My commitment to live in truth has grown stronger over the years. My goal is to align my decisions and actions with my values to support my wellbeing. I make adjustments when necessary, find inspiration when I need a lift, and avoid propeller blades.
Propeller blades is a concept born from my late wife, the idea being life gives us opportunities and some of them appear to be safe and some not. The decisions I make are as reasonable as I discern them to be, but then there’s the decisions that lead nowhere, guaranteed to lower my energy, impact my wellbeing and cause painful emotions. Those are propeller blades.
I’ve had my share of propeller blades, so much so I now recognize most of them and choose not to engage. Curiosity lures me, and I start wondering how an old flame is doing or a colleague or boss. I make the choice to step over a boundary and venture into the trigger.
It’s been helpful for me to name my propeller blades. Movies in general used to be big ones always disorienting me resulting an emotional trigger. Hospitals another one. I have unresolved pockets of pain still lurking inside from life experiences that never played themselves out with a meaningful resolution. Hurt people hurt people. Time passes and the hurts are covered over. Kind of like the sliver I have on my hand I could never get out. Now it’s a shadow under my skin, unreachable unless I dig for it. If it’s not festering, I leave it alone.
What I do have control over is taking care of myself when curiosity arises. Yes, I wonder how people are getting on, whether they’re happy. I wonder whether they are surviving the boss I couldn’t get along with. I wonder if they are healthy. I wonder.
I have several choices. I can poke around in their lives. I can drive past their house or apartment. I can cruise through the parking lot of their job to find their car. Or I can visualize them in my mind’s eye, surround them with light, wish them well and move on. It’s my choice to hang on to the pockets. If the pocket is festering, it’s my responsibility to honor my hidden emotions and find resolution for healing.
It’s my responsibility.
I’m reminded of the original movie, Men in Black with the cat collar holding the hidden galaxy. Inside the galaxy is a tiny little alien at the control.
I don’t have a little hidden alien in my head directing my actions without my knowledge or consent. I’m in charge. I say yay or nay to curiosity that pops up. I discern whether this curiosity helps me move forward or not.
Playing the blame game keeps me in the victim mentality. If I choose the propeller blade, there’s another opportunity for learning. I’ll recover from the consequences. Pain is a great motivator to make a change. My goal is to cultivate life for my highest and best good with my decisions and actions.
Participants’ Reflections:
Thank you so much. I love that idea of a propeller blade. I’ve walked into many. It’s good to learn to walk around them. Yesterday, you talked about the hand on your heart. I realized I’ve done that for over 20 years, going to sleep with my hand on my heart, breathing through my heart. I didn’t realize it was releasing oxytocin. It’s a great reminder. Thank you for your reading today.
Thank you. The meditation sent me on a journey with blades. It was about the illusion of blades and the reality of them. There was a lot to the blades in my life. I felt like sometimes they cut off a body part and then it grew back. It was a journey about blades and a lot of it about the fear of them. And sometimes, that fear I could move through and the blades were okay. And sometimes it was good to stay away. There was a lot to it. Thank you.
I was looking at the motivation for knowingly walking into the blades. I was remembering my high school boyfriend. My mom had said sex before marriage was bad, but I willingly moved into a deeper relationship with him. I was wondering what my motivation was; was it rebellion against my mother? At my 50th high school reunion, his buddies gave me his contact info without my asking. I called him and wondered why I did that. I didn’t want to get back together. Was I curious? What was my motivation? In a few emails, I realized why we aren’t together. Did I need that validation? Is that why I walked into it again? It’s amazing what curiosity is and what motivates it.
Thank you. Thinking about blades, I used to read Tarot cards a lot. I like archetypal work. In Tarot cards, a blade isn’t necessarily negative. It can be something cutting to the quick, or cleaning out what is not necessary. It can also be a sign a realization and cutting all the garbage out. Maybe we choose to walk into the blades because on some level we know we haven’t resolved the issue and we need to cut it out.
It can be clarifying. I think it’s why I say there is no right or wrong walking into a propeller blade. It’s how much we want to involve ourselves with it if it’s going to go anywhere. Because it can go somewhere really helpful, to validate, to clarify, to teach and then it helps resolve the unresolved issue that keeps bubbling up, or festering. Thank you.
In my meditation, I went to contemplating the invitation versus risk taking. The attraction of opposites. I love to say yes to invitations. I love doing things I’ve never done before. The big message for me today is that I have a choice and I can take a pause to check in with me for my well-being. It came up the other day. I spent the day with my grandchild but I don’t do it enough so I was physically tired at the end of the day. I got a last-minute invitation to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. My former self would have dragged myself over there. Instead, I bowed out because I needed down time at home. That’s a new skill I am learning. I took care of myself. Once I was home, I went out into the yard and did activities in nature which energized me. The gift I gave myself was to not do the social thing. That pause was really important. Thank you.
I think sometimes that something that looks like a propeller blade for one, may not be a propeller blade for the other. I still think about my first love. She could not continue in our relationship because she thought it wrong. A few years ago, I felt the need to walk into the propeller blade. I had found out her spouse had died and I wrote her a long, loving letter. I said I’d like to see her again and that I will always love her. I told her I’d like to catch up. I sent the letter. I’m at peace with it. I feel like I had closure by writing that letter. My walking into that propeller could have created one for her.
Closure is for our highest and best good. So that’s wonderful. I wish I had the opportunity to do that with the huge pocket of pain I have. It won’t serve me because there is so much that can come back and hurt me. I think of the sliver under my skin. I can’t get it out. I can feel it. It’s like that situation in my past. I have to just let it go. Thank you.
I was thinking of the propeller more as a mixer for mixing things up, and a fan for mixing them up and blowing them out again. I told a story here a few days ago about being torn up about my brother, feeling guilt and anger. The next day I had lunch with my daughter and told her about the meditation and what I shared about my brother. When I finished, she said she had never heard that story. It allowed me to walk into the propeller, break open, and then share it. I didn’t realize I had been keeping it so tight within me. So thank you.
My experience with the propeller idea was—there are many issues in my life I approach, but the way I approach them when I’m stressed—like my relationship with my spouse and how it’s changing because of the issues he’s facing. I do it in a way where I jump ahead and imagine the bad things that are going to happen, how it’s going to impact him and me. That’s the propeller. It’s in how I approach the topic that can be leveling to me and make me more miserable. I think it’s how I approach many of the stressors in my life, and I become overwhelmed. It’s a cycle that goes nowhere other than I feel more burdened and more stressed out. That’s not new, but because it’s so prevalent to me, it gives me more life and vitality to see what I am capable of doing which is only what is front of me. I’ve been wrong a lot in my predictions. That perspective is helpful to me to know I need to present and that I don’t know all the answers. There’s a chance it could be this way or that. I can’t see a way to approach it when I’m spiraling downward.
I do that too when I forget. I think it’s born from being a kid in a dysfunctional situation looking ahead to stay safe. Someone uses the term connecting the dots. I look ahead and connect them all together and then they become a huge thing that overwhelms me. So staying in the present is a key. I can only do what is in front of me. A good affirmation.
I haven’t resolved things about the job I had for many years. It was a toxic situation and I was being chopped up in the propeller. At the same time, I put my whole self into it so that I was helping people. I did learn from that experience to feel my way around. I’m more private now. I’ve got more wisdom now. There are other situations where innocent children and animals were involved and purposefully hurt by someone, I have no resolution for. I don’t know if I’ll ever resolve that. Over time, I can overcome if people attack me emotionally, but I don’t know how to resolve the pain of those innocent beings hurt who cannot protect themselves. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. Thank you for your patience and your demonstration of self-love that’s allowing you to spend solitude time with yourself together. It goes a long way. We appreciate your patience and your trust, in yourself and in sharing your words that everyone hears. I hope you all have a gentle day.