, you can be Poseidon reversing the roar of waves across the world.  People see me and will always see me as only they can.  It's wonderful and my ego loves to hear from a dear friend that I am passionate, yet another finds me quite genuine and still another thinks I deal more on the end of slightly superficial and hopes I don't mind hearing that they like my hair better chin length.  Who wouldn't want to be told that they are genuine?  The problem for me is that in the mix of taking both compliment and comment, I have a pattern of losing my own direction and misunderstanding my self in all the mumbo jumbo.  And folks, that is truly what it all is, both good and bad, it's mumbo jumbo.  At the end of the day, you need to do what you want to do for yourself.  At the end of the day, the repercussions and the rewards are in your court and it makes every repercussion more painful and poignant and every reward that much better - they are yours.  I have finally turned in my people-pleasing badge and I am ready to journey in new shoes.  I am sure that initially my ego will resist, but after awhile even the ego becomes a waterfall and moves with the new cycle.

The truth is, nobody is in your head and in your heart.  Nobody.  You may feel close to a parent, a best friend, a mentor and many times feel like they know your fingerprint better than you yourself know it, but that is not truth.  

It reminds me of the orange lantern in my home.  When I first saw it I wanted it so bad and I took friends to see it and get their advice.  They all laughed and thought I was funny for loving it as much as I did and some put in their two cents about the fact that I should get a round floral lantern for my new and feminine home.  I was so set on the orange lantern box shape and that was in truth the one I wanted.  When I would visit the store, time and time again the sales woman would say to me "that's the one you love" and I would somehow find a way to defend why I was now looking at the round floral lantern.  "I can understand what they mean, if you saw my place you would see the orange one doesn't fit" I would say to her.  Yet, on a rainy spring day I returned to purchase one orange lantern box and indeed all of my friends are right, it does not match any other item I own and it is definitely not the most beautiful of the lanterns, but it's what I wanted, it's the one that I loved and it's perfect for me and perfect for my home.