The international gremlin treaty 2011

i am in the amazing position of being blessed with the perfect teaching at the perfect time.

or maybe i should say that i am blessed with the awareness that i always have the perfect teaching at the perfect time but often i am too stubborn/scared/in denial to see it.

I am in the process of incubating a very exciting creative dream and am working through this with the help of the amazing Andrea

i have been having all kinds of fears and worries and nebulous bad feelings scratching on my door and that is a bad thing for me.... makes me feel like i should step away from my dream. Makes me think there is danger ahead.

but the work that Andrea has made us do at the very start of the creative journalling course sets us up to look into that and what i have found is the little fulla up the top there....

my inner saboteur is a little muscley feirce looking green dude, horns, long arms, feirce.

Enough to put a good woman into reverse.

But i have found out all he wants to do is protect me. When he smells fear he rushes in to take me away - save me from the scary thing AT ALL COSTS!

Even when the fear is based on good things like;
"i have never done this before."
or
"I am about to step into my dream - this is big and new."
or
"i am going to give up the stuff i have learned about myself and take on something new."

He just wants to help.

But in making me back away from the situation that makes me a bit scared he hurts me.

If i back away from the things that challenge me i never grow, i never let good new things in. I turn away from new possibilities because they are different from what i already know (some of which makes me desperately unhappy but i know it so i understand it so it doesn't scare me).

so i chatted with my inner saboteur and we have established a treaty, there has been a document created and everything -

i now solemnly promise to reassure the gremlin each time i am scared and ok, so that he will rest at ease and i can get on with changing my life for the better.

He can still step in when i am scared for good reason (katipo in the toilet, being offered my mother's shepards pie etc)

But he is to stand down when the ok signal is recieved. It makes him a bit sad because he felt so important, but i will let him see how much better things are without him diving in with the selfesteemwhackingstick everytime i experience fear.

and then he and i can get on with creating a better life.

fear

"fear is trapped power"

This quote is bouncing off the sides of my brain.

I am often caught in fear.

Often feeling the prickles of sweat in my right armpit (only one, yes i know it is weird.)

Often feeling my thoughts speed up.

Often hearing the not-good-enough chorus (kind of like the welsh boys choir only a lot less sweet and melodic) burst into their caustic song.

I fear a lot of things, not being enough and not being worthy are usually at the bottom of those fears...

worthiness and enoughness are the foundation of that haunte house of my heart, the cornerstones of the bad feelings that well up.

what if i saw them as the underpinnings of something else.

What if unworthiness and not-enoughness were the signals from my wisest self that i was giving away my power, that i was cheating myself from a chance to be fully and truely present and able to be in my true gifts

what if the sweaty righty, the racing thoughts, the song of the choir of inner meanness were actually all signposts, neon lights, sirens that i needed to stop.

That i needed to step back into myself.

that i needed to check whether the power was leaking/pouring out of me, or offered with true love (self love and love for another)

what if all my fears were about checking in with myself and being true

what if all my fears were just signals to be kind to myself

what if i could open the trapdoor in my heart and instead of fear, power would come out, in all her glorious, splendid, benenevolent wonder.

what if fear was my call to love?

i just got saved

The thought of opening myself to BIG changes really really scared me

what if i let the Genie out and havoc was wrought???

what if i did run away to create, leave the mundane and just bugger off?

what if i did open up to creativity and just let it all go

and then i found this

Art is the only way to run away without leaving home." Twyla Tharp

and now i am saved

i am calling fear's name

i am calling fears name

and he has turned around and said

"you wanna peice of me?"

now i have to fight

i am armed with enough

(but it is dribbling through my fingers)

i am armed with my tender soul
(but yesterday it was blown around in the library by the man who bent too close, by the woman who sighed too loudly by the smell of someone's too old perfume)

i am armed with love

(but is that enough?)

fear has bought death into his corner and it doesn't feel like a fair fight

fear is a robber

fear is a robber

it sneaks up in the dark
grabs you roughly,
always knowing where it hurts the most,
fear takes you off your path

takes you somewhere dark
somewhere unfriendly
somewhere you can't be heard

then fear takes your glasses
and you can't see

then fear ties your hands up
so you can't act

then fear takes it's prize
your power

Unless in that dark place when you hear the footsteps,
tap
tap
tap behind you

you can say

shout

scream

fear's name

and when it hears it's name

fear retreats

so learn fear's name
and shout it out if you have to

you may have bruise marks on your arm
but your heart is intact