Undoings

Feeling low this morning.

Yesterday I had a magnificent woodland walk, lunch at the park cafe….and saw the men on site. Gave the foreman a copy of the Tao te Ching by Lao Tzu and got them all a coffee and cake and as many compliments as I could genuinely give about the work. Which was excellent. Visited the other young guy doing work at my allotment and brought him coffee and cake and gave him encouragement and Amanda Super’s beautiful book called ‘A Year of Self Compassion’. He has been reaching out recently, and that’s my answer to nearly everyone these days. Most of us have been existing in a state of self hatred and negative self judgement. Healing. All good.

My 28 year old son was communicating yesterday with me a lot. He is in deep distress and I’m feeling sad about that and anxious. He lives in Portugal. He is stressed and depressed using alcohol prescribed adhd medication and others. He has been depressed for years and self medicating he told me last night. He shares the distress with me openly periodically and it’s hard as a mother to hear.

I feel sad that he feels so lonely. That his life isn’t a thriving happy and enjoyable right now. The well paid job he got has brought a lot of stress and misery and also brought out his perfectionism and insecurities. He starts therapy today and wants to uncover what he thinks he might be suppressing. He assured me suicide is not an option. Tears arising right now about this. I feel guilt too for all that I got wrong in his childhood.

I don’t tell him how it effects me as I don’t want him to not tell me. I want to be that person he can come to with everything.

Business…..nothing happening very fast at all. Yesterday I visited a client and discussed the design. Multiple challenges with this large one. What she is asking for is not physically realistic, her budget is less than half it’s going to take to do a good job, and it’s a very complicated site. So here I am trying to deliver the near impossible and it’s not working for me at all. And I’m not enjoying it. A lot of work with no reward in sight. So another meeting arranged today. I may bow out and depart the project altogether.

So all in all nothing happening much very smoothly or promptly.

What are the fears here? I notice the ego is uncomfortable.

• The prospect of telling the men there is no work and laying them off
• Experiencing their distress and worry at that news
• Seeing them getting job elsewhere
• Then not being available when work does turn up and not being able to do the project
• Telling suppliers I can’t pay them
• Going out of business I can hardly bear to say the word bankrupt
• Competitors finding out we are in trouble, the loss of face of that when the ego has been enjoying the appearance of being a successful company
• The sense of personal failure if it goes down

So there, that’s the fear all faced. Maybe these will happen, maybe not. They usually don’t but let’s see. I’ve been less than efficient and attentive at running this business for a year or longer and maybe this is the result.

There’s so much distress going on out there. Almost everyone I know is experiencing it. Friends, my son, my mum, my uncle with cancer….

I spoke to my mum yesterday. She reported on how awful her holiday was, and came out with so many angry negative judgments about my uncle and his new wife and her mother. Anger anger and more anger. One trivial thing after the next. About how the windows weren’t clean and how the wife doesn’t bother cleaning. It was so ugly to listen to. So unconscious and fierce and nasty. And I grew up with that. Yikes. I’ve done well considering!

How does all this look in the context of awakening?

It’s always an opportunity. Awakening doesn’t care about the discomfort, it uses pain.

Move forward or be pushed is the principle I think.