Two Ways to Touch Your Nose

Much like there are so many ways to skin a cat, there are a variety of ways to touch your nose. I am thankful for the people that teach me that touching my nose can work by putting my hand directly up to my face. I live a life where touching my nose was done using a backwards method of wrapping my arm around my neck to then graze the side of my nose with the inch of my remaining wingspan.

I lovingly receive advice and gentle nudges from the people who care about me. However, learning that you are a "wrap-around" nose toucher is never an easy realization. While I completely reject struggle and try to eliminate it in every way--there is still so much room to grow.

Information is coming into my consciousness every day, all day. I am drawing conclusions about the experiences I undergo constantly. Knowing when to speak, not speak, ask questions, answer the questions that don’t need to be asked and so forth is still a learning game. I realize that I am never going to be perfect and that’s okay.

Over the years, I have thankfully developed such a compassion for myself as a learner, committed to my own growth that it hurts way less to realize I am not all the way there. The fact that there is no rush to get there makes me feel comforted. There is still a piece of me that feels a bit of hurry to get my act together. That part is where writing helps to eliminate the rush. While I synthesize information, I understand that writing is the tool in which I can crystallize the lessons.

I have tried speaking with other people about the experiences in my life that lead to lessons. What happens is that people with an agenda get me to adopt an aspect of their thinking and capitalize on my inquiry as a moment to push said agenda. This only leads to frustration because 1) I know it’s happening and 2) often what they react to makes me feel compelled to defend my logic. Thus, an argument ensues.

I am so thankful for my community of carers who arrived in the process of my having to define life totally on my own. Once I realized I’ve been lied to since I could comprehend, I had to start crafting the narrative of my life starting all over on page one. While no one is going to teach me the game of life anymore, I will always have an editorial review board.

Thankfully, the members of my editorial review board are people that I selected this time around that genuinely love and care about me. These people are my real family, best friends, and my fiance. The people that don’t require me to change in order to be able to kick it with them. These are the people who are committed to helping care for me in the gentle ways that I have not had the fortune of experiencing in my life.

I grew up in a very survival based childhood. It is only now that I have come to a point in life that I no longer have to operate from a capacity of survival. I release all the ways of living that I adopted as a means to survival. Now, I wish to navigate life in a much less catastrophic manner and mindset. Everything doesn’t have to be black and white because I am no longer in an environment where I need to rationalize and make decisions firmly and fast.

In my old life, I had to use a tiny inkling of information to draw conclusions broad and wide in order to keep myself safe. If I see one thing off or wrong in my environment, I automatically put up an armor and plan for my escape. Now, when I show up in my renaissance armor suit, I look insane. Where I am now in life, most people have a pocket knife on them at best.

I suit up in this clanky armor in the spirit of being independent. I once understood independence as not being able to rely on anyone other than myself so that the people in my life could not disappoint me. I learned recently, that is not the healthiest way to understand independence.

There is power in being self-sufficient and there is restriction in being independent.

Independence that spawns out of the school of thought that everyone else on planet earth is unreliable then draws you into a whole bunch of situations that affirm that people are absolute goof balls that don’t contribute anything of any significance and your existence is a lonely, unfulfilling one burdened with carrying everything on your back.

Self-sufficiency looks like lovingly and patiently building up the tools and requisite skills to sustain your life. While you do this, you begin to attract the people and opportunities that will help manifest your dreams. You don’t need the hand holding. However, the fact that you’re out there making genuine strides to fulfill your life’s purpose signals to your help-meets that now is the time their path will cross with yours.

Independence is taking on everything and carrying it on your back like Godzilla. Self-sufficiency is doing what you can on your own with what you have and graciously welcoming the helping hands when they come. However, there is never a point where you depend on the helping hands. You have a plan to work around your hurdles in life but you don’t commit to banging your head against the wall in order to solve them.

Another lesson came to pass when I saw a meme that said knowing when to shut up is among the most useful life skills a person can have. I’ve gotten so much input from so many sources that actually echo the same thing. The less you talk, the more you listen, the easier your life flows.

Every man is a genius until he opens his mouth.

I understand now that argument and trying to convince the world to see things through my lens of viewing life is a function of the ego. To be specific, the @goodmindsquote IG post I read said, “It’s human nature to want to prove yourself correct, yet it rarely works. When you’re in a fight, un-managed emotion urges you to dig your heels in and wage a struggle that might end badly for you and the relationship. You may select your conflicts intelligently and only stand your ground when the moment is appropriate when you read and respond to your emotions. The great majority of the time, this entails clenching your teeth and biting your tongue.”

I only experience interpersonal conflicts when I am determined to get people to see the world through my lens. The world should not be processed through my lens because I don’t know what the dog hell I’m doing! I put my learnings out publicly because I assume these bits of information can help the next person along to a degree. However, I do not make any proclamations of having it all figured out.

Evidently, I am still learning. I am a humble student of life. These deposits of information usually come on the other side of pain. The pain of learning that I still have such a long way to go still. However, I come to understand my immortality as a way that makes that truth acceptable.

I can offer kindness and compassion by being gracious with myself. Shining a light on this world for me looks like putting my raw self out there while I work to synthesize these lessons and internalize the message. My next step in healing and evolution is to pass it down through these writings. In as many ways today, I will touch my nose by reaching straight for my face.