Doing vs. Deserving to Do...

I am not sure where this one is going to go...

I got this topic from my sponsor yesterday. She made it in response to a comment I made about booking a nice hotel for my desert retreat next week. I said that I was thinking about staying at this really fancy place, because I felt like I deserved it. She got all over it! She said that I could just stay at the nice place and that deserving really didn’t have to be a part of it. I still am not sure I understand what she is talking about. But I am going to try to unpack it right now...sorry.

So I guess I will own that I feel that I need to deserve something in order to do it. Stay at a really nice hotel, buy an expensive gift for myself. Pretty much anything extravagant, I need to earn it, deserve it, or in some way prove that I am worthy of giving that to myself.

We won’t even get into what I am capable of asking from others right now. Because that is an entirely other subject...and probably quite a painful look.

She postulated that I could just stay at the nice place. I didn’t have to deserve to stay there. Seemed like a big deal over semantics to me at first. Until she told me to write it down.

Doing vs. Deserving to do...

So I did, write it down, because for the most part I do what she tells me. Except step work...that I procrastinate on. It is literally the only thing in life that I put off. Seriously. The thing that will always set me free, I delay. Erin in chains. Chains of her own making. Dumb.

So why exactly do I feel like I need to deserve something in order to do it?

Fuck if I know...

I am sure it goes way back...like way, way back. Stuff that I can’t see about myself always does.

I guess it dovetails with my feeling that I don’t deserve on a very fundamental level. There was this movie called “Defending your life.” And that is how I have always kind of felt about my life. Like I needed to defend everything I do or say, always. Like without a good defense, I don’t really deserve to be here. And I am really not sure where that comes from.

And I am clear that I will not figure it out in this blog today either. I mean my head is swimming on this. Moving in tight little circles of thought. I am sure so that I can attempt to evade a truth that I do not want to know...about me. Again. Sigh.

But here I am again. I know when my head loops in little orbits that I am trying to avoid seeing some larger truth. And I can see that I really do not want to see whatever this is either, except I do.

Fuck all the denial and crap. I want to know what the fuck I am doing and why. Then I want the ability to be honest about it and stand on my own, even if it is stupid and dumb and makes me look foolish. It is mine. My truth and I want to have my own back.

I can tell that this is going to be a hard one. Because as I think about it, I just can’t break out of my mental spiral. It is like I am fine with the words: doing. Ok, yes I do a lot of things. Yes, it is all good. I like doing. Then when placed in juxtaposition with deserving to do...I get totally flummoxed. I am stymied. The words seem foreign and ill timed and placed. When I put them in written equation form:

Doing vs. deserving to do = ????

I am even further fucked.

Why must I deserve things to do them?

Why the prerequisite?

Why do I feel the need to justify my actions always?

Why do I not spend more time being thoughtful about what actions I am taking and less time about whether or not I have a good reason or am worthy of taking the action?

What is this all about?

And why is it so hard for me to jump in here?

I feel like a kid on the high dive for the second summer in a row. I have watched all the other kids, enjoyably and without peril, jump into the deep end with wild abandon and enjoy the fuck out of themselves. But me, I keep climbing the ladder to the high dive, then my head begins to eat me alive from the inside out, and I am frozen in time. Stayed still at the top of great discovery if only I will take the leap.

Try as I might, lots of repeated attempts, I can’t take the plunge.

So for now, I will just keep standing there, my apologies to all who wait in line for their turn, while I just take my sweet time figuring this one out. I am literally up there trying to decide if I am worthy enough to jump and if I ever get that one figured out, then I have to then actually find the courage to pump my legs and leap into the great unknown depths of the deep end.

Seems like a lot to ask of a 52 year old woman.

We won’t even get into my swim suit choice...

Anyway, I am admitting that I am afraid to look, even more terrified to take the plunge into an in depth review of why I feel that the actions I take must have an accompanying deserving act that precedes them.

I don’t know in this moment. But I am going to do my step work (I swear to God I am) and I am going to take the plunge into this particularly mired thought process that scares me so. I will see why my worth (or lack thereof) is still kicking my ass, and how I can have been stranded on the high dive for so damn long and not even noticed before yesterday.

I am going to do, without care or attending to the feeling that I must deserve first, before doing anything. I am just going to take the action and care not whether I really deserve to do it or not. Life is short, and I may never completely get an answer to this question...I mean, I think I will make some progress...but who knows if I will ever be able to invade and break the coiled thoughts that are so tightly bound that they defy all prying, all efforts to unspring that which is so tightly wound.

Wave to me as you walk by, maybe even start a chant with those who wait below me:

Jump!

Jump!

Jump!

I could use some encouragement.