Category: Awakening

WTF

On By rrainefioreIn Antarctica Job Search, Awakening, ThailandLeave a comment

Tonight I went down to my room after the workshop was over and listened to my voicemail.  There was a message from someone at PAE asking if I would be interested in the Construction Superintendent job at McMurdo.  This is the job I really wanted in Antarctica.  I am well suited for this job.  The job would start in January.  I had assumed I was going to Thailand and worked through my disappointment over not going to Antarctica.  At first I felt angry and frustrated.  I’ve been waiting for this since March.  Why wait this long?  Why now?  I’ve packed most of my clothes.  I’ve paid $1400 in vaccinations.  I have a plane ticket to Thailand.  My deposit for my TEFL class is paid.  I paid for international health insurance for a year.  I told everyone I am going to Thailand.  What the fuck?!  Now I might have to make decisions.  I told Wendy, Michael and Ed and they are all excited for me.   I don’t feel excited.  I feel chaos and stress.  Michael said “Oh, does life support Rraine?  This is what you want”.  This is what I want, but it didn’t come in the package I wanted.  I spent years knowing I was quitting my job and doing something else, but not knowing what that something would be.  It was so uncomfortable not knowing, not having a plan.  I felt weak, indecisive, terrified, and stupid.  Then when I finally made a plan to go to Thailand, it felt solid.  Now I may abandon my plan and I’m back to feeling all those things again.  Fuck you life, I can’t make this decision.  So, I broke it down – why am I upset?  I will lose all the money I have already spent – ok, it’s just money and there will be more money.  I may appear flakey to the TEFL company and they may not want to postpone my class.  Why do I care what they think?  I’m afraid all the people I told I was going to Thailand will judge me.  Again, why do I care what they think?  I’m not even close most of the “they”.  Those that are close to me get it.  It’s my judge.  It’s my inner mom telling me I have to finish what I start.  I have to do what I said I would do.  It’s fear of not having a plan (code for control over the situation).  Without a plan, I will have nothing and won’t be able to take care of myself and then I’ll die.  I feel unstable without a plan.  I feel extra unstable if I abandon the perfectly good plan I had.  I’m upset because this will add more to my to-do list and it’s already ridiculous.  These and many I didn’t list are the surface reasons I am upset, but they are just there to distract me from the base issue.  The base issue is that if I get this job, the one I wanted, I will have to accept the fact that Life does support me.  This is contrary to everything I have ever believed.  My entire life and much of my personality is based on the belief that there is not enough for me.  This is what I’ve been working on so hard.  I want reality to flip and to really get it that life supports me.  I will have to live from the new truth, to not know and trust and change – forever.  It’s so silly that this is so hard.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

On By rrainefioreIn AwakeningLeave a comment

I just finished a week of an Awakening to Presence workshop in Pennsylvania.  The workshop was amazing as always.  I feel blessed to be able to witness the work of so many beautiful people and to be able to support them.  I love watching the other assistant teachers step into their leadership.  And it’s amazing to watch True Nature show up to show us what we are.  I said goodbye to most of this group in June because I wasn’t sure when I was leaving.  It was difficult to say goodbye again.  I felt their love and respect which reminds me of why I am doing this work and why I am leaving.  Part of why I am leaving is for me, my adventure, my learning and my experience.  But I do believe this adventure will deepen my presence.  It feels more like a widening than a deepening.  If I can go out and explore the world with a wide openness, what will I find?  If I can find it safe, rich, enjoyable and full, even in the midst of chaos, unfamiliarity, and fear, can I hold that knowledge in my body and my energy?  Can I hold that for myself and others?  I cognitively know this and I know this a bit from my experiences recently, but now I’m jumping off in the deep unknown to really test it so I may know it fully.  I hope that others will follow me in their own way to knowing.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

On By rrainefioreIn Awakening, ThailandLeave a comment

Today I feel ready to move to Thailand. I feel that life supports me.  I feel like something else is going to happen job wise other than teaching English.  I am forging the way for something, I just don’t know what.  For me today, the question that keeps coming up is, why am I still afraid to awaken fully?  What am I actually afraid of?  The question comes up because I feel aligned with life, yet I have a headache and my back hurts.  What am I holding or am I just feeling stuff that other people around me are dealing with?  I’m still not good at know when I am feeling my issues in my body and when I’m feeling issues tha are actually someone else’s.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

Two

On By rrainefioreIn AwakeningLeave a comment

I went on facebook this morning and saw pictures of a bunch of my friends at dinner the night before for a friend’s birthday.  Why wasn’t I invited?  I feel like all the people I invite to do things with me don’t think to invite me.  Am I the friend no one really likes, but no one wants to tell?  Why do I go through so much effort to include people or spend time with people who are not willing to do the same for me?  Am I choosing friends unwisely?  Why does everyone else seem to have a close group of friends and I’m always sort of a friend?  I feel if I stopped reaching out, I’d only have 3 or 4 friends.  Is there something inherently wrong with me?  Am I not lovable?  Am I just preparing to leave the country and life is just making it easier to go?  I think this a common human issue and a lot of us feel like this not knowing it just isn’t true.  Not realizing a lot of other people feel this way too.  Or knowing it’s a lie, but not knowing how to stop the reaction from happening.

I had a session with my coach today and a lot of this came up in the session.  Summary of the process:  I feel like a small child in a dark room crying out for help and no one is coming.  This comes up a lot for me in process.  I felt the infant cry so hard until the nervous system had to shut down to keep the baby from dying.  Something is wrong and I cry out, but no one is coming and I can’t fix it.  I don’t know how to fix it.  I can’t do it and no one else will.  As an infant the only thing I could do was shut down and energetically leave my body because I couldn’t fix what was wrong.  I can’t move forward.  I can’t move because if I do, no one will follow.  If I move forward, I will have to do it alone.  I will be alone in the world.  I feel like the sales brochure for life was wrong.  I paid for, signed up for two.  I was promised two.  There is no two, it’s just me.  No mommy is coming to help me.  No mate is coming to share his life with me.  There is no knight is shining armour (stupid stupid fairy tales).  There is no two.  There never was.  I feel lied to.  This is not what I came here for.   Near the end of the process I felt like my arms and legs were disintegrating, slowing evaporating up off the table.  This was fascinating.  I was becoming not solid.  I was disintegrating into everything around me – ONE.  There was a small part of me that wasn’t happy about this experience.  If I disintegrate, I will be nothing.  I don’t want to be nothing.  If I’m not part of two, am I nothing?

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

On By rrainefioreIn AwakeningLeave a comment

Still really enjoying reading Diamond Heart Book 4.  Whenever I read anything from AH Almaas, it feels like he wrote the exact thing I needed to read that very day.  This is what stuck with me today:  “White blood cells defend and protect and then they are cleaned out of the body.  The personality defends and protects.  It needs to be clarified”.    I’ve been sick a lot this year.  Does the body go through a similar cleaning process as the personality is being clarified?

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

On By rrainefioreIn AwakeningLeave a comment

I was reading Diamond Heart Book 4 today.  It started out talking about how people that claim instant Realization and that realization doesn’t happen this way.  It’s not instant, it’s nonlinear, it’s a process.  I was just discussing this with Lisa and how I want to write about my process in this blog.  As I was reading this, I could see colors swirling on the white page.  Fun!

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

Salida Art Show

On By rrainefioreIn Art, AwakeningLeave a comment

I’ve been doing pottery since 1998.  It started as something to do when I first moved to Colorado and didn’t know very many people.  I started off learning how to throw pots on the wheel.  After a few years, I wasn’t much better than when I started.  I was constantly making bottom too thin or getting them off center.  I couldn’t make anything very tall or big and heaven forbid I try to make a plate.  This was the point where I stared hand building.  That’s all I’ve done since.  Over the years, I’ve come to a style all my own and I love making things.  Now, I make small raku boxes and vases.  I’ve had my work in a couple of galleries over the years.  Everyone loves my stuff, but I hardly ever sell anything.  For years, pottery was my weekly escape from the engineering world.  It was my feminine side allowed to be creative and flow a little.  I stopped making pottery about six months ago.  I have quite a bit of work and don’t want to make more just to store it.  This weekend I’m doing an art show in Salida with my friend, Lisa.  I barely sold anything today.   I was hoping to sell a lot and not have to store it when I leave.  But that’s not what’s happening.  I’m having trouble seeing what the point is.  Why am I here this weekend?  Creating art for a living doesn’t seem like the job for me right now.  I keep looking for a meaning or purpose.  Am I here to meet someone that will be important in my life?  Am I here to help Lisa?  Is this a lesson in frustration?  Is this supposed to help trigger my money issues, my issues with not enough, for me so I can work on them?  If I was more grounded, would my work sell?  I noticed all day that I was not present.  I’d try to ground and then notice a few minutes later that I wasn’t. 20150711_140909 20150711_140915

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

Feminine

On By rrainefioreIn AwakeningLeave a comment

I’ve spent most of my life living at the male end of the energy spectrum.  I’ve always had more male friends than female.  I’m focused, purpose driven and like to get things done.  I was always good at math and science in school and little patience for girly things.  I was a tom boy who preferred to be climbing trees than playing with dolls.  I went to college to be and engineer and have worked in that field for over 20 years.  I’ve been single for most of my adult life.  I had one boyfriend for 3 years, one for 1 year and I was with my Scott for a total of 5 years (2 married).  All my other relationships have been quite short.   I’ve now been single for 11 years and it’s not what I want.  I have been struggling over the years with issues I have with alone and loneliness.  I’ve been struggling with not knowing what I want.  I’ve been craving a romantic relationship, but just not finding what I want.  At a young age, I rejected the ultra feminine.  I see it as mushy, weak, indecisive, high maintenance, dumb, and not powerful.  At some level, I’m rejecting myself, I’m rejecting my creativity and passion.  On an energetic level, I am only finding men that will reject me.  Over and over again, I find someone that is interested in me only to have them leave me for someone else.   This issue of my lost femininity has come up a lot and recently it has become clear to me that it might be core of a lot of my issues.  I have been actively work on this for about a year now. For a while I tried to just be present when I was out and see if I was energetically more on the male or female side of the spectrum.  I would try to be more feminine.  All I found from this experiment was that I couldn’t change at will.  I can’t “do” feminine.

This adventure to live in another country is an exercise of throwing myself into the feminine and seeing what it’s like.  I don’t know where I’m going, or how, and I don’t fully know why.  I’m trying to trust that the flow of life will determine what is next.  I’m throwing away the need for a plan, the need to control the situation.  It’s been very uncomfortable.  For quite a while I had no idea what part of the world I would be going to.  I had no idea how I would get there, what I would do to make money.  At first I thought I should know and have a plan.  When people would ask me, I’d say I didn’t know and then try to say something to justify why I didn’t know yet.  I could see the disapproval or terror in most people’s eyes.  I felt flighty and irresponsible for not knowing what I was doing.  I felt like I appeared that I wasn’t taking it seriously enough.  After a while I just got tired of explaining and I just felt frustrated because I didn’t have what I thought was a good enough reason for being wishy washy.  At that point, when people would ask me when and where I was moving, I’d just say soon and somewhere or I don’t know.  I would still see the judgement and terror in their eyes, but the most amazing thing happened when I would just leave the answer at that and not try to explain or justify.  The judgement on their faces would disappear and was replaced with excitement or awe or respect.  This happened only every time.  Most people would say something like “that is so brave” or “I wish I could do that” or some other powerful statement.  Wait, this not knowing, not having a plan, feminine flighty thing I’m doing is actually not weak or indecisive, but actually brave and powerful.  (I still find it extremely uncomfortable).

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore

How My Blog Got Started

On By rrainefioreIn AwakeningLeave a comment

I’ve wanted to write a blog for a long time, but it just kept getting put off.  I thought that writing a blog might be one way to make money.  One night I researched making money from blogs.  There was so much information and it was so new and confusing that I think I’m dumber after doing the research.  But the idea of doing a blog kept coming back to me so now I’m doing it because I want to and not to make money.  I still don’t understand how people make money by blogging.

So, where do I start without telling you my entire life’s story?  Let’s start with Awakening to Presence School.  There are a ton of things that led up to that point, but let’s just start there.  I started with the classes because I thought I wanted to become an energy healer.  I can honestly say I didn’t really know what I was signing up for except for the fact that I knew I was where I needed to be.  Energy work is only part of what I would learn.  I would learn anatomy, physiology, conscious movement, energy work, psychology, character patterns, grounding, judge work, and much more.  I had to question everything I thought was true about myself and the world and be willing to go to the places inside myself I didn’t want to go to investigate.  After seven years of school and the most amazing amount of personal growth and learning, I was ready to quit my engineering career and start my own business as a coach in this work.   But before I start my new business I want to spend some time experiencing what it’s like to live differently.  I want to live in a different county, a different culture, to get a little lost in the chaos and see what I learn from those experiences.  I researched the Peace Corps, but that wasn’t quite it.

I’ve wanted to go to Antarctica for years.  I even applied for jobs in the past.  In March I started the job application process.  I applied for 58 jobs.  I waited months without hearing a word.  By mid summer, I decided I might need to look into Plan B.  I could be an engineer somewhere else, maybe work in a spa doing massage, deal blackjack again, or work as a dive master.  I could teach English, kayaking or snowboarding.  I looked into jobs with US Embassies or Consulates.  I looked into Engineer’s without Borders.  I just kept coming up with ideas and no real direction.  So I decided to figure out where I wanted to go and then maybe the job would be obvious.  Nope.  There are so many countries.  The more I researched the more I found land mines, kidnappings, natural disasters, and horrible illnesses.  Now more time had passed and I was depressed at how unsafe our world appears and no closer to a plan.  Eventually I narrowed it down to southeast Asia, Malaysia or Indonesia.  Teaching English was the front runner followed closely by dive master, but some of the other ideas were still worth researching.  A little more time past and the plan got narrowed down to Thailand to teach English, Bali (not sure how) or Antarctica.  Now you are all caught up – sort of – not even close, but that’s going to have to do.

(c) all rights reserved Kimberly Fiore