Assuming makes an ass out of you and me. This line was one of the first things I learned when I started working. I don’t remember what I was making assumptions about, but it became a core understanding of how to analyze change, people, process, and technology. I was in change management. I’ve always been attracted to change and transformation. It’s almost no wonder I’m doing what I’m doing now.

I'm picking my sister up from the airport today. The intensity of a family gathering just continues to rise. My family is probably THE greatest challenge in my life. I am truly doing the best I can at any moment with them (which is not very good).

You see what you want to see

People around me have always made a lot of assumptions, which I now understand as story and projection. A projection is when someone puts their own feelings, fears, desires, or wounds onto you, often without realizing they’re doing it. It’s like they’re looking at you, but they’re really seeing a version of themselves. You become a screen for their internal movie. It has nothing to do with who you actually are, and everything to do with the story they’re carrying inside.

A story is the meaning we assign to what’s happening. It’s how we make sense of the world, but it’s not the same as truth. It’s a filter shaped by our past, our trauma, our hopes, our culture. Stories can be medicine, but they can also be cages. The key is to know when you’re telling one. That gives you choice.

Assumptions about me, about my life, who I am, and other people’s lives have always followed me. I’m no stranger to making A LOT of my own, but I’m more than not on the receiving end of other peoples. Three or four times yesterday, I just had to correct my parents for some type of judgmental story they were making about someone passing by. I’m not living in a world like that anymore. And it’s how you break your own patterns: you hold them accountable. It’s not a sustainable method of interaction with them, but I’m doing my best.

I’m a 3/5 Generator, so I’m sort of designed for people to make projections on me. That 5th line is the celebrity line, so people see what they want to see. Sometimes it’s been to my advantage, other times not. In the working world, people typically project that I’m highly competent and intelligent (which is partly true; I am competent and intelligent). But the assumption goes further: that I should therefore take on a lot more work. When I was deep in people pleasing, I couldn’t say no. So, I’d end up overwhelmed, or trying to deliver on things I didn’t yet have the support or skills to fully execute. Then I’d crash, or fail, and the same people would be shocked, like I hadn’t been telling the truth the whole time with my energy.

In my relationships, a man may project that I must have everything easy and therefore meet me with quiet (or loud) resentment because of their own issues with inequality, worthiness, or scarcity. I didn’t do anything to make them feel like that, but they do. I didn’t create their projection, but I’ve had to live with it. Someone who is not aware enough that they’re doing this will be consumed by it. It will overtake them and turn into an energy that doesn’t see reality clearly (or me). If they really believe the story they’ve created, they will lash out and send nasty texts after not talking to me for a week.

Negotiating with God

I’m bitter today, and my story is that I deserve better (and I do)—but actually, I don’t. I don’t deserve more or less. I deserve exactly what Spirit decides I need in order to grow. That’s what I signed up for. That’s the path. The spiritual path is not an easy one. The easy path would be to go get a 9-to-5, find a man to stand behind, keep things stable, predictable, easy. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to dive. To be shaped. To let the heat of challenge forge me into someone I don’t even know! I have not seen that person in the world yet; I am making it for the first time.

When I start clinging to what I deserve, I’m usually clinging to a certain outcome. A picture in my head of how I think it should be. But that’s not surrender. That’s control in disguise. That’s ego trying to dress up as faith. A cunning mind will always attempt to outsmart itself.

Deserving can be a trap when it ties our worth to whether or not we get what we want. The truth is, nothing is right or wrong. Everything is a lesson or a refinement. So I’m practicing detachment. Not from desire (I still want things, deeply) but from outcome. Because if I only stay on the path when it’s giving me what I think I want, then I’m not on the path. I’m just trying to negotiate with God. And, I already know how that goes.

Juniper poems

I’m sitting under a Juniper tree. It’s quite big, but it’s missing branches. I can see they were cut by someone. I can see the little round blue beads hanging from the ends of its limbs.

I can feel it supporting my heart. Holding me in my pain and my struggle. I don’t have to ask the Juniper for this.

I spent a lot of the prep for the Summer Vision Quest cutting Juniper. Blessing the trees, asking for their help to heal the 2-leggeds. Being with the magic, witnessing how giving the Juniper is. I soften in their beauty and their care.

I told Juniper thank you. With my heart, not my mouth. I don’t always have words for that kind of exchange. It’s not language we’re using anyway. It’s something older. Something from before the world got so noisy.

The trees don’t rush you. They don’t interrupt. They don’t need you to be better before they love you.

I thought about all the branches we cut. The offering of it. How Juniper gives of itself again and again for our healing. And how, even in what’s taken, it’s still giving. Still willing. That’s a holy kind of generosity.

It makes me want to be like that. Steady. Quietly powerful. Rooted in purpose. Able to let whole limbs go and still reach toward the sun.

With love,
Valerie