Ep 7 - Podcast - Badass Challenge - Snow & Errol Flynn.

Note: Due to the power outage, I didn't get to record a podcast this week. But I wrote a blog post, using my phone.

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Snow & Errol Flynn

Last Week’s Tools:
 

• Put faith in yourself and trust yourself as the pilot of your life.​

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I felt completely paralyzed during the power outage. In the past, I found them to be fun, like a forced vacation. But this time, all I felt was anxiety. Things got better because Steven got out about 20 candles. That brightened up the house. We let the kitchen gas burners burn and they kept the house at a steady seventy degrees. This morning, on a walk to get some coffee (no coffee at home without electricity), we helped dig out a van stuck in the snow and that was fun. Everyone working together, being helpful felt good. Back at the house, we made lunch and I continued to feel non-directional anxiety. Once the power came back on, I didn’t feel the relief I expected. I felt bruised as one would feel in the aftermath of an ordeal. I guess it was an ordeal. Though I don’t think it needed to be. I examined my thinking and my perspective and saw that I’ve been feeling victimized:

• By Trump whose presidency continues to depress sales.  
• Because our business did not get the Christmas bump due to “The Shutdown.”
• By the cold weather.
• By being trapped in the house by the snow and kept me from seeing friends.
• By Kiki’s incontinence—the huge amount of laundry of her bedding. Constantly changing the bedding. And now her fecal incontinence. OMG! 
  
  

I haven’t felt like a badass.

I expected the journey to badass-ness to go in a straight line, allowing for setbacks. But it hasn’t been like that. I’ve felt more thwarted than anything else.
But today, I looked at this feeling victimized and I realized, there are some things I need to, either choose or change. If I feel I’m the victim of having to deal with Kiki’s incontinence, I either need to
And here the power went out again for almost a whole other day.

Interestingly, the second time, I immediately got the candles ready and distributed them around the house for after-dark use. Steven and I, both, took the bull by the horns and did not feel victimized this time. Once the power came back on, I felt the relief I missed the first time and I didn’t feel bruised.

The difference was in how I met the moment: The first time, I went to helplessness and the resulting passivity which left me feeling depressed, abused and bruised, even after the power came back on. The second time, I aggressively got out in front, using what I learned the first time about the candles and other ways in which to prep for and manage the situation. I refused to think about the mistreatment we receive due to the demographic of where we live.
 
It occurs to me that being a badass doesn’t feel badass. In the back of my mind, I envisioned I’d feel  triumphant all the time, tough, in-charge, loud, aggressive, ruffian-like (things I, then, would need to hide), unstoppable, emotionally coarser, running roughshod over any obstacles. It is dawning on me that being badass isn’t like swashbuckling. It isn’t Errol Flynn swinging off the rigging with a sword.
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Maybe it feels no particular way. Maybe it’s how you act under pressure, in an emergency. Maybe it’s moving forward when you’re scared of the unknown.
All that said, I still want a little Errol with my badassery.  

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This coming week’s work in bullets:
No tools this week. We all have enough to do with the weather! And if you're living in sunshine and warm temps? Keep doing what you're doing, your gorgeous being :)

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Thank you so much for reading. I love you. I see you as whole and wise, and because I am so inclined, as divine, perfect as you are, right now, and as you are not, right now. By for now.