The last couple of days I have not had a nice thing to say about myself. Not out loud. At work, in the world, I’m normal, I’m even cheery, but in my head some hateful person has taken over my mind. I’ve noticed it and I’m aware of it, so it doesn’t go completely unchecked. But the hateful voice just keeps reminding me of all of my so-called flaws, reminding me of my general unhappiness and my lack of passion, my loneliness, my ability to miss every opportunity, my impulsiveness, buying a house that’s too much for me, and my god, my weight, my weight, my neverending weight.

The list is long, and tragic really. But what I can’t figure out is, why now? Is it because I was so proud of myself for getting the house. Huge accomplishment! Or is it just this time of year, a couple of months before my birthday. Every year another one comes around and every year, I’m stunned by how much my life hasn’t changed, how I’m still alone, how I’m still fat, how I’m still bored to death at work, how I’m still piling high reasons why I can’t even try to do things based mainly on the idea that I’m not good enough.

In my last post, I talked about the 3rd chakra and will and Anodea Judith herself responded! So exciting!  In her comment she said “Sounds like your Will energy turns you against you with negative self talk. Find out WHAT your will is, first, and be gentle and loving with yourself.”

What is my will? What do I want, really? I could say I want what everyone else wants: to be loved, to be happy.  But I’ve steadfastly avoided those. Just as I was making the decision to buy this house, I was reading old e-mails. I have no idea why. Maybe I was trying to survey my life here in Austin. In one from about 5 years ago was telling a friend about a date I had. The relationship went nowhere (obviously) but he was an extremely interesting, smart man, a writer studying psychology. On our second date, according to this e-mail, he just suddenly said “You don’t like anyone near you do you? whether emotionally or in physical proximity?”  I’d forgotten about that. I’d forgotten about him honestly, but when I read it again I knew it was true. Is that what it is? When I’m out and about in the world, do I project a vibe that says “Don’t love me. Don’t even try.”  When I’m safe and alone in my house “I’m so tired of being alone” as Al Green says.  Does being safe mean being alone to me? That’s a new, sad thing to say.

It’s frustrating. I’m about to turn 44 and I still don’t know what I want. Or do I know? And there’s just another part of me that forces me to give it up. I want to do everything, but I can’t do everything. I want to live everywhere, but I can’t live everywhere. I want to practice so many things, but there’s only time for one. Choose. That’s the constant rhythm of my life: wanting, but feeling incapable of getting. But isn’t that the rhythm of everybody’s life. Isn’t that what suffering is? Isn’t the cause of suffering wanting?

But Anodea (hope I can call her by her first name!) didn’t say find out what your will wants. She wrote “find out WHAT your will is.” I’m not sure I know the difference right now.

“When the mind is backed by will, miracles happen.”

If you read my last post (and you probably didn’t), you know I was just going on and on about “putting my mind to something”.  I always think of my inability to finish something, see it through to the very end as a lack of focus.

But after opening up my tea and reading this, I was immediately reminded that it’s not my lack of focus, it’s my lack of will.

I’ve known for a while now that I have a will problem. When I read Anodea Judith’s Eastern Body, Western Mind – the best book on chakras I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot – I was stunned to see the description of the 3rd chakra deficient person. “Unable to trust our own basic impulses and needing to constantly monitor what comes from within, the personality becomes divided against itself. It takes energy to maintain this division, a loss that robs us of our basic vitality and wholeness.”

That, sadly, is a perfect description of me. It’s exhausting to constantly tamp down my passion. I extinguish my own fire. I have ideas, but never even dip a toe in doing them, feeling depleted, and exhausted with the effort of not doing. That’s not a lack of focus. That’s a lack of will. And it’s crazy! It’s like turning off the furnace for your house, but then wondering why it doesn’t function normally.

After reading EBWM the first time, I thought I would be aware of my will issue. But I slip into blaming time and focus and even society (who wants a fat yoga teacher?) for not getting things done, for not going after what I want, pursuing my ideas. I didn’t see buying this house as a question of will as much as a single minded focus. And while I was single mindedly focused, it was also just shear force of will.

Will is real, it’s powerful. The will, the 3rd chakra is the fire inside, the passion that inspires you to get up at 5:30 in the morning and write. The passion I had to move to Austin and to buy this house. And I need to tap into it. and maybe I already have. The color of the 3rd chakra is yellow. I bought a bright yellow house.

It’s been almost a month since my last post, the morning I closed on my house. I moved in that night with my aerobed and morning coffee supplies.  The next day a woman came to see the duplex, loved it immediately, and wanted – no needed – to move in December 1st. Perfect.

I love my house. Suddenly this is home. I’ve almost forgotten about the duplex, living there, eating, sleeping, writing there. It’s more of a feeling than actual details. I drove past it with my mom and sister when they were here for Thanksgiving, and I showed them all the pictures I’d taken, and they both said “It doesn’t look that bad.” And it’s true. It’s not a bad duplex. It’s beautiful in fact. It just wasn’t right for me, or maybe it just wasn’t the right time.

I think if I’d moved into that duplex 5 years ago, I might have happily stayed there for 5 years. In some ways I feel that it’s not so much that the duplex was wrong, but that this house was calling me, the way Austin called me, so I had to leave the safe thing and venture out. This terrifies me, because I remember the first few months here in Austin. I didn’t work at all for a month, and even when I did get hired it wasn’t enough to cover the bills. This house is twice as much as my old apartment. And it’s Christmas. Which leads me to applications, the applications I have not completed or even started really.

I’m down to the wire, one week, to get applications in that I’ve known about for months. Why haven’t I done them, sent them in? (out?) What’s holding me back? Well the short answer there is always I don’t really feel I’m qualified, which is just another way of saying I think I don’t deserve it.

That hurts every time I write it, but I am a self help addict so, as I’ve said before, I’m prone to think this way. Maybe this is a good thing to write it down. The shock of it every time I read it is a kind of wake up call.  I look around this house and giggle and say, “I actually did it! I bought this house!”  Do I deserve this house?  Sometimes, o.k. maybe half the time, I think No I don’t deserve it, and my not applying for additional money-making jobs means I’m setting myself up for a Cosmic Correction. The correction that puts me in my place, tells me it’s true that feeling I have that there’s always a huge penalty to pay for getting anything I want.

But I know for a fact that when I put my mind to it I can do anything.  It’s that “put my mind to it” part that’s the real zinger. What do I put my mind to?  Once I saw this house I knew it was the house for me. There was no other house, there was no turning back.  There was a lot of worry and doubt and even superstition (like always saying “if I get this house” up to the night before the closing), but I kept moving forward in that direction. How do I do that in other parts of my life?

Yesterday was not what I expected. I suspect today won’t be either. I never got to yoga last night. And that’s a good thing. I was late leaving work and by the time I got there class had started, so I thought I would catch the later class. Five minutes later, the phone rings and it’s the bank with closing details. Five minutes after that conversation, the phone rings again and it’s my realtor. We decided to do the final walk through last night instead of this morning. I’m so glad we did. He and his wife, also a realtor, really put me at ease. I felt calm when I left the house, confident in all the people who’d helped me and were supporting me. And I slept through the night! I even slept a little late, hitting the snooze a few times.

Someone is coming to see the duplex this morning and someone else tomorrow afternoon. YAY.  Now I have to decide what to wear to the closing…

I predict this will be the longest day ever. I predict it will take ages for 5:00pm to arrive, a millennium until after yoga and going to bed.  Yesterday was pretty long, even the night when I was mostly asleep seemed long as the day.

This time tomorrow I’ll be on my way to the final walk through. Then at 9:30am: closing time. They should call it “last call”.  I’m sure people need a drink at this point.

So. Tomorrow at about 11:00 I’ll have a lot to do or nothing to do. Here was the to-do list I started yesterday:

1. Avoid making a to-do list for the house
2. Make a to-do list for not closing -

• cry
• keep looking for a renter
• tell family not to come for Thanksgiving and make other arrangements
• cry some more

3. Be happy anyway!

We’ll see how that last one works out.

Up until yesterday I’d been doing a pretty good job of not imagining what it would be like to own a house. I’d tempered my excitement with gloom and doom scenarios, planning for both closing and not closing. I can’t do that any more. The list of To-Dos after closing is long and I keep revising, adding. The possibility of not closing seems less real the closer I get to the closing date.

I’d planned all along to have movers come next weekend, but now that seems so far away. Now I plan to get them to come Thursday or Friday afternoon. I already know I’m taking the aerobed over Wednesday night. I think I would have to do too much Tuesday to stay there that night. But I have a sneaky suspicion that Tuesday night I’m going to stay there. Why would I stay anywhere else other than home?

The duplex is still hanging over my head of course, (interesting I said “of course”) and I’m still in gloom and doom mode there, still expecting to have to turn over my $8000 tax credit to the landlord.  I want to buy furniture with it, decorate have a great Christmas. But I don’t expect I’ll be able to do that. Of course.

Yesterday I sold my stainless steel top table. I’d had it since I lived in New York, one of the few things I brought with me to Austin. I loved that table.  I helped the other new home owner put it into the her van. It was the first purchase for her new house.  She told me “You haven’t gotten to the fun part yet. The last week has been miserable, but it gets really fun after that.” I hope she loves the table.

When I saw the empty space I almost burst into tears. It’s real. I’m (probably) going to be a home owner in two days.

The next 6 days may be the death of me. This time next week I’ll have closed on the house. Or not.  Both of these options make me nauseous.

If I don’t get the house, I’ll be nauseous for obvious reasons: I really love this house, it would be perfect for me and it would be difficult to find something like it at this price point. I would have to start looking all over again. I wouldn’t have a timeline for buying anything, but I’m 90% packed. Would I move somewhere much cheaper with a much shorter lease?  What do I do?

The other option, is closing on the house. Yay! I got the house! Great! Well? Essentially I’ve got  another mortgage in the duplex, I have to call movers and utilities and pay double utilities and find additional jobs and, and, and.  If you’ve read my posts you know that I’ve already started to thinking about (the inevitable?) foreclosure.

I can suck the joy out of any situation.

I just can’t imagine being happy. O.k. I know I know. A place can’t make you happy or unhappy. Happiness comes from within, be happy in the present moment yada yada yada, blah blah blah. But seriously, the toll for any happiness, any truly good fortune I would come across would surely be negated by some other bad fortune.  I believe that’s the way the world works. For me. Others can be happy. Others can have ridiculous fortune. Not me. If I won the lottery, I would immediately lose it all to some scam or something. If I fell in love, of course the man would be doomed to an early death.

Deep down I don’t think I deserve this house. I haven’t earned it. It’s too nice for me. I haven’t worked hard enough or long enough. Basically I’m not good enough. And truth be told this feeling is not really deep down. It’s right at the surface. It’s right on top. I can imagine myself in this house but I can’t imagine the universe not extracting some great payment for it, because I overreached, some immediate event, large or tiny, that would make every minute I’m in the house full with regret or anxiety or bitterness.

Still, I really want this house.

Ten years ago, I dreamed of working as a voiceover artist (performer? actor? person?). It started when I went with a friend, who was really good at doing voices, to a little class on doing voiceovers, a little $25 class. The big pitch of course was to work with him, practice and get an audition tape together. That was more like $2500. My friend didn’t do it, but I did. So when I decided to move to New York not long after, I thought it would be a great way to earn extra money, maybe even make a living.

I talked about it ad nauseum to friends, but being the SHA that I am, I never sent my tape out, never looked for an agent. I didn’t think it would be good enough, didn’t believe anyone would want to hire me, so why send it out. I did nothing but regret the money I spent for something I never used.

Fast forward 10 years. I do voiceover work at my current job. I’m The Voice of our main product, anyone who comes to the site hears my voice. It’s kind of ironic. No I take that back. It’s extremely ironic. And it makes me think, what else can I do, that I want to do, that I haven’t done.

I just want to state loud and clear that moving into this duplex was a mistake. I know it was a mistake, everyone who knows me knows it was a mistake, the universe keeps telling me it was a mistake. I’m trying to fix it, alright. I have 9 days left before closing, one weekend left. Cut me some slack, universe!

The next nine days promise to be beautiful, clear skies, blazing sun, perfect temperatures. I want to enjoy them, but I seem to be sinking into a pit of regret, constantly asking myself why I moved into this place, believing deeply that there’s a high price to pay for any mistake.

So right now, this morning is a web of “I’m not going to close on the house, so I’ll be stuck in the duplex as punishment for this mistake and I’ll have to tell my family not to come for Thanksgiving”; “I’ll never find a renter for the duplex, so I’ll have to spend all my tax credit money on it”; “Foreclosure is imminent.”  This last one is especially insane because I’m already fearing foreclosure when I haven’t even closed on the house yet. Who does that?

I do.

One of my family’s mottoes is: “Don’t Make a Mistake.”  When someone does make a mistake, or it’s perceived that someone has made a mistake, we never let you live it down.  A friend of ours opened a chicken place, a national chain. My family members weren’t enamored of that particular chain, so when it wasn’t successful and he closed it, they went on and on about how he’d made a mistake. Each of them told me at least 5 times that he’d had to close his place.  And each time they told me, they spoke in a voice lowered, hushed to convey the true sense of horror. It’s as if one mistake will doom you forever and it will be impossible to make up for it, get out from under it, try again.

Well our friend opened another place, almost immediately, and it’s a great success. If he’d been in my family, he wouldn’t have tried again. My family’s philosophy isn’t “try and try again.” It’s more “try… and if that doesn’t work out maybe you should try something else.”

This philosophy makes life hard because it makes every step a life or death situation and no room for mistakes means no room to try again. And again and again. There’s no room for practice. If I practice the piano, do I get it all right the first time? No. I go through it, hit wrong keys, for the wrong length of time, all mistakes.  As I go through it again and again, I make fewer mistakes and the song comes together. But I have to be willing to hear those mistakes, notice them and still try again.

I heard a professor/minister speak and he was such an inspiration I looked up his church, The Soul Movement: Church 2.0. I went to his church’s website and I’ve been going there almost everyday to read the list under 2.0. They’re looking for believers who will:

• Change the culture
• Not be content at the status quo
• Risk the present to determine the future
• Pursue God-Ordained passions
• Set God-Sized Goals
• Not worry about what people think
• Go after a dream that is destined to fail unless God intervenes
• Stop playing it safe and start taking risks
• Criticize by creating
• Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution
• Keep making mistakes
• Keep asking questions
• Keep seeking God
• Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death

“Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death.”  That’s a goal.

Yesterday was a good writing day. It was good because I worked on Self Help Addicts for the first time since the beginning of August. It’s been sitting here on this computer, the books and unedited pages on this table waiting for me to get back to it. Packing, moving, looking for a house, doing everything in record time, packing again and now waiting to close have all been really good excuses for not working on it. When I have written it’s usually been here, an observation or realization about whatever’s going on.

So it was great yesterday when I sat down with a couple of pages and started to edit them. It came easily, the changes and additions seemed obvious.  This morning is different. I’ve been dreading working on it since I first opened my eyes. I’ve been up an hour now and I still haven’t read a sentence.  There’s this tiny — no, wait who am I kidding — there’s this huge, booming voice that always shouts at me saying “Why bother? Nothing will ever come of it. It’s never going to be good enough. Sleep in. Watch TV. Do anything other than write.” Or meditate, or apply for a job, or submit my work.

I’ve read a dozen self help books that talk about this voice. I’m sure you have too.  Most of the SHBs say half the battle is noticing when it speaks up, and the other half is knowing that you don’t have to believe it.  So since I can’t get rid of it, I have to engage it, face it head on, say “hello old friend” then sit down and write.