The Time of The Dragon and Chop Wood Carry Water…..

Somebody bring me some water, can’t you see I’m burning alive……

When safety is the primary concern, growth can hardly exist. And yet it springs at the gate begging to be set free.

It was me I didn’t trust.

I’ve been yearning to write a blog post. But my thoughts have been so many that it’s hard to capture what I want to say, and what my audience is. That is always the question isn’t it? And an answer: if I write what’s in my soul, what does that matter. If there are readers or no readers. It’s the traumatized child inside who concerns herself with this, in her perpetual state of loneliness and fear. I embrace her often now.

So here I sit in a rare occasion of writing in my office chair rather than quickly capturing shower or walking thoughts.

So I’d imagine this will read as an update and not a wave of inspiration. But in chicken or egg fashion perhaps one will open out of the other.

Here I sit on a throne surrounded by the method by which I tame the sheer madness that is my brain, which is books. They are all around me. My friends. In this way, it’s a strange return to childhood. For all its trials, books were introduced and subsisted upon.

My grandmother made audiobooks before they were a thing. On an old school tape recorder with a silver and black microphone.

This morning I began Jung’s Red Book. Red leather bound. I’m so jealous of his relationship with his dreams, when I can barely remember mine. I set this useless emotion aside and continue to work to recovering and repairing mine. If that’s possible.

Down a rabbit hole of taking supplements like 5htp, l tryptophan, sulphorophane (broccoli sprouts I’m growing) ps they smell bad guess they are getting thrown in a smoothie. Quercitin and fiesetin. Brain food, plant food. Based on the shamanic work of Alberto Villodo Grow a New Body. And listening to living and dying the shaman way on audiobook.

Traditional psychotherapist meets shaman, Akashic records Amazing ! , and whatever else will be next. Check out Wendy Casey in the link.

How the hell did I even get here ? If you had asked me a year ago if I’d be doing a fire ceremony and blessing the four directions etc, I’d have looked at you like you were nuts. Or I’m nuts. Definitely. And I don’t even care.

Life is strange and surrender is beautiful. And this is where I’m at.

I’m also reading the I Ching, the gene keys what?! The Dune series. And I still want to read the whole Wrinkle in time series. Somehow this is a summer craving. Some memories are just programmed in. Ahhhh so many things to read so little time.

My practice continues to flourish and it feels almost magical. I am nearly working entirely with my ideal population, and it doesn’t even feel like work. My screening process is worlds away from what it used to be. I stand back in awe at all I learned from working with anything and anyone. But also at my ignorance and naïveté in so many areas, which some times facilitated beautiful happenings, and sometimes regrettable moments.

I don’t agonize over documentation or any cancellation, or administrative. Nothing is any longer this awful monster breathing down my neck. And I think how was I living like that?

How was I living like that. Not well that’s what I can say.

I now have a fully embodied understanding of the mind being unwell. The way it races to terrible conclusions and feels as if it’s constantly outrunning some terrible thing. I could cry for how I lived for so long. The way the mind and the body are not integrated, and one fears the other. No sense of peace, just constant persistent terror.

At times I’m able to get really still with everything. All the love that never fully became, the lives I could have lived, and the ones I did. I sift through and contemplate no longer with a great sickness of the mind. Terrible thoughts about myself. Those core wounds are brutal.

Let there be no mistake I am always healing and learning. I have not arrived anywhere, except perhaps face to face with my humility. In this space there’s so much love. It flows freely, it does not need control. Control cannot exist it extinguishes love immediately. Like the absence of air and fire.

If I saw anyone I’ve ever loved on the street I wouldn’t turn away, heart racing, sweaty. I would simply emit love, and own my mistakes. My ignorance, my impulsivity, my wounds.

I atone with myself and would offer healing communications with all who seek them.

And I don’t know what’s next. Tabula rasa. Bookends of it. I begin and end that way.

How may I be of service and lead me there. I’ve had it all. Love and loss. 10,000 lives within a life.

My work is to heal my brain and body so that I may help others with my journey. I no longer agonize over my memoir, what I will write, and what I won’t.

I know there’s important work for me to do. I don’t need to know what it is or how I will accomplish it.

I simply surrender.

Now to process and alchemize these emotions and thoughts and experiences. To continue to go through them and learn from them.

On a more earthly note, both my twins have been in major car accidents. Something I have not had a first hand experience with. One of them still has back and neck issues and daily headaches. Not entirely sure if the accident is responsible. So we are going to my energy healer Julie today. I’m excited that my children are open to this and also learning to benefit from this and massage and other healing modalities.

We will be moving twin A into UConn in August as a junior, and twin B will be nannying for a time for her baby cousin in Long Island, as she completes her core requirements for school. The little prince is beginning a relationship journey with his partner. Learning about the responsibilities of life, and himself respectively.

There is love at the table of my life.

Surrounded by friends and family, and so much less pain from the absence of loving parents and blood relatives.

I sometimes take walks through my graveyard. The relationships that did not show up and stay, and marvel at the beauty and tragedy in love. And also the resilience of it. How it never really leaves, energy can neither be created or destroyed. It just is.

But more often I am looking through the windshield, that’s why it’s bigger I am told. And learning about the true actions of love. How it behaves, what it commands and demands respectively.

I’m a beginner.

Bali in October…. https://palm-living.com/the-legend-of-how-bali-becomes-the-island/

The art of story telling and myth and legend in teaching great lessons. Things I would discount as frivolous or unreal become rich playgrounds to explore for healing metaphors and methods.

Women Who Run with Wolves….

Recovery

Recovering my dreams and authentic childhood self from the ashes of traumatic experience.

I hope that I have something to share that will help others heal….

Book. Thought. Book thought. Toggle. Rinse. Repeat. Show up consistently. During each workshop more of my childhood emerges more clearly. The understanding and integration becomes mine to harvest.

I am finding my way after a year of writing immersion to how to write on my own. How to build it into my schedule and not do stops and starts, but a consistent relationship.

This is where I am…..

No More Nightmares on Mother’s Days

I believe this will be my first Mother’s Day I am not haunted. If you could ….

I will not lose my life force in being haunted by the things that have hurt. I will rise above them and sit peacefully sharing the knowledge that has been hard earned.

I finished Dune book one this morning. So much in there. I think of the foreshadowing of Ulay, how I became the bomb, and 90 days and everything in between.

I think of how next week I’ll sit at my daughter’s graduation and instead of wanting to crawl out of my skin w sensory overload I will own my seat. I will bask in the glow of our accomplishment having the difficult bloodline we have. Very little support, and also so much, just from a different form, a harder one to recognize or acknowledge for it requires belief.

I will be able to feel why I am there, what we are celebrating, rather than a desperately disconnected seeking numbness that pervaded everything and mirrored back such awkward desolation.

New lands…..

Belief is a powerful thing. May I always examine mine carefully to make sure it is from love and not fear, for the rest of my days.

I must not live haunted because if I do I cannot learn. I need all my focus and all my heart open to the world, so I can receive also.

To make you feel my love. My love will be felt. Not just my fear. The heroes journey.

To have alchemized scarcity and hardship into peace and abundance.

I had never planned so far that I’d make it out alive, because it never felt that way.

Awake is all I can ask for. Not existing inside a story or the bonds only of fear and trauma. A lineage I refuse to pass down.

And now I rest….

I got a b12 injection yesterday for the first time since November. Sometimes I forget I was ever so sick at all. Those people treat me like the best thing since sliced bread and I chuckle to myself of all the time I spent in a dark cloud of feeling unloved.

Love was all around. Love is….

There are turning points. New chapters. New books to be read and to be written.

For nearly 43 years holidays (so many of them) have been a nightmare. The nightmares held me captive even when some were good but inside all that roiled and rose up like bile. being told I should appreciate with little understanding, and worse treating myself that way.

A good little soldier

I will not allow it to persist into 44.

Another turning point.

A million lives within a life….

And I have every part of my story inside me and I won’t cut off a single thing.

A whole

Shattered segments gathered and made whole with gold….

Happy Mother’s Day to all the loyal curse breakers just doing their best with impossible tasks everyday.

I love you all more than you can imagine

And to the lost ones….. my people also

My heart is with you

There is light

With great courage there is light and your path is your own.

Trust yourself always

Things are Getting a Little Strange in Here

So here I am reading the I Ching without scarcely an idea why, and all at once knowing exactly why, at some level beneath consciousness. Lately I say things and think what am I saying. I ordered the gene keys on recommendation of my energy healer, and a day later bought I Ching having no idea how connected they were. Interesting stuff!

My mind has traveled far from its skeptical damaging that has controlled it for most of the years of my life.

I think of Melissa Etheridge … make me a believer baby. I want to believe in the power of love, and I do.

She’s all heart this one.

Can I survive all the implications, even if I tried…..

Henri is preparing to depart soon. Not sure how soon, but soon. I will not preserve her for my benefit if she doesn’t have a quality of life. We have had to carry her upstairs for some time now. She has had two episodes of vestibular disease. They are kind of like strokes, both resulting in ER visits.

So many memories, cuddling on the couch, reading Harley Loco…. Thousands of them. One of my favorites is Jeep rides with the kids, so perky and excited. She still gets that way every once in a while, a glimmer.

How will I go on without her in my life. She is the glue of our family as much as anything. I understand this in a way I never have allowed myself before.

All this heart opening is beautiful but exhausting. I rest a lot. She and I are alike in that right now. She slumbers softly in her bed near to me. My little prince books of various types line the wall behind her head. My heart squeezes and releases with emotion.

I cannot say more about it right now, it’s too much.

The only constant is change, and a steady heart, and my studies.

Coming into my 44th year. An auspicious one. I was saying auspicious before I met the I Ching. Parts of me are always steps ahead in ways that only become illuminated to me in retrospect.

I’m tapping my foot to Melissa…. It’s time for a walk. One hour before show time still. Before I’m in my chair and divining with the universe and humans and creating to the end of improving the human experience for their trips around the sun.

A recent Akashi records reading has allowed me to enjoy things I had closed my heart off too long ago due to associations with my mother. Now I can journey on my own to loving the parts of me I attempted to shut out due to any association.

I’m softening my heart, and strengthening my boundaries. This process equals emotional freedom.

My mission is to forget the self. My desires, my terror, my anxieties, and to open up to everything else. To be entirely open, gentle, to approach the world with a love I was so often outside of. To do it anyway, with fire, and with passion. The kind only someone who went without for so long can fully appreciate.

Maybe that’s true I don’t really know.

I don’t know anything.

I just live…..

My children are becoming now. I am the witness and no longer steering the vessel. I gave it my all, even if that was saving myself as much as anything, before it was too late to provide them with a safe home base before they launched. I made it just in the nick of time. There were many moments of held breath not being sure which side I would come out on. I would have never abandoned that task. Never.

A strong heart. I’ve always had one and a will and a desire to choose love. The path of love.

Ahhh now we are on I wanna come over…..

My music is so random and yet it’s not whatsoever random.

I am drawn to Kripalu every opportunity I get. Sober. I walk. I breathe. Taking it all in. I get closer to myself, my story, my ancestry even, the light and the dark, without needing any contact with those that have not chosen to remain in my life as a consistent safe presence.

I’ve spent one year in writing immersion, Tuesdays and Sundays, six hours weekly. I am preparing to depart from that for now and I’m terrified to be without it. Out of the nest right along with the kids ! My comfort zone and love, but intuitively I know it’s time to get out on my own with it all for a little. To trust myself in a way I never have before.

I am letting go and tuning in…..

Go on close your eyes it shouldn’t bother you….. if that’s what it takes to get you through….

Sunday Wanderings Letting my Pen Streak Across the Page

Not for the faint of heart….. because you loved me……

It’s blog post Sunday. I am in immersion now. Where three hours go by in the blink of an eye. I’m writing from a place inside I’ve never even met. I just sit back and watch the words emerge onto the page.

I started experimenting with typing the last two sessions. Before being an old soul and grass roots kind of gal had me put pen to the page. However I can’t deny how quickly my brain goes, and how it outruns the pen on the page. I had to see what I could do with a different tool, come what may.

And in doing so I’ve found a whole new self staring at me from beyond the page.

It’s been a year …. Yesterday was a palindrome. I’ve known at least one of those before. If Taylor can do it so can I.

I find myself between the pages of many a beautiful story. I just want to read all the time. To branch out. To read fantasy, and mystery, sci fi, and everything else. To stray away from being out of balance, from too heady and too much self help.

I want to read to embrace the healing I’ve been able to accomplish. The fact my nervous system now allows it is not trivial.

Leave the cares about punctuation behind, or being witty and charming. I only need to be myself.

I’m in writing immersion communing with she that is I, a wealth of knowledge inside the girl who was always looking to be fulfilled from out.

These Annie’s Tropical Bunny Fruit Snacks are delicious. Late July tortilla chips in Cedar’s Tzatziki. I always spell that word wrong.

I have about thirty books I’m reading. It’s like a divining rod which one to choose.

I’m so light I could fly away. Perhaps I’ll go fly a kite with a boy I haven’t met yet. Could be a character who knows. I haven’t met him yet, but I will. I’m sure of it.

“It was in front of her all along” is the next writing. Ten minutes to be all up in it. The first hit of energy is the purpose of the prompt.

I no longer argue with them anymore. Full Surrender. I’ll never stop.

I need to be on the beach soon. Reading. Languishing for hours. Not overthinking what my next move is. Just being. Belly to the earth doing my shamanic healing. Fire ceremony and release.

In another window I have letters from Love Substack, by Liz Gilbert talking about her jaunty hat. Love it.

“We Make it Up As We Go Along” 

We think too much 

Just paint the picture

Write the song 

Choreography is for 

Suckers 

Just start moving 

Bang the gong 

The earth 

Will guide you 

You’ll 

Find 

You never have 

To wait for too long

We are more 

Alike than we are 

Different 

And everyone 

Else 

Is making it up 

As they go along 

Too 

I figured I’d share a small piece from my day. It’s nearly three and time to go back to reading Dune. I hope everyone is having a beautiful Sunday.

Sensitive is The New Strong, Dying to be Me.

“And you’ve come from a good place with a happy family, the only bad thing you’ve ever done was to see the good in me. Find someone who plants flowers in the darkest parts of you.”ZB

As I sit here this morning, in my favorite window of me time in the morning. I am reveling in the notion that if you travel deeply, you keep returning to the same things again and again.

For example this morning I’m reading Anita Mooriani’s Sensitive is the new strong. It was around 2013, while working amidst the produce at Trader Joe’s in the wee hours of the morning I was listening to Dying to Be Me. It was with the first generation of Apple headphones and the iPhone with the button in the center, or earlier if I recall.

I resonated deeply with that book, though it was very hard to believe at the time, and my mind still tends towards skepticism, even as I am a believer.

I also listened to Paulo Coehlo books then, the Valkries, the Pilgrimage, etc.

A line: “you can’t unknow what you know” stands out to me, about any experience we have really.

I sit and think why didn’t I stand up for myself in so many ways, for so many things?!

When someone is actually telling you the truth to you, without being direct. I think of all I would have said. But I don’t think long on it now because there’s life to be lived and joy to be had, and of course because this is me, work to be done.

So I’m revisiting my birthright of sensitivity and the many resources needed to keep me in a good place with it. Very helpful. Also the highly sensitive person in love, by Dr Elaine Aron.

My traumatized mind grasping always to control its external environment, when the internal is so disorganized. Now I do the opposite.

I am building a home inside myself. A palace really.

Yesterday was the culmination of watching This is Us. It’s my new favorite written show. So much in there that makes you think, triggers and epiphanies alike. Of course because it’s tv if you let it, it could make you feel terrible about your life. All those warm and wise conversations about the important things between parents and children. I’m not naive to the knowledge without a written script many of us didn’t get that, or dole it out.

But it’s never too late to start.

Knowing who you want to be is as necessary as knowing who you are. I enjoy the journey of both. I am enjoying them.

I’m a UConn Husky Mom now! That’s exciting! I move a child into college for time number two in August. One more birdy out of the nest, and another migrating home for a few months before her next venture.

I will blink and the kids will have their own nests and flock home less, but still hopefully often. I have a wide open array of possibilities in life, still, always. I’m hopeful to rise to that occasion, even if that means allowing myself to sit and read a novel in an afternoon, without feeling I’ve missed a thing.

I don’t need to be in a hurry to capture everything. I just took a deep satisfying breath.

My window of time with the morning is closing soon. Everyone is buzzing about the eclipse. It’ll be time to walk the dogs, give Henri her medicine, carry her up and down the stairs, feed them. Take a walk and a shower. The shower is such a great part. All the thoughts gently cascading, all the recharge from the water….

And then to enter the day.

Taking twin A for blood work for her first time. She’s nervous. I know what that feels like, and usually I’m the last to say you’ll be fine, and to be reassuring. I’m more likely to be awkward and say something scary. My mind can be a delightful playground of deeply imprinted survival mechanics.

I’m just trying to take off the suit.

This is an homage to a dear friend. His is much cuter than mine of course. Mine is probably more like a Spartan, he the Pink Ranger.

Another day trying to connect with the humans and not be too sensitive to saying the wrong thing, as I often do in my real life, contrasted by often having exactly what someone needs in my professional one.

As I heal and create new comfort zones outside the walls of my original ones. As I build. I look forward to bridging those gaps. Filling the bullet holes inside myself with new skin, bone, flesh, and blood.

Less a project and more, perfection from birth that I wasn’t able to see.

With new mirrors and lenses I invite the day.

Hello world give me what you have for me, and I vow to show up with integrity, honor, and to be of service.

My empathy is ironic don’t you think…..

“I am out with lanterns looking for myself”

I was called to my water to write this morning. I just got waxed, ow. Sometimes I feel half my life is concerned with hair removal. Did you chuckle ? I did. But for real it’s not even about how I look, it’s a sensory thing.

I am finally accepting my high sensitivity and empath ness and trying to work with it rather than deny, minimize, outright reject, or attempt to reverse the adaptation that’s about being adaptable. Ironic isn’t it.

A barrier to this was always worrying about being grandiose or the way some people use being an empath in toxic ways. As always if you’re worried about it it’s probably not something to worry about.

So can I finally accept my birthright and my gift and use it to help me achieve a better quality of connection to myself and the universe.

That’s a resounding yes !

Speaking of ironic Alanis and the episode of we can do hard things on high sensitivity! Boom. It is ironic oh yes I really do think.

Time seems my most elusive currency lately. How lucky am I that my life is one where I want more time to do and experience the things I love.

How lucky am I that I’m working at better understanding myself, and having a healthier relationship with me.

It turns out I’ve been looking for her in everything, and everyone, and everywhere she’s not.

Inside of me.

So that’s what I’m spending the most of my valuable currency on.

Writing my poem, my story, my lyrics, my melody, my script and on and on.

I have so many things to write about, but sometimes once I open the post I just relax so much nothing intelligible comes. It’s when I don’t have the pressure of the page that my thoughts float gently to the surface of my consciousness and tickle my fancy.

My fantasy

Lately I’ve been loving the lyrics of Zach Bryan. My girls led me to him. Some of them are just well wow. Your head in my neck is weightless.

This morning I’m re reading The Highly Sensitive Person I love and it’s already blowing my mind, in showing my experience to me with a lens that helps me cope.

Deep and profound love is often the kind that doesn’t last, and then there’s the kind that does that is also those things.

I was trying to crack the code on love using logic. Now that’s ironic.

Now I’m using all of it, and most often working to get the story straight, keep it simple and direct, and develop a consistently healthy relationship with myself.

The work is delicious, no longer a burden. I am blessed.

The work takes the charge out of the pain, rather than rivers of it threatening to flood at anytime. I’m building a dam. Speaking of that I’m often thinking lately of slowly doing more DIY things. Like fix the drywall in my basement. I’m not sure yet whether that’s an idea and my schedule and sensory stuff means it’s not really conducive. Stay tuned on that one.

I’m watching this is us, and oh my god the triggers and the insight and bliss. Kevin’s twins being born and just watching the trials of these three’s lives. The nuance and the variety of topics covered in this way.

I’m enjoying it immensely….. not have I enjoyed a timing of a show to show me some things since Six Feet Under. This one is a profound love.

I’m reading Dune which is so odd for me. It is and it isn’t. What I appreciate is being attuned to intuition and that that is real.

I want my dreams back, and to be connected. I am figuring it out. Softening, thawing, warming, while also reinforcing my non-negotiables and boundaries.

It’s absolutely pouring.

The waves are crashing around the cement dock that I’ve walked to the edge of so many times and felt like I was standing in the middle of the ocean. Like I could walk on water. Don’t worry no delusions of grandeur here.

Anyway I have more to say later probably or tomorrow. I’m needing woods and water and empty hours.

All my love,

C

Have I Really Gone my Whole Life Without Knowing How to Breathe….

Just breathe they said ….

I had so much pain I never dealt with. I’m only just coming to terms with how compartmentalized I was and the whys and the how’s of it.

I went swimming yesterday. Floundering awkward. More tuned to everyone else at first hyper vigilant non breathing. As it turns out rhythm and breathing is essential to swimming and well every other aspect of life.

I used to experience such shame for being so out of sync and step with those that were given acceptance and love.

I could feel it radiating through me as if I myself were a neon (because I was born in the 80’s it’s neon lol) beacon of different.

I am trying to wear that proudly now and to teach as I go. To advocate for myself and others to not be silent or more accepting. To not cut off parts of our stories or ourselves in favor of making other people more comfortable. I won’t.

In fact I am doing the opposite I’m excavating my story and working at believing it myself, getting it down, getting it out, writing it.

This is not easy. I have a thousand suitcases (white oleander reference), and it’s so overwhelming to even try. It makes me short of breath to even try.

So that’s where I am. I won’t be ashamed or change trajectory for anything. This is me.

I’m doing all body therapies currently and stretching only to my edge moderately until the muscle gives a little. Gentle yoga. Regular kills me still. Being in the water. Taking too much in, feeling headachy from being stiff and awkward and scared.

Just breathing …. Acknowledging…. Being with….

I took this season of writing immersion off to better balance some other things that need attending to and I’m scared shitless to lose the flow I found. But I often share in sessions we can’t lose “the work” it’s integrated and part of us. Accessible anytime, think Dorothy and her Ruby slippers.

I am reading It’s Not You by Dr. Ramani, I read it in like a day. That’s what happens when material makes you feel seen, you know it’s for you. I am reading Fight Right, which helps me hone my relational skills. I am reading Lessons in Chemistry. I am reading the list goes on!

I am watching This is Us. I’m shocked I missed the bus on this emotion porn, but also grateful because any sooner and I think it would have just made me feel worse about myself.

To speak to that I read something in Dr Ramani book, about permanent grief. Is that what I’ve been in?! That would make sense why I didn’t even know or couldn’t even feel other ones at times.

I became a doing. There was no being. And what has brought this so boldly into my attention is how my children felt in relation to me. As if their only value is when they are doing. Oh the heartbreak and regret.

So I’m working at becoming an open hearted and loving human being literally one minute at a time. The guards are many and they are intense. I have body guards upon body guards that I never asked for. Constantly telling me what I can and cannot do.

So much control. Lose control. No control. All control. Organize around others. Perform.

No breathing. No living.

So now I’m figuring out what this living thing is all about. Making friends with my emotions and my body. Introducing myself to them. We are pioneering uncharted waters here. So I guess it’s way finding then.

That makes sense !

Anyway that’s it for now but there may be more posts as I spend time with me this weekend.

First it’s a long walk for the dog and then gentle yoga and then massage.

First we learn to breathe, then we try to live.

Love,

C

Reading A Little Life, While Living A Big One

Willem and Jude

I am reading A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. As I continuously recognize the magnitude of trauma through the story of others, I close the distance gaps between mine and me.

There’s a line in the book about how a human being could be so thoroughly bifurcated, and that has haunted me ever since.

Is that what I was (am), bifurcated?

And much more specifically not just from my other half, an other half, but from my personality, my soul’s essence. It’s heartbreaking to even write. As the truth seeps inside my skin and takes root.

I recognize, that I recognize the magnitude and then it disappears before my very eyes like the proverbial bird in the magicians cage once the cloth has been drawn back.

Each day a blank canvas in the way that only a survivor can understand, as if nothing has ever existed before. The only thing holding a human life together at times is the glue of the people around them, who they hold shared experiences with. I’ve taken for granted that hallowed glue, and yet I haven’t.

I have known how important and this knowing led me to rush desperately, or maybe it was the trauma and not the knowing that caused that, and to create these unions out of a place of desperation.

See what I do there? How I take responsibility for things I couldn’t possibly be responsible for. But then how does one figure it all out anyway. What is theirs and what is not theirs and what is fair has no place in the realm of humanity. Because things are simply not fair.

Fair is a striving if anything, it is not granted by some mystical or even judicial force, and it’s certainly not a perfect system.

Rather these days I think what is the lesson, and the lesson is always love. Not in simply a romantic sense but an all encompassing one.

Is material like this this so relatable because of my many life experiences and similarity or some divine force that has me connect with exactly what is needed at the time?! Both.

Do I bore you going on and on and answering my own questions in your presence? I cannot attach to that it isn’t my business anyway if you’re bored or not. And besides what do I always say?! You’ll never be bored. I’m not boring and my life is certainly not, though it can be quiet and peaceful now.

I’m learning to allow that.

Anyway this book and watching This is Us for the first time, has me breaking open daily.

There’s something about watching two people sharing life together that want their children that work hard at loving them well, that well just flays me open.

No surprise there.

Watching a father love his children and do his best, and the same for a mother. And how they balance their dreams and their own desires with that.

And how fucked up my path looks in comparison, which is why we don’t do that.

If I look at my life individually the whole story it’s so much easier to see the beauty in it. Watching families who love each other and have traditions and traditional anything just sets my skin aflame like the emotional burn victim I am.

Do you see my scars?

This book though. This show though.

Piece by piece I’m collecting me and I’m putting together a self that has all her original essence, from all the shards.

It’s slow.

There is no longer a rush. It’s slow and beautiful. Everything is art. Every meal cooked and eaten. Every dark thought banished by compassion.

This book opens me. My clients open me. Life opens me. It’s exquisite and excruciating and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

A continual surrender. A cease fire on myself. And finally burying my armor and replacing it with something realistic, something lighter…..

C

When I surrender to love, love has interesting things to say to me.

Like you’ll never be bored ha. I never am. Sometimes I think I’d like to be until I’m actually there.

Then of course I want to be somewhere else.

I’m doing a lap before taking twin b to the hospital for fluids and stuff to help her tummy. I hate that she got this disease.

I hate how my heart aches when she doesn’t feel well. How my gut wrenches when she wretches. But this is the price of admission and I’d gladly pay double, and it’s taken me a long time to get here.

I’m grateful beyond words lately.

Surrendered, open, loving, letting go. And boy is that difficult for me, to stay consistent with that. It’s daily work.

I can now see fear, control, and so many other things so much better. I can now see myself and others that way, thank God.

I’ve had such artful posts flow through my mind the past couple of days but couldn’t get it down and that’s ok. It’s softer now. There’s faith I will.

I will. Not owned by my will. Will you?!

Where my mind goes in all intimate moments, the all nighters, the special moments. I have as much control over that as I do gravity.

I want to be free. To play, to think, to write, to create. To breathe.

I have needed to and am becoming a better person through letting go. I used to think that it was a process of holding on, to beliefs, to safety, to my opinion. To anything.

God I was insufferable. I suffer just thinking about some of the damage I’ve done, and with that is all I’ve overcome. Conjoined twins.

What is solid and will always be, are my boundaries around choices, they will be made from my most authentic truth bravely, and not recklessly.

I will only be and accept direct straight forward honesty. That makes me breathe easier. That is my commitment to myself. I love her fiercely.

God she’s beautiful.

I am my best friend, and sure we fight sometimes but these days we repair quicker and cleaner.

I am committed to this work. To my beautiful clients who show up and show their scars, pain and hearts to me. It energizes me. If you show up my energy is yours to share in. I’m here.

My life is not only worth living it’s exquisite. A masterpiece. Nothing is allowed to steal my peace anymore, nothing.

I have family, coping mechanisms, love in my open heart, courage, a fierce mind, and I love living, and life with all that I am.

I wouldn’t move one piece of my puzzle.

This year I’m going to work on solid layers of self and continuing to not abandon myself, while also becoming better at love.

I see how much threat alert I lived with daily and what it has caused. I watch the damage daily in my children’s struggles. However I am right here for them. A rock. A River, an ocean. A warrior.

I am fiercely loyal, and that loyal was always going to need to include myself. I learned it didn’t.

Update ER for four hours. An experiment in the observation of humanity for sure. I may never come to one again. Somehow you end up worse off. Gah.

I watched the movie Burnt the other day, with Bradley Cooper. It resonated. Amazing movie about passion and recovery and food and creativity. It really touched me. I’ve watched it since.

I seem to stay attached to those type of things. Movies and music that make me feel something. It stays. I stay.

I’m back to reading schizophrenia and beginning one book after another but not committing, and resisting finishing them. Sigh. Time to slow down. Same with writing. Although there’s some new on that front. I’m beginning a therapeutic memoir writing course in January in addition to the immersion I’m already doing.

Investing.

There are new beautiful things happening. New energy.

The old and new converges into a brew a stew, a crew.

Coming soon, talking about connecting with family members I never imagined I would, and knowing things I never imagined I could. A bond with my father posthumously I didn’t expect via a family member.

And the ongoing process of how in the hell to decide how best to spend the time and talent I’ve been given. The ever elusive balance.

There’s so much ground to cover. But for now let me prevent myself from ending up in jail as a mom on her 5th hour of watching her daughter uncomfortable and not being able to do anything.

Purging Demons in the Night, Writing About it in Dawn’s Light

“I’m out of my mind but still I’m holding on like a rolling stone. A thousand miles from anywhere.”

I’m soft and squishy this morning. The aftermath of another wave of grief. My grief is very physical. This episode I didn’t see coming. It’s rare for me to not see something coming. The rarest, and some of the most beautiful, and the darkest things have been of that variety.

Yet what is living if you can’t let go, and let life surprise you, and take the wheel sometimes.

Love is the most powerful force on earth: you simply cannot control it. Though I’ve tried my whole life.

Having so little experience with the stuff, I’ve tried most of my life to bend it to my will.

I’m not God. I wouldn’t want that job. Believe it or not 😉

So now I need faith. How do you believe in something that was never a natural part of your life. Something you’ve tried to learn logically while you still have oxygen in your lungs.

I’ve been in a hurry to learn love, until love had its way with me.

I’ve put all the narratives down. The shields. The sword.

I am naked.

Bare.

My story is all that stands left, unedited. No parts cut out. The whole thing.

Here I am.

It all matters to me.

I’ve put pathologizing down too. Trying to keep others safe from me, just in case, and instead causing harm any way. And I’ve had harm caused to me. It’s all part of living. No one is getting out of here alive.

I’m sober. I may not stay that way forever but right now I can’t afford emotional ups and downs more than I already have as an artist. I feel everything all the way through.

Everything except compassion for myself, for having survived this all or nothing existence, cut off from my own emotions.

My whole life I’ve been a coping mechanism, and now I’m healing into a human, and I’d almost prefer to go back, because the breaking and resetting is excruciating. There is no description that does it Justice. Yet 😉

I finally understand why people give up. I really do.

It’s not in my nature and my work is too vital. Those are my main motivators right now.

Most days I’m in agony and I’ve been ashamed of that. Like it might rub off on someone, like they can catch it. Like I’m supposed to just be ok and move on, because if not I’m sick like my mom. Always this demon lurking over me. Accidentally watched White Oleander the other night before bed. Not a good idea. Give me a good Disney movie. Oops.

I’ve been purging demons lately. That’s what trauma work is, quite literally. It’s what being possessed is…..

In giant waves of illness and stillness and comfort and rest after. The migraine melts immediately as soon as the true root of the pain is expressed. The robbing vice releases, and I can stop throwing up.

I haven’t thrown up since I was young.

Too much control. Too little love.

Now I have it all around it and I am it, and I’m adjusting. Why is love an itchy wool sweater for me?! There’s more than the judgment, there are other things too.

I’ll write them out. I’ll go in. I’m all in. Committed.

I began a new journal today, and ended my hamsa one yesterday. This one is all black with a skull and four gold leaves on the cover. It smells of Italian leather and reminds me of Día De Los Muertos. Makes sense and is a good dead of winter book.

Maybe it will contain more about all my dead selves than I’ve ever captured before.

I’m in writing immersions with Victoria Erickson. Learning to allow my life force and energy to flow, come what may.

Slowly working on home improvements. New office carpet, stairs and a railing going in, in the next few weeks. It’s so cozy in my sacred space. Just want to make sure it’s safe for my clients.

I made a contractor friend who is going to teach me how to do dry wall, and a few new things.

If I’m not learning I’m not happy. That’s a fact.

I want to learn everything all the time.

I’m beginning Barbara Streisand’s new memoir ! I love it already she’s so funny and real.

I am scheming a project to write my barber’s memoir. It’s been a spark for a long time. If you’re a person of the passionate variety, that’s all you need, and pretty soon it will catch fire.

I finally had the courage to pitch it, after last haircut. Today the spark became lit. He’s excited.

I’m hoping the practice will help me unlock mine. Not doing it alone helps.

Go Easy on Me just came on.

Flying twin b home from Florida for Thanksgiving. We will all be together in this home. That’s all I want is family. It’s all I’ve ever wanted really. No fight about where anyone will go, just offering love, and allowing those who want to gather.

To love my work, to be cozy with a good book by the fire, to continue to learn, and to connect with other human stories like myself, and share.

I’m the most myself I’ve ever been, and it’s been so much to get here. I cannot even tell you. There’s still so much work to do, it will never be done, but I’m so happy doing it.

I’m in uncharted waters. Exhausting and exciting. Always keep curiosity just a little bit larger than fear.

I’m burning off layers and layers of shame and pain. With every mile, every word penned, every sunrise and set.

Letting Go

All my love,

C