Revision

I have dug my own hole of stresses and right now, they feel pretty damned heavy. I have been feeling a lot of regret and frustration, directed at myself, for the choices that I have or haven't made that led me to being in this place.  That stress and frustration has been coming out, more than I'd like, in my words and actions as of late - manifesting itself in not-so-great-interactions with others and paralyzing myself from action as I'm caught in "beating myself up".

This morning, I had a straw land on me that is (again) of my own doing and takes my having to ask for something that I hate having to do. So again, I find myself feeling more of the being angry at myself for making these same mistakes over and over again. As I get angry at myself, my perception of the world COMPLETELY changes.  Every little thing begins to bother me whether it be the woman next to me on the train who puts her purse on the seat between us so that it's on top of me (rather than putting it into her own lap) or it's being frustrated with pedestrians around me who walk slower than I do and force me to slow when I need to "get somewhere now" or it's something at work that is a minor issue that is "yet another problem from so-and-so" that I have to deal with. When I'm not stressed, these things don't cause me aggrivation (even though I notice them).  However, when I am feeling stressed, these little things become huge issues that make me even feel even more anger and frustration and I end up really broadcasting that to the world around me (which then affects others who, in turn, affect me even more). In a moment of feeling completely consumed by all of this, my inner Priestess kicks in and says to Herself, "Yansumi, these people don't deserve what you are dishing out.  Get ahold of yourself and simmer down now. You're getting into a bad cycle, again, here."

I started to think to myself, this has GOT to stop!  But what "this" am I speaking of, to myself?  Is the "this" in reference to outside forces that I perceive as acting on me that I must always react to?  Is the "this" my getting angry at every little thing? What "this" is the thing that has to stop?  When I stopped to breathe, center, and examine *myself* for the issue (as I believe that to solve such things, we must always start with ourselves before moving on to the external), what I found was something that may be obvious to others but is the kind of realization that I often feel really uncomfortable with making:

When I really think about it, the "this" that I am referring to is NOT that the world around me has to stop aggrivating ME.  The source of my feelings is NOT externally caused/sourced even if my feelings are, in part, driven by the external.  The "this" is really MY perceptions and those perceptions are caused by things that *I* have done (or not done, in some cases).

In my work as a public priestess, this is something that I often see from others - that they, too, blame the world around them for their problems and look to the Goddess to solve things for them.  When I am in the position of priestessing for someone where this is the case, I am reminded of the line from the Charge of the Star Goddess:

"... And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without."

I take this to mean, in part: if you cannot find it within yourself to create change, you're not going to find the change outside of you, either. If I need something to happen, I can pray to the Goddess for what I want but if I'm not actually doing the work, why should I expect that She grant my request?  Magic, prayer, spells - each of these, in my opinion, has their price that must be paid in order to happen. Most often, that price is that I, along with the Goddess, must work to make these things happen.  What that "work" is, varies from situation to situation, but still it is the same "price" that must be paid each time.

In the end, it isn't that something must stop in order for me to find more peace, stability, and happiness in my life.  Something must actually start.  That something is me: the choices I make, the accountability that I hold for myself, the steps I take towards my goals, and the work that I must do internally and externally, for all of this to happen. NOW is the time that I must change and must create within myself, the resolve to actually DO something (rather than just allowing myself to continue to sit, fret, and wallow in this quagmire I feel myself in).  The coming days will see me making change for me - my own, personal, revision.