One of my friends texted me tonight saying she needed some advice and someone to talk to wanting to know if I was free tonight. I had told her that I was, I might take longer than usual replying via texts because I was in the middle of watering and caring for plants but would check back in while it --unless she wanted to call and talk and then I'd finish that watering can worth and then do some alphabetizing while talking because that's a "keep my hands busy but doesn't need complete focus" activity. She said talking would probably be easier. So I told her to go ahead and call. (I tend to expect old friends to reach out to me out of the blue, like Hal texting me on Monday night and people who want to talk things out with me about what's upsetting them whenever Mercury or Mars go retrograde or entering into eclipses. I'm a Libra Mercury and Sag Mars, so I'm good with diplomacy and seeing the other person's side and a long sighted philosophical plan of action -- but being Pisces rising I'm HIGHLY empathic and when people ask me for help/advice I tend to sit for long lengthy talks until they've found a way to a clear sighted way through whatever had them upset or anxiety or was causing ptsd manifestations. So it's part of why I keep my circle of friends small because I care deeply and completely or not at all and like everyone I only have a finite amount of time to give and I don't know how to say no when someone i care about is hurting and comes to me for comfort and/or advice.)
Anyway, tonight we ended up on the phone for 3 hours. Which is what I expected when i told her she could call after I double checked that my battery was charged enough for a long conversation, but it wasn't what I had expected for the night. Maddie is a sweetheart, but she's an Aries sun right on the cusp of being a Taurus with her sun in her 12th house so she overthinks how her actions impact others and has a more self-sacrificing lack of ego than any other Aries I've known -- and while going through her Saturn return she's been talking to me a LOT to help her find her way through. (I actually get a lot of female friends/family that come to me for advice and to talk during crucial parts of their Saturn returns, which makes sense because as a Hand of Ma'at and an ancient Priestess of the Goddess, I've always joked that Serendipity lives on my left shoulder and Karma lives on my right shoulder and that I function as a catalyst for opportunities of karmic growth and change people earn -- but they have to choose it and listen to the questions I ask and the answers they find to keep what they earn.) And I got about half the stack of invoices to alphabetize before filing alphabetized. talking through some things that had gotten her into an anxiety down spiral. So we talked through what had given her such a spinning her wheels anxiety attack (a new small wrinkle bringing back up the still unhealed from in a tough situation girl bullying manipulative dynamic involving her and her bff (also a friend of mine) and the bff's coworker who was trying to break the bff -- basically a big mess that I spent quite a bit of July/August helping them straighten out to find their own answers by being consistent with my own boundaries and ground rules for the interactions because best friend fights and breakups can be even harder than romantic breakups, especially when other people (not me but some other mutuals) start picking sides or hearing only one side) and then got into more of the "why is your anxiety heightened in recent weeks?" where she told me when it was manifesting in her imposter syndrome at work (she's an OT with at risk kids in the Milwaukee area) and I gave her some resource seeking suggestions to help with that and then asked some questions about her dog she's in the process of adopting and how much of her recent anxiety spirals about her own decisions and making the right choices is due to her subconscious questioning about her fitness as a parent (dog parent in her case, but people have the same anxieties with new pets and new kids, wondering if they're ready to not eff up the soul they're taking under their own care once they're the responsible one.) She told me she hadn't even considerd that because she knows she's good with dogs (she worked at a doggy daycare for a while) and with greyhounds specifically because her sister has two greyhounds from the same rescue -- but when I gently reminded her that that isn't the same as being the sole caregiver responsible person she said it made sense and I could hear her anxiety and tension releasing after I asked that. And then she got all excited gushing about how she'll get to pick up her girl this weekend and already bought her coat. (She was originally told she could bring her home the day she met her and were under observation then they checked and realized the dog, who will be named Juniper, hadn't yet been spayed. Spay date was set for Oct 17, and then observation so can come home this weekend.)
One of the interesting parts of the conversation was our conversation about what guilt and contrition over past acts are functioning. Because past is past, nobody can change the versions of them that they once were. And this was a situation where she regretted and disliked the version of herself she had been and in talking, I asked her what good she was hoping to gain in apologizing to a person she hardly knew for the things she said to them about someone else while upset with them. And I asked her what she was hoping to gain from it and in connection with whom? Was it about herself? About the person she was wanting to explain her past self to? Or is it the friend who would be hurt about what her past self had said to a relative stranger? And she had the break through that the person she wanted to protect and apologize to is the friend she was bad mouthing, because that's who she wronged. And I told her that that was good and it's growth but she's allowed to accept that realization about her past self and just hang onto it until there's a right time to make that apology without making it something bigger and creating the hurt she wants to protect her friend from experiencing. I also told her that while it's important to engage in self reflection and recognize that you do NOT like the version of yourself you let yourself be, it's important to understand the reasons for it without excusing the behaviors and then to USE that recognition of what you didn't like in your past self to make you a better version of you now and in the future. I told her wallowing in guilt doesn't do anything to help anyone, and it won't help you from learning to not make the same mistakes -- the guilt MATTERS because it's a measure of your own conscience but it's not about how bad you feel over what you can't change that matters, it's how you USE that guilt to change your present and future. I helped her direct her guilt over what in hindsight she feels badly she said/did to help her understand that we don't have to LIKE all the past versions of ourself, but we need to accept that they're who we allowed ourselves to be and more importantly embrace that it's no longer who we WANT or CHOOSE to be. And that means apologizing/atoning to anyone you wronged/hurt in the past while being a version of yourself you're now ashamed of AND it means analyzing how you have rationalized that version of you at that time and in the time since so you can learn from that where you need to work so as not to be that person in the present/future. I'm very proud of Maddie for having the realization that Ray (I'm assuming it's Ray, not Rae, though Maddie did always use they/them pronouns, but how to spell their name didn't actually come up in the discussion, lol) was not the person she wanted to explain herself to and for her choosing to accept the past version of her even if she didn't like it so she could use it as an example of how she won't choose to be in the future. (I'm actually incredibly proud of both Maddie and Alana and their paths of growth they've been choosing throughout this year and how seriously they've taken to heart what I've said/asked of them when they've come to me for advice (or at least Socratic questions to guide them to find their own advice) and yes I have directly told them both how proud I am of their growth and that they should be proud of themselves and of each other too.)
I will say that the realization you can't FORCE someone to admit when they chose hurtful behavior patterns or to choose to be better than they have been, it's something they've got to arrive at for themself, is definitely a concept that I have been thinking a lot about lately and reviewing with myself to find the place in me of radical acceptance for letting go of my hurt regarding the situation with Eric and Delta Rae and making myself accept the fate lines of current highest probability (due to the choices of his sister, for herself and in the entire band's name, and that he chose to perpetuate her defensiveness on rather than doing the ethical honorable thing to make right the wrong committed in his name that he was helping to perpetuate) that this lifetime isn't one where Eric and I can have reunion be together because even with everything else being aligned if he's not ready to grow nobody can make him do so, not even someone with whom he has such a deep intense soul bond. So it was quite top of mind within my own lesson learning (you never finish learning a lesson, you just keep getting tested on them where you failed in the past and learning them deeper ad deeper to be truths until you're never even tempted by the rationalizations/behaviors that led you to fail the karmic test in the past) that you can't force someone to grow or change on anyone's timelines but their own, it will never happen until they're ready to do so and all you can do is care about them until they realize on their own why their past self was shitty and to choose to be better in the future than the self they used to be. *shrugs* Because I firmly believe there's a space for growth/change and to be
better than our past selves, but it starts in recognizing what we didn't
like about our past self and how our past self hurt other people (or
would hurt them if what we said/did got back to them) and using that
contrition over the past to make amends and grow to be a better version
of ourself form here forward. I validated that her guilt was coming from
the correct place feeling badly for gossiping/bad mouthing someone but
that wallowing in it spinning out over it wouldn't help anyone, the way
to help anyone is by changed behavior patterns from this realization
forward. Nobody else can have that realization for you -- even if you
tell someone else, "Wow that was a really shitty hurtful thing you've
done" you can't make them feel bad enough for it to make it right and to
make the conscious choice not to keep doing it. They have to come to
that on their own. The closest you can get is leading them to it by
informing them how they hurt you.... but even then, you have no control
over how they internalize you saying their actions caused you hurt --
you can't make them CHOOSE contrition/apology, some people are just
going to get defensive and rationalize and turn the blame back on you
when confronted with how their actions hurt you because that is where
their ego is stuck at and until they grow to be a better version of
themself there is no amount of TELLING them they hurt you (or telling
anyone else how you were hurt by them) that can force them to changed
behavior or to even acknowledging/apologizing for their past actions
that were hurtful. You can't force contrition and atonement on someone
else, it has to come from within -- and when someone DOES feel it, then
even as an objective bystander not in the dynamic, the best you can do
is encourage them to take that guilt and use it in helpful ways such as
apologizing/making right to the person their past self hurt and/or not
perpetuating behaviors that belong to the past version of you that you
don't want to be anymore. Growth is hard and it takes time, but it never
happens until someone hits that inflection point of realizing they
don't like the version of themselves they allowed themselves to be in
the past and they're ready to CHOOSE to be a better version of themself
from here forward. And you can't force anyone to that inflection point
of growth to be a better version of themself -- only their own
self-reflection from a place of unflinching honesty can get them there. And that radical acceptance of these truths and his choices is why I felt nothing when I saw the email that there was a new video for The Beast (which I gave not watched) featuring The Witch With a B (how I refer to her faux witchy for the aesthetic stage persona of certain songs) and the email from today that they're planning a new tour for the Spring and are once again coming right here to High Noon Saloon (where I saw my first Delta Rae show -- the time I saw them along the path at Summerfest and stopped to listen to an acoustic song would be the first time i saw them but not the first show I saw of theirs) as well as to other nearby cities that I had previously always considered "driveably close" for a Delta Rae show (but which I have no intention of spending my money to buy tickets to even the Madison show at this point in time.) After all, I told you quite clearly that to honor the boundaries that Britt created for herself and the band of desiring not to exist to me, is to shut down all reactions/feelings to anything created or done by the band especially when it involves her due to the stated choices and desire to not exist to me which my ethics require I respect TO THE LETTER as a consequence of the boundaries created. *shrugs* By the actions Britt took in October 2018 and Eric's choices to stand behind those choices rather than make them right in 2019, I can either respect the boundary as it exists and feel nothing in regards to anything created or done by the band from which I am ostracized and informed the band does not desire to exist to me or they can change that boundary and desire to exist to me and I will be able to care once more about anything they do or create. It's that straightforward and simple. But you can't have it both ways -- you can't create a boundary that states you don't want to exist to me and then still expect any reaction or emotional response from a person to whom you ask that you not exist. My ethics regarding the sanctity of free will are going to demand of me I respect your boundaries that you create to the letter or I won't be able to live with my own conscience. i don't have to LIKE the boundaries or think they're fair of just, i can think them abominably cruel, but its your boundaries and your free will and your choices so by my ethics I have to respect the boundaries as you created and maintain them in order for me to be comfortable in my own skin with my own ethics and my own actions. She and the band as a collective have made it very clear by the actions and choices in the past and present that have gotten us here that they wish not to exist to me, and so it makes no difference to me what they create, what they do, or where they tour -- I'll do my best not to let those exist to my in respect of the boundaries created by the choices she has made and perpetuated both for herself and for the band as a collective.
For Eric's sake, because I can't help but love him what with the bond that pulls between our souls and all, I'll hope it will take him down the path to reach the happiness he's seeking in his life path this lifetime. I'll always want for him the happiness he seeks and choose for himself. How could I ever want anything else for him? I don't have to know what that is or what it looks like to hope he finds it and makes it his. But beyond that hope for him at this time it doesn't emotionally move me or touch me at all anything they've recorded, created, or plan to do as a collective. And it won't as long as there's a boundary of ostracism created and perpetuated in their name. I also will judge them hypocrites for their claims of standing for social justice and inclusivity as a result of it, because you can't be the "you can't sit at our table" bully and call yourself inclusive without being a hypocrite. but that's a judgement of the intellect and of my sense of fairness/justice, not a judgement of emotions. But honestly, even the songs I once loved and that I should still love don't make me feel anything anymore. I've tried, and there's just a nothingness there now, like the hollows you feel toward things that once brought you joy when you're grieving and in mourning. That's all I feel whenever I try to listen to any Delta Rae song, ever since Eric's choice in 2019 to ghost and ignore and go live on the band's Instagram account "to celebrate with all our fans" even after he was personally and directly told why that was problematic and not all the fans could join when things were done or shared on the band's official Instagram account. *shrugs* There's only hollowness and emptiness where any emotional reaction or connection used to be and still should be in reaction to any of the band's songs or videos or seeing them live. Seeing Eric in person when I let me look at him makes me light up brighter than a sunrise, but the band and its songs evoke in me a nothingness and just the hollow emptiness of a place where emotions used to be. It's been that way for me with the band's songs since August 2019.... And there's nothing that's ever been said or done that's altered that emptiness as my only emotional reaction to the band and its music. And the only thing i have ever experienced to relate that emptiness to is the hollows after grieving loss or death, when everything is emptiness where there should be emotions and color and connection. And there's no actions I can do that will alter that -- because it's not my choices that created this and killed everything I had once felt in connection to the band, it's not my choices that took the band beyond boundaries of not wanting to exist to me. There's nothing I can do to make me feel anything other than emptiness toward someone or something i once cared about that no longer exists to me in my life.... Not while they are an absence and a loss and an empty place where there once was a connection. I told you, i only know how to love and to care about people completely or not at all.... I don't know how to do it halfway and I never learned the art of falling out of love. If ever I loved anyone or anything, I only know how to care deeply or how to feel he hollows of mourning what is lost to me -- nothing in between. I've always been that way. I don't know how to love lukewarm....
Also. In the spirit of complete honesty.... I should be clear that I take a long time mourning loss.... My grieving process over loss, especially a permanent loss like death or non existent takes me years in the hollows before I can even cry.... I've learned to compartmentalize my sorrow and grieving so I can be happy even while in the hollows now.... But. When my grandpa died when I was 9, it took me over a year to smile so it reached my eyes and it was 7 years before I could find my way out of the hollows to cry out my grief. I stood dry eyed by his grave and my cousin who had been my childhood best friend told me through her weeping that I was heartless because I had always been his favorite but couldn't even cry at the funeral. Kids are cruel in their honesty and she was hurting and even then I didn't blame her, I just told her, "I hope you never know the emptiness too deep and silent to cry over it. That's where I am right now. I'd much rather be crying like you." Sasha and I were never as close after that, and then our friendship was permanently severed she stopped spending time with her dad's side of the family after I freaked her shit out when she wanted to talk to him with my Ouija board so I opened an actual channel (I'm a medium after all) and he said things on the Ouija board only she and he knew..... That was long ago and I've learned since then that even when people think they want to talk to dead loved ones, they don't actually mean it most of the time.... And I didn't even get burned at the stake to learn that one. At least not this time around. But my point was actually that the hollows feel the same emptiness where once there was love and affection - and given that the hollows in reaction to Delta Rae's songs and everything create/do started in August 2019 when I was forced to accept that Eric himself was okay with the ostracism on the band's account and even chose to take an active role in the bullying it created, I rather expect my apathy toward their songs and anything they create/do is because I'm still grieving over accepting the loss of Delta Rae as something existing in my life if I'm to respect the boundaries created in their name and enforced and perpetuated by every one of them who use or share anything from the band's Instagram account to their personal accounts. And, me choosing radical acceptance of Eric's choices to make me let go of Eric and I reuniting in this life is probably like me giving up ballet when my grandfather could no longer take me to my lessons and my parents were fighting over not having time to take me and it couldn't make me feel happy while I was so numb grieving.... And once I'm out of the hollows I'm sure I'll feel the hole in me from the thing I love and sacrificed to the hollows while it couldn't add to my happiness, same as I did about ballet until I reclaimed it's integral importance to my joie de vivre when I was in college. But while I'm mourning and everything I once loved about the band just makes me feel the hollows, the radical acceptance and letting him go just feels a bit like, "what is a bit more emptiness when everything this touched within me is emptiness and hollows?" And that is definitely how I mourn. Instead of crying, I just keep going through the hollows until I reach the far side of them, no matter how long it takes or what I let go of and lose along the way.
Anyway. Whether you choose a path of contrition and apology or a path of defensiveness and rationalizations, it doesn't change the past actions of your past self and the hurt it caused and it doesn't release you from the consequences of your past choices that only get altered when you choose to be different than you have been up until now. it's all up to you and your choices -- but you can't expect other people to pretend you didn't do anything hurtful to them just because you refuse to admit you could ever have done wrong or act so as to make it right, you're still guilty of having done wrong and hurtful things both in the past and present. You can't undo your past choices or the past version of yourself that you once were -- you can only decide if you want to perpetuate the hurt from the past choices or to change to be a better version of yourself. But it's always the individuals choice. Still. If I could give Britt, the Witch Spelled with a B, any advice it would be to take a listen to Bronx's tarot advice for Leos for right now and the upcoming months and she should really take everything they said to heart. Because if she doesn't, there's nothing that will get me to any of those Delta Rae shows or to give her brother a chance to teach me he doesn't want to be the version of himself he let himself be in August 2019. She broke it for the band and for him given how central she is into his life -- while anyone in the band can fix it she can have no relationship whatsoever with me, not even my respect or affection, without her fixing what she willfully chose to break. She's not my sister, I'm not in any way required to have her in my life -- and I don't choose to on the current terms of the choices and boundaries people have made and lashed out defensively over maintaining rather than admitting they did things that were cruel and hurtful.) Obviously though, that's just my advice on something I saw that seemed extraordinarily pertinent for how to change the course from what it's been ever since October 28, 2018. But it doesn't mean anyone will choose to listen to me or take my advice.
Anyway. While I got half my pile of to alphabetize done, it meant a 3 hour delay on my timeline caring for all my plants -- and that meant that instead of finishing the plants at 1am, I finished them at 4am just now and it's an awkward time for me to head home. So I'll just stay working until closer to sunrise -- I have no have tos today other than showering at some point and picking up my Aunt Geeta at the airport around 5ish then taking her to the hotel her conference is at (she'll be at my parents house Saturday night through Monday afternoon which is when I'll get to spend time with her/them.) That said, I'm a bit tired now though. Mentally tired as well as needing to refill my emotional cup before I should give more to others again. Not physically tired. more mental/emotional. . My method of advice giving tends to center around focused listening, Socratic questioning, and my own subjective reads or how I would handle it if I were in the situation. (if you ever come to me for advice, I ask question give you new perspectives to consider things until you discover your own best answer by way of questions, I rarely give definite answers as advice. Because my path and your path are not the same and I firmly believe that the person who must live the karma of the choices is the one who should make the choices, though you can help give them the best possible information to make those choices. )
P.S. I'll probably set this back to draft later, especially after I get some sleep and have time to reflect on it. Maddie's growth and journey falls under the category of "not my story to tell" and the rest of it IS my story to tell because it's my own reactions and thoughts upon events that occurred that involve me personally... But I've told myself not to write about it here because that gets nowhere and keeps me fixated on solving something that my own choices and actions can't solve at this point since nobody I approached on the matter was willing to even talk about it acknowledge what happened/is still happening much less do something to change it -- all I can do is let it go. Which I'm trying to do but can't if I indulge in obsessive spinning my gears about things here. Still. i wanted to get out into words my own epiphanies and realizations and lessons I realized were applicable to ME and my own situation after having talked through Socratically helping Maddie with getting her own anxieties spinning her out under control again. *yawns* but the ethics of having this post public is something for me to consider later, after I sleep. Right now, I'll just work and catch up on the news until first light and heading home to gets some sleep after sunrise is past.
[Post title: lyrics to the Pink song Just Give Me a Reason. It was in my head while writing this.]
