Letting Id All Hang Out

Ah, yes.. the id.  That Freudian psychoanalytic term for the part of our personality made up of unconscious energy existing to satisfy all our basic urges, needs, and desires.  We all know that feeling when the id takes over and is pushing us with its need for immediate gratification.  I pride myself, of course, on my discipline and on my control (well, most of the time) on all these what-I-deem-to-be-petty desires.

So now, since my last writing, the Universe has been bombarding me (shall I reframe it as "gifting" instead?)  with messages about "Getting Naked," "Spiritual Marketing Quests," "Becoming Tribal," and even "Niching on Steroids."  Since, as you know, I look at things in terms of themes, I began wondering what the freak the Universe was trying to tell me here.  

Are the gurus suggesting I give in to my desires and passions and just follow my heart?  And all this talk about fun!  Where's the refinement - the discipline - in that?  This was bringing up a lot of stuff for me cause, you know, people should act in a dignified and mature way, and I'm really not liking this seeming suggestion to let go of all that.

Because these days, fewer people ask to see me naked, I knew that I had to go deeper than a literal understanding of what this primitive call of the wild was wanting from me.  The Universe definitely does not want to see me naked in a physical sense of the word.  So I keep searching.

What I did come to "see," though, was the common theme running through all these messages: the theme that, in fact, does have to do with the "Real Me."  And with the real work I'm supposed to bring into the Universe.  I'm even gonna go out on a limb and say that we will come to understand that this is what all of our work is about during these times.

And the theme is so simple and true...

Authenticity.  Being naked in an emotional, vulnerable way.  Finding the truth and sharing it so that others can actually see who I really am.  Me, exactly as I am.  

Which brings me back to the id of all this.  

I grew up during the 60s and early 70s in Miami, so I was born around the aura of Woodstock and flower power.  Although my parents were not hippies (I have, though, been told that I'm hippy), many of my friends' parents were, and I was raised on sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll (not in that order).  I have brought into my adult life many less-than-mainstream views on the world, including an organic lifestyle, homebirthing and attachment-parenting, healing through herbs and homeopathy, and some unorthodox spiritual understandings.

That's being authentic, right?  I live in a conscious way, and I encourage others to do the same.  I strive for unity in the Universe, equality among people... with liberty and justice for all.

So, is this current push for authenticity merely a continuation of that same thread initially woven during the 60s hippie movement, or is it something new?

Which takes us now to Burning Man.  For those who have never experienced Burning Man, and I am included in this group, it seems that Burning Man cannot really be described.  Burning Man has to be experienced.  

But what I have read about Burning Man so far has fascinated me.  

As far as I can tell, the purpose of Burning Man is to bring people together with the goal being that they participate together in various projects, groups, and experiences.  A theme (there's the theme-thing again) is given to each Burning Man Party in order to "encourage a common bond to help tie each individual's contribution together in a meaningful way." 

Are you kidding me with this!!!??? 

Now, I'm not bashing Woodstock or anything of the sort.  That would just be sacrilege.

But Woodstock is clearly no Burning Man.  Undoubtedly, Woodstock was a world-changing, consciousness-raising event with a peace-loving vibe, but the fact that it wound up becoming that was purely chance.  Woodstock was unbridled id that just "happened" to come together in a serendipitous way. 

Burning Man, on the other hand, is "designed" with a purpose.  Rules exist at Burning Man such as "respect the recipient of your gifting."  Basically, don't give somebody something they don't want but, YES, do work together, and participate, and be in project together, and honor each other.  Meet each others' needs.

Collaborate.  Let id all hang out, but have a purpose in mind.

Versus letting id all hang out just for the sake of letting id all hang out.

And that's what these primitive people - the socially conscious entrepreneurs - of today mean when they speak about authenticity.  They share their ideas without fear that someone will steal them.  They're sharing themselves in a real, authentic way in order to GIVE OTHERS WHAT THEY WANT.  In order to collaborate and share with a purpose.

In my work with couples, I try to get them to understand that if they're both giving the other exactly what the other wants, then their individual needs will always be met. 

So, the idea of these people being gifted to me is so right-on and groovy.  These people sent into my orbit with their primitive messages... well, they're just so bloody authentic, so unexpectedly generous, so excruciatingly painfully beautifully REAL that I am literally brought to tears.  

They inspire me to give of myself in the same real and authentic way.  

They inspire me to let id all hang out.  With a purpose.  

Throw a Wrench in It!

Everything in my life happens in themes.  I have learned over the years to simply step aside and see what themes emerge.  Although I've received training in a number of therapeutic orientations - including psychodynamic, behavioral, and humanistic - I can't help but conceptualize what my clients are telling me as themes or threads that run like an undercurrent through their lives. It's how I roll.

The most current theme present in my life is that of homeostasis.  Big snooze, right?  But if you can look past the name, homeostasis, (assuming you're not also getting off (like I am!) on the feel of the word airily flowing across your palate, the idea of homeostasis can be applied anywhere and everywhere that you're...

Stuck!

So, my boyfriend is going through some major changes in his life right now (FYI, I receive no permission from Boyfriend or family members to use them as examples of dysfunction; they're all potential "material").  He and I are actually experiencing major synchronicity as we both attempt to find new ways of "being" in new business ventures - and in the world of social media.  If it's even possible for one to be newer to social media than I, he's been on Twitter for about 2 seconds, compared to the 5 seconds I've been on so I, once again, give myself permission to observe and comment.

For those of you who have followed this blog until now, you know that I've struggled (and continue to struggle) with how to communicate my identity to my "peeps" Over the past month and through a lot of difficult work on my personal growth in order to free myself up for a new way of doing business, I have come face-to-face with moments of struggle where I catch myself doing business-as-usual and giving in to the gravity-like pull of homeostasis. 

Boyfriend has been struggling with a particular form of homeostasis, of which I, too, am guilty:

Business As Competition (BAC), as in ass-BACkwards. 

We all want to win.  What we're "winning" I have not a clue.  But we want to win nonetheless.  We've been socialized to think this is a natural way to relate, communicate, run businesses.  

Here's a snippet of this morning's conversation with Boyfriend after he asked me (ME!) some Twitter advice about whether or not he should "follow" someone who does the same line of work as he does:

ME:  You should follow him.  He's in the same industry, and he'll most likely follow you back cause he has a good follower ratio.  (please don't judge me...)

BOYFRIEND:  But he's my COMPETITION, and he has a similar product, and we'll be selling to the same market.

ME:  So you'll both be working together to educate the market, and some people will want your product and some people might want his product, but together you'll be increasing the number of total people interested in the product - and that's a good thing!

And then it hit me.  It's that thing again.  The thing that keeps Boyfriend, me, my clients, my kids, families, friends, businesses, society... STUCK is nothing other than fear of not having enough.  There's not enough money, clients, love, affection, attention, time.  Fill in your own blank.

We see the world as a finite vessel with a finite amount of things we want and need.  We operate from a place of scarcity instead of abundance.  And it's gonna take a big wrench (or a lot of small wrenches working together) to throw a wrench in the proverbial machine and break free from fear of scarcity and lack.

Henceforth, I will choose to see abundance, and I am going to align myself only with those who also make this choice...

Many of us think of homeostasis as balance, equilibrium, stability, constancy... but I'm referring to the homeostasis of business-as-usual, status-quo, stagnation, paralysis.  When my psychologist hat is on, the people I'm working with need me to see their homeostasis, point it out to them, and throw a wrench in it.

In essence, I am a homeostasis wrecker.

But the thing with homeostasis is, even when the old way of doing things is screwing everything up, its pull is so insidious, that a wrench thrown in on anything less than a consistent basis is simply not enough to cause a lasting, real change.  We must consistently and constantly call-out that place in ourselves where the fear lives - and make a conscious choice to change... over and over again.

A lasting change comes from work that lasts a lifetime.

And as I go through this process of defining, developing, and refining my online identity, I'm really liking the "Real Me" I'm getting in touch with.

So, I must leave you now to go happily "follow" a bunch of people who do exactly what I do, so that we can strengthen our collective message and throw our wrenches into the world.

Bye for now.

4: Hitting the Twitter Motherlode

Tick.  Tick.  Tick.  Tick..

I passed the 100-follower mark on Twitter today.  To those of you reading this who have gazillions of followers: before you scoff and say "whoopdee-effingdoo," please know that, based on nothing rational whatsoever, this is an important milestone for me.

So is the writing of this blog.  Although this blog has virtually nothing to do with my current or (most likely) future direction of my online identity, I somehow "know" that this is a positive step for me.  Yes, those who have the pleasure of living with me might say this is just another one of my varied excuses for avoiding doing laundry or some other domestic duty, but this is different somehow.  I am committed to this process.  And I'm getting "something" out of engaging in these activities.   What, exactly?  I don't know..  But I do know there's a method to the seeming madness.

Now, here's what happens...  I'm going about my business and my life, and I'm enjoying just being in the process of exploration, because the process of exploration is the very work I need to be doing right now.  (Are you still with me?)

And this exploration process for me does include being mindful.  Being aware of what I'm doing and where I'm heading.

While these Twitter and blogging activities might, from the outside, seem like the mindless tapping of Pavlovian levers (in order to hit the Twitter motherlode of followers!), I'm not just going through this for the sake of going through this - just to feel some sort of pleasure.  I'm going through this IN THIS WAY because this is the way that I'm going to get where I want to go.

Now enter the naysayers, the doubters, the fear-mongers, the dream-dashers...  My family and friends.

I tell them what I'm doing and the steps I'm taking to develop a real foundation for my new business concept, as well as the developing concept of the "Real Me."  I tell them about the profound shifts that have taken place in the way I think about my unique offering in the world (thank you for channeling MoneyMap, Alexis Neely!).  I tell them (very logically, I might add) about the concrete steps that I need to take in order to actualize my work.

And you know what they say to me?

They ask things like, "How are you monetizing this?" and "Don't you think you should have something in place already?"  They say things like, "The program you're doing sounds like an MLM" (to which I say WTF, but with the great, big words instead of the acronym), or "I don't understand why you're not making money by week 3," or my favorite, "I can't believe you think that being on Twitter is going to make you money."

I explain my thoughts to them at this time.  I tell them I understand that Twitter itself won't make me money.  I set forth my plan of concept, model, product, website, marketing.

But something about what I'm doing - and the way I'm doing it - brings up A LOT of "stuff" for them.  And because they "love me," they now get to comment on how misguided I am, and how I've made mistakes in the past and, since they are successful because what happened to me in the past never happened to them, they KNOW what I need to do, and... it's not what I'm doing.  I'm doing it wrong.

It gets ugly at this point for them.  They have not a clue how ugly it really is for them, because it's still pretty much relegated to that very primitive reptilian part of my brain, but it's very dark for them there.

I don't get angry at them, though.  I try not to, anyway.  I know their reactions are really about them and not me.  I know they're really not thinking I'm a very big A-hole (well, maybe for other things, but not this).

I understand their reaction because it's the same thing that happens when my clients start changing through therapy.   Or when people start really losing weight.  Or when people are on the precipice of any kind of success.  This scares the eff out of the people who truly love them.

Because maybe if I change, they wonder.. even if it's for the better, maybe I won't need them anymore.  And though this does may seem to relate to their love for me, I know that it stems more from fear.

What if she doesn't need me anymore?  What if she becomes so successful that she goes and finds someone "better" to be her friend, partner, lover?

So I let them know that I would much rather love and feel gratitude for them in my life - than need them.  Need is based on the fear of not having, the fear of loss.  The love and gratitude I'm talking about is based on.. well, exactly that!  Love and gratitude.

This is why this Twittering, blogging process I'm in is so important.  It's helping to keep me mindful and aware of how I'm moving through this next stage of success in my life.  It's also keeping me centered in truly becoming intimate with myself and, through this intimacy, become evermore grounded in the "Real Me."

What all this centering and grounding and introspection and identity ultimately and practically will mean to the bottom-line of a business currently in its embryonic stages, I do not know.  All I know right now is that I love and feel grateful for this gathering-of-followers, tweeting-of-tweets, and writing-of-blogs.

One thing's for sure.  My Twitter followers don't need me to be mediocre.  In fact, they won't follow me if I'm doing things half-assed.  They're certainly not afraid of losing me...  They don't need me.

Maybe that's why that strike on the Twitter Ticker is so meaningful?  It means that I'm wanted.  And you gotta be doing something right for that to happen.

 Bring on the Twitter motherlode! 

Movement 3 in Blog Minor

Question:  What is a Movement?

Answer:  A Movement is a self-contained work separated by silence within a larger work.  Usually, each Movement is distinguishable by its tempo, key, rhythmical patterns, and harmonization. 

I had begun writing this blog thinking that I would use "Days" to mark time in my foray into the social media world, and these Days would move in a temporal, forward fashion.  In my mind, I would progress from one Day to the next in a linear way: having achieved that previous progress from the prior Day, then building upon that day, in a step-wise pattern.

Logical.  Easy.  I got this.

Here I was thinking that this whole process of creating an online identity is formulaic.  Really, what's the big deal here?  I just have to figure out the "trick," the pattern, to doing this social media stuff.  No worries, mon...  Just get a whole bunch of people to follow me on Twitter; get my LinkedIn account up and running; write a blog that a whole bunch of my now-large and ever-increasing number of Twitter followers will read and turn their followers on to, and their followers will then become my followers, who will love me so much they want to connect with me; set-up a really cool website that my followers... (at this point, I'm calling them "my" peeps) ... that my peeps will want to use for valuable, yet unidentified and undefined services that will change their lives; and through all this and some other (unidentified and undefined) stuff I'll do as part of my new-found flow, I will wind up living a cohesive, harmonious, passionate life, doing only the work I love to do, while attracting health and wealth like nobody's business, both literally and figuratively.

AND, through this process of figuring out the formula for developing my successful online identity, I'll find out what I'm really about - the "Real Me" - which will further perpetuate a positive spiral of change, which positive spiral will further perpetuate a positive spiral of change, ad infinitum.  And I'll be there!  Right where I want to be!

But, sadly... no.  As I write this, my stomach hurts (not a reference to today's "Movement").  I feel a tightness in my chest.  I haven't been sleeping well over the past few days.  In that state between wakefulness and sleep, visions of Twitterdom dance in my head - and not in a magical way.  I am feeling stuck in the process.  Without movement.  I've even allowed seepage of thoughts of backward movement to enter my consciousness.  I got no groove.

What does this mean about me?  My value?  My work?  My contribution?  My purpose?

Silence.

If a Movement is a self-contained work separated by silence within a larger work, I'm in that space between.

And you know what I just realized as a Truth about me?  That, although I'm extremely uncomfortable with not knowing the answers to the questions here (any questions, really), and I don't like being in that space between, where I don't know exactly where I'm headed, I am not afraid.

I know everything's going to be okay.

When you think about it: isn't the silence, then, just as much a part of the Movement as the sound?

Isn't the silence just as critical as the sound?

I know exactly where I am now.  I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be.

I'm in the Movement.