1397 MY DECISION TO RETIRE THE FIXER PROVES NO EASY TASK

RETIRING THE FIXER PROVES NO EASY TASK
As one of my nieces recently moved to the southeast in close proximity to where Hurricane Matthew hit, I texted, earlier in the week, to make certain that she and her precious family were unscathed.  Relieved at her reply that all was well, she, who'd inspired me to write my blog, asked if I was alright.  When I don't post, her antennae go up.

The day after receiving her text, I sent this response:
I couldn't answer your question about how I am, because my mind was still jammed by confusion, though I'd spent the entire day writing.

As clarity has just begun to emerge for the first time in about two weeks, I've spent the entirity of today writing, again.  In a nut shell, I'll copy a tiny portion of what will, most likely, be the first paragraph, leading into my next series of posts.  So okay, here goes:

My decision to retire The Fixer has caused me to wrestle with an identity crises throughout this past week.  Once that insight flew into my conscious mind as though from out of the blue, this current identity crises came as no great surprise, because this experience is not new to me.  In fact, I felt kind of relieved, because until that first glimmer of insight lit up a dark corner within my confounded mind, all I'd known for certain, over these past several days, was this:
My thought processor, feeling confused, anxious, anguished and paralyzed, had crashed.  Just like a computer with too many windows open, at once.  As this is not the first time overload has catalyzed the complex nature of the computer inside my head to crash, I knew I had my work cut out for me.  What work?  The work of intuition swimming through sludge within the dark side of my brain until today's insight, concerning over load, had served to save my conscious mind from flailing around, hopelessly, feeling captive, all alone, fighting Darth Vader in the dark side with no Jedi Warrior passing the blue light of The Force to me, yet in plain sight.  However, empowered by the insight highlighting overload, my awareness caught sight of the rope, which would lead me to pull my unnamed fear toward file #2, where a treasure chest of insights, stored within my memory, would surely ignite, one after another, inspiring my intuitive powers to shine its spotlight, here and there, until my conscious awareness spies solid ground, upon which the insight, which has thus far escaped detection will serve as the key to unlock the mystery of exactly what had catalyzed a crossed wire inside my head to short out several days back, stalling my sense of progress processing forward ...

I ended the text to my niece with this reassurance:
Today, intuitive thought shone its first spotlight of insight on the as yet unidentified, self demeaning belief that sent my think tank's clarity, concerning reality, careening into this most recent nose dive.  As soon as I've cleared this self defeating belief out of my mind, change for the better, concerning my self image, will, once again, be mine, suggesting that upon withdrawing and re-absorbing the string of insights that is certain to start popping, I'll hold the key to this week's mystery in my open palm, and you can bet that my presence of mind will feel strengthened more than had ever been possible before today's insights had brightened my conscious awareness just as a swarm of fire flies brightens the night's sky.

My niece responded with:
I love seeing that you are granting yourself some grace and forgiveness for being human! I feel like you've been working for a long time to not be the fixer, but maybe you're seeing it in yourself all of a sudden. Maybe you're making more progress. I hope, hope, hope you realize that putting yourself first is not selfish - it benefits everyone (and I'm going to read that sentence to myself often). When I go to an appointment for a massage or to get my nails done, I often think back to a conversation we had several years ago. You had to hang up, because you had a massage appointment but feeling self indulgent, you had a hard time revealing where you were off to. I remember saying "how old are you? You deserve to get a massage every day if you want to!" I remember your response "I think today, I'm 12!" (Suggestive of my feeling need of parental permission to take good care of myself?) Whenever I do something for myself, I think back to that conversation, and I smile.
I also remember, often, of you telling me that emotional growth is even more painful than physical growth.  (Suggesting why human defense mechanisms are preprogrammed to erect walls of denial, fortifying repudiation of constructive criticism no matter how intelligent the political, social, emotional animal, who lives and breathes behind our personas proves to be) I hope this episode of emotional growth you're going through is as painless as possible.
Love you so much!

I answered:
Wow!  Thank you!
I think your mind may luxuriate in my next series of posts, because, over these past two days, the star burst of writing that's been surging forth from within my power of intuition has been gushing like an oil well that's been pushing toward the surface for so long as to emerge as a force of nature as dynamic as is the human spirit, freed of repressed insecurity, proves to be.  Though my brain is still weary from drilling and pumping insight out of pockets of mental darkness, I believe that once my energy recoups, my spirit will reboot, and riding out of its cocoon, as though on a sun beam, shooting straight across a cloudless sky!  That's not to say life will be or feel problem free but rather, my ever-strengthening self image will fear an internal sense of adversity, closing in on all sides like a self imposed (newly exposed) vice squeezing the breath out of my body, much less than when I'd deemed myself Rodin's Thinker, bent over, fist to chin, charging my solution seeker to bear the weight of every crying child's pain inside my head.  (I think of my sons, bringing their friends into my home office, saying you can help this one or that one, Mom,  He [or she] can't talk to his parents.)

And with that said, I pushed send.

PS Phrases enclosed in parenthesis as well as the sentence referencing The Thinker were not in the text.  In truth, my fingers struck those keys, just now.

The next text I sent to my niece proved less positively focused ...
As usual, progress offers up two steps forward, one back ...