Tag: #ADHD

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Leaving Transactional Love Behind and Beginning Emotional Freedom

Sober Curious

Good morning.

I got nailed by mosquitoes in a short while this morning. Under attack. The rage rises. Story of my life. It rises so quickly at times I admit to myself.

I’m nearing the end of Sober Curious by Ruby Warrington. I’m beginning a Life of One’s Own by Joanna Bigs and probably the Gunkel because it came up so randomly in two of my sessions yesterday and I have it on my shelf. I’m back logged with books as usual, but these days I’m developing a sense of trust in the one I need / want / desire will be there for me and that is all the difference in the world.

Life is in such a transition right now I’m wobbly. I’m having some major major epiphanies. I’m being with myself and not abandoning her and learning to listen and honor. I am unlearning my own self gaslighting in such profound ways. Undoing all those written stories and writing in clarity. It makes me emotional just thinking about it.

I’m thinking about sobriety. Not just alcohol or substance use (by the way the song Angel by The Wings by Sia just came on and it’s perfect I’m head nod writing in resonance with my own journey), but emotional sobriety. Not riding waves of highs and lows, but committed to staying steady. That’s my mission right now.

Earned secure. I’ve been practicing it for years and it’s an ongoing journey not a destination. I’m realizing this as a truth settling into my bones, rather than an idea.

Not what I should want, but what I do want, and need. If I can’t be honest with myself about it how could I have healthy relationships.

I’m updating my bio metaphorically and soon it’s time literally. But I’m also fully committed in my relationships and rooted and I don’t need re-branding or any form of change. That comes anyway like it or not. What I need is to be steady. Stay steady and firm and grounded and clear.

I hate alcohol. I hate it for so many reasons. One of which is it’s seduction that I have ever needed it for any reason. To have or to be fun, more relaxed, let loose. Fuck off. That’s actually not what alcohol has done in my life ever. It has manipulated me.

Don’t get me wrong I’ve manipulated too. It’s not black or white or right or wrong. Just peeling back layers to reveal new skin that has been built under the old. Sloughing off.

I pull away from alcohol and yet I so easily fold to belong and feel accepted and to feel less anxious, but actually if I’m paying attention it does the opposite.

I am sifting through my booze story and remembering the last time I was 7 months sober (but who’s counting because I’m not an alcoholic right ?! Just any other kind of addiction compulsion impulsivity). Ick my own bullshit angers me the most. Deep breathe. I’ve got you. I’m angry and I love you and you’re safe with me most profoundly in that I’m committed to being honest with you (me).

I was 7 months sober, and at the time when I looked back I thought I was doing that so someone else in my life would follow, and in solidarity of their loss of a loved one to alcoholism.

I had all of these stories, none of them were about my relationship to alcohol.

I drink it when I’m in so much pain I can hardly see, and also to “just have fun at social events” I pretend I can without an up and down roller coaster ride of terror. The smell makes my pulse beat faster. The glazed over eyes. I hate the stuff. I want to be clear and slow and peaceful.

A liquid lake of love and learning.

I want to be addicted to learning if anything, but not desperate for it. Allowing of my desires in a safe way.

I don’t want to preach and I don’t have to just because I want to be sober and I will learn to stop ducking gaslighting myself.

I don’t care to debate whether I’m an addict (compulsive comfort seeker) or not. I am. I went years without my emotional needs met, I was always going to be. I’ve allowed myself to involve myself in things unhealthy for me to seek a feeling. I’ll forget everything to that end. I’ll explode my whole life.

What’s interesting about this is it’s also a gaslight. I made the right decisions for me, and I didn’t make them in a way that’s in alignment with who I want to be in certain ways. The right decisions in some wrong ways, welcome to living where we have to learn. Have the space and privilege to do so, and many of us don’t.

If I find myself having to scream to be heard I am in the wrong situation no matter how I feel or how real I think something is.

I was 7 months sober and I can’t even remember the moment I undid it but I know it was to be closer to someone or something and doing the same thing makes me feel that way at such a basic level and I take for granted at times all the work I’ve done to move beyond that.

The first question I asked my now therapist on day one is can something like this really be real. And the answer I’ve found for myself these years later is yes it can and yes it was.

And that doesn’t mean the path is going to take you where you think you want to be. There are some things that may remain a mystery maybe forever.

But one thing that won’t is my own emotions and self concept being in my awareness. I’m attuning to me and I won’t allow anything to change that journey for me. I am learning that those that can see it and appreciate it (me) will show up on their own. I don’t have to fight for love or to be seen. I need only to remove my own blocks to the awareness love has always been my birthright.

Love is my birthright and being loving is meant to be a joy and not an impossible task. I just have lots of rocks to push up hills until each time I’m grateful when I reach the top, even if I just start again tomorrow.

All my love,

C

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The Great Adventure of Understanding Me

“You can do something now to live the life you want to live.”

Grrr this was written the other day. And now I’m on a different one but just noticed this didn’t post.

Running book title: Understanding me.

If I wrote a book now that might be what it would be entitled right now. That’s what I’m working at each day.

Now that I’m not desperately trying to understand the actions of someone else (most of the time ;)), I am figuring out what I want, need, etc. Go figure. And also for me, easier said than done.

So today I find myself in the Storrs Library just over the CT state line. I’m here for my insert number here energy healing. I wonder how many that’s a good question.

I went to look it up on Venmo because I’m me, and the internet here inside the library has not lived up to my patience threshold. I crack myself up. So maybe something to get a statistic on later, if I remember. Slim chance.

So I’m sitting in the library with Things That Matter by Joshua Becker on my lap. Knew nothing about this book before I opened it. So far it begs you to ask the question of what you would regret about not finishing in your life. It speaks of a person’s work with the dung and their shared regrets and those commonalities.

It’s talking about how to live focusing (my fear kicks in with self knowledge here, my arch nemesis), on how to achieve the focus necessary to live according to your priorities.

Living in a way that makes a difference and not “wasting” that.

If you were to die today, what one thing (or few things) would you be most disappointed that you weren’t capable to complete.

Let’s see if I can work through mine here. There is the obvious sharing of my story and writing a book, the two may not be mutually exclusive. I’m still figuring out that.

I would regret not having fully apologized to those I’ve loved, where appropriate, based on the understanding I now have of myself.

Perhaps I would regret not giving enough attention to develop a counseling theory or movement based on the knowledge I have.

And not having a healthier relationship with myself, how I treat myself etc.

So I suppose reading this it’s pretty clear I’m on the path. That’s comforting. Seriously.

I just read make it a point to read books from different centuries because it will come from a different perspective and will challenge your thinking in new ways! That’s why East of Eden! Woooo! I’m ahead of the game.

So these are the five regrets people cited…

💜

And our time together today in this blog is almost at a close. I certainly do not regret making this post.

What I learned today is how close I am to living my life in a way that leaves few regrets and I could have lost all of that by obsessing over some of my mistakes and getting lost in them.

Stop it! I say to myself… stop it and carry on.

Onward! (Thanks Liz) and now I can truly embody and feel that message and how you got to it.

All my love, all of it!

C

Ps lately my thoughts are highly influenced by Soul Friends and exploring the connection that have most deeply impacted me, trauma work, understanding what triggers my symptoms and how that affects my life. Also the reading of Come as You Are, as well as Letting Go. Energy healings, movement, nature, self discovery, reflections, and the places that shows or songs or moving or reading take me.

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Heaven and Hell at Times Exist All at Once

Lost in the rush but I pray you don’t hurt too much …..

How many years was I going to spend in an irritable disconnected state even after I’d done so much work to choose differently. Stuck in that state. It’s like the new software never uploaded, and I was the last to know.

I needed a reflection that wasn’t distorted, to be able to understand my true self differently.

I’m always trapped inside my fucking head on and on and on….

Last night I had to tell the Little Prince he needs to find his own place by 30 days time. Excruciating. Everyone says it’s the right thing. My heart says of course it’s not.

No man left behind. And I never have, not really. I can see now that if I was met even halfway with effort it would have gotten figured out. I’ve only ever left people who weren’t able to show up for themselves, and I never stopped loving them.

One of the most egregious of my self misunderstandings. That I wasn’t loving or lovable.

Devastating. It has harmed so many years of my life.

Saving myself was never anything to do with love.

We all need our stories until we are ready to confront them.

As in many dysfunctional family systems no man is left behind. Blood is thicker than water. I have to separate this from the cord cutting I’ve done with toxic situations and place it in the healthy boundaries category. That’s not easy.

What’s the difference anyway? There is one, and I can almost feel it now. Can you feel it?!

I’m listening to Lewis Capaldi today, he was a frequent during one of the darkest times of my life. His voice goes straight to my bones, like Pink, lady Gaga, Adele, and so many others. Straight to my core. Comfort.

Emotional identification and then manipulation of self and other ensues. You must be able to separate and look at things objectively too. A step outside, some rationality included. Who knew? No one taught me that.

So I learned to teach myself. No victim stories, only tales of survival becoming thriving.

A vibrant life!

I can step back now and the obfuscation dwindles. What a difference. You wouldn’t even recognize it. You couldn’t unless you’ve learned it. Less splitting, integration. Integrity.

Even the dust of emotional manipulation, the residue makes me ill on contact. It’s a way of life untangling my own. That’s what I was trying to do.

I thought that’s what you wanted too.

I was wrong.

I’ve been wrong so many times, but I no longer sweat that the same.

Mistakes are the portals to discovery.

I’m finally taking all the scraps and quilting. Threads to the tapestry.

At least I had the courage to make them, or the naïve dissociation, I guess probably both.

So before you go…. Was there something…..it kills me how your mind can make you feel so worthless. I was the storm to weather.

It has subsided to pure presence. So many less triggers. I can breathe now. It’s a different life again, and there’s no fault in it.

Only accountability.

Change and learning.

I am still learning

I will always be learning

Always

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Making Amends with Myself, the Primary Source….

How Do You Block the Sound of a Voice You’d Know Anywhere….

Lisa Loeb Wishing Heart and Jan Arden Insensitive are taking me back today….

I have a bad sinus cold. I woke up this morning with my head pounding, sensitive to light and sound and essentially everything. I debated strongly what course of action to take, ie migraine pill because it feels like that, but I know it’s sinus pressure.

I opted for severe sinus med and it definitely lightened the suffering though it’s there behind the pill. I don’t want to take an antibiotic if I don’t have to. It wipes out any good gut bacteria I manage to have and causes whole other issues. So there’s that.

I’m seriously reflective right now. Very within. Integrating the changes from these past years. The holidays brought forth lots of grief. All of the lost dreams. It’s not as doom and gloom as it sounds, well it is and isn’t.

It isn’t because I am faithful these days to a belief that all of these are threads in a tapestry of my life and all are sacred, even the more coarse fibers.

I am understanding my self better, which helps me to understand others better. I’m doing this in all areas and in past and present relationships.

It’s a softening.

Will I be thawing forever?

The answer in so many ways is a resounding yes. What’s different is the resentment. I no long resent this as much, that is becoming a holding it sacred as part of my path. Who even am I?! Oh hey heyoka. If that’s the name for a deep spiritual being that can hardly believe that’s a real thing and not some grandiose fantasy. It sounds ridiculous and self aggrandizing. We only believe what we can see and touch, because anything else never showed up.

I’m not behaving as if I’m living in a fantasy. My feet are firmly planted and I’m addressing myself and my needs and learning to communicate. I am learning. It’s not easy for me. Yep it’s not the other person, it’s me, just as much. Humble pie. I own my things, and own them specifically and follow through with change however and I was always capable of that. That was always possible under the right conditions and I am not responsible for the right conditions. I made my hard decisions.

I can trust that because when push comes to shove afraid or not I act with integrity. Scared or not. That is trustworthy. So when am I going to start valuing myself in that way?! Love HER Christina, choose her. She deserves and is worthy of your love. Stop fearing her, she has always meant well and tried hard and course corrected when it has been necessary without relying on manipulation.

I never relied on manipulation. When I recognized that’s what I was doing I owned it and changed and had empathy for those hurt.

Empathy without boundaries is self destruction. Yes it is. Never again. Boundaries are king and everything will be as it should because those are water tight. Crystal clear boundaries she said, a therapist from another life. Able to protect even when that was a difficult balance. Crystal clear boundaries Christina.

I remember every single thing that is important to know. Not protected by a narrative, but cloaked in taking the time I need to make the decisions that are best for me and learning how to be more than a coping strategy.

Meeting myself. Falling in love, or at least like. Sometimes love can be very overwhelming.

I am observing myself in absolute shut downs and freezes and then watching what brings me back and what shuts me down further.

I have slowed down enough that I am able to be seen, only because I am seeing myself, not only in that terrible polarity of good or bad, right or wrong. But in all of the richness and complexity I deserve. Did you hear that?! Wow.

I did. And my eyes are wet.

They thaw over and over as my heart does as well.

My head is exploding I’m going to freak out! No I’m not. My adult self will take myself to the walk in later and get on some antibiotics and trust the rest. I’ve had this pain for three days. I rearranged my day to only have a 12, and 1 and moved the rest. So I can just crawl in bed and relax. I think it’s time to also take the migraine pill. I think it’s both 🙁

It’s so painful these realizations of the way I’ve seen things so backwards and tangled with my kids and how misunderstood I’ve felt, and not being able to clear those up. I can’t believe how I’ve lived like this all this time. So separate from myself and those I love and just as a harsh executioner. Reactive, ready to jump on any sign of dissension.

I was reacting to my children all the time, when I didn’t feel in control. And shocker I’m not in control of anything, but myself now. Jesus it was about time. In the immortal words of Elizabeth Gilbert. You never really had control anyway, all you had was anxiety. Yes Liz. Thank you for being a beacon when I am lost.

How I have needed to be in control for safety. I am the things I’ve accused of and I see so much more softly now. Of myself and others and the glaciers just thaw and thaw.

What will emerge ? As I no longer reside in a story or rely on the same coping mechanisms.

It’s absolutely terrifying being in a transformation. Dying over and over. Things are so clear at least and that is a relief. and there is also so much to sit with. To make friends with.

I’m fighting to trust myself. That is my biggest area of work right now. My perception, my own ability to feel my feelings in real time, rather than a year later. That the things I say and do will not hurt me let alone another. I’m juggling so many plates in the air all the time and working at being entirely different when overwhelmed.

The tool I’m employing most often is empathy and having been so far removed from my own for myself for so long I’m wondering how the new fresh oxygen will integrate: was I without it for too long? Is the damage too great?

I’m only just beginning to peel back the layers. To not use usual coping strategies and patterns. To know what is and what is not that.

My heart is opening and softening, but I’m still an anemone. At the slightest sign of danger I close up tightly and it’s frustrating feeling so emotionally handicapped. Stunted, frozen, cold.

I am going through those things, but I am not those things. This is quite possibly one of the biggest changes inside to date.

I’ve misunderstood myself so catastrophically for so long, that finding understanding now is almost unbearable. It’s unbearably different than what I am used to.

To stop misunderstanding others, my children. My SELF.

The one safe space I understand well contained into an hour long appointment with my acute and honed ability focused and objectivity at my disposal I cling tightly to my gift to keep me steady, and it does.

Then I adjust my narrative not to pathologize that somehow, and then I do that in every other area of my life.

I am naked right now.

And I’ve never been like this before. My eyes are wet again.

The breaking and building.

My bones are powder….

At least I am not a powder keg anymore.

My heart is an ocean

One of those lovely ones that are clear blue and contain no sharks. A safe ocean.

It used to be safe for others, but not for me….

That is different now. I am different now. I am soft and scared and sacred and new and old at the same time.

My head hurts so bad…..

I just want to snuggle into my covers and cry and listen to the last two hours of Evelyn Hugo. But first a bath, a rally and showtime for two hours.

My sessions deepen as I do, and as my understanding of myself does, and my forgiveness of myself….

Onward

Ps one moment of truly being seen to the core, I have found, can thaw the thickest ice. The person opens right back up and becomes present in that safety. The person so often lately doing that, is me.

I am told I am that for so many others, but I wasn’t doing that for myself. I’m so surprised when someone sees me and so used to living without it.

You gave me oxygen then removed it, over and over until I begged for an end. In the end I made it myself.

That was just the beginning, as often is with transformations. Now the integration and not knowing whether the organ will be accepted or rejected.

Stay tuned

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Beauty is a curse, I’ve long known this

I’ve got approximately two and a half hours left of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I’ve been savoring it. I’ll feel incomplete for a short while in its absence. I’ve been all or nothing so long, it’s nice to read it bit bit and then process and listen to music. I have a nice groove going on.

I walked to Natural Kitchen and got a bowl today. I think the tuna from there makes me a little allergic, probably some preservative they use. A major goal in the new year is to begin working with a nutritionist and allergist and really attend to my health.

Another goal is to spend very little and see if I can pay off my student loans. I’m coming up with a strategy with my financial advisor. I want to leave my children with a good financial situation and also make sure in case anything happens to me with my Crohns that I have wiggle room. So they and we are safe and don’t have additional stress.

*don’t worry I’m not leaving anytime soon, I just think that far ahead. It’s a part of me.

When did I suddenly become such an adult ?! Who knows!?

I was able to do quite a bit for those I love this year for Christmas and it’s all done. I’m usually panicking the night before. It’s pinch me unreal the things I’m able to do.

I’ve been that way most of my life though, pinching myself at things I just never could even have seen for myself. How rich my experiences have been. No corner of my life unturned and I shall continue living this way.

I wore my only human sweats today and grey under armor sweater with beanie and just felt cool ha. Feels silly to say but I did. I felt cool despite having my winter weight on, some breaking out on my face. I just don’t torture myself anymore and that feels very nice.

To not nitpick myself apart about perfection. Now if I could just continue to do that with writing.

Go easy on me baby….. appropriate.

Henri is asleep at my feet. The cat dog that she is. The little prince is cleaning up after his ugly Christmas / cookie extravaganza last night. Thankful those are few and far between, and also grateful to be able to be that house and have such a good group of kids.

I feel like Diane Lane in the end of Under the Tuscan Sun, something I want to read by the way. I’ve only seen the movie. She had felt so low at one point, like she was never going to have what she wanted and then realizes she did even though it’s completely different than she thought.

Yep my face is definitely flushing from this food. I get much less anxious about these things anymore. I go with I’ll be fine, and if I’m not I’ll know and be able to get the care I need. Not going to eat this bowl again. But I will for sure walk to places to get my food and even shopping. I love walking when I can instead of driving.

Maybe next I’ll bike everywhere and keep costs down. Anything can be an adventure. I could be happy the rest of my life walking back and forth to the library and eating a picnic lunch out in the sun with a book.

The simple things…

I just want to make sure my loved ones are safe and cared for and myself and we have experiences. That’s what I’m focused on lately, and that I make choices that are congruent with that. Yes a therapist word for sure. Shocking 😉

Writing a book lately feels like more of a when, than an if. That feels so nice. I could cry just to say it, but most important that I feel it. A sense of security and that it’s solid. If my circumstances change I still am solid. That’s taking root.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. It feels different this year somehow. I’m acknowledging it and not saying it doesn’t matter and I don’t need anything. It feels calm and safe.

In fact I need to see a show, A Strange Loop on Broadway and the tree and have a nice dinner in the city with my loved ones. I’m not anxious. Well maybe a little. About not finding a bathroom or anything that can happen, but the excitement outweighs. Mmmm.

I have more than I need. I can begin thinking about what I can do to give to my community and to my field and all of it.

I have so much more to write maybe today will be a twofer or tomorrow morning I’ll take some time for me to contemplate the brink of my forty second trip around the Sun.

I was going to talk about Evelyn’s sixth husband because that’s where I am. And how I feel for people so beautiful they get trapped in the upkeep of it all, it’s one thing to enjoy taking care of yourself, pressure however is quite another.

Ok so I wrote this a couple of days ago and didn’t post. It’s more an update than passion ridden prose. A theme I suppose. I have therapy now on Christmas Eve eve. Then walking and family time. I anticipate a lot of writing as I am present and coming to the end of Evelyn’s story.

And still well at the beginning of mine 💜

Ps and in true Christina fashion I didn’t talk about the title subject much at all. Stay tuned it will come along somewhere…. Soon. I think. Maybe

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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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The Movies, Music, Morning Walks and Making Amends

Always, C

I’ve been thinking the most about amends lately….

This mornings walk started with Dear Depression by NF and second song is Unsteady by X Ambassadors. If you love me don’t let go. Hold on….

Which makes me think of Me Before You, which makes me think of Love Rosie, which I watched last night. Which makes me think of which movies I enjoy so much and why.

Probably if I were to guess they were friends when I had none, and they at times inspire hope. I like movies that make me feel the way I want to around the people I have close. I could disappear into the feeling of that story. T

hat’s likely the most important thing here. I could have a family, a best friend, a lover, for that 90 minutes I didn’t feel the kind of alone that was unforgiving and unforgivable during childhood. I will have no amends there. Not a death bed whisper. Only an endless chill.

Deep emotion. Human stories. Inspiration.

I like these things.

How I like the piano and string instruments and vocalists that have been through the ringer emotionally. Mary Lambert, Teddy Swims, Pink, Taylor Swift, k Clarkson, so many more…

Like I like my authors…. Brene, Liz, Martha, S King. So many more.

Our vibe attracts our tribe they say. I have to believe it’s true when I pay attention to what I like.

I don’t like horror. I don’t need to experience anymore terror. All set thanks. I feel the things the character is experiencing in my body and heart and will think about still shots of the movies days and even years after.

I have an interesting encoding system in my brain. It’s kind of magical really. Genuinely.

NF Perception, Remember This. This guy has had some trauma too huh! So find people that challenge what you think….. gorgeous.

So back to my brain and amends.

What I’m realizing lately is that most of my life I’ve misunderstood myself so painfully.

Each time I shut down and moved overly quickly that was a reflex, that had nothing to do with my true self. She was so far buried in those moments.

This last time I tried to say that, but I was already in the action of my choice. It’s impossible to regret it because of where I am now. If you asked me last year though.

Not very dependable someone who changes that easily right?! The story, the T, the gossip. Hate it. Because it never understands. It’s fast and realization is slow.

The kind we need to breathe life back into a world gone cold and hard.

Empathy

I had it for others, but none for myself.

Anytime she did something that wasn’t in compliance I’d leave her out in the cold. Punishment. No understanding.

Here comes the amends. This is how I was with my kids. And a lot of it was because I was fighting to feel supported by their father, someone still lost in bitter hurt. This is my version of course and that’s all I can write.

If I told the bad story it would look something like this, of course he would want to be away because of the flip outs I did, just like my mother.

Just like my father wanted to be away from my mother. I understood why. BUT there’s so much I didn’t understand. Everything that came before me. What he did to her. A little girl with a grown man.

No perpetrator and no victim. We all have a part in our choices and I’m more interested in who I will become because of them, than to cast judgment.

Judgment is boring and nearsighted and hollow.

Nothing comes full circle there. You just chase your tail and go on a haunted carnival ride of your own emotions.

My ego fought an invisible battle with him to feel supported, because I felt I had none.

And the punishment fell to my kids. They didn’t have my warm wise presence at some of the times they needed it the most.

And now I sit in the pain of knowing this and let it soften the borders of my heart so I can course correct.

Twin b tried to scream at me your punishments don’t work and I doubled down. I wasn’t fighting her. She just wanted to be heard, and I shut down.

My shut down switch is so frustrating in my life. How do I forgive it, because it saved me before, and left me for dead later. The thing meant to protect me also kept me shut off from the love.

They were out in the cold with me. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. I want to explain to cry for understanding. But that forgoes the accountability I need to make amends.

They need to feel I can respond to their emotions.

How can you ask that of me my trauma cries. Don’t you understand how terrifying someone else’s emotions became for me. If you knew.

But they don’t and they didn’t ask …. They were at our mercy as parents. Now that I can connect with.

I only hope they will someday come to their own conclusion that I did my best in all the ways I could.

I didn’t do it all wrong, but I have the strength now to know that one of the most important ingredients was missing. That soft love. I hope that their fathers family supplied it enough. Holidays and unconditional love. Things I didn’t have.

I hope they don’t suffer in the ways I have. Those words are true. It would only be judged as dramatic or anything else for someone who doesn’t know, connect with these losses of self they never consented to.

No one told me about trauma.

When the first person (therapist) suggested it’s shocking I’m alive, it was like a scene in a movie. He couldn’t be talking about me. I wasn’t even in my body.

I had kids with a grand idea of creating a family I didn’t have and I was going to do it perfect of course in my idea.

Then life takes hold and tells you ha you thought that was going to work. Silly goose.

Being gay and not realizing became another school yard bully, and I almost lost that battle.

I would have done anything to protect my kids from divorce and him. I wanted to. I agonized.

I just kept hitting wall after wall with it. It was not possible and even the voice now says I could have done it and waited if it meant…. NO.

I’d do anything for love but I won’t do that. Not be myself how I was made. Not an option.

Divorce. The first area that requires amends. Creating a life for everyone (all my responsibility of course), when I wasn’t aware of myself.

My enthusiasm for living often preceded my better senses.

Can you ever forgive me?!

My mind is mostly fragments and so scattered and living steadily requires the gathering of all these things each morning just to function.

Please forgive me….

*I’m still trying to figure out this writing thing. This excavation. The where, when, how of it all. So bear with me as I find these fossils and thoughts. My psyche is so often a steel trap. It goes into lockdown with a hairline trigger. When I listen to music the rhythm style and emotion of my writing is immediately influenced. So if you’re here on my journey. Thank you for helping me be less alone in the world. It’s special to me beyond words…..

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Walking my Way Through my Own Truth

Nothing else matters

I love feeling myself getting stronger. Trimming the fat in so many ways. Building self. I feel my muscles strengthening and celebrating the movement. I definitely want to stretch more though as I move forward.

On my walk this morning I am thinking about the kinds of being alone. There’s the kind where all your thoughts echo it’s so empty, and you’re at their mercy. If you want to grow you just sit with them until you understand. There are mean time’s. There’s temporary alone, when a loved on travels and it’s a short time.

There is the alone in your head that you are every single day. With your own thoughts that no one else knows. Unless you’re reading this blog 😉

There’s alone after a spouse has passed away. An empty cavern, with the crushing weight of figuring out how to re-draft every day processes. Lost.

And then there’s another kind. The kind I’m thinking about today. There’s the violent kind of being alone.

This is when you don’t expect to be alone, but you find that’s the case over and over. The kind where the words don’t match the actions. The kind that causes illness, despair, and for some people even tragedy. The kind where the dishonesty makes you feel crazy. Your mind wants to believe in the love you thought you felt. The love you were continuously sold.

The kind where the person doesn’t know how to relate in a healthy way. Lost souls. So they manipulate others to meet their need.

I’ve never been lost like that, but very close to it. I do understand. There’s never been anything wrong with my understanding.

I’m a lucky one, but I worked hard for it. So luck is probably not the right word.

Not swathed in a story, I sat in my stuff.

I sit in my stuff.

And you know what it has made me a better human being. Most importantly a better parent. With much more space and awareness for empathy for the experience of others.

A far stretch from a perfect one, but better each day.

That’s what I chose to do with that. And to only forget as much as is necessary to do my work and live a fulfilling life. But never enough to be naive like that again.

I miss that naïveté. In some ways I wish it was never taken in such a manner, but then I can’t, because I wouldn’t be here now feeling what I am.

Presence. Peace. Love. Connection.

The alone melts away and with it the anger and pain.

Love is not an emotion. It’s sturdy. It is a choice and a promise.

I’ve never been very good at the consistent aspects of love. So built for survival I am. The only moment is now. A men and black reset each day.

So I’m working on my consistency and sturdiness of self, also not an emotion. I work on them by being consistent with my every day small behaviors and choices. Those are building a solid ground inside me.

This way emotions are allowed to do their work to keep the balance between my head and my heart. To protect and serve, rather than turn against me. Karen McLaren The Language of Emotions, a Bible of mine lately. The passage love is a steadfast promise around page 120 or so.

This is literally a manual for healing trauma. I bought many copies to give to those in need this Christmas. Clients and friends alike. That and Letting Go by David Hawkins. Those are my go to sources right now.

I’ve been reading that passage in sessions, when warranted, and I get goosebumps and usually both parties tear up.

For all the pain and suffering in the world there is always the possibility of healing.

Choose

It’s a choice, not a feeling. You can’t feel better without the choice and commitment.

Now excuse me while I sit here and enjoy how my coffee tastes after the walk. It tastes better, more satisfying. And try not to fret about my baby having surgery this morning, far away. I sent her a “fever frog” from 1800 flowers. That thing is so damn cute. It sings and dances and comes with chicken soup. It was the only option that stopped me from buying a plane ticket and being there. That silly singing frog. Sigh.

Trying to care less about being cool these days and hip. Never really was in the cards anyway lol. I want to play. To help people in my presence feel lighter when they are heavy. Rather than going to their place automatically with them and then freaking out about it.

The above I’m working on a lot. As a recovering chameleon. Thinking of The Luckiest Girl Alive in this moment.

Balance

Lighter by Yung Pueblo is another good one.

I don’t want to sell anything to anyone. I want to align myself with those who prioritize their own healing and the ones that understand love is a choice and show up consistently.

My vow is that if I want this I will also be it.

I must

Good morning on this beautiful fall day! Finally a chill in the air. It’s extra delicious this year, with the warmth in my heart maintaining my temperature.

Peace

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When Stories are Told in Safe Spaces Shame Dies

All of these lines across my face…tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am. But these stories don’t mean anything when you’ve got no one to tell them to. It’s true I was made for you.

Being loved is overwhelming….

This is my realization this morning.

This is why I have chosen partners that were not capable of healthy love in one way or another, and I wasn’t either.

Would I always have unbalanced love outside, and frozen love inside ?

I’m just beginning to be able to see the light at the end of that tunnel.

And it’s scary to be 41 years old, I almost said 42, I always round up. I guess so I’m already prepared. So much of my life is geared around being prepared, for anything. It’s scary to be 41 years old and feel like an infant at times, that vulnerable, because everything is new. I’ve never been this self before.

“I’m not the explosion guy”, that’s my father.” I think of Silver Lining Playbook. The pain that’s involved in families where a member had an unidentified mental illness or personality disorder. The shame and pain that passes through the generations. No treatment. No relief.

No relief. Let those words land.

Just shouldering those burdens trying to look and be normal. Swallowing it down. I get so angry with the injustice of that. The silenced pleas for help in the form of various “negative” behaviors in children and they just internalize and absorb it into themselves and become sick. Which looks like defiant, odd, impulsive, and a whole range of other things.

Then exiled from others because they don’t fit.

Understanding is the salve that heals. I apply it generously in my office. Often while having so many unknowns on my shoulders. Feeling like a small mistake could cost an entire life. Anxiety often weaves that tale. Sometimes the stakes feel so high, and then I have to readjust to “I can only do my best.” That’s been a game changer.

I don’t have peoples lives in my hands, I have their possibility of healing in them. The choices I make can impact their healing, but my role is not enough to stop the results of a lifetime of suffering if the train is already blurring down the tracks. I can’t stop a bullet, but I can apply a vest.

When you grow up feeling responsible for everything, and utterly by yourself it becomes difficult later in life to know what’s yours and what isn’t. A major task of therapy.

A major task of mine…..

I had a 20 k client day yesterday. Sometimes it goes so deep and so heavy, that one day feels like a week. I’m in a daze and don’t even know what day it is.

I do know I bring my whole heart and I lay my energy on the front line daily; and though I may never have a hero’s celebration. Let’s be honest I would probably squirm with discomfort. I need to learn to celebrate myself and what I do, and pause. I can’t always just keep going, but tell my mind that.

There’s a community that lost a teenager to suicide a couple of weeks back, and it haunts me. The pain of those affected haunts me. The intrusive thoughts when I see a sign in one of mine haunts me. The pain of those parents haunt me, and I’m not even first degree attached. But I am a human and I can’t even fathom that pain, or maybe I can.

The threat was always there in my own life. A not so gentle reminder of my trauma. My trauma. The thing I don’t talk about because to access it extinguishes my breathing almost immediately. I shudder and shake with it in the therapy office. I don’t want it spoken. What if I made it up.? I wish I made it up.

And it’s just easier to press forward and pretend it’s something that can be left behind. It can’t. It infects the next generation and the next until it’s spoken, understood, and loses it’s power.

I think my true self inside wanted a simple life. And resents the enormity of this role. I think my therapist would laugh at this. That’s just my whining about the acceptance of the things I didn’t choose. My energy healer disagrees, she believes our souls contract before they entire the body fully knowing what their destiny will be.

Did I sign on that dotted line? Was it inked in blood?

I have stories locked down inside me. Guarded by dragons. Dragons I shouldn’t have had to face then, let alone now. To access my memories. It doesn’t seem fair to go through what I have to do to do that.

I spent a life trying to create something I didn’t have to forget and if I want to heal I need to remember enough to also get that little girl out alive.

Confusion. Exhaustion.

Nobody wants that. They want fun and to believe in happy endings. But what about happy beginnings. I’ve realized lately those really do and did exist in those other people. The ones who don’t shudder when a voice raises.

Those happy people you’ll never be understood by, is how it felt. Separation, desperately seeking belonging.

Desperate.

Now that I’m no longer desperate how do I do life? It’s all new, and new is overwhelming even when it’s good.

Patience. Security. Safety.

A loving self ….

I created one.