a feeling of mental discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance.
i am still processing the events from the past several weeks working as an intern for an arts team and a program manager for a documentary organization. in just a week’s time i will no longer be working for either; a strange truth to grapple with after having accomplished manifestations of my dreams.
i have investigated through the hurt and shock.
i have asked my friends to help me sort through this to ensure i am being accountable.
i know there is a much bigger picture to be seen… it is unfortunate and with immense gratitude that i saw it when i did– within a 6 week period– a much shorter time than i have seen the writing on the wall, historically.
but ouch and yikes. i’m talking people who talk the talk and can make it appear as true. it’s ironic because i’m very much in recovery from the recent life event with my partner’s sociopathic ex– the one i’ve been writing about implicitly and more often, explicitly but also the fact that i did not see this coming until it hit me all at once last Saturday. it was like a pre-menstrual cycle, the symptoms change its composition so you wonder why is your back hurting, or why am I weepy, or why is she so irritable today… and then when your period comes, it’s like ohhhhhhhh.
the thing that brings me comfort is the spiritual journey i’ve been on. can i just say i was feeling all sorts of confusing vibes and i didn’t know what to do with them except to carry a few stones, pull cards, and use dance + yoga to move things through my body so that i could figure out what was going on with me? with ME. and yes, it was me but more importantly it was me encountering such a final blow to crystallize my personal life journey’s lesson through the trust of others and their word. THEIR words. their promises. their enthusiasm. their desire to be connected to my energy. old patterns that needed to die.
back when i was in college and regularly attending college ministry services at MTZ in Greensboro, i recall a woman named Crystal, telling me about this amazing guy who asked her to marry him. she was a single mother and highly auric; she was talented, smart, but had fallen on some hard times so finding an amazing love was such a gift to her. months later, after going off the grid so to speak, i saw her and she reported “the devil sends you a counterfeit before you get the real thing” and that this amazing man to whom she was engaged was in fact, a counterfeit. how embarrassing she said. she should have known better she said. how could she have not seen this? was it the promise of something brighter and bigger after hard times that she… we… mistake something shiny as the blessing we were promised? how embarrassing it is to look wrong again. to actually be a victim again. to have to sort through your victimhood (because it’s so shameful to be a victim) and do the internal work to at least not appear as a victim? it had to hurt and i feel for her even now, some 20 years later. but the shame is what needs to be put back on the perpetrator. keeping this stuff inside destroys us and leaves other people unprotected. an old pattern that needs to die.
i had made it to that focal point in my life.
i had managed to get my community organization on track with two potential employees who would keep the work i’ve built on track — i wasn’t using them for their shine, i wasn’t trying to be associated with them for their connections, i was simply sharing the social wealth of what i had built and i needed help to continue doing the work. doing the work by myself and not getting help was an old pattern that needed to die.
i had managed to work through all the microaggressions i was feeling on the arts team. being left out of communications, meetings… not being trained or developed, having my drafts scrutinized after another intern’s draft about a black event had gone out with errors, my desk being moved twice– the second time with no place to go for 6 days, after getting an email stating i’d be locked out of a building (to which i had my own access because i am an employee toooooooooooooo) if i had come after meeting with an arts mentor. admittedly, and i did so in writing, i had not updated my calendar with the meeting since it had been canceled abruptly due to snow and the business was closed for a couple of days. like, i took the responsibility i needed to (I apologized for not communicating the change) even when it seemed the leadership did not show me the same respect. this was an old feeling and pattern that needed to die.
i had managed to be on track with all my work at the doc org, despite constant date/meeting changes, last minute assignments, personal involvement in the life of my co-worker who seemed to need the community support and who told me several times before hiring me that i would get to process and research all the information and apps/systems i’d be using in december and january so that i could hit the ground running in february; and oh, the internship would be fine since it’s ending in february. i was exactly on track after losing a day’s work the thursday before and feeling superconfused about how it happened. i had a stressful few days recovering from the drama at my internship and losing that work– I shared it with my coworker who gave me the strangest advice now that I’m reflecting. hindsight. anyway, i recovered from the drama quickly and still got everything on track. to say i was feeling great and accomplished is an understatement. i had been working to keep everything in order and to get shit done despite how easily i was distracted by other people’s problems and bullshit.
and still, i experienced this rug pulling from beneath my feet again. again. what was happening?
were it not for my recognition of this spiritual transformation i’m so compelled to push through, i would be a reckless, hot ass mess right now. there were so many questions of trust that came up. there were so many questions about my intuition that came up. there were so many questions about friendship and community that came up. about true equity and accountability. about my gifts and talent. about my intelligence. about my capability. about my competence (i was told as a 42-yo I should get a 504 plan in the slickest gaslighting attempt to date — by the way, that is not how it works but we WILL get to that) about racism. about sociopathy and cognitive dissonance. and about the fucking nerve. the nerve. the literal audacity of perpetrators.
again, the journey compels me. nothing happens for no reason. i’m grateful for human beings who obviously grapple with these things and as a result can provide an everyday guidance to others of us. i do believe that’s what this is for and that i have my own services and advice to share — it’s just that it sucks to come to terms with a friend who doesn’t really see you as a friend, but a shiny object and as a means to fulfill a temporary satisfaction or accomplishment for herself. it’s still kind of unbelievable…
and who knew my annual February reminder of sociopathy would be about her? a prediction. like my body, through all the anxiety and the something-ain’t-rights, KNEW.
anyway, chani nicholas said this for 2019, this for the new moon in aquarius and this for uranus in aries/taurus/back to aries for 6 months/back to taurus in 6 months:
i’m like wowwww bitch. i take my lessons as they come. and i got it this time. again. and i’ll use it to change the game and not so easily accept the seat that’s offered to me as naimonu james mentioned last year when uranus was transiting aries/taurus. no thank you, i’ll stand.
with so much gratitude,
gelle who will not only stand but she will be heard.
gelle's six 