Hard work and baby steps are paying off.

I'm making some real tangible progress at the moment. The baby steps and hard work I've been doing over the last eighteen months is really starting to show up. I'm excited and just have to talk to someone about it.

 

Something I have wanted to do for an extremely long time is learn how to knit socks. I tried as child and I failed miserably. I was deemed hopeless and told to just give it up as no good could come from my hand to hand combat style of knitting. So I buried the dream to learn how to knit socks until recently.

Last month I took a leap of faith and signed up for a learn to knit socks class.  So, I'm currently taking a knitting class to learn how to make hand knit socks. The project my knitting teacher has the class working on to learn  is a wee baby sock. It's suppose to be small enough that we can complete a pair of baby socks by the end of the 4 sessions of class.

The teacher is very good and it's a small group of just 3 women (me and two others). So there is lots of individual attention and time for questions to be answered and mistakes caught and corrected before too much is done. I'm the only one in the class that has been knitting for just a fairly short time. The place offering the classes has deemed me a beginning knitter and as having officially learned to knit in January 2015.

One of the women in my class is old enough to either be my mother (or grandmother per my cheeky daughter)  depending on how you want to look at it.  She saw my progress at the end of the first class and said something that was a tiny bit catty. I just ignored her. As I figured it was simply not worth acknowledging just because I was several steps ahead of her when we left our first class. Some people I have come to learn can just be plain grouchy and down right mean to others when they are learning something new. 

I'm even more steps ahead of her at the class this week. It makes sense that I would be considering the lead I had. So I wasn't too surprised when she saw my progress this week and made a remark about me being an overachiever. I did tell her thank you and just kept on knitting. Even when she repeated it to me several times and then said it to others whom she spoke to who either stopped to see what we were doing or who were browsing the shelves near by.

I just ignored her and kept on doing my thing per the teacher's instructions as to what came next for me. At the end of class and after she left another lady whom she had made that remark to twice apologized and mentioned that she hoped it hadn't hurt my feelings too much that normally this woman is a very kind person but has just been off for the past couple of months. 

I gave her a deer in the headlights look. I’m sure it confused her. I didn’t do it cause I wanted to save face or because of deep pain. I did it because I realized that I could have cared less about the overachiever remarks and the drama. I felt the prick of pain from her words as she had said them with such venom and a look that could kill me if looks could truly kill but it didn't set me off down the path to hurt feelings. I’d like to say that it is because I had those types of remarks thrown at me all the time growing up so I have thick skin but that would be a partial lie. 

I don’t have thick skin. I’ve heard those remarks before from others both teachers and fellow students not to mention my parentals and they’ve reduced me to tears in the past, along with self-loathing, and insecurities that became huge stumbling block monsters. It didn’t this time because I’ve grown a lot in the past eighteen months. I could identify with her feelings but realized I didn’t have to accept the hand off of them. I could identify and feel the pain and frustration in the words said along with facial and body language cues but it didn’t mean I had to take it personally.

I could see thanks to Jani’s past classes on block monsters, that this woman was suffering from one. I could see how she was trying to hand it off to me out of ignorance and get me to accept it and provide it a home.  I saw that for once in my life I could be strong and not accept it. I didn’t need to accept her judgement and I didn’t need to give her seeds a home. I also for once didn’t even feel the need to justify why I was to the point I was.

All of this is a huge thing for me. It’s proof of just how far I have come in healing, working with, facing down, and dealing with my block monsters. I was able to see just how far I’ve made it on the path I am on as a creator and artist. I could see the spiral of really having traveled further than I thought because I’m far enough away from my starting point that I was able to actually recognize a block monster, I could see that I had a clear choice to accept or not to accept said block monsters (compare and over achiever) from her, I could see that my own are still with me but that I didn’t need to take these she was handing me home to give mine company. 

I could see that I didn’t need to justify that I have to redo things in order to learn. I didn’t have to justify my speed or give a tally of just how many hours a day I knit which gives me the confidence to be speedy. I could just smile and say the truth. Its ok, I thought it was a compliment. 

Further proof that I’m no longer on the starting line and have traveled is that I chose to take it as a compliment not as the insult that others in the place pointed it out as being. I am so very thankful for the support I have received to get to this point in my life. I have definitely taken a longer road with kicking and screaming that I’m not so proud of but the view from here is worth it. 

I’m also extremely thankful that the teacher (Jani Franck) who came into my life and that I took that major leap of faith to become her student and take her workshop/classes. I know that is why I am here at this point in my path. I’m also thankful for the cheerleaders and supporters who helped me to find her and whom also have played a huge role in teaching and preparing me for getting here and whom also keep tossing me water, remind me to breathe, hold an umbrella for some shade and pass me a Kleenex every now and then.

If your interested in  learning more about the classes that I took to get to this point please visit. here.

Yes, I am just a student and no I'm not going to get any compensation for sharing the link to her courses. No arm twisting happened either. I am just truly amazed and blessed by the progress I've made that I thought I would share it. Cause it's amazing how good I feel about how far I've come.

 

2013 Tackling Fears or Avoidance Issues

2013 will be a year of working on my fear/avoidance list. I put in a request for a sign as to what I should do in the year 2013. Since making my request, I have received a variety of signs in the form of emails, topics on discussion in my numerous groups and gathering places, seen ads and offers for, overheard random phrases while out shopping, riding the bus, waiting in various waiting rooms, etc. a few things on my fear/avoidance list. Because a few of the same things kept coming up repeatedly I took it as a big flashing neon sign from the universe to get my attention that this is what I am to work on in 2013. I don't know if I will tackle the whole list or not this year. As I have a pretty big list that's been accumulated over 40 years to work through.

What items will I be focusing on for the month of January? I've chosen Granny Squares, Filet Crochet, "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien, and art. I figured I'd start small and go with the hottest topics that coincided with my list. I'm not sure in what order I will do them in as some of it will depend on if I can get the required items together to do it.

Granny Squares

My plan is to find a pattern for something that involves Granny Square. I plan to first learn how to create one and then make something from it. Just thinking of doing this project is making my skin crawl and the dreaded sound track tapes of my mother and step-father start playing. If I can do this... maybe I can get their sound track erased.

Filet Crochet

I'm pretty much going to do with this what I plan to do with the Granny Squares. Find a pattern and create something.

"The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

My plan here is to get a copy of the book and read it cover to cover. I'm not sure which form I will find it in. Thanks to the movie coming out in December 2012 all available copies are checked out. I've put a request for a hold on it at our local library. I may take a look and see if I can get a kindle version or I may just break down and buy a copy at the book store. I know I have a copy of it or I should still have a copy of it somewhere. I think it's in storage with the rest of the stuff from my adopted grandmother. I may have to go check out the shed and see if its still there or not.

Art

My plan here is to take some workshops online. Maybe even with my children. I've looked into several different ones and they all seem to be good and very interesting. It's making it hard to choose where to begin. I signed up for a three week ecourse by Jani Franck titled "UnEarth your Creative Nature". I chose it because it's “suitable for aspiring or lapsed... and anyone who wants to bring more creativity into their daily life.”

Now that I have shared this, I must do it. I hope to have an update soon on at least one of these that I have accomplished for the month of January.