The insights I didn't want to have yet

As part of my recent journey, I have decided to go through yoga teacher training. Urged on by my Equiyo co-writer and a good long time friend, I signed up for training. Each week we have an alter or sharing based on a prompt given to us. It has become clear to me that I am much better at being a facilitator than being the one who share. Each we have had to talk and I always feel like I was inauthentic or that I didn't let anything real come out. The stories are surface and don't touch on any of the deeper things I am feeling. Our first week we talked about who our guru was. I talked about the animals and how they have been such an influence in my life and how much I learned from interacting with each one of them. That was a real moment for me. I began to realize how much I missed that work and how disconnected I am from the natural world. I work in HIT so I am surrounded by software and applications, code, VPN's, etc. Things I know about but have never really been immersed in while working my previous life. I broke down and could hardly get the words out. It touched something deep in me and began to awaken something that I would try hard to ignore and force back down but will keep coming up. The next alter was to bring a photo of us as a child and talk a little about our childhood. I talked about being alone a lot as a child and that I was always the back sheep of my family. she' marches to a beat of another drum my mother would say. I talked about living in a family of over achievers and very successful people many generations back and that it can be hard to live up to. I started to talk about how people didn't expect much from me but I didn't go into how that really made me feel. It was more about people having low expectations. Not expecting more or encouraging me to go to college. No direction on where I was supposed to go. The fact that my parents have only seen me ride a couple of times. No one has ever come to the barn to support me. Sure they have given me love and almost anything I ever asked for but it was as if they didn't care or didn't take an interest. they just tolerated me. I guess I have this thing about sounding self deprecating or to never feel sorry for myself. everything I have ever done I did it on my own. I credit my mother for opening opportunities to me and showing me the door but I always had to walk through it. I think it made me a stronger person but it also made me have expectations of my kids that they are never self defeating, that they will always take the initiative as I did to get what they want. that they will follow through. But I forget that they are children. I have to let them do what they want and support them but not take it on for them. That they won't do things my way but that it doens't mean it is wrong. This weeks alter was about things we left unfinished or undone in our life. This is a hard one for mean. again that attempt to not be the person who is known to be flaky or the person who lives in a world where there is never enough time and always in a rush. I have placed a huge expectation that come hell or high water that I will follow through no matter how long it takes. This compared with a tendency to procrastinate makes for an interesting life. Add to that a total ADD brain prone to creative bursts and night time novel writing before falling asleep. If I was able to publish all the books I have written at night in my head I would have an encyclopedia Britannica worthy series. I tend to go in lulls and bursts getting multiple things done when the nagging in my head gets to be too much and my virtual to do list of things I have to follow up on is too long to manage. I remember everything until the list gets too long then things begin to drop off and that's when I forget. But I don't want to be THAT person and sometimes it is at the expense of my family and myself. But the other half of this is what expectation s are real. are mine and are those of others. I can't even tell what I want anymore because I don't know if what I want is really an attempt to get approval from someone else who said I should do it. When are you going to get a real job? When are you going to do what is necessary to take care of your family and stop indulging your own selfish pursuits? What is it that I really want? How do I end this need to get approval and to prove to everyone that I can do it. When do I just let go of things? I don't know the answer to that but I'm sure it will keep coming up as I go! And I'll keep writing to try and get to what is authentic and not being afraid "to go there.".