Tag: #becoming

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Tattoos and Transformations

All I know so far….. “you throw your head back and spit in the wind…. Let the walls crack because it lets the light in. “Perhaps this image will go on my upper arm in portraiture. Hmm

Good morning. So as it turns out I’m way more of a bad ass than I thought and at this point a lot of the habitual anxiety that I carried with me throughout my life is free to go. Thank you, but your services are no longer needed.

I’m working on a tattoo sleeve and in many ways not even sure how I got here. To be getting one. I’m a naturalist and I love the look of natural skin and I can be judgmental of myself while loving them on other people. What even is that?! Fear? Yes fear. That absolute asshole that separates us from a bold expressive existence that is our own. I have lived riddled with it, and it has obstructed so much of my joy.

These days what I am trying my hardest to do is honor and acknowledge what happened to me in a way that encompasses a wide range of compassion for my needs and desires. I was talking to a friend yesterday morning, my dear Mary and Pippin, outside in her beautiful oasis of a backyard, and talking about the difference between needy and needing. Lately I’ve been using this re-frame in my office. If someone says oh they are so needy, or oh I am so needy, my immediate question is: what are they/you needing? And it immediately changes the energy.

It’s literally astounding to the person asked that it could be seen any other way.

I am astounded by my life right now, and many days I’m not sure whether that’s a positive or not. It is not at all where I imagined I would be, and some of that borders on the miraculous and some if I am not careful threatens me with an impenetrable sadness.

I am deeply lonely right now, and also so far from alone. I’ve never understood things more or been closer and connected to ny loved ones. I am literally surrounded, and I can feel it and be present in it. It and I, are not invisible. That is priceless. I sleep well, for the most part, although this week has been riddled with anxiety and restlessness. I was so so anxious about this tattoo.

And I’m so grateful for that because it has shown me I am thinking less impulsively. Did you hear that? Not only thinking but behaving less impulsive. It felt impulsive or a mid life crisis. What a judgment there right ?! Who am I to have art on my body that is sacred to me if it means I could be judged or worse judge myself.

I looked at an arm that was not my own this morning and keep getting anxious I’ll reject it or won’t like it like that. It’s new and permanent, and it’s making me think of Attachment. I am continuing to read the book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. I have been reading, absorbing, life rafting with that book for months. I believe I can finally mark it read soon. And not be so far behind in my reading goal in Good Reads.

The truth is I am slowly ever so slowly reading and writing more now. It has snuck up on me, this ability to attend and be still in a moderate way. Learning my way out of all or nothing, fight or flight, into real relationship.

The days that led up to my tattoo I was anxious for three nights, waking up all the time, strange dreams, and I’m remembering my dreams lately. The morning of (yesterday) I was nauseated with it. It’s insane to feel things this much, but I am beginning to embrace it.

In 2016 I got my et lux intenebris lucet (the light shines out of the darkness), Viktor Frankl quote on my inner left arm. I was so anxious I thought I would drop dead, pass out, get an infection. My intrusive thoughts were insane. My threat level was at a constant defcon 5! I didn’t realize even then why that was. So now in 2021 to have sat for 3 plus hours and got more done than I imagined. A half sleeve well underway. And I enjoyed it. Relaxed. Learned more about the guys at the shop. We shared trauma stories and I love them. Connecting. People stopped in and cared for me, my children got excited for me. I am literally surrounded by love and affection.

I noticed that I still want to ask other people, do you like this or it and go with what they say. It is still my tendency to be anxious and want approval, but now I pause and land on how do I feel and do I like this and I find my knowing. That is priceless.

Navigating anxiety, rather than it controlling me. I am driving and anxiety can be in the toddler seat, buckled in, where it belongs. I never even knew it spent most of my life driving me. I breathe a sigh of relief and the tears roll down. I am unashamed of the things that I’ve dealt with, and that make me me.

I am unashamed of my softer forty year old body, that’s sometimes hard to love. The changes in my skin, somehow slacker, and more lines than their used to be. I can’t even get lost in that because my eyes dance and are alive and not darting nervously, wanting to crawl out of my skin. You can’t unknow once you have decided to love yourself with the same ferocity and unconditional nature you would bestow upon someone else.

I am going to have fun with the images I put on my tattoo sleeve, the represent my life, my pain, my joy, my story. Sitting and having them emblazoned on me, is time and attention I deserve to bestow on myself. It is not an act of rebellion, it is an act of love, and I don’t need anyone to understand it.

But only to gravitate toward those who are gracious with their time and attention and desire to hear my story and appreciate it. and to let the rest burn. Not rejected, always redirected. Always path….

It’s Thursday and I love Thursdays because I get to have the best dinner company. I love it because I’ve never had anything this consistent in my life and it teaches me about love and life. It has stabilized me over the events of the past year and a half, and for that I am forever grateful. Does the man with the sad eyes and gigantic heart know that I don’t need to be walked down the aisle or spend every Christmas with him to understand that “because I knew you I am changed for the better, for good.”

The characters in my story are brilliant and I am loved, and I love them immensely and forever.

It is as legitimate as anything else in life. It doesn’t need to fit a traditional box and neither do I. I don’t need to be outside that box either to be validated.

Just walking that line of bravery between belonging and creating…. I love learning to walk that line. And the very act of living and creating an epic story with every moment of my life…..

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Short Cuts….

Loving the sounds of the water this morning. Also loving on this article Glennon or Abby 🙂

Sal said I’m consistent this morning and I about swallowed my tongue with surprise. Who me? Consistent ? You mean consistently shitty at practicing because I become consumed by so many different things. And terrified before every lesson because I didn’t do and am not enough? But now I go anyway. I keep showing up. Ok, I guess I am consistent. I used to say consistently inconsistent, hard on myself to a fault. That’s not my fault, it’s what I used to survive and the wiring was buried deep.

Today Sal said “you are going to make mistakes, the more you practice they become less.” Could it really be that simple!? A mistake always felt like life or death for me. And I almost said have I really made everything that hard. Again, everything is hard because it hurts to be human not because I’m bad or wrong. The major wire crossing of my whole life. What will I do once I’m free in the way I am now.

Peace should not be terrifying, but it kind of is.

There’s someone filming a guy talking at the water, and I’m curious. Also don’t they know this is my beach. My haywire attention pulled in so many directions. My heart and soul are grounded. I feel solid and in my body, which is a new sensation. One that I like.

The next interruption is going to be my bladder. Always something. It’s muggy, oooh pink shorts I like, tattoo I like, a nice….., and the water calls me home. Just presence.

I’m reading this book (maybe I’ll actually finish this one) called Wild Game. It’s about a woman whose mother began an affair when she was 13 or so I believe and how becoming her mothers secret keeper guaranteed her the importance in her mother’s attention, but at what cost to her. I imagine I’ll find out as the book unfolds. I’m learning you only need one or two really solid lines that make you understand a character. And that the things we remember most about someone are things that make them unique to us in all the world. Like the Little Prince’s Rose.

People are who they are. Life may be what you make it, but when it comes to people, we are pretty solidly who we are. You can change behavior and functioning, but core things are core things and change is dependent on that persons dedication to it and more importantly their why (motivation).

My motivation has always been to create a life I didn’t have, and in so many ways I’ve already achieved that. Back and forth between create it inside, or see it from the outside. I’m seeing lately how many people in other ways have a hard time picturing who they are or their path lining up with their idea of who they are or someone else’s expectations.

Go with the flow or upset the apple cart. And how much? How little? It’s all so overwhelming. That’s why I suppose Glennon’s suggestion, of finding your knowing is so wildly relatable, and very helpful.

The article I posted above they talk about their joy and dedication to processing and I feel seen and heard. As someone who has oft felt too intense, too serious, it was very validating. So where are those people, my people? How do I find them?

Do I call them in by writing? Do I need to be seen first? Can I get there without first being seen and encouraged.

Scary, everything is so fucking scary. Isn’t it so good though. If you aren’t afraid or a little uncomfortable you aren’t living. What is the threshold? That varies greatly. Old me wouldn’t have felt she had one. Dangerous lol. Because then I couldn’t see others either.

I’m here trying to find the rhythm of my life, pacing, timing. When you play piano you have to be able to think about all of these things simultaneously. My threshold there began at less than one thing at once. Now I’m slowly learning to let those different processes dance together harmoniously, even if it doesn’t feel the most natural.

My brain tries to make all these short cuts to be more efficient and it also begs me to rush through as if I will barely make it out alive. Where’s the fire says Sal, metaphorically of course. Slow down Christina. Confidence. My hands stop shaking, I drop my shoulders, let out my stomach, release my shoulder blades and sit bones from their clenched position, and take a deep breathe. Something clicks into place and I joyfully move through timing, note reading, and glide across the keys.

A big smile spreads across my face when by the end of the song I’m still alive. because for me so much of life still feels like life or death. All or nothing. Black or white. I am trying to learn how to write that as the beautiful story that it is. To account for the courage and creativity that has led to more than getting out alive…. That has led to becoming whole.

The traumatized mind makes shortcuts, so many shortcuts. If you don’t know if you’re going to live or die, you’re thinking in the fastest terms possible to accomplish a task. Peace of mind is a privilege not afforded to everyone. Those who have it should be dedicated to making sure those who don’t and never did have space to find it.

We have to care about each other. When we lose the ability, time, motivation to do that; we lose our humanity too:

Anyway back to my bladder..: it’s time to drive home and ground for sessions… time to learn, to breathe, to share, to grow, to ground, to play, to create, to hold space….

Sacred …..

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Wired for Love… Walking Between Worlds…

The quieter it gets, it’s always still there….there’s just more room to love and be loving because peace of mind is a choice. No matter how you feel and what exists and what doesn’t, peace of mind I have found is always a choice.

The two main things that stuck out from my last therapy session have unleashed a revolution in me. I’m noticing so many patterns. Such as how after a few days without therapy my mind starts to return to over-thinking, second guessing, painful ruminating on things not in the present. As soon as I get back into that safe space and process things out I return to grounding.

I am catching my triggers before they hit the ground now.

Knowing this helps me to tell myself anxiety and trauma is lying to me and operating as a mechanism not as a mindful choice and to be still and ground and make everything ok again by doing so. It works. If you do the work, the work will work for you. It fucking works.

I could be afraid of being dependent on therapy. There are worse things to be dependent on. If self-growth, grounding, and awareness is a way of life for me, which it is with or without therapy, then is that the worst thing? No! There are far worse things. I’ve lived (autocorrect changed lived to loved and I almost left it) them, over and over.

I think there will come a time when I’ll move on to the next phase of my therapy and growth from relating in general, and rather than make that time happen, I will trust in the timing and the work I am doing. That is after all the most important thing, and it’s also something I’ve lived 40 years of my life without.

So the two takeaways from therapy. In a personal journey to forgive myself for so many things right now and to see myself in ways I’ve always deserved, in my full spectrum of humanity, I have worried about impulsivity. I mean I literally tried to take anything available and make it into forever. I did this every single time. And while all of those situations were worthy of such a pursuit…. What I have learned is something truly can already exist available, without doing all of that work. Holy shit that’s a revelation that I can know cognitively, but embodiment will take much longer. That has to become real.

So my therapist asked me to consider the difference between impulsivity and irresponsibility, because I’ve been using them interchangeably. She said I’m not irresponsible and of course my pain wants to resist. My harsh relationship with myself says yes I am, because if I didn’t have that out of balance I felt I would not hold myself accountable. Except I hadn’t updated my software to my new self, the one I’ve been becoming for years.

Because trauma makes us invisible to ourselves. Often times trauma survivors can see others and the world with a staggering clarity, but during all their pain they left themselves to survive. I left myself to survive, and I never came back. Until my brink of 40 awakening. Wherever you go, there you are.

Here I am. I am here to stay!

I believed for years, mired in my health symptoms that I would be snuffed out early, and this past year I’ve had some habits that haven’t felt that. My energy healer and I identified those old coping comforts as self betrayal and that really helps me make one healthier decision in front of the other. One step at a time becomes a way of thinking and life, rather than a cheesy rhetoric.

Because no one wants to be uncool. But cool is such a different thing than can be seen on the outside. Cool is a heart that refuses to surrender in the fight of pursuing a life that feels it’s direct making: path. That’s fucking cool. Watch me work and peel back all these layers of gunk that built up at one time to protect me.

How could I see myself so poorly.? Easily Christina. You were not seen. But once you see yourself for all the beauty there is no turning back. I’ll never abandon me again. And that’s a scary concept, but not a disconnected one. So scattered, my mind so shattered, I thought I wouldn’t find my way out of the dark wood, and now I’m basking in the light.

It still smarts. There are new scars. The tissue is pink, they burn in the sun and in the sand, and the tears slide down my cheeks, but I feel and I am alive and connected with me. I’ll never lose this, you can’t take this from me.

So I was thinking how shitty it’s been to refer to myself as impulsive. You wouldn’t tell a Veteran they are being impulsive when they jump under a car because a muffler backfired down the street, you would feel compassion for them. The design of my life and my own ability to shoulder my own burdens never wanting anyone else to be uncomfortable by my story, has led to shame and misunderstanding after misunderstanding.

And I scrambled to explain myself, to beg to be seen. Something felt off, not connecting. Could I really be selfish in the way I was being accused, and I mean look at all the evidence.

I had to fucking recover and reclaim me, my right to exist. And if you’ve never had to do that then all I ask if that you listen no matter how many times I need to talk about it, because if it makes you uncomfortable imagine what it’s done to my insides. My fucking insides, screaming, tight. My intestines tightening, roiling, and I’d keep all that away from anyone else and the fact I couldn’t breathe, to make sure not to upset anyone. Because when I saw their upset even if it was compassion for me, it was so distressing.

So I internalized it all. And now I need to get it fucking out. Out of me. I need to talk about it, without being afraid of hurting someone else. And I need to be able to say aloud when I don’t feel well, like everyone else does. Instead of silently praying it will just get better and pass and if I make less of a big deal about it, maybe I won’t get so anxious.

I’ve tried every trick in the box to manage this burgeoning insanity (trauma) so it would never make anyone else uncomfortable so I wouldn’t have to drown in shame. I tried it until it consumed my body. My body began attacking itself, and I was forced to wake up and journey. However that was so scary and so painful that I just kept trying to find a safe space to belong and cling so my kids were kept safe while I felt so shattered.

And then that too became a fault and a problem and a bad thing about me, then I was co-dependent and this and that and finally my out of congruence landed me as the ultimate monster…. And I’ve had to walk my way through the ruins of that, finding the compassion for the battle itself, rather than me being a ruthless bomber of Pearl Harbor magnitude.

I’ve had to stop that.

So now here we are. Walking, crying, talking, learning, laughing, leaning, breathing, connecting, aloneing, singing, playing, and so many other things.

The second thing from therapy is again this concept of not accommodating, and being on egg shells, because I’ve been in such scarcity the only thing I knew how to do was chameleon. I can’t say what I want need or feel because it always seems to be a burden. And the suggestion that anyone you can’t be yourself with, your whole self (well that’s a lot, see that’s what immediately think). That’s not your person and those are not your people.

So not making myself smaller to belong or be comforted. Being my full size.

And then….. now….. my story and then books and teachings…. They will emerge.

It is in this year of my life that I’m able to see every mechanism to cope. Every irritability with my kids was all the pain I’ve been in, and now it’s time to release it so I can enjoy them and living…. Life itself, with my whole heart.

I want to educate parents about trauma and how they can misunderstand because of it. How we can mistranslate one another. And help them connect the dots to finding a relationship with their children that feels like the one they want, with realistic expectations, which are so hard if we have never known what those are.

Small shifts…. RE-wiring.

Wired for love.

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Music and Lyrics….

Never noticed the sticker on that container before whoops lol…. Life’s little imperfections

I’m trying to explore my own writer’s process. As inspired by the talented and handsome Casey Hurt. His brave lately and posting about his process is inspiring me. Also didn’t hurt that he sent me some writers goodies in the mail today. A journal that has the most buttery paper. To go along with my new blackwing pencils. Swoon. And the illustrated version of Strunk’s The Elements of Style, which I didn’t know was even a thing.

We were talking on the phone the other night and he was calling me on my excuses of being frozen and locked down and feeling a fraud, and it’s pulling me out of my repressed existence, and also having me explore the origins of that.

So today I pulled up Glennon’s new podcast about addiction, had my coffee, the book Attached. My new notebook and pencil and I started my very own jam session. Kind of how he does but with books, and companions who have put their work in the world, the place I want to go. And I just started vibing and finding my rhythm. Resonation…. Like a tuning fork seeking a home. There was a rhythm and a beat, and they were my mind and heart. Bliss and flow.

I would listen to a few minutes of Glennon, pause reflect and jot down some notes. Then text a friend and jot some notes from that. Listen to a song and take notes from that. All in my new notebook of course.

Receiving, Recognition. Reciprocity. Kindred connections….. life itself….

So here is some of my writing time from today…

I dissociated from myself. At a young age I split off from all of the things that I would one day come to know as integral parts of who I am. It was at that time that I began to give everything I was to everyone else. And to be invisible to myself. A relationship with myself and my art as well was non-existent and it’s taken miles of recovery, that in many ways is just beginning.

I became my own parent, but not the kind I ever wanted to be. Since I didn’t know how to be a parent at that time, I became one with a harsh authoritarian tone who tried to seek out anything and everything I was doing wrong, so I wouldn’t become those things.

And I sort of used that approach for everything, and it has been harmful to me my whole life.

People so often say things that imply everything isn’t about trauma. I so often have what I say redirected and I wonder sometimes if that’s their own discomfort.

Because for me it’s me still trying to find my real story. Trying to acknowledge years of the unacknowledged. Lately that’s been happening a lot. I think they just want me to feel better or see myself better. Normalizing can be helpful and it can also be harmful.

“Everyone goes through something”, with all due respect on that I think we need to respect the differences of people’s experiences as much as our shared humanity. The things I have been through are not often the same, and to to be heard, honored, have space held and listened to. Tell me more rather than shut it down I’m too uncomfortable.

People need to tell their stories as many times as they need.

I was also gifted a pasta maker, which was very thoughtful. I just had a profound moment of joy at being thought of in all of those ways. It feels like a long time since anyone has sent me things that reflected that I am seen. And that’s happening more lately as I choose myself.

Something about this blog post felt incomplete so I was going to finish it, but then days went by and I’m already in a totally different space with me. The alien pod in the corner dripping with goo from the emergence 😉

Get ready for today’s,,,,, walking between worlds, inside and out….. I will be writing it now.

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All I Ever Dreamed of Hearing

Walk me home in the dead of night …..

It’s a lot more difficult to unpack what happened to me then, and a lot easier to unpack what happened to me now.

This morning I am reading What Happened to You, by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, and never have I felt more seen or able to see myself.

Something in the book jogged my memory to think of how I got here. And it caused me to think of love languages and words of affirmation. Things I rarely received in childhood. When I did, you got the feeling it was the thing they thought one should say, but when it came to anything hard or emotional it was the opposite.

I have identified my love language as physical touch and acts of service I would guess based on what I do lol, or quality time for sure. And then I thought really my love language is a response to the profound lack of love that was consistent or safe. So I was in need of all of those so much how did I even know which one.

All of the love languages please ! An abundance of love….moving from scarcity towards abundance has been one of my greatest adventures.

This latest bought of change in my life has been brought to you by SCARCITY, the need for words of affirmation or words at all. For the last year and a half what began as someone offering me a family, a family that was not theirs to offer, and then repeating constantly how intelligent I was and how in love with my mind. And I wonder why something could have that big of a hold when all other evidence pointed to the offerings being empty.

This situation brought me to my knees and places inside and outside myself I never knew existed. I have never connected the dots before the way this book is helping me do.

I had once again put all the responsibility on me, without understanding the underlying vulnerabilities or dynamics at play. Without understanding a lot of things. Things about grief, trauma, attachment, scarcity, and scarcity, self abandonment, and so much more.

Knowledge IS Power. There is nothing lacking in my knowing. What has always been lacking inside me is a sense of safety and comfort that some of us get and some of us don’t. a regulation that is a privilege of the safe, the children who were wanted and loved and kept safe by being loved in healthy ways.

Lately I’ve been acknowledging what came before my conscious awareness years, my infancy and what that probably looked like. We love you Chris my grandparents would try and say to me, and to their ability they did. But it was never with enthusiasm or joy. A child is never meant to be a burden, but in this already taxes system full of religious beliefs it was. I was.

I will never be something that is tolerated rather than someone who is enjoyed simply for existing. Not for doing, for existing. The rest of my life I get to live with these realizations and the profound sense of peace that I’ve set my compass towards since the inception of this blog.

Since I began I tried to find it in other people, in things, in work, in so many places…. And throughout that process what has opened up are new places in myself where that now exists…..

I tried to find my concentration and focus. Will and motivation and desire and passion, those were never the problem. My nervous system however has been subconsciously hijacking my ability to craft a self for me entire life.

I am pondering the cruelty of this brain washing of the last year. The excuse that it’s real because the person feels this way, but without anything tangible or follow through. The pain and devastation that was caused. Not taking responsibility for anything except my choices and actions. I’m not responsible for and gaining clarity and connection with those who are responsive and reciprocal in relation with me.

Healing. My only responsibility is to heal myself with the help of qualified professionals and steadfast found family of friends.

I’m thinking of how my imagination must have saved me, and learning to hold it with high regard and honor. I’m thinking of how so many of my dreams were someone showing up for me and realizing how that builds with slow consistency rather than grandiose promises with opposite actions.

The greatest of all realizations is that I can’t hang on to any miserable thoughts on this because the process itself led me home…. Led me whole.

Stay Tuned…. What’s next is going to be really beautiful ….

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Blackwing 602’s and PTSD

Blackwing 602’s…. A new discovery and wanting to do some song writing…..

I’m quite sure one of the keys to a balanced existence is to be able to think and feel at the same time. I’m also quite sure repeated trauma particularly in infancy and beyond creates a brain that disconnects that wiring to protect you.

I over thought everything and I under thought everything. I literally had all my wires crossed. And in addition to this: It’s a lot of responsibility being a writer, our lives and often our emotions are not even our own.

I found out in therapy yesterday I probably don’t have ADHD. Crazy because if you saw me you’d think for sure I do. The same therapist has said for sure I do, but that was before I shared with her details about how medication affects me. She said that if Xanax works well, and I got a terrible headache and irritability on ADHD meds that means I don’t have it.

I said, but then how to explain never sitting still and talking in class, and being annoying to others etc. I was trying to be seen. I was lonely. The result of that was more negative feedback which I deeply internalized because there was no one else. If I talked to my grandparents it would be well what are you doing, they always made me feel ashamed.

I’m just reflecting on my appointment yesterday. Where I validated that trauma before the age of two and after has made such a dramatic impact on my life. It has changed my brain and I’m literally RE-wiring myself right now. I’m watching the changes and slowing my speed and taking everything one step at a time.

I’m having trouble focusing, and being still enough to have the deep relationship with myself to prioritize and recover my creativity. I don’t even know what it looks like, but also I do. Deep somewhere I do. Trusting that and investing in it is scary. Not trusting and investing in it is scary. Everything is so fucking scary. Thinking of EG in big magic.

Anyway I was telling my therapist that I think maybe I want to try medication, but I’m not sure because I hate how almost all of it affects me. I was telling her how I love playing piano and love my lessons. But when it comes to practicing I just look at it and freeze. I get lost in the day and everything else, everyone else, and continuously abandon me.

Although that’s a harsh narrative because so many choices I’m making are moving away from self abandon. I can’t even see me sometimes. I’m invisible to myself, while I see everyone else so well and clearly, and that just doesn’t work. I have to continue to fight for visibility and a relationship with me.

The only thing I knew how to guide my attention was deep conversation with others, which became deep connection, but I never knew what to do, or how to choose what space they occupied in my life or how to organize them I suppose.

My boundary less existence prior to the dark night.

Now I am organizing and having boundaries and giving myself whatever time and space I need to decide what’s right for my kids and I. And I hardly know what to do with this new self. Some of these concepts are so foreign and the sense of peace that is coming. Peace for me is almost a trigger. In my childhood if you settled into anything peaceful and abrupt stop would come and not in a pleasant way.

I will likely live with the feeling the other shoe is going to drop forever. Or at the very least it will be a reflex that attempts to kick in, and hopefully the solid foundation of peace I have built will override.

When I began this blog this was the battle I was having. I talked about ADHD and PTSD a lot. I had a lot more questions, and a lot less answers, and yet there are still so many questions.

I look around and almost can’t believe how I could have lived in that much pain for so long. So scattered, so much panic, so lost, so locked up, so locked down, in agony. Relieving it only by using my gift and feeling some sense of confidence from that. But no other solid footing. I thought that was all I needed, until I realized there was more healing that needed to happen.

I believe in therapy in a whole new way now. And now I will finally be able to be a human in my own life and not rely on connecting because of my sight. To wait and see what another person sees about me besides that and offers in terms of reciprocity and availability.

Providing resources from what I know but not feeling a desperate need to fix or change or that something isn’t ok. I am just being and I hardly know what to do with this new self, but here we are.

Lots of beautiful new things on the horizon. Stay tuned for my new attempts at creating…. Whatever that may be. I don’t know yet. That used to have an ominous devastating tone… now it’s I don’t know yet and a big smile spreads across my face.

It gets good when you do.

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It’s in the Details

So here I am 11:22 at night. Not like me at all. And I’m thinking about the little things. The intimate things that we know about someone that no one else does, or maybe most people notice. And how many I have as part of me now.

A partner who cuts their nails over the toilet, convenient right ? Or sharing that one brushes their teeth in the shower. A hair part that’s unique in all the world. The quirks, mannerisms, things we have picked up along the way.

I think of how I appreciate Stephen Kings writing so much because of his attention to seemingly mundane details. I love his descriptors. I still remember 11/23/63, he describes old fashioned homemade root beer and I felt like I was inside the book and tasting it. That day I went out and bought fancy root beer and very fancy French vanilla ice cream and made floats. Partly to be in the book and partly childhood nostalgia which the book opened up the portal into. I can still hear his describing and taste the root beer.

The little sayings you can always depend on and you find yourself saying unconsciously. What, “you what”. Hi. I’ll never hear hi the same. Hi means something now. It means I just left and I still want to make sure I’m connected to you. And it also means I can’t say anything else. It means below the bare minimum. It means pain and a sick feeling in your stomach, after so many times it meant euphoria. Hi will never be the same.

Oh gee look at the time….. and it was terrible (about the food) after it had been consumed with great joy and voracious delight. Weight back…… and so many more.

I saw 7 clients today, after a very long day in other ways. Monday and Wednesday I have lots of time to myself the first half of the day and usually I indulge. I treat me very well these days but I’m still tired by the time I begin my day of six back to backs at two pm, I should be grateful and rested right. I’m beginning to think rest isn’t about your schedule and more about connectivity and consistency. Sigh.

I had a hot dog that I microwaved, a few chips, and an old school Hood ice cream sandwich for dinner. Yep. Chicken with my head cut off. After clients and a quick porch visit with a neighbor I still had clinical notes and billing. I did it gratefully.

These rituals and routines have taken shape to attending to the details. My porch mate mentioned that my energy is much less scattered lately. Essentially. She used a different word and I can’t think of it now.

When I started this I was going to describe details of me. There are so many that I solidly know now, rather than trying automatically to choose or dispatch them based on what’s pleasing for others.

I cleaned my new tattoo tonight..:: it was peaceful and relaxing. I love how it looks all shiny and protected. Relaxing. Spreading a gentle aquaphor film on an inflamed area.

My eyes are getting heavy I’m drifting, perhaps I’ll finish tomorrow:)

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What Happened to You (Them)……

My level of awareness was always my blessing and always my curse. What is one to do with the information that their survival profoundly impacted the rest of their children’s lives in a way that could be painful for them.

I think of my energy healer here. That she believes (as does Pink RE her new documentary) that we choose our circumstances and contract with them before we come into this life. I don’t want to make any justifications so it’s hard to accept this but it feels right.

Any one of my children not being ok is impossible for me to grasp and yet I can’t ignore the disconnect they feel from both parents. I was so focused on my ego, or on my identity formation if I want to be kinder. That I missed the forest for the trees on this one. I am realizing now and it’s painful.

Slow shifts and compassion and grace are my only options. I thought I was reading What Happened to You? To find out about me, but as it turns out it is showing me their experience which will hopefully help me understand for the rest of their lives. But I can’t go back and change those things. So this is where I suppose I have to have faith there is a reason, and it’s not all as terrible as the monetary realizations feel.

It coincides with family therapy. They want me to understand their experience with my struggles with attachment and before I just felt attacked and judged and no one was asking what happened to me. Now that this is being given attention in therapy, I have some ground to stand on to face their feelings and connect still rather than turn away bathed in my own shame.

It’s unreal this work.

The book is talking about how divorce is a death for children, and immediately the waves of guilt. I never realized that by doing my own therapy and standing up for who I was and my needs for so many years, that they got lost in that. I knew I had to do it to be healthy, and I did, but I had no balance.

The book talks about what happens in our brains when a new connection presents itself and how long it takes to get regulated and safe. By the time they did I was into another growth thing, and they were left hurting. I turned away from their hurt and mine because of shame and I just kept working and driving through life and numbing.

If I knew then what I know now. But most importantly I know now, and will adjust accordingly.

And I have no choice (I want to, I will) but to own this part in their story and be able to apologize and let them have their truth while not internalizing it as my fault or shame.

It just is. Not it is what it is, because I don’t believe in that. I believe it’s what we make it. Always have and always will, and I’ll keep living by that compass.

I will make myself a safe space for them and do the best I can now. I will honor their truth and make space for it, and I will consistently challenge my ego and the story I needed to feel better, which was constantly dismissing their feelings.

Feelings demand to be felt, and I will make myself a place where this can exist for them. Where we can accept our story and all the emotions that come with it and be able to stay in that without freezing or flying or unhealthy coping mechanisms.

They have their whole life to sort out this attachment stuff, their own anxieties and struggles, their own nervous systems and health stuff, and I will be here every step of the way and the mother they deserve.

It’s going to be a lot to sit with ….. this acknowledgment of the ways they have hurt as a result of me, my choices. How to walk the line between accountability and also asking that what happened to me is also seen. But I am going to strive for it always. And it’s going to be written about, talked about etc. it’s going to shape the landscape of our lives. Whether we wanted “normal” or not, this is us.

It took having my reality dismissed and feeling what it felt like to feel this feeling I couldn’t explain this need for closeness and be denied it repeatedly. I almost lost my life. For me to see and recognize and realize the impact I have had on them and to truly change my patterns.

I thought I wasn’t going to have to do that alone. I projected and thought that journey would be with another and the truth of the things I missed is devastating. But I ended up facing myself down and confronting my stuff and getting a more full recovery in this way.

“I am here…… I am here, I am here
I’ve already seen the bottom, so there’s nothing to fear
Know that I’ll be ready when the devil is near
I am here, I am here
All of this wrong, but I’m still right here
I don’t have the answers, but the questions is clear” Pink

I will honor their experience with me and strive to forgive myself, and I hope they forgive me too. This grief is something so different than I realized. It’s so deep, to the very core.

Shame is an ocean I drowned in, that now I’m learning to swim across….. 💜

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Family Therapy: Gains and Losses

I thought I was…… I was wrong

Never have I understood grief the way that I do now. Never have I had connected empathy versus cognitive, the way I do now. This morning I went on a journey watching old videos of my life, my kids, our dogs, our found family members and I saw so much happiness and play and joy in them. I forget/forgot those existed as I stayed trapped inside a cage in my own mind. My own personal hell played over and over, which can be described as constant thoughts of what I was doing wrong or could do differently. That was my default.

I was talking to my dear friend Jen on the porch yesterday morning. We often talk about mother’s. And I said to her that I’ve played scenarios in my head a hundred times what I will say or feel when I get the call my mom has died. And resoundingly where I land lately is my mind screaming “it’s over”. That I will weep for all my pain, and also release. And what I realize about what I will let go is the struggle inside of me that if I just did something different could we have a relationship.

I would have done anything to love her better, I mean love her so much she became better, felt better. I would have tried everything and I did at one point. But I couldn’t ignore the anxiety and illness that plagued me as a result of that one-sided love and intermittent lashing out mixed with just enough of a crumb (so she didn’t look like a bad mother to other people).

I still feel like I abandoned her or being a daughter and not like I got out alive, the way I deserve to be able to feel. My mind plays tricks on me. It is not in my wiring to abandon. I have to be able to be honest and work through things, but it is not in my nature to abandon. Except I abandoned myself a long time ago, right along with all of them. And I’ve been reclaiming her for my whole life, while also trying to be a mom, with absolutely no template.

Sure there is no instruction manual, but I didn’t even have a rough draft. And I made myself into a good parent anyway. Not a perfect one, thank God, but a good one.

Chip dropped off potato salad this morning and then groceries later. I made breakfast burritos and dropped twin A at work, she drove and did well. Life just keeps happening around me, and now I am here too.

The entire energy in my home has changed. I never thought I would be here, never thought my best could get this good. It didn’t seem possible.

We had our first good therapy session as a family this past Friday night. For so many weeks I felt filled with bullet holes of all my mistakes and shortcomings. I would go home, cry and fall asleep and get up and try again.

You see I promised I would never supply myself with my children. That my need would be confined to an adult capacity and I would keep them kids. And when I look now I have been pretty successful at that. And they still have their experience with me as a mother and my shortcomings and wounds, but no longer are they distrustful of that.

They are able to get perspective and hear normalizing of the difficulty in the best of circumstances between parents and teens at this age, that it’s natural, and I have to hear that too, because for me…: the other shoe is always going to drop.

So here we are a year and a half of intensive two times a week therapy, including emdr, their individual therapy, and now our family therapy and there is some light. We are able to see the identity of our family with its own story rather than the constant comparisons that flay us raw. Make us feel less than.

We are our own story and it is a beautiful one. Our cast of characters is unmatchable. I wouldn’t change a fucking thing.

If I had gotten what I wanted when I wanted it all of my energy would have once again been abandoning myself and this family, and while the dream and heart had the right idea, in practice Everything happens for a reason and in its own time. I held on so hard to the dream and a story, and didn’t trust my own reality.

The gift is that I’ll never do that again. I have a relationship with me, and a relationship with them. And a new relationship with life itself where there is a semblance of trust. It will likely always have a tinge of something bad possibly happening at any moment. There’s a lot of that in me, and that’s ok because I will and have learned to support myself through this and to choose supportive fellow travelers.

My work has deepened, and my relationship with self and others.

My story is far from over, in many ways it’s just beginning. Another life within the millions. Today I played piano. It’s been a long time since I could sit down and focus. I have an idea I can or will but then I just stare frozen. I can’t will my body to try.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been tallying the losses I’ve had. I won’t go into explaining how I’m not doing this to be negative I won’t do this to me. I am honoring my experiences.

In the past two years I’ve lost a home I lived in for 8 years, my first secure space. I’ve lost many possible pregnancies and a couple of heartbeats, I lost a dream of having a baby with a woman I love in a healthy relationship. I lost a dream of being a foster parent and providing more of what I didn’t even have. Needed to have it first. I lost a father in-law and a family. I lost a wife and more importantly an unconditionally loving human being who adored me and held me and supported me.

I lost a beloved pet and now a new one because we weren’t ready.

And then I lost my self respect personally and professionally. I lost touch with myself. And then I lost reality nearly altogether. I nearly lost my mind, and I definitely lost some of the health I’ve worked so hard for by spending my life walking away from unhealthy and toward freedom. I could have lost my life quite a few times over the past year.

I lost a soul relationship with a new family, kids and all, and a lover who still haunts my bones. I’ll love them forever, all of them in their own way, because they were a before and an after moment of my life. I send them love every chance I get, even when I’m hurt and angry. It just exists. I remember every single moment.

And I wouldn’t be me if the losses didn’t make me naturally think of the gains… I don’t have to try. So let’s see. I gained friendships that I didn’t even know I had because I’ve been so numb and removed from myself. They were there but I couldn’t feel them like I do now. I gained appreciation for family and attachment for the people who held me this past two years.

I thought I was grateful before, it’s nothing like it is now. I gained humility, awareness, a greater capacity for healthy self sacrifice. I gained a new home that now feels friend versus foe. I gained many lessons as a clinician and lost many doubts in my abilities ironically.

I gained a relationship with sex and my body that feels fulfilling and embodied and whole. I gained believing in my capacity for exercise and endurance. I gained pieces of my identity I would never have uncovered. I gained faith in my tefloness. I gained earned security. I gained the ability to value myself as lovable and deserving. and that line brought the tears.

I gained being less scattered in my burning brain. It has a permanent layer of salve on it. It’s soothing…. cool. Healing.

I gained the ability to be present over being lost in my head. I gained piano and enriching my already immense relationship with music. The ability to delay gratification and to not justify things in the name of scarcity.

I gained integrity……. one I was already built with but didn’t know how easily I could lose. I gained an intimate relationship with grief, and the understanding of how it can affect choices and so much more.

There are so many more, but these are the ones I can think of now.

So what now ?

The rest of my life being able to be present and not jumping ahead or freezing, for more than a little before I lovingly catch myself in a bear hug and ground, …..

I don’t worry whether I’ll write a book or not or what kind. I enjoy thinking about it and creating space inside my head for the discipline and dedication to breathe life into it.

I’ll be here writing, reading, connecting, singing, dancing, playing, working, living, and loving…..

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We are all connected…..

90 days……. she’ll love you if you love her like that……now the day bleeds into night fall…..she’ll love you if you love her like that.

Music begins my days and the songs speak to me. I realized this morning I’m in love again. This time I’m in love with my whole life and myself. I get it now. What being still means because now I can see my whole life and all my connections and my ability to carry on and connect beautifully with others, the world, and myself.

I get it now.

I’m on my front porch and the other chair isn’t lonely or empty, it’s often filled by some of the strongest and most beautiful people. The kind I aspire to be and am lucky to love. My life is surrounded by those that get it.

For the last 5 years or so I’ve been rebirthing myself. Contained in the watery womb that is my bath. And now I’m outside. I’m outside with the world, standing in all that I am. The musicians and authors they are by my side. They are my ancestors. Loyal brave and true they surround me with the art they have had the fortitude to get out into the world. They are encouraging me.

“You gotta get up and try”

And I always do.

That’s beautiful

I cry on my front porch in the mornings. I cry for the pain in the world and for the beauty. Grief is beautiful it means we have tried for something, and when it doesn’t work out it doesn’t mean we aren’t enough. It means we had the courage to try for something we wanted. The courage to pursue our dreams.

This morning I thought deeply about my beautiful friend’s birthday. About how strong she’s had to be and how her light still shines through the personal darkness she navigates. We are kindreds. Both vibrating with anxiety to the point it consumes. Wounds we were left with. Bullet holes bleeding, and still we rise.

She posted a photo with her grandparents from her birthday dinner last night and I could see the little girl there. The one who just wanted to be celebrated and seen. The thing we all desire. And it broke me open to seeing everyone’s child, the child in everyone just wanting to know who they are and what to do with themselves in the world.

Who am I? What is my purpose? Will I be loved? Will I be safe?

This finally feels like home. My house isn’t not a home because I’m not sharing the experience with a partner. My house is a home because I belong here. I am home. My home.

I can finally see the beauty in the flowers, in everything, in my own life, not just others, desperately wanting them to see too, so that can be a shared experience.

My whole life I was so driven and focused on obtaining this one main thing I thought would make me safe and happy, but discounting me and everything I am. Unless I was healing I didn’t know where I fit in the equation. Unless I was useful.

Now all my connections are important, no tunnel vision, not just one at a time. I can finally appreciate me for the way that I connect to others, and now to myself too.

My son didn’t do the dishes last night though he was reminded and asked and this morning I thought on the porch of how many times I’ve harshly pushed, asked him why he didn’t do them, not if he’s ok. Not a hug. Not warmth. Because that was my relationship with myself, because that was the relationship I was given from the cards I was dealt. It’s taken my whole life to get it. To understand the power of are you ok? How are you doing ? How was your day? Are you connected? Do you need something? The dishes can wait. They are not the most important thing. But that is what I knew how to do. My model my template. It’s as far as I could get.

Until now……

From now on…..

I literally couldn’t get myself to open warmly and hug and ask those things. Inside I’m screaming to do that, but I get stuck inside myself. In Pinks documentary she said a line, about how she wishes she could reach inside herself and give that little girl a hug. This is why the rebirth was needed.

Over the past year and a half I’ve been on a mission to reclaim that little girl. I didn’t know that was my mission. I thought it was something else. So often life is like that. We misunderstand. So my kid can connect with my kids. So I could replace harsh drive with enthusiasm for living. Warmth. Everything I accuse are only things I couldn’t find in myself.

Always disconnected with me, always begging for connection with someone else. Thinking that would crack the code and it never did. How many times do I need to crack open I thought? How much more breaking.

Breaking let’s the light in. You can hear all the quotes and read all the memes but in my experience you can’t embody the experience until you’ve walked the path yourself.

So this morning I’m outside, not locked inside myself. I’m in the light. I am the light. I’m in the world and I love everything. In love with myself (I was typing my life and it changed it to that and I left it).

I’m not afraid my existence is a burden any longer. I won’t live that way anymore. I am here and I have a voice and a right to exist. I won’t hide for hours in the bathtub trying to figure out how to fix what is broken. I don’t need to anymore. We aren’t there anymore.

Once you grow you can’t go back. One could say why would you want to, but of course it’s tempting because being new and open and ready can sometimes feel an overwhelming responsibility. I was overwhelmingly responsible for everything during my childhood. I get it now.

Now I am responsible to myself to allow myself to exist in all the light I have to offer and to enjoy that.

My heart is bursting with love and I don’t need to aim the arrow at anyone to feel safe and wanted. I can be love. And I already have love and I already am love.

I get it now. And this morning my heart felt so much love for everyone that has ever dared to love, and for everyone who has ever grieved anything, because grieving isn’t easy. It hurts to be human.

The people we connect with makes the hurt worthwhile.

It’s not the stuff, the milestones, the achievements. It’s always about connections. We try to make meaning and know what that is, we try to control. We beg to be enough, belong, to be seen. And those things are our natural birthright.

We have to claim that.

If we have shared a journey I love you. For your strength, your pain, your resilience, your harder moments. I love it all.

I have always loved life itself, and life is the unreliable narrator, but never again will I tell a story or believe one that hurts me. Not for long anyway because after all

I am human….