“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.
It’s a gorgeous Sunday. I feel beautiful. Clear and peaceful and calm. Whole. Myself.
I no longer feel I’m outside of my body watching my life, or that I don’t deserve things coming my way today, or any other. Now I say this, but there are moments. The pain is not gone, my trauma is not gone.
I’ve just found a lot more peace in living, created a lot more.
I do however want to write more. I went to Kripalu and that was such an experience and I want to capture it. I made new and dear writer friends. I read bravely, shaking and crying even, but without hesitation and without shame.
I showed up!
I wrote pieces I didn’t know I had in me, many fragments of my life.
Sea glass.
I found myself in others there and vice versa.
I found out I’m a poet, a lyricist, that there’s a rhythm to my writing, and that I’m all in. I knew that. But I don’t mind finding out over and over.
I’m all in. With my whole heart.
This day feels beautiful. It doesn’t just look it. I’m no longer invisible or trying to make myself that way. So much unworthiness is being shedded.
I feel loved. I feel seen.
And I feel felt.
My home is full of loving people and music and food and joy. When I observe from the outside this is what I see and hear. People feel welcome and loved here.
I have new piano lessons that are so much better than the other. And I was able to realize that I didn’t lose any of what I learned (we never do). Once it’s in there it’s in there.
I got paperwork Friday to move forward with changing my name. Yes, I am being adopted at 42 years old, and no I don’t mind the administrative nightmare that ensues. I had been avoiding because of that.
I had a hospital trip last week, and a nurse said my last name and it felt weird. I don’t think I’ve ever felt I belonged to a last name. Sadly even those I share with my children, and is also the name of my business. It would be so easy to go back to that one. And also has the bonus of sharing it with my kids.
I need to belong to myself, and I also want to belong to a family that has known young me, that has shaped me, and that showed up.
I’ve spent long and hard thinking about this and even though I had acceptance and love from a family I kept it at arm’s length because of fear. They will write that on my grave perhaps. I was too afraid to lose it and that they were just being nice and every other fear you can imagine. Judging myself left and right. Analytical to a fault.
I’m done with that. It is with an open heart only, and still some better senses about me, that I choose to embark on the rest of my life.
How did you do it?! Not lose your heart….. it wasn’t easy.
So I am going to be Christina Nicole Jenkins soon.
When I think of love and being loved it’s them that I think of when it comes to family. Them that have known and loved me all the years of my life unconditionally and without expectation or becoming upset with me for the choices I’ve made.
When I think of how I love. How I include my daughter’s boyfriend as he’s one of the family, and holidays, it is them I have modeled the most after. How I have loved friends as my own, my desire to make anyone in my area feel like family. That’s me. That’s my own. It always was.
My first love Michael Jenkins and I… we are still in love. Not the romantic be together kind, but the kind who experienced first love together. I always did wish to marry him, so the last name will do. 😉 I feel warm and safe and seen and felt all these years later with him, and the family who loved me naturally. With him or not. They love me for me.
They just lost a daughter recently. My heart hurts for them. I’m sorry.
So I’m just realizing more recently a lot more about love. What it is. Who I am in its arms. How it’s shaped my life. Whether it was the having of it or the lacking of it. Whether it was lightning bolt love that jolts you awake to so many things, slow love that is learned, love of a friend, love of self, passion, vocation, nature.
What is love is my writing prompt from Melissa. And even if I do know a lot more about what it’s not, I am an eager student.
I used to just go blank when Melissa would ask me anything about me.
So on this Mother’s Day I have a mother and I am a mother, and there’s no internal conflict or pit of pain and despair to be found.
My life is “good enough”, not longing for anything else. Always that burning longing…. a purgatory my childhood years left me to resolve and I’ve turned pain into art.
The art of life itself.
And I love living.
So I’m sitting here pondering the consistent stable things I’ve created this past two years.
I am consistent and committed to my healing. Which includes routines I crave and love. They include exercise, nature, connection, writing, touch, learning, reading, and play. In no particular order because writing would be first, though play in last does track.
And little by little the hyper vigilant guard let’s down my walls and I swim in a sea of love without drowning or jumping out. I’m finding ways to navigate the waters. Ways into and out of myself that are constructive rather than destructive.
It’s not perfect. I’m still doing a lot of grieving. My heart is still heavy in ways that are felt in daily life, especially on holidays, and milestones. There are aches of what was, and what never was. Phantom limbs that tingle. Vivid moments.
I still do grief rituals. Deep moments of allowing. No blocking.
Those are part of life now, and I don’t worry that they will bitter the sweet. They are the product of a life well lived of pursuing that which sets my heart on fire and there’s no shame in that.
I have nothing to be ashamed of or regret, only to peacefully sort my way through gently, ever so gentle with my heart.
Tread softly on me. I have a lot of scars.
I deal with a lot of pain physically and emotionally daily. That’s normal for me. My normal. When I get too down about it life gets harder. When I have some story like I’m meant to be this suffering thing. That’s ridiculous.
I just take things one day at a time and get better at coping with those difficulties and at being at home inside my body and with my wide open heart.
This is where I am 💜
It’s the first Mother’s Day I’ve truly let go and forgiven myself for not being able to stay where I was being harmed. Not wondering if I would attend a funeral for someone who died for me a long time ago. For someone who didn’t consider my well being.
How can a mother ever be that way with a child. I’m not perfect, not near to it, but I’d never give up becoming a mother.
I never give up, and I am loyal when safely connected and seen and felt.
I would have stayed loving her if it wasn’t burning me alive.
She never became a mother.
And thankfully I did and am.
It’s hard to not regret how long it’s taken me to get here. To give without resentment and that edge I always had. It creeps up like bile crawling up my throat. I now know where to put it, and life is much easier.
I want to give now. I’m not as exhausted all the time now.
I want to be a mother and someday a grandmother who my loved ones feel felt by. That I am able to pay attention to them without getting overstimulated, freezing, isolating, fawning, covered in panic.
Separated off in my mind in some terrible intrusion.
So I do the work, walk the line, show up.
I’m emotional often now. Like a raw exposed nerve. Like a burn victim. No longer reacting at every touch. I can lean in to connection and learn.
It’s humbling and rewarding and I am present and accountable.
All my love…
Mom
Ps: oh and the entire reason I began writing was to write about my schedule adjustment, and how that feels, but this feels complete. So next post…. My writing has a mind of it’s own and takes me on the ride.
“Many people say that you have to love yourself first before you can love others, but really, if you learn to love others, you will learn to love yourself.”
There really is no place like home.
I have roots, who knew. The Mountain is You speaks to uprooting and it resonates greatly to how I lived my life so many years.
Have I mentioned that I hate flying ?
And I love seeing and experiencing new things. So there’s a lot to manage there. I am adventurous but also nearly crippled by the level of anxiety signals and the ease with which they become activated.
For example I cannot make my mind settle for statistics on the safety of flying when my body knows I’m sailing above the clouds in a sophisticated tin can thousands of feet in the air. My entire body is tense until landing and despite how I distract or medicate myself, the body knows imminent death is at hand.
It takes days to recover from even a tame venture that involves flying. I may be a feet on the ground kind of gal. And is that alright !!? Now I want to listen to that song.
And I shall.
Connecticut has become home.
The air is home. I feel something upon returning. My feelings often take me by surprise. Mostly that I can feel them at all in real time. It’s startling and sometimes unsettling, even the good, especially the good.
The only thing we need to do with feelings is feel them. Who knew this? I thought a feeling means you must take an immediate action. I’m a good little soldier after all. 🙁
I want you to look right in my eyes, to tell me you love me, to be by my side….
Want to see your face as I fall with grace at the moment I die…..
My mission to go to a book store on any trip I take and then inscribe the front page with date, time, and thoughts about my travel almost did not come to fruition. Florida doesn’t believe in books apparently. But I was determined so I ended up with The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab. This book is interesting to say the least. It’s a little tough to follow in the beginning, but I’m confident the threads will come together.
My hope is to leave a library of my experiences and thoughts for my children and their children. I hope to pass down my love for books and hope that electronics don’t ever swallow them, as they have so many other beautiful things. Like the ability to think and be bored.
I finished most of East of Eden in 2 days which was a breathless experience. Lost inside her pages. I am home there too. Weaving my own story in my mind as I experience another’s creativity. It awakens mine.
Speaking of that I’ll be at Victoria Erickson’s writing workshop at Kripalu this weekend. A last minute choice. So absolutely necessary. I also have Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell in June. What life is this?!
I went down to my office this morning and I experienced such overwhelming comfort. My sacred healing space. So many intimate moments held there. Realizations. Tears. So many painful memories left in my keeping, entrusted to me. It’s a healing space. A powerful one.
I had so many more things to talk about, but session time has crept up on me as it usually does. So I guess it’s just my fear of flying and love for reading, and ability to do both much more successfully than I have in the past.
Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person. Madeline L’Engle
It’s so interesting I’m reading East of Eden right now. Nothing is an accident ever.
Years of generational trauma are coming to a head in my little family. We are all facing our stuff.
I had a dream ……
I think of the beginning of Mama Mia, how many times I watched that movie thinking I just liked Abba. Ha. It took years to click that a movie about a girl who has three father’s that show up all wanting her, was obviously going to tickle my fantasy.
I remember my own father (during a short reconnecting I initiated, it was not a warm reception) mocked me for liking such a corny production. Oh the irony there. He was a smart man from the little I knew him, but severely lacking in emotional intelligence and empathy. Or maybe that’s just because he never continued his connection with me. I most likely will never know. It matters less in this present time. Not as much of a gaping wound.
Mama Mia is an intelligent play with a brilliant cast. You’ll never make me think differently.
I also dreamed of being a good mother, a dream that often felt out of reach. People would try to encourage me, and I would make sure they knew they just didn’t know what lurked inside of me well enough.
But as it turns out if you’re courageous and you don’t give up, you can absolutely attain what you desire.
As a generational curse breaker it was never going to be easy. I couldn’t have imagined it would be this hard, or this worth it.
I stand with the misunderstood and the misunderstanding in their pain, and now I also stand with myself.
My children are strong and beautiful and all heart, at times to their detriment, but that’s normal.
They are kind to others.
My children are kind to others, not perfect. They are kind.
They too are learning to turn their pain into power.
We have been in family therapy for going on three years now. We have all wanted to give up I’d imagine. We have been through therapist’s, and harmed by them at times. Others have helped.
We show up.
It’s often a slow hard slog through painful sludge. At times it’s excruciatingly like being burned alive.
Most of the time I’ve doubted it’s the right thing, as it’s not the popular way. Just let them be kids leave them alone, and do it in a more acceptable way. Make things look better don’t introspect it’s dangerous. I feel the opposite, it’s dangerous to people when you don’t/can’t/ won’t.
Most of my life I’ve doubted the good in me. I’ve spent it separated from myself. That is excruciating. It is torture.
Then I became tortured.
I didn’t want to breathe anymore I was so lost. All of the truths I thought I knew shattered and an even worse view of myself to climb out of.
I stayed the course.
I still have plenty of healing to do. We still have plenty of healing to do. But the heaviness is lifting, and in this new freedom we all attempt to connect naturally as best we can, with no force involved.
No having to constantly control my own emotions or attempting to control anyone else’s so I can have an illusion of safety.
Just a free fall into the clouds. This blissful peace that warms my sore bones.
I feel at times like I’ve been hypnotized or am in an alternate universe. That’s how far away good has felt for me. If something is good it feels like it’s in a dream, foggy ethereal, surreal.
And certainly not mine…..
I remember driving to my office in Fairfield and just asking over and over if this was really my life. I actually was aware how dissociative I was, but I stayed right near me until it was safe enough to embody my body.
As it turns out that can be the most painful “surgery” you may ever endure. Once inside you feel everything via the body.
Well I don’t believe in wasted time, but I understand his meaning…..
Good morning! Here I am because habits are easier to follow through with. I’m still toying with my daily routine, and probably always will be due to my belief that routine can be the death of creativity. It can also be the vehicle in some ways so once again….
Balance is essential.
I’d say for me balance is a larger obstacle than anyone with a lesser degree of trauma. My executive lobe probably looks like Swiss cheese or whatever a damaged executive lobe looks like on MRI. Can you just request an MRI to see the degree trauma has affected your brain ? I need to look into this more.
I walked one mile this morning. I have an 8:15 this morning and then back to backs until 6:30. When I say back to backs now I mean with 15-25 minutes in between if I end on time. I don’t know what I did or how I scheduled them with no time in between. Now I do my note and use the bathroom or whatever. And this keeps me much more satisfied overall. Who knew.
I’m about to change my schedule so that my weekends are always mine. I’ll likely work m-t and Fridays I’m in love, aka my therapy and writing, maybe a book by the shore or a coffee shop, and then two more real estate days Saturday and Sunday.
What will life be like?
I’m scared and excited to often be less scared and excited from actual fear. It’s training. A whole lot of training. And a whole lot of grieving.
Grieving all the things that never were, that I’d hoped and dreamed for and allowing myself to do that while also moving forward. It does not need to look or be some perfect way. This is not the time or the place for good ol’ right and wrong. Those concepts have stolen enough of my life thank you very much.
So my walk this morning. Exhilarating. The season helps of course. Begin the day with endorphins and energy. At least one mile, when I have more time between two and three and I’m thinking of ending the day with a lap as well, a lap is a mile. When I am able to, some days are packed. I am grateful for the packed days as well.
This morning I ended season one of the CoDependent Mind with Brian and Stephanie. I’ll copy my notes from it, the standouts that I’d like to elaborate on at a later time here. These are all things the author said.
I’d have to try to process it later because the fear and the shame were too overwhelming.
My attention was often consumed with emotional avoidance techniques.
Compartmentalization to avoid cognitive dissonance as well as a feeling of helplessness imparted by the trauma.
Compartmentalization was one of the first causes of Not being able to feel and respond to emotions in real time.
This is a thought I had as a result: all unfinished for now. There will be layers at a later time I’d imagine. There’s name calling as a tactic and name calling as an emotional reaction when overwhelmed. Both are unproductive. Both can be transmuted into a healthier choice.
It’s interesting the musical foreshadowing of my story of my very own life. I’ve always loved the Cure Friday I’m in Love. And now it’s a day for me to kick off the weekend… sacred. My own. All those delicious hours to create with.
So my routines and focus working toward healthy eating, exercise, reading, writing, thinking daily. These are my days.
I don’t like being altered. I’ll have an occasional glass of Chardonnay with oysters, a summer fave, this just began. I’ll have a cold Bad Seed to unwind after a long hot day or if the mood strikes, and or a dirty martini out to dinner. Once in awhile I get adventurous and go for the craft cocktail, but more often than not I find them headache inducing and cloyingly sweet.
I no longer drink beer basically at all. I like the idea of it, but not it itself. Boy isn’t that a metaphor.
Learning how to say no and to know what I want when I want it and what I don’t want, has been a steep learning curve. As the podcast suggest it’s much safer to agree and assimilate and nearly lose oneself entirely.
My bathtime is beginning to dwindle and I need to finish my pages and I’d like to read one chapter of East of Eden before my day begins.
I’d like to incorporate one hour of reading time daily ideally and at least one of play and connecting in whatever form that takes.
These are my priorities.
I’m entering such a different phase of my life right now and it’s a bit terrifying if I’m being honest. It’s also liberating.
So for the rest of the morning I’ll ponder why liberation brings such great fear…. I could give you a fast intellectual answer. But I’m more interested in what my heart wants to speak now.
This will be at the center of all good things in my life. Always has been.
“And now that you don’t have to be perfect you can be good.” Steinbeck
I’m listening to a Codependent Mind, Brian and Stephanie talking about trauma and shame from a unique perspective.
I’m reading East of Eden. Sometimes novels are a lifetime of therapy all in one story depending on what you bring to it.
I’m working a Course in Miracle’s, albeit very small bites at a time and lots of reflection. See my tendency to explain my ability to produce. Would ya look at that 😉
Atonement. Atunenent. To self and other.
Slowing. Staying with me.
“Am I practicing what I preach” is my usual alignment question. Or preaching more than I practice. Preaching is easier, less vulnerable. Vulnerable is the heart opener: it must be exercised over and over.
A typical refrain lately is “it’s a practice not a perfect.” Annoying counselor isms for 500 please Alex.
Double or nothing.
I have returned from the shore. Restful bliss. How did I go so many years without? That is the question of the hour, the day, the week, the year, and my life in so many ways.
Along with how did I learn how to cope, and how has that impacted the trajectory of my fate.
Amor Fati
I’m on episode 7 of the first season of the co dependent mind and they are talking about how emotions become cut off and compartmentalization. Yep I’m in the right place.
I love the rainy ness of the day. I never understand why people don’t like the rain. I love how it feels on my skin just as much as the sun. Both are necessary.
The green is here and so also is the sounds of lawnmowers and gardeners alike. My hair is doing that wavy thing it does with moisture.
Plumbing work on the house. The deck is in finishing stages (finally, I hope). The pool will be opened soon.
A house continues to become a home: as does my heart. Parallel lines in my universe.
I’m here just swimming daily inside the depths of myself, and coming up more often for air than I have in the past.
I love that for me.
Long time coming.
If I’m a poet I’m a poet.
If I’m a song I’m a song .
Less obsessive thoughts about what’s right or wrong.
Where did that come from anyway….
You know
A story for another day.
For now all I have to do is walk.
I was finally ready, and chose a new piano teacher. The scar is more brown than pink now. So despite the argument of my nervous system best to get back on the horse and all of that.
Tally Ho !
I’m making some schedule changes I’m anxious and excited about. I’ll have significant more time for myself, and my god does that challenge all the programming cable car pathways.
I commandeer my own vehicle these days. Any mistakes are mine, and all victories large and small as well.
I’m no longer agonizing in so many of the ways I was, as if every step could be a land mine.
What life is this I often say.
Heaven really is a place on earth and make me a believer baby.
I am
It’s evening Christina. After six clients Christina. Walking again. Taking in the spring sights and smells. As the day winds down.
I just used foresight of regret as a motivation for change with a client and it’s giving me pause to contemplate my own. Because of course it is.
The trees are aglow. The clouds highlighted in the same.
I don’t have what I thought I did in the tank for writing. Only being for me this evening.
Good thing I got a little down during less wiped out Christina time.
I plan on writing here more. My follow through and consistency has improved in so many other areas, it’s time for it to be so in my relationship with me.
Oh but before I go a random but probably not thread. My piano teacher is the mother of the boyfriend of a favorite bartender at the place formerly known as Crave. She introduced me to East of Eden. She (my new teacher) just finished it.
I remember the day I sat at the bar with my books and drink exactly. She has quotes from the book tattooed and I was excited even to be in the presence of another lover of the written word and thought whatever makes a person feel so passionate to preserve this art on their body…. I want to read that.
And several years later here I am, with her boyfriend’s mother as my piano teacher.
I’m grieving my impulsivity, which I previously regarded as all things passion and therefore true.
Quick connections, assumptions….. firing squad quick. Life or death. Ride or die. I wasn’t wrong many times, but it wasn’t right for me either. It was always the one in my story. I was always so sure so fast. What I didn’t bargain on was how this was wired into me, and how little control I really had over it.
I have since learned to practice action over feeling. Actions tell the reality of any situations. And one foot in front of the other you can lay down stability and security with only your own, no need to scream about mistreatment, to panic, to drop to your knees.
Though when you do need to please allow yourself. There is beauty in the breakdown.
I’d need to know me to figure that out, not just how to present a presentable human to the outside world.
Shortcuts do not make for a whole person or experience.
All in Christina, one day at a time, crystal clear boundaries, let them figure it out.
Let go
You never had control anyway, all you ever had was anxiety.
My impulsivity has led me into more lies, more unsafe situations, and on and on, than are imaginable.
Let’s better understand what my history means my impulsivity truly is. Constant and desperately seeking feeling loveable, wanted, loved, desired, and as if I had the capacity to provide those things.
As if….
And to be able to feel it before I better understood my trauma it often, if not always needed to be intense.
To confuse feeling intensely wanted with being loved can lead to the stuff of nightmares I can tell you that.
Often in recovery people struggle with boredom and destructive thought patterns. I find it helpful to walk and to read and to keep things as simple as possible.
Total and utter presence with only the tasks at hand.
I now know you don’t have to respond to every battle you’re invited to, and I preached it long before I was able to practice it.
For me it helps to learn to divide my focus between the many important pillars of my life. Rather than getting caught in story traps, and painful regrettable all or nothing states.
I’m halfway through my second mile, it’s beginning to rain. I’ve been listening to Matthew Perry’s memoir, which my thoughts often trail to how I’d write my own.
A plan like many before them has taken shape as a way to organize. List every single influential character in my story and write as many sentences describing those experiences as comes naturally to me. No more or no less and see what weaves together just from that.
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.
This morning I had an intrusive thought. We got these crazy sharp and expensive cutco knives from a friend of the girls selling them. It’s a cute and funny memory. But one slip of one of those suckers and like butter your finger will be gone.
My kids like me, can be ultra sensitive about things. It’s a product of trauma and also innate. A double whammy if you will. Anyhow she understood me as laughing at her for the way she was cutting an apple and got angry, just a little compared to before family therapy. I knew if I said anything about how to cut differently I’d be met with an anger that shrivels my soul immediately and makes me want to run for cover.
The only threat present here is misunderstanding, and being misunderstood. It’s the biggest threat present in our family. And finally with a healthier clinician than in the past, the tangles are becoming a little bit undone.
I’ve been hungry to write, but also overwhelmed about gathering and organizing my thoughts. The story of my life. It will be on my headstone. Many years later of course which I now might actually be able to believe. Instead of the story about the shooting star lifespan, bright and gone as quickly as it came.
We all are most likely shooting stars in the scheme of things.
I’ve been having clarity and connection and moments which are all part of a natural ebb and a flow I never thought I’d have a part in. My triggers and coping mechanisms felt as if they swept me up and gave me little choice in the matter.
I know better now.
How to find the delicious sweet spot of acknowledgment of symptoms and experiences and also the compelling why driven reasons to keep moving forward.
You, my loved ones, will always be my why.
I am emotional and open and atoning.
“Everyone is the narcissist but you Christina” plays and re-plays, until I shake it clear of my head and remember the hurt that propels such statements and how deeply misunderstanding I was of myself, which invited energies that would misunderstand me.
I am too aware and too motivated for change to consistently employ such a defense mechanism. Do I have layers of protection that can emit projection and all the other beautiful aspects of control and hiding that that involves.? Absolutely I do.
I am committed to breaking generational curses. Yours, mine, and ours. It is my steadfast promise. I become steady, courageous, accepting, gentle, open, and loving.
It is possible.
I am de programming myself. Shaking off all of the abuse replaying, mine, as well as my transgressions. Enough internal secure ground laid to face the heat of the truth.
The truth has legs. All the things she said playing in my head. All the things I said and did. How outlandish and ridiculous I sounded when I was a walking, talking, coping mechanism. How sad the pain that can be inflicted.
And it’s not over unless life is. I will still make mistakes, and have misunderstandings. But I am here and I show up and I am sturdy and proud of the life I have lived, and the one I’m creating now.
I watched the Glass Castle the other night. Wow. Poignant. Devastating. Relevant. Just incredible.
I watched it through a lens of seeing my transgressions. The worst is the freeze. It’s worse than screwing up. Because I couldn’t be loving either. I admire the fucked up families that stay I always have. Would the children have been better off or not?!
I held back so much, held myself so carefully so I couldn’t be damaging from my damage until I better learned, that for a time I barely existed at all. I couldn’t be fun or playful and I now think rather than only how hard for them, how hard also that was for me. I couldn’t express. No wonder writing felt so important. I had to find some way.
Now I get the privilege of becoming who I’ve always been, and being able to feel it and be connected to it. I am awestruck at this possibility and genuinely compassionate as the suffering involved from my almost entire separation from myself and purely external functionality for enough years I could have become a pillar of stone.
Now I try not to look back lest I become a pillar of salt.
I want to enjoy being a pillar of stability and wisdom and love for my loved ones. It is my daily prayer and mission no longer impossible.
I can say unequivocally that my departure from my own was necessary. I’ve since stopped watching others grief process and wronging myself.
It’s been so exhausting weighing every movement I make, and anyone near me, for good or bad, right or wrong, safe or unsafe. It has been one of my greatest burdens and taken up so much space. But it has also made a conscientious and grateful human being who appreciates even a crumb.
I no longer desperately subsist on scrambling for them, but a little glimmer never hurt anyone. The words often rise. All that glitters is not gold. That memory is sharp, pungent. Control. It worked.
Life is a treasure. It no longer matters.
I was so tired of being misunderstood even before that began. All I needed was to be understanding of myself. I am that now. Soft when I can be, as often as I can be because that’s my preference.
I love Sundays. I love walks. I love reading. I love writing. I love learning. I love connecting. I love warm hearted open people, the ones who mean well and do things ultimately for the right reasons to the best of their ability, according to their awareness at the time.
I believe whole heartedly in no man left behind and I never have, they live on in my mind.
Love is not an emotion, it doesn’t behave as emotions do, it is steadfast promise. Karen McLaren. The language of emotions. It exists whether it is present and practiced or not. In memories, in moments. In the wonderful Brutiful trap that is the mind. The door is open you may come and go as you please.
I am at peace.
Oh and also I’ll be attending a getaway at Omega again finally. Haven’t been since 2015. Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell. Be still my heart. Their article why do we Thank our heroes was printed and given to as many clients as possible around that same time. The first time I saw Liz in person. Those are such intimate memories.
I have more I want to write but for now I broke the silent spell and that is enough for the moment.
There is something so movie about sitting at a coffee shop and writing. I don’t know what I ever did before noise cancelling head phones. For if it were not for them I wouldn’t be accomplishing a thing right now. I’m sitting at the Barnes and Nobles in Milford on my second me date this weekend, as recommended by Melissa (my therapist). The first one was at Cafe Atlantique. I must admit it was a bit cozier, but by the time I got around to me today, it was closed.
Being a Barista and working in a book store are two jobs I would have loved and never got around to, though I had many others.
I spent family time today. Did some documentation. Walked two miles. Wow I guess it’s been not only a productive Sunday, but an enjoyable one. There is a tiny group of people here, and one of the girls has a chihuahua (I never know how to spell that word, it’s one of those words for me) in a little coat vest thing nonetheless. Stooooop it! I can’t with the cute. I didn’t realize before today how many people bring their various pets into this store.
I am calm and centered. Which can sometimes be mistaken for restless. Sometimes I am restless, just not now.
I am loving reading Demon Copperhead.
I’m trying to find my voice, amongst all of the ones that I have been before, as well as in the midst of all of the ones I appreciate. It is no easy task. I feel so many people cheering me on. I can just feel them. As if the entire universe is conspiring to help me accomplish this task. The critic is nearly banished. Can that even be real? Is anything real?
This little blinking cursor beckoning me to continue, forward, and ever more forward. That’s real.
Take a Picture by Filter is on. This awesome rock music from my younger days is for sure real.
The life where I have a house that feels like a home and is filled with people in it who love one another and are really amazing humans to live with. That’s real! We are getting a hot tub tomorrow. That’s exciting, and also real. I hope it helps the aching joints and muscles.
Which reminds me part of why I got on here in the first place was to update my document with my to do list for tomorrow and emailing my GI doctor is on it. I was recently put on a higher dose of my medication due to it not quite hitting the mark. But to that I say good day and no way. I felt like shit. So basically it’s every two weeks, or we are gonna have to try something else. Nope.
What I really want is to not be on this medication. Which is why I am meeting with a nutritionist this week to get things in a direction of being able to do this at least as much naturally as I can. I’m tired of being on this stuff. I am ready to eat better and live better and invest in myself in ways I have not had the peace or finances in my life to do before. Oh Is This Love by Whitesnake is on, be still my heart. I literally love this station.
Being myself. It’s time. Finding my unique voice out of the sea of others. I have everything I need to do so at this point.
I was reading Jay Shetty this morning and his Eight Rules of Love. I really like it so far and he was talking about the difference between alone and solitude. The latter being something you find joy in because it helps you connect with yourself essentially. That has been my mission for the better part of eight years now. A little hard to do with my life, family life.
So a lot of what I’m doing lately is working at finding that balance. Trial and error and usually more error than trial 😉
Anyway my bladder only has enough time left for me to pack up and get home and then I’ll see about posting this. It’s the first post I’ve written from this laptop. I could get used to this. Now I just need to see if I can add my photos, tags, and things the way I usually do it. I normally use my phone to write. Somehow it’s just less pressure or something, and I know how to use my app.
I would describe me right now full and blank. I just keep drawing blanks, especially when I try to access my feelings. I am present and with them, but putting them down, sometimes that feels like too much work? vulnerable? too much what?
