One Pill Makes You Larger and One Pill Makes You Small

I'm still here, in Wonderland, and wrestling with my muchness or lack of it.  My main fear in taking this journey is that I'll stumble.  Revert to type.  Fail.  Become smaller inside.  Alice needed to be small at times on her way to muchness, but it wasn't her best look.  At least with the tall pill, she was powerful.  But either way, it's a choice, you might say, and normally I would agree.  But choices are the elephant in the room.  The bigger they are the more you want to ignore them.  The more you want to switch rooms.  Did I say that I'm good at ignoring.  A master, in fact, but I want to be good at something else now.  I want to be good at being me.  I want to be great at it.  So I'm still in Wonderland where I'm in a contest with myself.  I'm here to be fooled by the expected and genuinely surprised by the unexpected.  Then, and only then, can I win this game.  Move this mountain.  Pluck this star.

The first week began with such promise, but turned into a ferris wheel of emotional highs and lows.  It was a win some, lose some week, but I didn't feel like I was winning anything.  Initially, I was so excited about the idea of tools that could fix me.  I enthrusiastically outlined my life prioirties to the coach so well that I received a gold star.  No problem there.  I've carried those priorities around with me so long they are now physcially attached.  But the real goal is to move those priorities forward, my Life Coach tells me, and that requires working on those priorities every day.  Not every other day, but every day.  Good days and bad, light and dark days.  Are you kidding me, was my response when the Life Coach unveiled her secret weapon.  But there was no escape clause in this contract.  No exit either.  It was an all or nothing game, and I was already in play.  Already committed.
  
But for how long?  Anything that smacks of routine is the killing blow for me, unless it involves teeth, hair, makeup, or hot showers.  But I soon found a loophole.  An upside to the down.  It is all about taking those prioirites and cutting them into smaller pieces.  Beginning small and building up.  Even when you get your groove on and able to put some solid time toward your goals, on busy days, instead of ignoring them completely, give them ten minutes or five.  It's the psychological that needs to know you are seriously putting in an effort.  I'm still working this number, but it feels right.  The earth isn't moving but I'm beginning to feel closer to the process and not like an intruder.

So, on the second week, I turned a corner. Granted, it was on a short block, but still, it was a corner. My inner priorities were raising their hands for attention, and I was getting a little excited at their enthusiasm.  And it was all happening because I kept going through the motions, kept following the Life Coach Map even when I felt like it wasn't taking me where I needed to go.  And because I did, the Universe and my Life Coach began working in tandem and giving me tools, yes, I said tools, to move forward. 

The tool, in this case,  is a challenge of sorts with a measurable result and a 30-day deadline.  And do I have the perfect priority for this task?  I do.  My manuscript needs an ending.  I've been walking around it for a few weeks hoping the ending would come to me in a dream, but so far, my dreams have been silent and my muse wasn't much help either.  So, the challenge is a perfect opportunity at the  perfect time to move the story forward.  That's  my higher self speaking now.  My shadow side is totally against the idea. 

I need to clarify a point here.  I'm being way more positive about this new situation than that I'm currently feeling.  I realize that I have miles to go to complete this task and the outcome is not at all certain.  The finish line is still as foggy as ever, and I have a rolling lump where my stomach used to be, but it's all good.  I feel it's my next step and am willing to fall on my butt a few times and even, dare I say it, fail in my pursuit of an ending.  After all, pain is good.  Well, no, it's not, but it's not forever and something will be waiting at the finish line, and I'm that curious to find out what it will be.  Still can't see my muchness, but I'm keeping the faith.

Discovering the Rabbit Hole

In the movie ALICE, the heroine falls down a rabbit hole to escape an arranged marriage.  She can't say no to the man seeking her hand because saying no would disappoint her family and the society she lives in.  But she can't marry him either.  Using the always popular passive-agressive tactic of avoidance, she follows a rabbit, falls down a hole, and so begins her adventure of discovery.  Most
of what happens on any adventure feels like bad luck and worse circumstances.  Woe is me. And Alice feels all of that.and more.

Much later, she discovers the real reason she is in Wonderland.  Alice is there to find her muchness.  After many passionate protestations that she is not the true Alice, she finds out that she is.  She can slay monsters with the best them and be the heroine of her own life.  She does this by reconnecting with her true self and that self is ever fearless and ready for the next adventure.  Reality doesn't stand a chance against her belief in herself.  

Like Alice, I'm in search of my muchness.  I'm looking to connect to the child I left behind.  The one who wore her passion on her sleeve, believed in happy endings, and in the highest good for one and all.  Somewhere along the way amid grown up problems and naysayers drowning out the voice of my dreams and my own lack of faith in the impossible, I lost my muchness.  Now, I'm looking to reclaim all that was once mine.  Time doesn't matter in Wonderland, and thank the Universe for that, for I certainly have taken my own good time in organizing a search for my true self.  My muchness.

But knowing my own history, I realized immediately that I needed some help.  Heroic journeys are seldom successful when traveling alone.  So, for the first time, I am using a Life Couch that promises to be its own adventure and using this blog to document my ups and my downs as I journey through Wonderland.  I avoided such counselling professionals in the past thinking that I had all the wisdom to deal with any blocks in the road myself.  It's humbling to discover that there are some fences that are too high to climb.  Besides, her e-mail inviting me to join her group and individual counseling seemed fortuitous.  Destined even.  And success wasn't beating down my door using my current practices.  Practices that had every reason to believe they had a home for life in my life. 

So I jumped or fell in, I can make a case for either story.  But once I did, my Life Coach showed her persistence.  She refused to let me off the hook, and I'm pretty good at unhooking.  So, I answered the call, and put all my dreams for a finished novel and healthier life into the Life Coach's basket.  

Initially, I regretted that decision.  After her first phone call, a little voice nagged at my deepest fears, "This is not you.  This will never be you.  This definitely won't work."   Can't argue with that, I thought.  My history leaves little doubt that the tools proposed to reconfigure my future
are solidly opposite everything I know and love about me.  I don't do schedules or weekly evaluations of my bad habits or celebrate my successes.   

Still, with the support of my Coach and a strong dose of commitment, it might work.  So here I am on the precipice of a change.  I'm Alice searching Wonderland for answers that I think I already know, but hoping I don't.  The Coach is heavy handed on encouragement and assignments that are designed to overome past creative failures and personal disappointments.  So, I embrace change.  It has never shown any true affection for me in the past, but I'm putting out the welcome sign and looking for a different outcome.  Can my muchness be far behind?

Deborah in Wonderland, the First Post

Yvonne is setting up this blog. Deborah will be back to take it over. And change everything. And then Yvonne will fix it.