crown of violets

Divine Oh Nine: the Year of Courage

{the charming nickname of divine oh nine was coined by the lovely gala}

A little while ago, I started rereading Steve’s blog on personal development after his post on polyamory. I’d always enjoyed his blog, but this post and his new focus on intimate relationships changed the way I read and thought about his work. A few days later I picked up his book and started a chain reaction that has left me breathless with how my life has changed in the past few weeks.

The book is based on of seven principles of personal development and offers many ways for the reader to start building strength in areas they are having trouble with, bringing their life into a harmonious balance. As it was the new year and the season of change and beginnings, I ended up thinking hard about what my focus for 2009 was going to be. The answer I came to developed organically while I was enjoying the growth blitzing exercises in the book. It came from the principle of Truth, a simple suggestion to tell the truth about something I had lied about.

One of the biggest problems I had in my childhood was lying. I was a storyteller and terribly afraid of doing anything bad or wrong so I simply took to lying as a way to handle my fear. This continued well into my teens, where during a relationship I made up an elaborate story about friends that didn’t exist and my sexual experience to gain attention and to escape from being myself. I continued telling the stories for a few years, effectively creating an emotional wall between myself and anyone I met during that time. Eventually guilt and a fair amount of growing up helped me moved on and I locked the secret away, trying to pretend it never happened. I wrote the confession on papers and threw them away. I started making friends who hadn’t heard the story and my life gradually moved away from that space. What I didn’t know is that when you lock a fear away instead of facing it, you are not free from it. It’s still there and it can wait a long time. Every now and then, especially during periods of extreme stress or fear, something about the story would come out and I would feel like I was slipping again. I began to feel like this fear and this lie was bigger than I was. Six years later, the simple suggestion that I tell the truth brought all the fear and guilt about what I’d done back. I told myself I could never tell the truth about it, that I would do something easier, that I couldn’t ever let this out again, that I had moved on… And then, I just stopped. I stopped listening to that voice. I had done it for too long. Soon after, I picked up the phone.

Once a day for the next week, I told the truth about what I had done to one of my friends. As much as possible, I tried to arrange a meeting face to face. If that wasn’t possible, I told them over the phone. I was met with such love and encouragement and even pride from my friends about my strength. I couldn’t believe it!

To keep the ball rolling, I quit my job. I had been working as a receptionist for a social services agency and found it harder and harder to get myself to work, especially in frigid winter temperatures. While I loved the work they were doing, the position wasn’t fulfilling and my work and happiness in other areas was severely suffering. So I left. I began to understand that 2009 would be my year to flex my courage muscles. My wish for this year was to no longer live in fear. I had watched fear grow and begin to control me.

The next challenge for myself was to sort out how I was going to contribute to the world. I had been a writer for years, but I began to see how fear of my work not being good enough had slowly suffocated any joy out of it for me. Last year, I had come to the decision that I wanted to be a companion. At the time, I let my fear about what people would think about me being a sex worker and my lack of belief in my abilities to express my vision control me. I had dreams of art, travel, and many other interests that I had never really considered possible because I had let fear control my life. I knew suddenly that all of these doors, and more, were open to me. So I created this website as a way to bring all of these pieces together.

Tonight, I am facing another challenge of courage. This is one that I didn’t see coming but that I intend to face head on, with trust and love. This world is truly full of limitless possibilities, if only we open ourselves and let our love become stronger than our fear. I have been living a truly divine ’09 so far and I know whatever happens, I’ll be strong enough to face it.