About Boundaries

     View from the porch.  Dusting and cleaning the one that I have.  Evolving is an amazing experience.  Last year I ventured to let my guard down and tip my toe into the waters of self-authenticity.  To skin the chameleon. I knew it would be a hugely healing step forward on my personal pathway.  I was completely prepared to deal with my own turmoil of being true to myself and my integrity.  What I mean in this instance is that I have always had a certain level of self-awareness, but I have staunchly squelched it outwardly for the benefit of other individuals' comfort.

     In 2013 my new years resolution was to tear down large self imposed walls.  Self constructs of huge insurmountable hard surfaces between the ground I had been long standing on and the destination in which I hoped to travel to.  My total lack of vision.  Secondly, I knew I needed to build consistent and firm boundaries in fairness to myself.  The same self that I would routinely place last and hauntingly devalue.  This did not occur in martyrdom style, its manifestation was simply due to being my own toughest critic. Old patterns.  Old agreements.  It is true - there are givers and there are takers.  My new belief is in seeking a balance and fairness.  As the pendulum swings, for once, I will allow it to swing in my direction, in hopes of gaining a subtle fairness to myself.  Letting go of old echoing agreements of selfishness vs. selflessness.  No more, "If I give away enough of myself, perhaps I will be worthy" mantras. 

       Further down my own pathway.  My self devaluation made others comfortable with my mirrored reflections.  I had no preconceived warning that being true would evoke such a response.

     On one hand the level of clarity was awesome and breathtaking, when all else in life had become blurry and smeared I truly felt as though I was seeing for the first time.  With the fairness of balance, the change made others insecure and uncomfortable with the new me.  Not a disconnect, but rather a redefine.

     

     I am also aware that every human has their own "journey" or path that they need to walk.  I have a much higher appreciation for that level of individuality now than ever before.  Very few, but several of my acquaintances, chose to walk a divergent path in a far removed direction.

     Initially I was surprised and somewhat hurt.  But now I fully understand and have respect for their decisions.  Self acceptance and self love is the single most difficult trek I have ever had to do.  Fighting professional compassion fatigue (mantra from my friend the physician by trade) 'be sensitive and then let it go'.  I still care.  I just care in a sane well balanced fair deserving way.

IT IS ALL GOOD!!!

Baxter Black Poem

The West

by Baxter Black

Veterinarian and Cowboy Poet

They don't call it Death Valley for nuthin'

     And coyotes don't make a good pet

But livin' out here with the griz and the deer

     you pretty much take what you get

An the Mountains have shoulders like granite

     They're big and they make their own rules

So take what you need but you better pay heed

     'Cause the mountain don't tolerate fools

And the wind is the moan of the prairie

     That haunts and bedevils the plains

The soul stealin' kind that can fray an man's mind

     Till only his whimper remains

You can stand in the canyon's cathedral

     Where water and sky never rest

And know in your bones that the meek, on their own

     Will never inherit the West

     It's wild and it's wide and it's lonesome

Where the dream of first blood still survives

   And it beckons to those who can bid adios

                To the comfort of 8 to  5 lives

             So come all you brave cabelleros

              Cinch up and reach down inside

Till you feel the heat, then take a deep seat

'Cause the West, boys, she ain't broke to ride

La Dolce Vita

The Good Life

R.W. Emerson Quotes - from essays of Self Reliance

 To believe your own thought, 

to believe that what is true for you in your private heart,

 is true for all men - that is genius.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.... 

nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

There is a time in every mans' education when he arrives at the conviction

 that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;

 that he must take himself for  better, for worse, as his portion;.......

I much prefer that it (life) should be of a lower strain,

 so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.

What must I do is all that concerns me, 

not what the people think.

But the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd

 keeps with perfect sweetness 

the independence of solitude.

The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you, 

is that it scatters your force.  

It loses your time 

and blurs the impression of your character.

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; 

 a reverence for our past act or word,

 because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts,

 and we are loath to disappoint them.

With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do.

Perception is not whimsical, but fatal.

If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier.  

If you cannot, I will seek to deserve that you should.

That which each can do best,

 none but his Maker can teach him.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.  

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.