I belong to a secret facebook group with two friends from a former success mastermind.
We 3 failed out of it.
This secret group is the only place I can come and vent and bitch and whine and not feel the shame of spiritually farting in public. In this secret place we each go on tirades of self-pity, frustration, anger – and nobody ever, ever says “You should be more positive.”
Instead we say, “I hear you, I get it, lay it on me” or we laugh out loud at ourselves and each other for these very real, very scared, very not-ready-for-primetime truths that would get the deepest scowl of disapproval in any other group or relationship, where we’d be forced to wear a scarlet “N” for “negative” on our chests.
I walk around the spiritual universe – the world of friends, colleagues, clients, dating – afraid I’ll sully or destroy relationships if I admit that there IS this scared part of me that acts out at myself with irrational self-doubt, fear, jealousy, resentment, physical tension and a million self-defeating thoughts and actions.
Yes, yes, YES I’m working to discover my base of confidence, to fully support myself, to flow with the changes and rhythm in the jazz of my life. All the great stuff I remind my mentorees to do.
Should I really be holding in the spiritual gas of self-doubt?? Click To TweetAnd the fact is … I’m farting like a fat uncle all along the way whenever I try to hold in the spiritual gas of self-doubt. Is this really good for me???
What if I stop trying to quiet that voice of doubt in my head and instead say,
“Let’s hear the whole thing baby! Lay it on me and lay it on thick! Get graphic, get maudlin, get out the tissues! Get down on the floor, put your butt in the air and just let ‘er rip!”
Do I really need to be AFRAID that if I fart out some fear in the spiritual public space the Law-of-Attraction police will pepperspray me with virtual Febreeze???? That I’ll be shut out of love and locked away from Abundance and Flow forever?
The TRUTH is, self-doubt is part of me right now – on every level of physical and spiritual existence. I’m tuckered out from trying to pretend it’s not so. And is that really so bad??
An old boyfriend of mine, Alan, had a farty old dog who sat in the road or at the foot of the bed and disrupted everything from traffic to love-making. And, my god, that man loved that dog. The neighbors loved the dog. The folks who had to drive around him in the street loved that dog. And the only thing that dog ever did was fart.
I need to know I can be somewhere with people who, if I let a spiritual fart loose – still adore me. Where the fact that I reveal my spiritually farty self is treasured.
Because when I do allow myself to let-er-rip all the way, through a self-defeating, negative, melodramatic, profoundly unattractive tirade … something wonderful happens.
I laugh.
At myself.
Not with myself, at myself.
In a way that only actually hearing this tirade out loud in all its drama and slime can make me laugh. And that laughter is incredibly liberating.
What’s funny about Abundance and Flow? Click To TweetTell me: What’s funny about Abundance and Flow? What’s funny about the law of attraction?
NOTHING.
What’s funny about wallowing in self-doubt, cataclysmic failure, the melodrama of believing you’ve wasted your whole life, it’s too late now and you’re a harp-playing has-been who’s ended up in the gutter with a five-day stubble and an empty bottle of cheap gin?
Everything’s funny about that. Absolutely everything. It’s delicious self-delusional tragi-comedy at its highest. But it’s only funny when you take it over the top.
When you really go all the way and let those flaws and negative stories glory forth in all the power of their human frailty, they’re heartbreakingly human, funny in a way no mere joke can be funny … and at the seat of love.
When someone has the courage to share that with me, someone who’ll stand with me right inside the paradox of knowing that the epic failure of their life is both deeply true and deeply untrue – and who lets me see the last thing you should ever let someone see: the deepest flaws of humanity in you – and takes it so far that it’s funny – there is nothing that can keep me from loving that person.
how will you ever know the profound and healing humor of your own spiritual farts? Click To TweetIf you never let out the gas of your deepest self-doubt, if you never really let it rip in front of someone you love and trust – how will you ever know the profound and healing humor of your own spiritual farts?
And here’s the thing – nobody likes a silent-but-deadly fart. But when you just let out a big one you can’t possibly hide from … THAT is funny. And it clears the air. On the inside.
And on the outside … well, that’s what the inside smells like. It’s not always rosy, but it’s deeply human.
My wife and I openly fart in each other’s company, and as vegans we would be considered seasoned professionals. But when I let one fly in public I’m berated for my actions and treated like an amateur.
On an unrelated note … I found your email address particularly apropos for this comment. And hmmmm… that certainly makes me wonder what a professional would sound like?
There is much about this blog that I need to ‘digest’, and its book marked to be read later, in the meantime – but from the initial scan …. I HEAR YOU! I think farts (especially the heart felt ones) are highly under-rated. An old friend once said ‘We’re true friends when we can fart in each other’s company” and she proceeded to let out a rippa! I took that as a metaphor for physical, spiritual, verbal and literal farts.
And on a slight tangent, I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that if any of us find you with 5 day old stubble, well….. we’re here for you!
Thanks, Anna! Same comin’ back atcha and … forgot to mention that despite complete dereliction in my bum-of-the-world fantasy there is a nifty blue picnic cutlery set in my back pocket even as I stick my eye into the gin flask to see if anything’s left at the bottom.
Wonder where in my mind I got that gin flask image – and by the way in this fantasy I’ve always morphed into a man — actually, quite like the guy in the picture in the blog only far less healthy … and of course no dog. I think that’s part of what makes the utter dereliction fantasy so funny to me. I’m always in the gutter just outside the mansion I used to own. (and no, I never owned a mansion)
I wonder if I saw this in a movie as a kid….? It’s sooooo deliciously full of failure of every kind.
haaa! love it that your male in your minds eye! Thats perhaps another whole line of thought!
Hey – I sent the rest of the cutlery family to your Golden Cage post box – hope it arrives!!! Ax
Yes – as a kid, knowing I was a composer and observing that all composers seemed to be old men, the only logic I could come up with was that somehow I would end up an old man. That construct never left my fantasy brain, apparently, though the composer seems to have developed a taste for cheap gin – or at least for collecting empty bottles.
The prescription I was given for flatulence, was to read Big Magic. For the time being it seems to be working.
Professional farters historically were part of medieval gatherings.
More recently Mr. Methane appeared on Britain’s Got Talent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gssqJkWwfKg
Good to know, Jane. I wonder if any of those medieval farters were also harper-bards. Wait … not sure I actually DO want to know.
Be not afraid! When your gin bottle is empty, I will share mine with you. Come join me in my gloom-and-doom gutter any time! Trying to pretend that self-doubt hasn’t grabbed the seat at the head of the table and is staying until tea is served takes way too much energy that could be used for more wholesome pursuits-like getting another bottle of gin. I loved this post. Thanks for being so honest about the shadow-side of the Law -Of-Attrqaction and of Abundance and Flow, which is what I had the last time I had food poisoning.
Thanks so much Janet. I think it only works when the gin bottle remains morosely empty and you put your eye up to it and look deeply up at the sky and sigh. (I wonder where the heck I got this image, anyway?? In the fantasy I actually look like the guy in the picture – minus the dog).
I can only laugh. Been there.