Why Surprise Parties are Good for Shy People

This past Friday night my boyfriend threw me a surprise party for my birthday.  No one has ever thrown me a surprise party before and I've never been too keen on throwing myself a party.  In fact, in the past, I've always liked to do a small dinner with family and just move on quickly.  In some way, even at small dinners, it's been uncomfortable for me to have all the attention and also to just receive the love from others.  My awareness of this was heightened at my surprise party.

I'll lay out the scene.  My boyfriend told me we had to go to a 6:00pm dinner because it was the only reservation time available at one of the best Italian restaurants in town, Capo.  I totally bought this because in L.A., it's impossible to get in anywhere great without a very advance reservation.  So we had an incredible dinner, but afterwards he said he was feeling sick and needed to go home so we drove up to the front and he said he had to run into the bathroom and for me to park the car.  So I parked the car in the garage and entered through the basement.  When I reached the top of the stairs I gasped as I saw the family room filled with white balloons and candles everywhere...but it was dead silent and no one was around.  I didn't know what to think but I figured my boyfriend had done all of it and was surprising me alone.  As I turned the corner towards the kitchen around 20 of my friends jumped out and screamed "Surprise!!!!"  I couldn't believe it.  I looked around the room and saw the most magnificent, loving faces beaming at me.  It's hard to describe the extreme range of emotions that I experienced in that moment.  I started crying from the love and from just being overwhelmed with emotions.  The evening was a beautiful manifestation of love for me...for me!  Although I had a wonderful time with everyone and noticed an improvement in my ability to just receive love from others, I still felt somewhat embarrassed that this was all for me.  I knew that it was a perfect lesson to teach me that I am just as worthy as anyone else to celebrate my life and to be the focus of attention.

A couple months ago, I read a great article in The Huffington Post about the different yet profoundly powerful nature of introverts.  This article resonated with me because I do classify myself as an introvert, someone who prefers quiet, less stimulating environments, and I've always judged myself for this.  I find that I regain my energy best by having alone time whereas many extroverts find their energy in stimulating environments and by being around lots of people.  I used to think introverted was the same as shyness, however the article states it's not the same as being introverted but that they do have similar overlapping traits.  I read this morning from the book Mastery of Love, by Don Miguel Ruiz, that Shyness is the fear of expressing yourself.  Aha!  No wonder the one quality I'm trying to cultivate more than anything else is authentic self-expression.  Shyness is the fear of being judged by others which really is a projection of how you judge yourself.  And this brings me full circle to why my beautiful surprise party was a perfect mirror to my inherent self-worth and a reminder that I am the only person blocking me from living a fully expressed life.  I can be an introvert and still feel completely comfortable demonstrating my authentic self to others.  If I am in acceptance of all the diverse and unique qualities that make me who I am then I can let my light shine brightly and make the world a better place because of it.

Transitioning out of "stuck"...even though you didn't know you were stuck to begin with.

Last week I moved out of my Manhattan Beach apartment, where I've resided for almost 7 years, and moved in with my boyfriend of 1 year.  My first post on this blog was about how I quit my job and how I'm going to spend my time navigating through the transition engaging in all sorts of new experiences and activities that will bring forward the grandest expression of my authentic self.  In comparison to the move I just did, this task seems like a cake walk.  At some point, while going through boxes and boxes of old things that had been sitting and collecting mildew in my garage for 7 years, I realized that I've had somewhat of a hoarder mentality.  My running joke was that I should be on the TV show Hoarders that does exposes on extreme hoarding.  I'm not that bad but I'm like a baby hoarder...a full-grown hoarder in the making.  The thing I clearly like to hoard the most is clothes.  I had clothes from college.  I had multiple outfits for every sport.  I had outfits for the beach, for the mountains, for islands, for European cities (not sure what that means) but anyhow, the point is that I kept everything. I had clothes that are 2 sizes too small for me because somewhere in my brain, I believed that I would actually fit into them again.  Or, maybe it's that I want to keep them because I want to be reminded that I was 2 sizes smaller.  Whatever the case, I was shocked and a little dismayed that I had stuffed every space of my apartment and garage with stuff.  As I reflected on what would encourage me to hold on to everything, I realized that I was holding on to everything.  Something about keeping old stuff tied me to the unresolved parts of my life that my subconscious hadn't let go of.  Releasing all of the physical stuff showed me how much energy I can free up in my subconscious when I surrender the old stories into the past.  In the end, I released about 30% of all my belongings to friends and goodwill and I've committed to purging old, unused items every 6 months.  Now I can live fully present to the glory of what my life looks like today, focusing on how much love, compassion and kindness I can generate in each of my present moments.