February 28, 2009 @ 7:04am

Today is my sixtieth blog, for 60 days I have written a little of something every day and I'm proud of myself. Proud of the commitment I made and the way I have stuck with it. It's not much but it feels good to me. Also, I've enjoyed the convenience of writing my morning pages on the computer as well as the way in which I am saving paper and helping the planet.
as God's beloved, I gladly represent Divine Love on the planet. I know I am the way through which my sacred partner expresses love: www.scienceofmind.com affirmation.
I woke up this morning and an old but dear co-worker of mine is on my mind. I miss this woman, I miss our connection and I miss the many ways in which she was honest with me. Of course, I hated it when she spoke the truth because I wasn't really ready or willing to embrace anything that was remotely useful but I awake some ten years later and recognize the gift she extended me, the unconditional love.
I'm also indebted to another soul with whom I had the opportunity to spend time with recently. We spoke of life, family, work and growing up. But I was left with a phrase that was used, a phrase I was all too familiar, a phrase I used as a cloak of honor. It was peculiarly strange to hear those words, to see myself in the words and to recognize how completely cut-off the words made me. I don't go back and the truth is although I have spent my entire life living this mantra, it has done nothing to serve me. It has been the reason why I continue to find myself in the same place which as far as I am concern constitutes backward movement, I have gone back while attempting to move forward. I have come back to the same place while thinking that I was engaged in activities that moved me forward, all the while I was thinking I was going somewhere but surely not backwards.
I went backwards just recently and it has been the best spiritual lesson in my life. I returned to a former job. It was not only a miracle, it was my miracle and for the first time in my life I could see where going back is sometimes okay. For me to dictate absolutes has been my way of life but it hasn't served me. What I learned in this experience is that going back allows me to get it right, to humble myself and to recognize imperfection. To move away from the need to judge and block out what I think is the ultimate wrong. Going back taught me what I do wrong because I don't want to think of myself as a person who does wrong, of course not. Also, it moved me in a space of forgiveness, not only for a former employer but for myself. It catapulted my spiritual enlightenment because I couldn't rest on my mantra or any other dictum I seem to carry around or banter about. Sometimes going back has been the best thing for me. I thought I would never come back to Ann Arbor, people questioned my thinking about this decision. What I learned is that as long as I'm saying I will never go back, I am running from something, the goal isn't necessary to go back but it's important to understand what I'm running from and work on that because it's only a matter of time when I am back to that place that I swore I would never return to but yet I'm in a different locale suffering from the exact thing I swore I would never return to.
It never ceased to amaze me when I found myself in the same situations, same kind of stuff that was present in other places. I thought that moving around would change me, change the ability for old stuff to happen again. What I've come to know is that locale doesn't change a thing if I haven't changed on the inside. In the multitude of cities where I have lived I always found myself surrounded by people who were no good for me, I found myself within jobs where employers could care less about my career goals, I found myself attracting the same type of people. These people, whom my dear friend Campbell Spencer so eloquently called the emotionally unavailable. She accused me of liking people who were emotionally unavailable and I hated her for saying that to me. I could hear the truth in the statement, I didn't want to hear the truth, so I went on a path of denial and moved quickly away from her because the truth isn't what I wanted at the time but when is the time for truth. Now, she made this statement many years ago but if I'm honest with myself, if I just access who I've been in relationships with, I can't help but come up with a whole list of folk who were always emotionally unavailable. It didn't where I was, I fell for them. I can't say I was ever in a relationship with a person who was seriously and consciously emotionally available, me included. So I'm sitting here realizing that as much as I swear up and down that I'm not going back, I've come full circle with the realization that I am trying to become involved with a person who emotionally unavailable. How much more backwards could I be. How much faster can I go back then the rate I am moving at this very moment.
The truth is it hurts and the only person I can blame is myself, there is no one else doing this to me, I am doing this to myself. I looked up at my life this morning and I said why am I in the same place that I have been for the last 42 years. I've gone back and didn't even know it. I thought I was moving at a steady pace, slow but forward.
I get where I am at, I'm not sure how to move out of this but what's different this time than all the times before is that I will figure it out. I'm not in a space of wanting to beat up on myself, I am loving myself to know that each moment is a new opportunity to create the life that I want. Before, I would of become suicidal, depresses or moved in to self sabotage but not this time. This time I hold the girl-child inside of me and tell her job well done. I let her know that the new and improved Charlotte, the grown up Charlotte is here to take over and that the girl inside of me can rest. I can do what I never did before in this time of reflection, I forgive myself, and I accept that I have work to do. I open myself up to being emotional available instead of closing myself down or running away. The God to honest truth is that I am back where I thought I'd never be. Of course, I want to say to myself that being back in Ann Arbor was suppose to cure me of all my ails for that is why I am back but being in a place doesn't cure anything, it doesn't make old habits die away, it doesn't instantly bring about clarity or the motivation to do better. What I have learned in this moment is that this life takes work and yes I feel exceptionally tired, feel as if it's never going to get easier but I'm up for the challenge, I'm up for the chance to live a better life and I'm not willing to accept that I have to be in the same place, time and time again.
I owe it to myself to be the best that I can be. I owe it to myself to have relationships with people where I can be emotionally available and vice versa. I'm not sure how to do that exactly but I return to spirit in prayer and meditation. I patiently listen for the answers and I give my life power to actions that will push me into a new life and new way of living. I can't help but enjoy the tears of pure and utter joy that flow as I write, I know that they wash away the old and bring forth the new. So, I thank you Campbell for telling me the truth, a truth that has taken over ten years to hear. I won't spend time on beating myself up, I'll spend this moment content that the message got through, that I'm finally hearing what I need to hear and open to making change.
As I move out of the month of love, I know that love never dies it just gets transformed. I use the catalyst of concentrated love and use it to build a life full of the abundance of love. I recognize that sometimes you have to go back not because it's a backward movement, not because I'm a bad person, not because something is wrong, sometimes the motion backward allows me to identify the more perfect forward movement but I have also learned that as much as I resist moving backward, I'm already back there anyways, giving it power and control over my life. I think what spirit is trying to teach us is that motion is not up or down or front or back, it is merely expansion from the point where we are, I am expanding into the fullness of who I am and I am expanding into God's infinite wisdom, merciful abundance and ever present love.
I am perfect and I am whole and I complete. I LOVE ME!!!