Coming through the "Human Stuff"
I am in Heidelberg, Germany, and am having an interesting experience inside myself. I don't speak German and it's easy to feel that I don't fit in, that I am a stranger in a strange land, unacquainted with customs and the flow of life. I am stymied by understanding options when ordering food, or the way shopping at the market works, or what is considered rude and polite, or how to connect my computer to the internet. Perhaps this is a perfect place to begin to unhook from my personality, for I find myself quite often in the past week saying, "Penney just got upset and contracted about that." Or, "Penney wants to withdraw because she feels too overwhelmed right now." Not I, not Me. I am realizing I am an observer with no particular agenda. I come through the "human stuff" and sometimes get stuck in it.

I am a little interested in Penney, but not that much. I am not invested in having Penney continue telling the story of her life history, as though that makes her real. I don't care about her reasons and excuses for behaving certain ways. Actually, I'd like a lot of that to be gone because it feels like it's in the way. I am a space of joy and creativity within a bigger space of joy and creativity. Other people are spaces, too, and they can join me. Still, I am triggered into old reactions by some memory pattern just beneath my muscles. It can take awhile before I realize I think I'm Penney again and simply let go and move through old habits to the open space place again. It's sporadic, and I feel like I'm cruising a bit, not quite uunderstanding how this new "car" drives and what it can do.