I find that there are few experiences more daunting (my word of the week), more frustrating and more liberating than realizing that I am the only one who can stop me from doing what I’m here to do.

I am the dark keeping the lid on the box.

I am the dark denying the light.

I am the dark behind eyelids I refuse to open.

I have the awareness and the ability to see through the Matrix and action will ensure that I will never be stuck in this place in quite this way ever again. Right now what stands between where I am right now and where I want to be is habit.

What stands between where I am and where I want to be is my Matrix – the file that automatically opens when I open my eyes every morning. My Matrix is my default. It isn’t the truth. It isn’t real.

My Matrix is a culmination of what people who mattered to me have told me over the years. It is what has come out of my processing of that information. Mostly old stuff that is nearly impossible to separate; a skin, while not mine has been covering me for so long that I am numb to it’s extra presence.

It is only mine if I accept and agree. Only if I agree to remain in the dark; to keep the dark around me like a blanket.

So I don’t agree, I rebel. No problem. “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know.”

My devil. My Matrix. My blanket, worn and familiar. The dark that prevents me from seeing through to what is on the other side of my habitual way of seeing myself.

To be clear, this is not my dark side. I’m well-acquainted with my dark side. She’s tough and outspoken with a penchant for scathing sarcasm and breaking door frames. I have come to accept and respect her. With acceptance and respect she becomes the courage to speak my heart; to be honest and open. She gives me the wherewithal to endure loss, insult, proactive lack of support and the stomach-dropping sensation of stepping off the cliff into an unknown.

This dark is not a balance of the light. It is an obstacle. It stands in the way of the light. For me, it is not affirmations that pop little holes in the blanket. It is a two-part process: Doing then Being. Every step forward that is not pulled by the past. Every follow through – no matter how small. Even if that practically invisible follow through is only for myself. It is enough to thin the fabric; to scratch the Matrix thinner. What finally allows a sliver of light is Being. In Being I acknowledge my accomplishment, and spend the time it takes for it to be written in permanent marker. When the light begins to shine through, it is sensations of appreciation and gratitude that I am gifted in Being.

Without the moment of basking; of acknowledging I move through my life without full awareness of what I am capable of. Something like taking a test at school to go from one grade into the next, but not looking at the results.

Appreciation and gratitude, for me, are swells of emotion and sensation; of softening that allow for expansion.                    A softening; yielding for growth and increase – not of pride but of love.

Without the acknowledgment and the love every accomplishment will be hollow. I will never be satisfied. I will never have enough. I will never be enough. This is where I have been. Restless. Unfulfilled. Holding myself prisoner. Chained to under-accomplishment. Tethered to disappointment.

Letting the light in is uncomfortable. For me. Like wearing clothes that are too small. And what’s with the guilt?

By letting the light in I’m flying in the face of how some who mattered to me defined me. I’m saying that they were wrong. I’m saying that my opinion of myself is more important then theirs. Who am I to be defiant – for myself? Not a little convoluted.

Like any behavior that is breaking habits in order to create significant change, this requires moment to moment attention. Awareness. Not reminders of how wonderful I am. Reminders that not taking action every day – procrastination (my “substance” of choice)- provides thread with which to reinforce the blanket.

If procrastination is the poison, awareness is the antidote.

Awareness sends up flags that it’s time to re-commit. Not only to remember to replace habitual thoughts and behavior.

The commitment – to myself and the gift that is my life.                                                                                                                 A commitment that will ripple out to my children and the world around me.

Commitment fueled by rebellion.

And love for life.

What else is there, but life?

And the only one I have is mine.

Here comes the sun