Engage

A colleague on the phone just told me I am fully in-life...fully living. A being with "yummy" energy. My matron of honor at my wedding described me as having and bringing joyfullness to those around me. Co-workers and strangers have given me the nickname "sunshine" several times throughout my life. Everyone I've ever met says I'm fun, and I've adopted that as my signature adjective.

Well. Woo-hoo for the world! WIIFM?

Okay, that's pretty cynical...VERY cynical, but reflecting on the compliment and on the fun and productive conversation I just finished, I think, and I wonder (and I worry a bit) - why would I never label myself with these attributes? Why do I have a hard time BELIEVING that those things people say about me are actually ME? Where is the disconnect?

I expect that if I was a truly joyfull, sunshiny, glass-half-full, spoonful of sugar gal, that I, ME, MYSELF would benefit. But No. When I am alone I am bored. I am sad. I am unmotivated. I hurt. I am angry. I am sneaky, mean, and I crave chaos in order to get attention.

What I find is that instead, the chemical reaction of joy needs the catalyst of a social interraction. Sit with me, touch me, write to me, call to me, look for me, respond to me, and I am engaged. I can be, will be or will become for you (and for me) the Queen of Pentacles.

What is so different? What flips the switch?

This theme is not new. Writer-lier writers have been writing for ages about the split between our self as we know us and the person the outside world can interract with.

What I know is that there is nothing that sends me deeper into a depression than writing down how Great, and Accomplished and Worthy I am in say...a resume. Or the emotional backlash of someone singing my praises, which ranks in as a close second. I outwardly manage to choke past a "Thank You" and watch my little spirit running away into dark places screaming "Not IT, Not IT - NOT IT!"

It occurred to me just now that I have descibed the way my soul literally runs away from those I love who try to gift me with compliments. It also comes to me in the same moment of awareness that this is connected to my personal work as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

Not always, not in every case, but certainly in the very recent past, I can feel the joy and engagement and sharing and loving retract, and close like a sea anemone poked with a sharp stick.

All that floating, colorful, natural beauty curled into itself - digesting itself with no prey. Afraid and hurt and closed for buisness.

A sad metaphor. The difference is that the anemone's reaction serves it, and I'm not sure mine serves me. Vestigial Soul Compaction. Just as unnecessary as it is impossible to pronounce.

Would I be more joyful if I left my soul out in the open? Let compliments and gratitude flow through me and around me and over me and trusted that their touch would be soft and gentle instead of sharp? Make my colors brighter instead of dissapearing?

Prey for thought. This arena is how I choose, right now, to engage myself. To think (alone) and create (alone) and be joyful in each moment (even though I sit here alone.)