Tag: #sortingthroughemotions

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Deep Understanding Sought on Rainy Day Walks

“In Your Wildest Dreams”

I’m learning ….. that

I always need to have an exit strategy which includes an exit narrative and I’m working out the difference between that and a balanced look at things. It’s not easy work.

It’s dark out and gloomy, but I don’t feel that way. My storms are calm. For now.

“But I’d follow you to the great unknown. Off to a world we’d call our own.” I want to watch this movie. It’s been awhile. That and the movie UP are on my mind. This blog is my attempt to not lose myself in the fray.

I am lost, I am found. I’m a walking contradiction that’s hard to be around.

No.

So many changes around me and the seasons are the least of it. “So I’d risk it all just to be with you.” Yeah did that. Not anymore. I wouldn’t risk the stability of my kids and I for anything again. I have to work daily at self forgiveness. It becomes a way of life, not some singular moment.

Forgiveness and compassion for self. It starts there, and I learned very little of it. I have to start from scratch.

Yes.

Left right left right. One foot in front of another. The most simple part of my day. Me with me. Walking.

Gentle walking. Tears falling. Tension releasing. Surrender walking. White flag walking. Calm talking. Rhythmic rocking. No tik tokking. Lol. Have to play a little. A little lighter.

The rain begins to fall. I don’t know it all.

When I don’t I’m not safe. You try it the way I’ve had it and see how you do.

Coming to grips blow by blow continuously seeking flow.

Here comes the rain. Don’t know how hard it will be. Will I drown?!

One mile is pretty good for a migraine day. One migraine for a holiday month is pretty good. My stats are going pretty well. Maybe I’ll make it two, you never know.

But I do.

It’s only rainy not raining, not pouring. The difference is important. Nuance is important. Understanding is important. Black and white is dangerous.

Just breathe Christina. Breathe. The only thing you need to do is be yourself, who you truly are, and be honest about that, and what you want and need.

Why is that so fucking hard.

You know why.

You’re seeing my chat with my higher self in real time. It’s ok to have an exit strategy, but decide what the criteria is for using it or not. You get to decide. You don’t have to decide: you get to. It’s a privilege, not your sole responsibility. It never was.

What I Have. Kelsea Ballerini. Cuz I got a roof over my head, I’m doing alright right where I’m at with what I have.

The simple things like making a stir fry on a rainy day. Simplify. When all your mind does is complicate, simple is bliss.

One more loop. One more mile. One more tear slips down my face. One more epiphany. One more day of life at least. It’s not a burden it’s a gift. You’re not bad Christina. Not emotionally uncaring or shut down or cold. Unclench.

It’ll be ok. How do you want me to believe that when it never was. Let alone want me to say that to you. I don’t know how. Help me.

Have you ever actually been unsafe?!

You don’t have to be to feel that way I’m learning. The mind can play cruel tricks, but it can also heal.

A beautiful mind and a wounded heart are a difficult combination.

Gifted but only in the right places. Threatening in others.

I’m not bad. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t yours either.

Misunderstandings are a prison. Don’t let your mind be.

Plant a garden. You plant so many flowers. All of my plants die. Argue argue argue.

Minds a mess. A mind at rest.

Lay with me….

B12 injection in Fairfield. So many memories there. My first office. It took so long to feel real. Like that was my life and not a fantasy.

Surreal every day. Until the truth finally sets in. It takes so long for that to happen.

It takes all the consistency there never was, and follow through on the build.

Don’t abandon this project, she’s going to be great. She always was.

The world may, you may, but I never will. I’m right here.

These days I’m working on my relationship with myself. It requires a lot of healing and many optimal conditions for that.

My heart requires it.

So if you want a place at this table inquire within if you can be congruent without.

Meet me here if you dare.

More art. Less war. Open heart on firm ground.

Kiss me

But only if you know me, see me, understand me….

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Thankful for All of You, the Committed Readers of my Story

Listening to My Life by NF, it pairs nicely with having watched GoodWill Hunting this morning.

I’m walking. My own turkey trot if you will.

There are things I do now to try and make my life easier. None of this will make up for how hard my life was for so much of it.

I’m tired in ways I’d never want you to understand, but I do want understanding.

These days I try and allow this rather than judging myself for it, condemning me. Criticizing and controlling me. Demeaning me. Beating me.

I spent over half of my life living this way. And attracting neglect and abuse in one form or another. Because those things like to breed and to continue. Like an invasive hearty species of weeds, they clenched my heart to death.

I reacted to life and I attached well to nothing.

And every day I’m healing.

And yesterday before the holiday I was triggered and raw. What’s different this year is how I behaved with me. This year I was understanding and kind to her. I didn’t minimize her emotions.

I used the episode to be able to see clearly how far she and I have come this year. My little girl and me. And to see how I could have never done this work and had any profound connection beyond an idea, a fantasy, and the beginning stages.

I’m so thankful for my therapist this year, and I know there are people out there thankful for me in the same vein. And to my energy healer who I had my “it’s not your fault.” Good will Hunting moment. Don’t hold me…..

My guarded heart. Don’t hold me my body screamed. Not worthy, not deserving, of holidays of love, or any good thing. 

I used to bare down and hold tight, white knuckles to my fighting position, seeing red. Now the tears flow so much more easily. The fear and terror and panic vanishes more quickly.

What used to take me days to recover from, what used to explode my whole world each time, now settles down in my mind in a matter of hours.

I intend to enjoy my healing for the rest of my life, rather than resent the fact I need to.

I’m ready to let go of the pain; it wasn’t the friend I thought it was. The safe and secure ground of my story, no longer has the same ring to it.

I can’t unring that bell.

I love you

I love me

What used to feel like stone, now feels like feather. The labored breaths, hot with pain, now come effortlessly. Nothing is blocking them.

Don’t get me wrong I’m still thawing. This is an everyday kind of job, an inside one, but now I’m so grateful for it. It’s made me someone with passion and heart. It’s given me a career that is a blessing and incredibly meaningful.

Hold on, Chord Overstreet.

Unclench my jaw. Untie my shoulder blades. Unlock my hips. Unbridle my love muscle.

Please let me feel things the way it seems like others do, in real time. Not only in private and silence where I feel safe.

Undry these eyes they were always meant to cry. It’s ok. It’s not your fault. You can be held.

Recovery

Recover with me. I thought we could do this together, but I had to do it for myself first.

Show it don’t tell it.

Practice less than preach.

I am loving, and I am loved.

My daily prayer

And gratitude for all of it….

All of you reading

All my love,

C

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Fifty I am Statements that can Stretch to Infinity

You call me up again just to break me like a promise.

The “I am” project…. I remember when my therapist gave me this assignment and I could only list like 4 things that described what I do. My roles. I am my roles. I am disconnected. I am starved. Is what I could have said then if I had the words.

Now someday I am going to wrap together I was and I am with a beautiful bow. The pages are going to smell like heaven.

Like her

So for now I submit to you my growing I am list. For any who may be or have been lost in similar ways and are working on their own.

All my love,

C

I am….

A mother
Counselor
Writer
Deep thinker
Creative
Kind
Generous
Spontaneous
Curious
Impulsive
Impatient
Passionate
A piano player
Affectionate
Warm
Playful
Intense
Loyal
Conscientious
A people person
A leader
An advocate
Self-aware
Strong
A music lover
A reader
A researcher
Full of triggers
Less ashamed than I used to be
Growing
A spring and fall person
And extroverted introvert
Sensitive
Movie lover
Coffee and coffee shop bookstore lover
Frugal
Poet
Naturalist
Feminist
Grateful
A little things person
A believer in magic and happy “endings”
Naive
Idealist
Sensual
Someone who prefers small intimate venues where I can hear over clubs and loud.
Someone who loves Sunday’s
A mermaid
Someone who loves French vanilla ice cream and lavender linen spray
A person who likes to be cozy
A conversationalist / enjoys working on the art of communication
A recovering hypochondriac
A person who suffers from complex ptsd
Wanting to belong
A person who believes a life well lived can be defined by loving well and being loved in return
Haunted
Recovering
Battling all or nothing
Transforming
Dynamic
Unbridled
Tempestuous seeking serene
Woman
Child
Human
Someone who starved for and enjoys touch, it grounds me
Lost when it comes to family connection. Admiring it in others and feeling deeply inadequate when I don’t know my family history or seem so different than everyone else.
The song Vienna by Billy Joel
Someone who has an incredible amount of questions about her family that deep down wishes they could be answered, but cuts off from even the questions themselves because it hurts too much to wonder, to be outside, to be disconnected
Someone who numbs the pain by staying passionately engaged in living and learning
Someone who makes a lot more mistakes because of that.
Hyper vigilant
Disorganized
Prone to rabbit holes of self loathing for things that were never my fault
Struggling with chronic dis ease of body and mind, and trying to calm those storms
Someone who can have an amazing memory if present and has developed the skill of erasing them just as easily.◦

It, much like me, is a work in progress …..

Onward

Ps. I got a massage last night and woke up feeling human today. I wasn’t in pain. I get them every two weeks for now, and it’s changed my whole life. I take care of myself the rest of my life, in all of the ways I wasn’t. As protective as the parents I deserved, and I’m not mad about it 😉 xoxo

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Fearless Love…. Fierce Recovery. Finding Faith.

I’m having a rainy morning walk. I love it. I feel alive.

Found The Little Prince’s Rose this morning

I had a scary episode last night. I’ve had very little focus on any health anxiety and very few symptoms. But last night in a therapy session I was talking about my mom, and my trauma. My heart started to feel like it was stopping and flipping over, but for much longer than just one beat.

So I looked at my heart rate, it was 114 bpm. I took a few deep breaths and it immediately went to 70. My usual is a fib or palpitations but this was different. I consulted “the google” I like to call it this because it makes me feel my actual age and not my chronological one, which is around 90 years or so.

The Google says it was an SVT, maybe of course as neither of us have a PhD. I’m so grateful for no longer going down rabbit holes, but I also want to find the line of not ignoring something serious either. Sigh.

What’s indisputable is how trauma has ravaged my body. I’m angry. I’m angry!

Anger can be restorative. It restores our boundaries. It’s not to be dismissed as merely a negative emotion. A good lesson from The Language of Emotions and this past couple of years.

So I’m thinking about that girl that was plagued with terror and health symptoms. About how I understand now that’s what my body thought it had to do to get any needs met. Until it didn’t make any sense and I became discredited in my health anxiety, and had to figure out how to internalize less and ground more. Find new ways to meet my need, that didn’t require me to be sick.

This morning I was talking about how once upon a time I loved a little girl with my whole heart. That happening so naturally changed something in me. It was the beginning of some important lessons in love.

Children really are our greatest teachers.

Listening to my guy Teddy, sing about find something you can hold on to, find someone who will be there for you, because that’s all that really matters in the end. It’s hard to tell the truth when you lie to yourself, always give too much of yourself to someone else…..

Yes Teddy! That’s all that really matters in the end….

I feel alive and awake. Something that used to be a rare moment that often led me to dark places when I didn’t understand the full picture.

Now I take the time to do that. You take and make time, you don’t find it.

In my head my memoir is taking shape, as I read more, I hear more hints and glimmers of what my story will look like on the page. And why it’s important that I tell it. Made a difference to that one.

And mostly for my children because my story is also their story. A Life Itself reference.

Should I do another lap? I want to it feels so good, but it’s wet and cold, which isn’t bothering me, but I don’t need to increase my odds of getting sick. They are already high.

I need breakfast. I don’t want to interrupt this flow. Story of my life, except now I don’t drown in fear it won’t all be there when I need it.

My shattered and scattered mind. I see it more and more clearly every day. S. King would have suggested one less more there. Oh I also need to finish his book too.

I’m standing on my porch remembering. Remembering the pain all the times I tried to yell to be seen. All the days I sat here and cried and felt deeply. All the friends who were here to soothe. All the visits with my stand in father bringing groceries and unconditional consistency. I doubt he will ever know the depths of what he has meant to my story.

The difference between life and soul death is a fine line. I’ve walked it many years.

Love never goes anywhere…. It always exists as do all the moments. That’s what I’ve learned. You keep them, download them. It can be bitter sweet you aren’t able to make more, but we are all responsible for our choices.

I’m listening to the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I am captured. My full attention. And let’s be honest we all know how rare that is. I’m laughing heartily on my front porch. We are friends now.

I remember an old post about can you fall in love with a house. And the answer is yes, but that girl at that time knew very little about real love. Only an idea of love. Trapped in a coping mechanism that required creating fantasies and then attempting to occupy them.

Over and over I rode that haunted roller coaster.

Now I just sit here and observe, and I DECIDE what I absorb and what I don’t let it.

I was looking in an old journal of mine, I had written those letters large DECIDE. I learned about the power of our choices and Senja Foster taught my to have crystal clear boundaries and only participate as a whole person, with another person who had done that work themselves.

I show up and I always will, and I promise myself to never believe those rotten stories about her again. It makes me sad and sick to think of my relationship with me, it was the most abusive.

I made amends to myself when I walk and it’s changing me.

And I am fucking grateful! For every single moment, even the hard and bad ones, because I can walk back through them in my mind, and because I can now see where my boundaries are.

I was borderless. My phone tried to change that to borderline how funny. That’s how that type of crazy feels. It’s not a good feeling.

I choose peace now, and I live in it, and no one can take that, and I made it out of nothing.

Fierce and loving ….

I won’t settle for anything less…. Melissa Etheridge sings. That’s the energy I was writing the last few minutes in, her song Fearless Love.

Thanks Universe 💜✒️💪🏼

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Cotton Candy Sunrises Paint this Wounded Warrior’s Mind

That ice crust on the outside though, the moment your teeth break through. The feeling when you have the whole thing still, and the one when there’s only a bite left. Moments.

“I want to live and not just survive…. That’s why I can’t love you in the dark….Adele this morning.“

It’s finally a cold morning. I woke up needing to walk…. So here I am. The tree that was dazzling fire the other day, is already coal and ash. It changes as quickly as my consciousness does.

I was recently conceptualized as a porcupine. The irony. Rough around the edges huh. Shocking. The guards don’t relent, and they don’t dispatch either. Maybe if I’m still, meditation, contemplation, they will get bored and stray.

Doubtful. They are loyal to a fault.

Porcupines aren’t bad. They have soft underbelly’s. But reaching that space, that’s another matter entirely.

The cold air prickles my skin this morning, quills or not. The sun’s rising is creating a cotton candy pastel glow. It’s a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper out here this morning. I am truly old 😉

As she approaches (the Sun) it’s an Orange Creamsicle now. A childhood memory fragment. On field days and other occasions my odd Seventh Day Adventist k-12 school always offered either that or a fudgesicle. How would you spell that anyway.?!

Anyway I was never a fudge girl or chocolate. But every once in awhile I’d change it up, because I knew the power of variety and learning. I wanted to try. To this day give me a plain French vanilla ice cream from a classic parlor any day. Bliss. It’s hard to come by actually.

It’s rare I remember that playground, the one I had so many nightmares about. Waking and dreaming one’s. Just a gaggle of little ones playing silly pretend games.

In recent years some of those little girls have come forward and shared their secrets and their truths with me. They felt I was safe and a protector. That’s because we knew each other. Could smell the fear on her.

I remember how much I knew and wanted to protect as a kindergartner. And now I know that shouldn’t have been. Now I can be angry and reclaim.

Now I can see the friends with children with two loving parents living their lives around their children and know where each quill originated.

I might as well be from another planet observing. What would that be like?! I consistent world of that. So much less running, and yelling. Having my truth choked out of me. With silent manipulation. With cold hard death stares. With every adult temper tantrum.

The gun in her mouth, the passed out all the time, powder and mirrors. I was a little girl.

I wasn’t.

I was an informant, a spy, a comforter, a therapist, a massage therapist, a toy, a buddy, a friend.

I was terrified and frozen and forced out of my heart and up into my head before I ever knew a thing about me. To try and preserve anything that could be, without even knowing I was doing that.

Viktor Frankl mindset before I knew what or who he and that was.

I had a good attitude about life and I loved people, as fucked up as they were. I loved living.

I have always loved waking up, even when the content of the day sometimes made me wish to sleep forever.

The gift I have is every day is a blank canvas and always has the possibility of being a masterpiece.

For so long I was chasing the ability to consistently create one, in whichever area of my life.

Now I’m walking with the world and listening and looking. No more chasing, and no more running either.

My work deepens, my clients heal before my eyes. And now I do too. So I can keep going with it. We cannot ask people to travel further than we have. Rollo May.

Did you know you can see a person heal.?! It’s observable. Their nervous system calms. Their eyes meet yours. They hunch down less, with each empowering choice they are able to make because they understand and feel supported.

Seeing themselves through new eyes and new understanding.

It IS Magic. And I am privileged.

So what if the solid ground of my identity was forged the way it was, it has created a beautiful life and career. One that just keeps getting better.

I get to watch people come home to their true selves, as I do the same.

Creating positive ripples in a hundred families. Changes that ease the suffering and create possibilities. The starfish and made a difference to that one.

We find our way together. The walking wounded and the gifts that produces. One of the greatest misunderstandings about pain.

When I opened this this morning while walking I had no idea what it would become, but here we are.

Letting go and letting things take on a life of their own. Being in a space with myself that I can allow that.

Magic

Ps mom moment: twin b is having wisdom tooth surgery in Washington where she’s staying with her aunt, to adventure. I won’t be taking care of her for the first time in our lives for a medical procedure and that hurts my heart. I feel it. That’s the beautiful part. She’s well cared for, so that’s good. And she will be home for Christmas. But this is a first that I couldn’t have anticipated the sharpness of. “I just want to protect you the way the skin protects your blood.”

Never wish not to feel something. Trust me on this one. It’s torture.

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It’s Time to Lay Down the Sword….

In clearing your name you have ruined our lives.

A lesson of late, there are many, is that brute force and iron will are not the best way.

I won’t say they don’t work, they have served me well in certain ways, and we will honor the necessity that forged them in me.

I’m wanting something softer and wiser these days. The written word. Reading the words. Humility. Learning.

The pen really is mightier than the sword. I’d take everything I felt I could get and figure out the rest later. A main strategy.

Gather. Hunt. Grind. Grit. Sweat. Choke back the tears. She turns her head away in that office, so you won’t see her cry. Willing the tears not to come. They never helped her before.

Yes I remember. I remember every single moment, and I don’t will myself to forget. I don’t work that way anymore.

Would you even recognize me? Or does the completion of a soul contract change everything? I don’t know.

“Be careful with that one love, he will do whatever he needs to do to survive. You built me palaces out of paragraphs.”

Scraps for my memoir written in the bath this am as I read Stephen King On Writing, which I’ll finally finish after five years of trying. It’s time she whispers. It’s time she roars.

“I used to just carry a book around, with very little hope that I’d ever fully read it. Let alone write one of my own.

I lived on crumbs you see.

And I gave everything I had to everyone else every day, in the hopes of someday giving and receiving love the way it always seems other people do.

I gave to anyone else with very little discernment.

My trauma reduced me to focusing only on what was in front of my face if at all.

I could barely keep a train of thought, hell a car of thought.

I barely had any ability to focus at all.

Scraps.

Starved

Becoming”

Let it burn. Anything that isn’t yours naturally. Anything that betrays your personal values in the process. Things will be offered. They will cross your path.

Twin B has wisdom tooth surgery in a few days, far away, never someone else’s baby, but won’t be her caretaker right now. Letting go of our babies is hard. I think of her getting to learn more than I could teach at that time, and experiencing herself in a positive light, something I wasn’t offering at that time. These things bring me joy and peace. The former not the latter of course.

I can’t go down rabbit holes anymore. It doesn’t work. I just good my head up and keep going. Get up and try again.

So anyway back to my story. Did I say I had one? I already can’t remember. That thought is ten years ago within two seconds. Time is irrelevant when we are doing soul work. A minute can last hours and hours can be over in a second.

My fortieth birthday. I was going through what some call a dark night of the soul. Hell. Purgatory. When we are face to face with our shadow Lisa Romano might say, probably has said many times.

I was in scarcity in so many areas. I ordered my own birthday cake. I did this as an act of self love at that time. I was learning how to not wait and hope for the things I wanted to arrive. So I was thinking I was self loving. But really I had zero faith that anyone would show up. It’s not surprising given my choices at that time.

I made my bed.

But my mistakes could not have been so bad I wouldn’t be thought of on my birthday. I have all those memories. Not all bad. Not even.

Anyway my twin B asked me or more commented that “you bought yourself your own cake.” It hadn’t even occurred to me this was a “bad” thing Or however she meant it. Maybe an unusual thing. Those things usually don’t occur to me I’ve lived a backwards sort of life. Hey Heyoka.

What do I make of this now? With the lessons I’m laying down. Was I really self loving or did I not trust anyone would show up for me?

Spoiler alert: It’s usually both, not either or.

Maybe I was trying to model for myself, because I’ve often felt that alone, whether I was or wasn’t.

The clear lesson now however is trust, and a firm balance of it to self and others.

Let go Christina ….. let go.

Taylor Swift Sober comes on….. the tears fall. When I was drowning, that’s when I could finally breathe.

Getting clean from all the painful ideas I’ve held about myself. The what ifs that should have happened because of what happened to me. But I discounted my effort. It’s invisible and therefore so will be that of others.

I poked my own eyes out and cut off my own legs in search for a savior. When all I needed in the first place were my senses and my emotions.

Luckily (divinely) we are permitted multiple do overs and re-takes. The universe is a generous teacher. And don’t we all deserve one of those.

I hope to continue to be one…..

As long as I live.

And a safe place to land.

These tall orders require radical boundaries if this is to be maintained.

It’s a good thing I am energized by both.

All my love,

C

Ps I started a new journal today. It was time. The last was to not waste my piano book and had some ju ju. This is a fresh page. We get one each day. Hell a fresh book. New eyes. New legs to walk around with.

A relevant example from mr Kings book. They bought their son a saxophone because he showed interest. Very soon the King couple discussed if their young charge should continue. They said no. Why!$ because Stephen said he only practiced during the set times. It never took flight or set fire…..

If it does you’ll know. You’ll want to do that thing and move heaven and earth.

May I vow to myself I’ll accept nothing else for the rest of my life.

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Celebrating a Life Gone Too Soon….. and One Just Beginning

Wrote this a week ago and just getting around to posting it….

When I’m gone I hope you play Bette Midler’s The Rose at my gathering…..

It’s always a new day one of some sort. Something to quit, to begin…..

All you gotta do is walk….. Griff

After three long years I was finally ready to give City of Girls the attention it deserves, the attention I deserve. I was not disappointed. How do you do it Liz and can I be like you when I grow up?!

When will that be…..

And all you gotta do is walk….. my song of 2022…

What Liz Gilbert manages to do with her writing is grant permission for you to be who you are, and have the issues that you do.

People are who they are and all of it is beautiful. Choice is beautiful. Stories of monsters and demons are for fairy tales and Netflix.

I used to ascribe to the idea I could bend anything to my will, until life bent me, and I finally got the lesson.

Surrender. A full surrender.

My little prince turned 21 yesterday. He’s all heart. He’s exactly as he should be and yet in all the wisdom I lacked, I showed him everything he isn’t, because of what I learned during my survival. How to push hard and harder.

I am unlearning THAT.

My son’s friends flew his rose out here to surprise him for his birthday and we all banded together to pull it off. He was happy on his birthday. Satisfied and knowing he is loved. There will be many other kinds of moments throughout his life, but these are ones we will always treasure.

He can receive in the moment. All really is NOT lost. Thank you Leslie Charles.

I see boats and sunrise and water. I smell water and salt and Sunday.

I will be gathering today with those who loved Karen Sahler in Greenwood Lake New York. So many memories. I always said I hated funerals, all those emotions in one place. All that discomfort congealed into a suffering pudding inside my sweaty flats.

Today I understand. I am looking forward to it. To being given the space to feel my feelings with others feeling theirs. To have and to hold. To remember.

Grace and Mercy.

Now I can understand the conflict inside of me worrying it means something about me that I won’t attend my own mother’s funeral. Thank you Liz. Thank you life and thank you death.

And most of all thank you love, which is the force that makes it all worth it in the end.

I’m not some cold dead thing inside who wouldn’t go. I found this love I didn’t know existed. It’s just there. You can’t make it or unmake it. Don’t misunderstand me, it does take work and discipline to maintain a self that is capable, especially when it wasn’t natural for me.

Could that finally be ok??! Could I finally stop analyzing myself for flaws?! I think it’s time.

I’m not angry with her like I used to be. She wasn’t made to be a mother and became one anyway. Liked the idea of the attention it provided her, but never got any further. And I don’t really know the ins and outs of what happened to her, or if it’s a wiring thing. And you know what? Somehow it matters so much less to know

Because it doesn’t mean anything about me. People could have said that a million times, but I had to live my lessons. Just like you.

And love exists in its purest form as so many things. Love is there in the person that smiles at me on my walk. Love is petting my dogs. Love is walking, running. In heat and cold.

And all the love I’ve ever shared is valuable and valued and has accumulated to make my steps in this world a little lighter.

Love is a friend who remembers a version of you, you forgot. Sometimes love is persistence and sometimes it’s letting go.

For me…. Now…. Love is no longer the confusing manipulative thing it began as. And I thank whomever for that. The windows and the walls and the ceilings and the floors.

And today on this beautiful Sunday love is a mother who has died too soon. A woman who made those around her feel her love. A woman who gave my kids and I family events that I never had before. The only mother who will have seen me in a wedding dress probably, lol.

The gift of love is that I still have all of these moments inside of me. I didn’t know. It’s natural for me to keep myself out in the cold when I don’t have to be.

I am still learning ….

And I am warm…..

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Penetrating the Defense Mechanism…

I remember it all too well….

I wanted to say membrane for artistic quality, however it’s way to thin and tame a word for our subject matter.

Word salad, bread crumbs, generalities, banalities, poppy cock, and balderdash. That’s what the defense mechanism speaks. It wreaks of bullshit. Activated, deactivated. My friend calls it morphin time. Spoiler alert he’s a pink ranger fan.

The very fact he can speak about it as if it’s a choice shows the healing work that’s been done. The thing that brings hope and life to life.

I’m walk/run writing which means I’ll probably end up motion sick and nauseated. That’s old hat for me anyway. Are you kidding?! Stringing together beautiful words that never really say anything at all.

The water is low, very low. It smells that way. Peeeee ew. Blech. Death will eventually turn to life though…. And so it goes.

I hate lying and manipulation with a fiery passion these days. I somehow never seem to have less of it in my life. It seeps through. I can do all the work in the world and it still wafts through the air. I pick up on it like a bloodhound, get called crazy for my troubles, and become spun like a top.

Then it’s my reaction to the abuse that becomes criticized. How I save myself. Acts of violence even after all weapons have been put down.

A full surrender…..

Untangling myself from the mess of misperception. The very place I seek help from only becomes another source of misunderstanding. This I’m told is frequently peoples experiences in counseling.

Some counseling misunderstandings cost dearly. Those are the people meant to protect. We trust them more.

Thank God, the windows, the walls, whatever, that I finally learned that lesson. Those legs are still wobbly but they stand firm, shakes and all.

Listening to a counselor try to reason out why it’s difficult to apologize, rather than get a layer deeper to understanding. Don’t try and fix it, that’s ego, try and understand it and find the art to show the inhabitants of that magical safe space, the one space they are committed to listening, that’s safe enough.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to apologize?! What must it be like in a family without being able to do that?! Gee, you think?! Maybe first check what kind of family the person came from 101. Then add their experiences. These are not excuses they are understanding.

To help someone understand themselves by being understanding and compassionate. That borders on the miraculous.

Understanding is salve and balm. Cooling and soothing to the burning hot infected wounds. The disease has metastasized by now. I fall to my knees.

A human walking talking defense mechanism, who struggles inside her own life, and clears up misunderstandings for others, because of the knowledge she’s gathered. This process was not trivial.

A light warrior with a constant stream of dark thoughts about herself. That’s how I’ve kept my humility, it’s kept me. Trapped. Prisoner of war. I’m working on a different kind now. A kind with a wise guide rather than a harsh task master.

The war rages on.

A tear slowly drops down a child’s cheek. They know better. They know war can be replaced with love. But some people will always love war, more than peace. And some have a constant battle within. It’s those that know the value on peace. And there are those that never will.

One priest who couldn’t control himself all those years ago would ensure my abuse continued throughout the span of my life. One depraved religious crazy has had such an impact on my life. That’s what happens when you damage a child. You fucker. There’s a special place in hell for you.

I would never protect the adult over the child’s pain, it’s something I need to stay mindful of in my office because it’s easier to do than you think. We don’t want to be uncomfortable, don’t want to believe in monsters.

Counselors are constantly faced with the truth they are alive and well living right among us. The rest of the population would prefer to cover it’s eyes, and to create routine and distraction. Live your best life. Not everyone has that privilege.

I may serve the literary muse, but even a romantic heart knows, that’s the biggest ruse.

How can you damage a child? How can you break their trust and spirit before they even begin. The nausea turns to sickness. I can’t watch this shit because I’ve lived enough. Their spirit won’t be free again until death. When they can dream again.

Even I know some things break beyond repair and I’m in the healing business. And I’m not God or whomever. I’m just a person with a lot of knowledge that didn’t consent. It feels that way when I feel angry. But according to Julie I did exactly that, and those lost children did too?!

I don’t know.

I don’t care how much meaning can be made from suffering, breaking the spirit and trust in a child, watching the playful go out of them. It tastes metallic. I clench my jaw until my teeth press into my gums with the pain it being locked down inside somewhere and continuously misunderstood.

Because one human couldn’t control his cravings. Because he believed he was living as God intended. Incorrect belief systems in the hands of the wrong people keep the war waging. And hedging your bets is the biggest sin of all. Manipulating both sides. Agememnon.

I need an Achilles. With maybe a few less hair tosses lol. His destiny was his justification to fight mens wars, so perhaps not. He had to be arrogant. Does anyone have to be? One foot on earth, one with his mother. See, even Achilles has mommy issues.

When you’re locked down in a trauma mechanism it sure feels that way. Education, time, commitment, and determination help.

Can you break threads of destiny (would you want to) or are we all just deluded puppets after all.

I’ll leave it to the great philosophers, for I am just a good enough mother down on her knees praying to be forgiven for what she didn’t know, and still doesn’t.

One more circle around the block, then my coffee, my reward. My journal, my oxygen. Then clients. Then a soft safe space to rest before it all begins again.

Green light…..

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At Home in a Heart that is Warm, and the Heart is Mine

Piece by piece she restores my faith that a person could be kind and stay ….. piece by piece she filled the holes that you burned in me at six years old…..

I woke up grumpy this morning. It’s a long day ahead, many bills to pay, many admin issues that need addressing. Ones that are intimidating. I’m tired. My b12 has been low, and I’m getting weekly injections. All of my therapies while deeply helpful, leave me gutted of energy by the end, and that leaves me fallen behind in other areas.

I’m mortal after all, not a God.

My tone inspired by the finishing of The Song of Achilles this morning.

Then as I’m in the bath attempting to rejuvenate my spirits and soak my sore body, I hear twin B singing of all things. I’m just a small town girl….. living in a lonely world…

It immediately lifts my spirits. I smiled from ear to ear. Then even more she texts requesting some time with me. I know it is backwards to need love from your children, (or is it just human all too human) but they are my only flesh and blood connections, and the only ones that have been my motivation to fight so hard against the dark experiences that marked my beginning.

I was waiting to enjoy them…. Wish I knew I didn’t have to wait. But I did. I had to connect with me first and that was nearly impossible.

We have had a turning point in family therapy. And even if it’s just a glimmer of hope (I think it’s more, that this is real), I am overjoyed with it.

Finally all being clamped down in our own story, corners, and pain…. It is relenting…. The icy grip releasing.

Could this thaw too?

It must Christina. You did. So how could it not? Remember what it took to get here.

The pool is getting fixed in the next couple of weeks. If nothing else to preserve the value of this home as improvements continue. A trip to a hot tub store in Milford last week ended in us getting the motivation to clean the thing out. I’ll have to post some before and after shots as I learn how to make the pictures blog sized and not make the whole post not work.

I can’t believe we cleaned that thing out. It has sat for four years and I thought there was no hope. That sounds familiar. Then you give a little time and attention and look what happens.

Look what a little presence does…..

Magic

Not a story, with intensity and a movie like script that must be followed or it can’t develop but everyday magic. These little moments….

I’m watching my kids become me in certain ways, and also them of course, but seeing my strength in them is exciting, and of course that I have not done every single thing wrong. The tale my mind so often weaved. Painful. Excruciating really.

Sometimes it really is all in your head. And that doesn’t make the difficulty any less or it any less real.

I spent my whole life running from my pain. Willing it away by just good ol’ elbow grease. I’d create a family. It’s just that easy. I was naive and foolish and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I had ideas, ran with them, then those ideas crashed and burned painfully. Being redirected was not my strong suit. I would stand defiantly arms crossed and be stubborn against my own behalf and not even know it.

It’s interesting to think now that all my rushing for self work was exactly what I needed to be doing because I could have missed out on connections with my kids. I think I just barely made the boat. On real live ones, not trying to figure it out cognitively, but feeling them in real time.

I have come back from the dead. I was dead inside. All the feeling parts. Maybe not fully dead, almost dead, almost lost, only a small part of human left in there. I had to fight myself, my mind, all while simultaneously figuring out how to support myself, to have healthy relationships, to choose a family for myself of people who show up for each other well.

I had to do the opposite of what I was… to slow down. To show the pain, so it could be seen, so I could be helped. Masking was suffocating me.

Last family therapy session I feel like I breathed for the first time ever. My first breath of oxygen as a flesh and blood human, not a robot who just works constantly and can’t feel.

It’s the most beautiful thing, but I’m also the most exhausted I’ve ever been and the most emotionally raw. And this of course coincides with a busy client schedule with some major shit (shifts) going on in the world, that people are feeling.

And some are not making it. Children taking their own lives, and how to hold space, but also not get trapped in the enormity of that reality.

To just smile at dinner or focus when earlier you sat in this pain with someone and your mind is beckoned to go there, and to the possibility of that happening to you.

I thought I knew what heart break was until I recognized how the very thing that saved me was keeping me emotionally distant from my children. That is heartbreak.

I just expected myself to exist without my story attached, without even speaking of it. I didn’t want it Or me, or my mother to hurt them, but It was always going to pass down to a degree. I held it back with everything that I have. Carried it really. Until I recognized the heaviness was crushing me, and that wasn’t serving anyone.

Now that I’ve set it down I don’t know that I’ll know what to do, how to be. I’ve been existing this way a long time. In reality I’ve been setting it down piece by piece and I’m getting to the part where I’m starting to feel naked without it. To shiver and shake with the new.

When it comes to new and trauma survivors, good or bad doesn’t matter, new has a high threat quotient.

Settle…. Stay…..ground

You’ve worked so hard to be here

Home in a heart that is warm despite the amount of cold it has felt….

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May You Have the Courage to Face Reality As Is

All of these lines across my face… tell me the story of who I am… so many stories….

I did EMDR last night. The first session I made all the way to an installation apparently. I didn’t know that. That all my talking and planning what I’ll say, and having things to say, could have sometimes been avoidance. I’m getting closer to acceptance within the grief process.

My intellectualizing, while quite functional and productive even, also an elaborate form of denial. Denial and avoidance are being confronted abundantly lately.

Within the many grief processes. It’s like once I began why not just keep piling them on. How did I get here? Well I didn’t get myself here alone. I know that.

Last night I focused on permitting myself to fully estrange myself from “my family”, those people I grew up around. How is it possible to spend time agonizing over what will happen when I get that call someone has died. The reality is to go there, to that place, even the thought of it gives me rapid and horrific physical symptoms.

This is my reality.

How would I feel if they didn’t call me? Abandoned all over again? Not belonging. Without any mindfulness of if I want to belong there, and why or why not.

Radical acceptance …. Any acceptance, perhaps radical sets the bar really high.

Another reality is that so much in life I have used a copy paste technique to make big decisions in my one precious life. Never having learned trusting myself or anyone else, why not just default to a faulty system. It felt sound at the time. This works over here, let’s try it in my life. I don’t know what I feel anyway. Why not. Plus look how great it looks.

I’m paralyzed, where are my feelings, I no longer feel things I know I should.

I’m on an NF and Brandy Carlisle kick right now. I want to read her memoir and Matthew McConaughey Greenlights I started on Audible last night. His voice is something other worldly soothing. In a fantasy he could have been my father. Just like Elizabeth Gilbert could have been my mother.

My reality is so much better than fantasy…. And yet the dissociative patterns of old run deep.

I just keep challenging stories, that are just that. The kind my mind creates. I would rather keep it busy reading others subjective truths about their lives as they recall it. Than ricocheting between certainty and doubt in my own mind as a means to keep myself sharp and honed for any impending disaster.

The ever present dread. The illusion of safety it creates. That soothing bastard.

The reality is my want to be in attendance of a funeral for a connection I never had would be one again to prove some worthiness to some unknown diety. I see others do this or that with their grief and wish to emulate rather than trust what I need.

What I need……

(Selfish) you’re selfish. It’s all about you)

Last night in emdr I scratched the surface on the truth of what I need. It was introduced. Progress. Because normally that wouldn’t have even been in the program. It would have been what I need to do. And the why is always to be accepted or belong. (This is why my parent focus is what the kids need to do, rather than on an emotional connection, that breaks my heart. I’m inside of here (her) trying to get out. I’m right here in the upside down.

The proverbial carrot always being dangled over my face. (belonging)

I don’t have to live that way anymore. I accept and belong to myself, and if you know how hard won those words are to be uttered authentically, then you know.

In Emdr I made parallels between families and not feeling understood or wanted. Mine and my ex husband’s. The two starter families. I combatted the story that I abandoned them, and was able to realistically list the ways I was the abandoned. Not in a victim sense. In the way that one must do to confront reality as it happened and not how we wished it to happen.

I wish when I got that call it would be different. That it’s not something that would make me sick. That’s not the reality. The reality is people will judge and hold their own reality when I cut myself off.

Other people stay. Look their family’s are together. Look they go and attend the funeral. But at what cost to them?! If it’s a scrabble toward worthiness, that battle is already lost.

(May I only stay where I am nurtured and valued consistently. May I nurture and value consistently those I love and have responsibility for and to.

These are my vows

May I recognize and have my eyes open to a relationship being abandoned and not nurtured or engaged in so I may never have to be so cold to myself again.

May I notice if I have grown cold or abandoned. And have the courage I need to breath life back in, if the cause is worthy. )

Maybe it doesn’t have to cost for them, but it does for me. I must permit myself my own truth, rather than dissociate from it for anesthetic value.

Trust and Permission

The only way to feel a sense of wholeness and worthiness, especially if the roots weren’t naturally provided, is to be understanding and accepting of yourself. So others can do the same. Or that’s what I’m finding anyway.

Want to be understood? Take the time to be understanding to yourself, of yourself, for yourself. She, they, her, him, must be included.

Must belong

I was never loyal to myself. I was loyal to even an idea of a healthy family. I kept trying to see what ingredients would create one and kept trying. Like a mad scientist, only to be misunderstood further.

Mirages

Until my vulnerabilities got used so thoroughly against me I became forced to learn how to have a relationship with myself.

I was staring the abuse and neglect in the face until I dis identified and realized it was not my self. The self was preserved on ice.

Heart throbs, heart melts…. Heart beat easily 120 bpm on so many days. I didn’t even know my own post traumatic stress. I didn’t know that’s what it was. It was my fault like everything else.

It was tricky at first…. A clumsy dance. This relationship with me….

This is how scattered and shattered my brain is. It blanks and grasps at a memory or a thought, even as a trap door lies right beneath my feet. Or a panther lies in wait guarding the memory. Can’t get the good without the bad Christina. Evil laughter.

What if it’s not real….

What if it is…

This is what the work looks like for me