Molly 2.0

Yesterday, I got with the digital age. After some time of researching, drooling, and envying, I bought a smart phone. Thanks to those generous folk who donated to my Holiday Wish List, I got a new toy.

In addition, I feel that my decision to reach out and let my dad know how I was feeling about things between us was part of a new behavior. I haven’t heard from him yet; don’t know if I will. But, the significant thing to me is that I was honest about how I was feeling, and specifically stated what I wanted and needed. Coming from a woman who is usually circuitous about asking for what I need (this way I won’t be “really” disappointed when or if it doesn’t happen), this is a new and advanced thing.

Letting myself have a new toy is a new thing. Allowing myself to believe that there is “enough” in the world, that I’m allowed to have nice things. That I’m allowed to have fun, just for the sake of fun.

The same night I wrote the last blog, and wrote to my dad, I called up my friend who’d offered me flight miles to Hawaii. I told him that, damnit, I was going to Hawaii, even if it meant postponing my January chemo treatment by 10 days. … My friend was not thrilled to hear that my doctor wasn’t totally on board with this, and it made me pause long enough to talk it out.

Although I was feeling all “New Molly; New Behavior” about the trip (allowing myself to have nice things), … it really falls into the same behavior I’ve always had around money. Constrict, constrict, constrict, then blow a big wad of cash because I can’t stand constriction anymore. Then I feel bad, and constrict again. Rinse, repeat.

Because the reason I’d want to go to Hawaii NOW is not as a reward or a treat, it’s out of scarcity mind. The belief that I can and will never let myself have nice things at an appropriate and planned out time, so I better DO IT NOW, because I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever let myself later.

I can’t guarantee that when my chemo treatment is done in February that I’ll allow myself to go on vacation. After all, I will have to return to work when this is all done – won’t I?, asks my brain. After all, I’ve been off work, but certainly not on vacation for the past 3 months. I simply can’t afford to let myself have a vacation when this is done – I owe my employer. I owe somebody something first, before I can let myself have what I really need.

I wrote a poem once that most people in my class didn’t get, but when I repeated it to my mom a few months ago, she got it perfectly.

Otherwise, who would eat the blackened one?

That’s it. The perfect sentiment of a martyr. The mindset. The set, and stance, of my mind.

As I spoke to my friend on Wednesday night, I started to cry as I talked through why I needed to go to Hawaii now – the realization that I still do what I’ve always done – the realization of how stingy I am with myself, and too, that I don’t believe that it will change.

Luckily, I don’t live in a vacuum, and was able to talk myself calm with my friend, and accept the possibility that when this process, when these treatments are done, I might actually let myself have.

This all came up yesterday too, when I had “Tea and Tarot” with a girlfriend of mine. The idea that by reaching out for help, I will be able to hold abundance. That in reaching out for help on how to organize myself differently, things will work out beyond my wildest dreams.

My wildest dreams right now are pretty stingy. What would it be like to perceive or conceive of something different? But, again, I can’t do this alone – if I try to “figure it out” on my own, I will end up creating the same structure of scarcity that I’ve always had for myself.

So, my friend with the cards yesterday suggested I have an Action Group. An action group is a tool whereby you meet with two people, and … create an action plan. I had one of these meetings with two women over the summer when I was looking for work, and it was very helpful. Far from it being, “check this job board,” we came up with actions like, Play the piano every day. Start blogging again. Ask my friends to give me an asset to add to a list about myself. Things that seemingly have nothing to do with how to get a job.

It was uncomfortable to listen to these women tell me that I would or could find work or joy by doing these hippie things. And where I have discomfort is usually where I need to work the most. It’s not comfortable to allow myself daily time for fun. It’s not comfortable to ask others to help me form actions that might take me to a new level of a profession or career. It’s not comfortable to start to believe that I deserve more than I’ve ever given myself. But this is where the work is.

Over and over, I am told, by cards, friends, teachers, meditations, to allow myself to receive. To receive help, to receive love. To be open to new ideas about how to hold myself and the world. I believe that allowing myself to use the funds that friends donated to buy myself a phone is part of this allowing – I’m still uncomfortable with it – I still feel that old “hoard”/constrict mentality (Don’t spend this money! You will need it later because of your low income!) The belief that comes along with this mentality is that there is not enough and there will never be enough.

My mom offered to send me some make-up for the holidays. She, being a once-certified make-up artist, gets a discount on MAC products (the beauty line, not the Apple product!). I told her that I’d rather she save the money she’d spend on make-up for me to help fund her next trip out to visit me, or to fund our imagined/hoped-for trip to Paris. She said something startling.

“Why can’t I do both?”

What can’t she do both? Send me some make-up AND visit me? Why can’t I do both? Buy a new phone with GIFTED MONEY and be in the reality of my situation?

So, I did. It wasn’t the “blowing a wad of cash” that my brain wants to tell me I did (It wasn’t my money!!! It was a GIFT, stupid stubborn brain!!). I am having to sit, today, in the discomfort of letting myself have. To have needs, to ask for them to be met, and to meet them. To allow my needs to be met.

It’s time for an upgrade.