Tag: #becoming

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All by myself

“This far away look. She is somewhere else. In another time and space, one devoid of any warmth and comfort. Who would ever venture back to that to collect themselves ? Isn’t it unnecessary ? If you want healthy love, you must be able to bring your whole self to the table. If you want healthy love the way I do anyway.”

It’s been a day. I’m just sitting here thinking about the difference between transparency and vulnerability.

I realized today I’ve been going through life preaching all about vulnerability, and I’ve never truly been vulnerable. I utilized transparency to battle the narcissist dynamics from whence I came. But true vulnerability is much more terrifying. I thought what I was doing was being vulnerable. It’s more than startling to realize that isn’t the case.

I spoke it but I wasn’t living it.

So I’m sitting with that. I’m sitting with lots of things right now. But they aren’t on top of me any longer. I can sift through them while safety is in place. Pick one thing up as I’m ready, turn it over in my hands, and put it down when I need. There’s no overwhelming frenzy. I am no longer held at gun point. Who will I be when I’m no longer there?

The unknown whispers at me, again no longer screams, only gentle whispers. And my software is trying to catch up.

When did the screaming stop? When did I stop being afraid?

I think the real answer is I didn’t. Wow, and that line brought more tears. It never stopped because it has all been locked up inside of me and carried along the whole time. I have never unpacked it with anyone truly, and I’m always surprised when people don’t put it together themselves by looking at me. It’s such a disconnect.

So recently I’ve been taking several journeys into vulnerability. I am doing EMDR with a therapist, I am seeing a trainer so I can simultaneously strengthen the house I live in while going through this hell, and I am RE-examining every inch of love. The way I love, why I love, what I need, who I am in my relationships.

The view in the mirror is interesting. It’s standing with all sorts of scars and imperfections and not cringing, walking away, but also not picking apart every flaw. I am looking at me lovingly as is: and it’s waves and waves of feelings. They crash over me and I try not to do anything with them, but feel them.

That’s vulnerability.

To feel something but not do anything with it is vulnerability. No flight, no freeze, no fawn, no fight. No intellectualizing. I’m on a battlefield and I’ve been stripped of all my weapons and armor. Now is when I close my eyes and see if the terrain was an illusion all along, and I’ll open them and the war will have been over so long, and I won’t have realized.

My song for my trauma All by myself

Because this is what I found while trying to describe my childhood. The loneliness was more profound than the chaos. I thought all this time it was the many fearful things having the deepest effect on me. But I think it was the loneliness.

And currently I’ve manifested a similar situation to simulate this while doing EMDR. So I am all by myself in this. I have support, lots of it actually. Genuine people who love me. But no one sits in those flames with me and currently there is no comfort after either.

There’s a kaleidoscope image of all the people who have ever held me and believed in who I am that scrolls through my mind, that gets me through lately. The good morning text that is consistent from a father like figure who I was blessed with. Whether I respond or not. That love is unconditional. I am hoping to cultivate it for myself and the experiences I have been through that no one else can see with me.

Right now however I have two new players who are my safest places. They are my therapist and my trainer. I knew during my session yesterday that my therapist would have to feel every inch of what she watched me re-experience and what emotions that opened in me. It did in fact work. I thought it wouldn’t work on me, but of course I did.

And by the time I got to my trainer for the day I was already shaking. I had to stop twice for nausea. Yesterday was injection day. And she was so warm and so kind to me. Every single one of these people fill the holes that parent roles never did. I just keep patching them up. It has felt like it will never amount to anything at times, all my work. But this time I have visions of the vessel staying afloat, and not being lost at sea.

It’s the rawest thing I have ever been through. “We cannot ask clients to travel further than we have ourselves”

I am on my knees and maybe now I’ll learn how to pray, and find something to believe in that isn’t just my capabilities. Ironic as the story my trauma left me was that I had none, that anyone else must be more capable than me; where is that adult that will show or tell me how to do this thing, but all I’ve been my whole life is more than capable of finding ways to meet my needs.

I’d like more from here on out. I’d like a clear picture of what my needs and wants are. And I’m not even sure how to find those things out.

For now it looks like 50 “I am” statements, weekly therapy, and facing the body I have avoided and neglected that I just expect to keep carrying me through.

For now it’s one day at a time in the fire….

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Addicted to Love

“Whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh yeah
It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough
You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love” – Robert Palmer

Hi my name is Christina and I’m an addict.

I didn’t realize this until recently as a matter of fact, because it seems natural to be allowed to pursue love. Look at how many articles, books, workshops, movies. So this isn’t a strange affliction unless you look a little closer at how I do love.

Recently I’ve been going to therapy. I finally found a therapist who is seeing me well, or I was finally ready to receive the lessons and my defense mechanisms didn’t block it, however you want to look at it. So I’ve been talking about the woman who brought me into this world.

She drove a 68 Pontiac Firebird. I still remember the window crank handles, silver and polished. The vinyl black interior that my long tan legs stuck to in the summer. The unsticking sound and painful sensation when I got up after a long drive (which was rare). At that time I thought my mother was so cool. She smoked, swore, dressed cool, listened to rock music, and she was beautiful. Blond hair, blue eyes and a smattering of brown freckles across her nose that were more in summer.

I still remember how many times we listened to Robert Palmer addicted to love in her car. What a foreshadowing that was for my life. Funny of the few memories that one stands out so much and those lyrics. It would be a huge part of my whole life. And very few from the outside will understand it. Only those who take the time and effort to truly ask because they care, not just to be in the know.

Having been primarily raised by her very fundamentalist Christian parents, even the fact she would take me out to eat meat was a novelty, and the good music was probably my main draw. I wouldn’t discover til later why Melissa Etheridge caught my spirits so much. My mom was a fan too I wonder what that means 😉

My Mom was addicted to love too. She was addicted to the exciting kind. The kind with bad men. So my addiction became mixed with not wanting to be like her, so mine was to find “a good person”. Why I thought a good person would be the answer to all of whatever it was I’m not quite sure. But what I didn’t know at the time this all started is how love should have been for me, and how much of a deficit I had.

I was so deficient in love that as an adult it became a larger focus than anything, especially knowing about who I am and what I want. Do you know I’m 39 years old and I still don’t know a lot about that?

I’m a lot of things that have identifiers. I’m a counselor, I’m a mother, a friend, a lover. I have lots of things I can perform and do those well. I can be caring of my friends, considerate of the world. I recycle :p But when it comes down to investing time into me, just for me, I freeze or fly.

My immediate reaction is to quickly get near another adult so nothing bad happens. I’m 39 years old and I’m still running scenarios all the time of what bad thing could happen. I’ll live with that forever because no one protected me. So I’m protective almost to a fault, because I don’t realize that I’m lovable. It doesn’t even register someone could love me. So I need more and different and to keep on moving.

I achieve. I learned I could gain acceptance, confidence, etc by facing the many anxieties that became me, but were never my natural self. I’ve had many re-births, college saved and changed me. My children the same thing. And every relationship I’ve ever embarked on has yielded a new self, because we grow the most in relation to others. It shows us to ourselves.

But being loved for free never felt like a thing. I’ve always had to earn it. To dance around begging to be seen. I’ve had to work my way out of a thousand behaviors I had from my trauma to even have a shot at healthy love. I keep trying for it, but I was missing a few things. And every time I think I figure it out I end up back at square one, with an even greater sense of being broken and a failure, as if love is the only measurement of my success as a person, the fact I’m breathing is a success.

I didn’t know until now how much I desire love with my children that is more than utilitarian. I was both parents and roles for so long I got stuck in the working, flight, fight, freeze mode of it all. I think I thought if I could crack the code with an adult I would ensure that I would always be a safe parent. I came from such a lack of safety it was a fear my whole life.

Do you know all they ever wanted was just a second of my attention and it was so often somewhere else. I’ve been stuck inside my head trying to stay safe, be safe, keep them safe, and the result has been a distance I never imagined. And I’ve been distanced from myself, and romantic love didn’t fix that.

What I wouldn’t give to have known that. Known they loved me for free, and that love was easier than I was ever taught, but it’s hard to accept when you’ve never seen how to love yourself. I had no model. I tried to learn from so many scattered sources, movies, friends parents. I tried to learn love intellectually, but feeling love that’s another matter entirely.

I could tell all kinds of stories and say I needed the high of new love. I would be accused of that I’m quite sure by my critics. But it’s not that either….

I’m a seeker by nature, but I wouldn’t even know how to feel it when I found it because the unmet needs were so varied and so great.

Recently I came across something “I’ve never felt before”, my favorite line of course. But it wasn’t the love of another, it was the seeing of myself that naturally came in their presence. It was the recognition I love differently now, and I can’t tell you the immense sadness that I never saw this beauty in the strength of my journey before.

People have told me all the time, but I couldn’t see it. That’s the saddest story. I’m still thawing, becoming, coming out of this waging war I’ve had with myself my whole life of whether I’m a good person or not. Without needing to make sure I’m with someone that validates that all the time.

Who am I outside of this addiction?

Outside the storm I see so many things I didn’t before. I had another rebirth recently and I’ve questioned the windows, the walls, the cosmos’s, the gurus, if this makes me a bad person. Squared up with my yucky stuff again. But the finding is that this question can no longer stand. And since it can’t I have room to see other things.

I have room to see what my relationship with myself looks like. I thought I’d already done this, checked it off the list, like it isn’t an ongoing process constantly in flux. Like all relationships, we have to re up our connection, and my connection with me will always be the trickiest. And if we aren’t connected to ourselves all our other relationships have crossed wires and don’t go so smoothly.

So now I’m having moments with my children I’ve never had in this way before. I get to be the other parent too. The fun one, the nurturing one, the playful one. The one that takes them driving instead of finding someone else to do it because if anything ever happened to them it’s unthinkable. So now I am giving myself a trust I always deserved.

Coming out of the million anxieties I was blessed with and the many health issues it’s caused and the fear it will all swallow me.

I’m coming out again and I’m a newborn right now. There are so many amazing things about being one. You see the world as magical, you’re not ashamed to show your emotions or ask for your needs to be met. You delight in small things.

I’m battling my addiction and learning healthy love…. and that is bringing me moments of joy I can actually feel and not just know.

It’s been quite the ride…..

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Heaven or Hell

A good person, a bad person. Perfect, imperfect. Heaven or hell.

These are some of the conflicts and experiences I am having lately. And the fact I am having them at all means that I am allowing myself a humanity that has never been present near my surface at least before. Not like this anyway.

Why is this humanity always seemingly at another’s expense?

Does healing need to be as relational and experiential and intense as I do it? And whom am I doing it for. Myself or other.

What are the parameters?

We meet our needs with other people. We tell stories about this to make ourselves feel and or look better. But that is in fact what a relationship is, we wouldn’t have one if it did not meet a need.

Meeting both needs for two people in a way that can endure can seem impossible.

Humans are trying to meet their many needs in a variety of ways every single day.

It seems to me that the world is in such a way right now that most of our wires are crossed on even what our authentic needs are.

Take our current political climate. Divisive. Filled with distrust, anger, fear, self-righteous judgments, unrest. I could go on.

I don’t know much right now, but I know to be a human with all of those things swirling around inside you is it’s own personal purgatory.

We tell stories to feel better about our actions in a variety of ways that are primarily subconscious. What those actions are come down to a result of a complicated array of values, belief systems, and mostly are derived from our experiences. Usually within the nuclear family. I have a wide array of experiences here because I’ve been a piece of a lot of different families.

Then there is our feeling selves. That natural innate place we all began. Pure presence. The closest to an innocence (child), we can ever get. Magical thinking, open enough to explore the world in a sensory way.

Cut that process off too soon or have too little freedom in it and the person spends the rest of their life driven primarily by their senses, as a result of the repression of expression and acceptance.

“Who was I before….”

Sensory and logical mind arguing daily. Trying to meet the need. Trying to define the need to even know what to meet.

Being a human being is much more complicated than a set of behaviors and unmet needs. And that realization is aggravating to the mind of a psychologist who would wish to reduce it down to that. Or needs by the very definition of the profession to do that.

But what about what is outside of that? Unseen forces. Destiny. Is that a thing? And why do people believe in it if nothing else than to have a story that makes them feel better.

Agency gives us the ability to write our own story. So how do we trust an unreliable narrator? And someone seeking will always be unreliable wont they?

Abundance or scarcity mindset, and the ability to craft a life to allow for the experiences one chooses most. To be able to live in ambiguity. To have to readjust what security means in this world.

No one wants to be alone in sickness or in death. So what are we willing to exchange for that security?

Fear is a greater motivator than curiosity or even love …..

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Finding my Memoir

Full circle smack dab in front of the mirror facing all of my shit. My patterns, my ugly, my everything. The lights are fluorescent and unforgiving.

I have never been so lonely. That’s the irony here. I look like the one who has it all, has it all together, and that’s the worst thing, because it can’t be further from the truth.

I’m terrified to create. My thoughts are so disorganized it hurts so much all the time. The only thing that gets them to be still is being a counselor and pouring all of me into another. That’s the only thing I’ve figured out to make myself still enough to be.

To just be.

I cannot just be. It’s impossible for me. And this gets me into all sorts of trouble my whole life. I never asked for this. Worse yet no one even knows what to call it or how to see it. I am unseen, but I am not unloved, or unappreciated. So that’s something.

I want everything.

You never think you’ll get lost again, and again, and have to find a new self again and again. No one tells you this about life. And for most people I think they won’t even know or worry too much about this.

But not for me. Everything is different for me.

I wish I could find anymore words but for tonight I can’t.

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Intentions and the Cosmos

“I am not a stranger to the dark, hide away they say, because we don’t want your broken parts. I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars, run away they say, because no one will love you as you are.”

Lately a great many things are shaken up in my life, in ways I never imagined. I’m finding a self I didn’t know, yet again. It calls into question everything. And when everything in your foundation is shaky it’s unsteady. My stomach is rumbling like the tectonic plates of my very foundation.

I’m always so sure about my truth. It speaks so loudly to me, but what it can never know is what the next day will bring and the next. To have an adventurous life you must be willing to continuously face down your fears. For me this is necessary.

As necessary as oxygen.

I have always been a seeker. A seeker whose main objective is security is making for an interesting cocktail. Obtain security then seek, obtain security, then seek. What if I had security from the beginning? I want to know who that person was too! I need to know her. It’s not a choice.

What I am finding is a security in myself that will keep me grounded and authentic to me at all costs and this is not a path for the faint of heart. This is loving my unloved child inside more than anyone else, because she needs it the most.

This isn’t a journey most can understand. It’s cold and lonely in here and yet on the outside everyone thinks I have it all figured out. One of the largest incongruences of my life. I’m human too.

Spoiler alert. I don’t. Not at all. But I am committed to my heart and my truth and recovering that little girl who deserved a real life full of love and support. This is my recovery.

This is me!!!! I could listen to this song and watch the beautiful dancing in this video a thousand times. It’s my song for 2020.

I’ve been shamed a thousand times during my life for my wounds, shamed instead of understood. And that pain has turned me into 100 percent heart. It’s open and it’s raw and if you want to see it just sit with me for an hour I will show you.

And if you’re my friend I will hold your heart with mine. And this is me. I cannot only be loved for what I provide others. I need to be loved for the very center of me, everything that has made me the things others benefit from.

The thing that wakes you up?! That’s a product of my suffering. It did not come cheap.

So here I am at 4 am, battling my Crohn’s Disease and holding my hurting heart. Zofran, toast, ginger tea, my trusty laptop and journal by my side. I’ve lost 10 lbs since Christmas, there is nothing easy about this.

“I am brave, I am bruised, this is who I’m meant to be. I’m not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me.”

This last year in my 30’s is mine. I don’t want to heal at anyone else’s expense, but I’m also not willing to help someone heal at the expense of me. I’m not sure what that looks like yet, but here are my intentions.

I intend to write about trauma, in a way no one else has before….. in my way. I intend to be more connected to my children than I ever have, and give them my wide open heart and presence. I intend to be still for me when I need to figure that out. I don’t have it figured out yet, but I intend to work on it.

I intend to discover and honor the body that has carried me this far. I let it take the brunt of the world. It needs to stretch and move with joy. It needs to release years of shame and being stifled and huddled terrified. It deserves to be nourished and cherished.

I intend to love bigger and harder than I ever have, and to always include myself in that equation.

“Look out because here I come. And I’m marching on to the beat I drum. I’m not scared to be seen and I make no apologies this is me.”

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Fox Tattoos and Trauma Hues

I picked up my son from college last night. How is this even a thing ?! What happened to all those years? I was just surviving but I wasn’t alive in my heart. I’m grappling with this realization right now.

I provided my children with what appeared at face value to be safe people. Everyone was safer than me because I could become some dark thing at anytime.

That’s so sad when I say it now and feel it. No dissociation only raw realizations here.

My son has been talking about getting a tattoo. And my mom side says wait til you know who you are and what you like. She protects and guides and also thinks no don’t be so grown I can’t handle it. It’s scary. So my response was always no. Closed off from him. What he was asking for what he wants in exploring the world. So he went to another source. That’s what we do with unmet needs right ?

Anyway he was talking with my ex partner (now friend). She had said she was going to take him to do that. And something about this felt off to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it jealousy?! If it was I would manage that. But it was more. I’ve not been controlling with my children in fact I’ve let them be given to the world: however I think I did not even have a template for how important I am to them, and vice Versa.

I did not know how. I didn’t know how to mom or how to child. Chaotic confusion.

They have seen this mother. Always seeking, but most likely always at more of an arms length than is comfortable for me to sit with. But the truth sets you free, and opens up new possibilities, especially the hard ones. Most people aren’t ever willing to admit… it’s too uncomfortable.

That arms length was not believing in who I was as a mother. It was never them, and hopefully showing them now, and this connection blossoming now. I provided others for play, while I worked. While I worked at school, worked at my trauma, worked at Trader Joe’s.

What breaks my heart is that it was all so intense for me. I always could have been connected to them as much as I wanted. Children are open and loving always. I kept myself from their love because I didn’t want to use it inappropriately, like what was done to me. I was frozen. Trauma freezes our beautiful soft selves.

Now I’m thawed and they are older and the only way they will ever know how much of my love has always been theirs is if I write so they can read my story. My heart is opening. I can see them now and connect. What if I hurt them all that time? Were they lonely? It’s more than most parents will ever look at in themselves.

I think children might rather have consistency even than any other thing. And my c-ptsd has left me bouncing around the world like a brightly colored super ball. Were they lonely ?! They must have been because I was. I did the supposed to’s properly, but connection I knew nothing about that. I just tried to learn about life from the damn movies; not from any real connections. So that left a lot of room for error!

So this whole tattoo thing. I realized I want to be there with him for that and asked him. I asked him for this connection and to accept my place as his mother and his friend. I asked for my need and also let him know he is important to me. I could have just stayed in the backseat out of fear of myself.

I’m ready to accept my place in their lives. To love myself enough to accept my role and to fulfill it properly. I am sorry it’s taken me so long. But I promise no one has ever loved their children so much. I’ve done my own surgery and my own stitches and I’ve been living wounded without anesthesia for so long.

If I had something visible I would have had people gasp and run to my aid. Because it’s not visible I’ve been shamed and judged. And that created more bondage.

I am a trauma survivor. I live with PTSD every single day. I can’t even ride in a car without jumping 60 times. Most days I spend monitoring my heart rate and flushing from cortisol. So many times without my consent. My body and my heart are so tired.

I’ve called it Crohns. I’ve been in denial. Anything else. Because a trauma survivor story is filled with such shame. It will be no matter what work you do around it. How to not be seen as attention seeking or pity seeking. How to not have shame around this. When you’re responsible for everything.

Coming out as gay was only the tip of the iceberg on my coming out. I had been strong for so long I forgot I was soft. It’s my soft parts that connect with the world and my children.

I don’t talk about it. I really don’t. I live with it but I don’t talk about it, because I’m always afraid of taking up too much space.

It’s time for another healing journey, one with my body, my heart rate, my mind. I stopped looking, because I was looking to the wrong sources.

The medical community has failed me, the family system has failed me. And I get so angry…. not getting answers but I’m focusing on the wrong thing. If I had a medical issue it could be easily fixed and seen and there’s a pill for that.

I deserved to be seen so long ago….

Everyone deserves to be seen….

I’ve spent my life becoming the mother I want to be. It’s a lot of work. I hope this new little one is ready for me. I am ready for her…..

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Soul and mind stuff

Life can still surprise me. My awe this morning says “there’s more”. How is that a thing?!

There’s more magic. I have so much already. It’s not fair. What if I’m taking up someone else’s. My natural state of being says these things.

This magic is meant to help me fully grasp my own power as a human being.

To use my voice without it shaking with old wounds and loss. They are ready to let go of me. These insecurities are ready to let go of me. They have taught me all I need. And I don’t need them anymore.

And who will I be after I shed this skin. I’m going to be someone else again and that’s terrifying. We humans do not like to change it makes us severely uncomfortable I am finding.

An energy shift entered my life unexpectedly and I had a migraine over a week, intense anxiety, old insecurities and suddenly all of my old shit staring me directly in the face. The ego hates this. It says no no no we have already done this work, make it stop.

But our work is never done, which also means the magic is never over either. Life just keeps surprising you. It can be beyond your wildest imagination, but first I can say confidently from experience it will bring you to your fucking knees with terror and grief.

It will rack your whole body. Rock your whole world. You’ll be standing like Dante in the dark wood completely lost, and think you’ll never find your way out. But first it will burn. And you’ll think all the darkest thoughts about yourself.

“It’s always darkest before the light”.

My self has always tried to resist the woo woo stuff. Actually my ego is the resister, my self is soft and kind and receptive. Ego is a nasty master. It says stay safe and still. Don’t take any risks. They are all going to laugh at you.

After each new gift that’s placed in my path my vision, voice, and soul grow stronger. I see it as it’s happening. I feel it. It’s the exact opposite of anxiety. It’s a confidence unlike any other thing. One that hardly ever seemed possible.

Layers and layers and layers of healing can happen, but it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s tearing open wounds each time. It’s painful literally. It’s illness in the body, fear in the mind. That’s how hard our soul hangs on for dear life. There’s a lot that can happen to a human being.

But there is more than this lifetime and this body. Did that really just come out of my “mouth”. What the ?! Who even am I right now. Ack ! There’s just too much evidence that has to be true.

And Josh Radin “Here, Right Now” comes on, because of course it does. I’m coming home to me. The me before the trauma. The true me. The me that looked in the empty eyes of her “mother”, and the mother said, “I knew you knew more than me and were wiser and stronger the day you were born.” “You were the mom and I was the baby”, she said. Perhaps she was an infant soul. https://lonerwolf.com/soul-age/ perhaps it’s mental illness. Hell maybe it’s Maybelline I don’t know.

Not very many things my mother has ever said have meant too much or resonated. But she had that down. She said I was a tiny adult. If she told me no once I never did it again. The perfect child. Well I didn’t have much of a choice.

But in the words of the amazing Lady Gaga, “I was born this way”. And this all leaves me with a lot to think about.

What I will say is I woke up this morning very happy. I’m in my element being my weird ass self. Writing in my bathtub (sanctuary). And I feel one with everything, this sense of peace and love. The very opposite of my beginning and it’s heaven.

It truly is Nirvana.

Pure love, without demands, it’s a thing that radiates to all beings. It’s not held back or contained and there doesn’t need to be a 2D story about it. Is that way they say.?!

“Before I get into this topic, I would like to remind ourselves though of the phenomenon, that our ego needs to label everything. In 5D terms, we would not ask ourselves the question, whether we met our twin aspect or a soul mate, or if we are experiencing a catalyst situation. Because, no matter what experience we go through, we know that we agreed on having it before we incarnated.

There is no better or worse. It does not matter if it is a twin connection or some other type of soul connection we are going through. Our soul chose it for a specific reason. They are all necessary to contribute to our awakening and growth. So please, honour and value the experiences you go through without putting any label on it. As Caroline Myss says: “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” Source: Waking up

Yes I have really gone down the rabbit hole now lol. But if I keep going in my right direction , my true north, it won’t really matter and I won’t need to be nervous.

Now I must return to my earthy dwellings and rush a teenager to practice and be a counselor.

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Heart on display

Today is for homemade chicken soup, snuggly bulldogs, and heavy contemplation. It’s for music, blankets, kisses, and decorating. For acquainting ourselves to a novel corner of our new domain. Creating a new feel to the already existing landscape.

Today is the brink of another brave journey down the IVF road. We are embarking upon try number five, and I’m scared like hell. And you aren’t allowed to say that. Because you’re supposed to say how positive and excited you are. I am those things too, but if you haven’t experienced the searing pain of disappointment in this arena you don’t get to tell me how to conduct myself. All you need to do is listen and be kind to me, that’s all.

I’m not afraid I won’t be ok. Or that I am not loved and have a great support system. My heart isn’t thin glass. It’s incredibly resilient. This isn’t fear or a lack, its raw. It’s naked in Times Square. It’s holding nothing back.

It’s as if I’ve pulled my heart out of my chest, holding it carefully, and have placed it on the counter. It’s just sitting there outside my body. Anything can happen to it at any moment. It’s sitting next to the ten thousand syringes and needles of various sizes and alcohol wipes. It’s out in the open and I have no idea what will happen. I’m just standing here marveling at it. How beautiful and strong. It never was the dangerous thing I always feared.

We are becoming friends, my heart and I.

I have woken up out of a nightmare and into a fairytale. Knowing that in real life fairytales there is still pain. I’m still here regardless of outcome. It will only add another layer of depth to my soul. But these layers aren’t cheap.

The Halloween decorations are down, the Thanksgiving / Christmas ones will go up. Our first Christmas tree in this home. The first of so many, if we are blessed. This home will house laughter, and a thousand possibilities for a secure space full of traditions and love. What life is this? How can it possibly be mine? I just keep pinching myself.

This is nothing I have ever known.

Hyper vigilance gives way to peacefulness. Anxiety is replaced with security. The neural pathways laid down attempt to derail progress, the progress is too consistent and too great. I’ll lay down an entire new railroad if it means I can love and be loved.

A life once only dreamed of comes clearer into view. I’m no longer naive enough to think I’ll be happy if or when…. something always comes along. Life changes on a dime. Be happy now, exactly as is. Your perspective and circumstances can change in an instant, then life will change you.

When I no longer live inside my head anymore, what will my writing be like then? I’m changing more quickly than I can keep up with. Am I ready to pour this molten heart into children who desperately need love, and to be seen, as I did? Am I ready? What is ready? They weren’t ready for their circumstances.

So if they have to be brave, so will I. If they can be brave and open, amidst crushing disappointment then I will too.

It’s just the unknown, which has as good of chance of turning out beyond our wildest dreams as it does bad. Our biological wiring is made to detect threat rather than possibility.

I’ve spent a lifetime surviving. Now I’m ready to live.

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Disconnectedly Yours….

Fun activity. Put on August’s Rhapsody from the movie August Rush. It’s eight minutes of various instrumental. Then write. I find myself writing to the rhythm and I get all different types of handwriting.

What do you think that means ?!

I’m very emotional today. I saw five clients back to back this morning and each session just filled me with humble gratitude for the human spirit. For the ability of people to keep going amidst terribly difficult circumstances.

The human spirit amazes me.

I have a blog post that’s been brewing all day, but I just haven’t had the words. Can you have words while you are also actively in reverence and awe!? Maybe the two don’t co-exist. Anyway I just keep opening up. More of the feeling parts of me that have been on ice coming to life. And with each one another blast of gratitude.

So today I am thinking of what you can boil almost anything down to. What do we all want? What is beneath all of the hurt feelings, the anger, the sadness, the numbing, the sarcasm, the protective mechanisms.

We all want to feel like we are attractive, safe, important, special, worthy. We want to belong and to be included. To feel necessary. And not knowing how to feel those things except externally keeps us oh so low and away from our true gifts. If you fear any of those things are not naturally meant for you or have a story or belief system that says otherwise, you will find proof everywhere of the opposite.

There are many ways we judge ourselves. It’s so hard to be a human being. There are many pressures, so many ways we can suffer, but the thing I keep seeing is how much of it we unwittingly cause ourselves. In an attempt to validate our experience as real and important, suffering seems to be the most logical. It’s the only thing that gives emergence perhaps to feel allowed to get our needs out.

I wonder how it could be made more natural? To talk vulnerably. If it’s possible as a human being to bypass that process. To accept ourselves, our anxieties, our flaws, quirks. To envelope the tenderness of our hearts.

We were never meant to be as hard as the world demands of us.

We are not meant for this. This much disconnect. This much overwhelm. This much busy. This much fear. Technology was supposed to be an advancement. I don’t think so. Some maybe. But this experience that’s happening, we are not meant for this.

The demands of the financial climate we are in. True human connected presence is declining and therefore so is joy, peace, kindness, warmth.

Nothing about America feels great right now. There’s more violence than there ever was when I was young. More intolerance of what we don’t understand. And at the personal level more people torturing those they love in the name of being worried about them. Without really knowing the real enemy. We are getting too much information from unreliable sources, and too little genuine education.

Kids are being tortured in terms of pressure about their futures. And social media has made an even larger romanticization of what is attractive. If you think advertising was bad, for a few minutes during a tv commercial. Imagine what endless scrolling will do.

I watch what it does to me. It’s a depressive behavior. I see the difference when I get up with only my notepad or take a walk, compared to being on my phone the first hour. Looking at other people’s lives and ideas and the sense there isn’t anything new to be done. It’s ironic because we do it to feel connected, but it does the opposite. It’s as numbing as any substance.

Anyway this kind of began to trail all over (as usual) and I have a hot date to get ready for…. so stay tuned….

My heart is raw, but it’s also ready. I am ready to find and be and speak some changes. I am ready to be brave, again, and again. Because that’s what living a full life requires.

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Childlike Enthusiasm

Despite my conflict about this medication how I am feeling on the regular is this crazy optimism for life. I wake up every single morning literally bounding with energy for what could happen throughout the day. What special thing? What human connection. What could happen today?

I have woken up (thawed out) to a childlike enthusiasm for living. And I’ll never go back to sleep from that. Now I just want to give from a place of abundance and fulfillment to anyone and everyone who feels as if they don’t belong in some way, are too much, are not enough, not worthy. I want to warm them up and thaw them out.

I realized yesterday it isn’t because I don’t have symptoms and lots of various health things anymore, it’s because I’m so well cared for.

Yesterday we watched my daughters soccer game. They beat their town rival for the first time in the history of JV soccer, both of them played wonderfully. It was cold out, and once the cold gets into me it’s very difficult to get out. My lips get purple, my hands and feet and nose are freezing and no amount of bundling typically helps. I used to become so afraid of this. It’s very unpleasant and it can’t be good right. My joints ache after. I’ve tried all sorts of things and had all sorts of testing.

Do you know what heals me the most?

Love.

Once I got into bed with my person she lovingly warms my hands and her touch brings me right back to life. I believe 100 percent if you allow yourself to receive from source (for me love and the earth) that you can heal. When I’m cold like that I also ache and all my muscles tighten up, and it can cause a migraine etc. Normally I go to such a fear space in my body and I’m in my head, and can’t get out.

She brings me right back to earth and safety.

My secret is you have to reach a place where you reduce down to the truly important things. Not getting caught up in whether your house looks nice, your body, various appearances. Whether you’re good enough (you’re good enough), make enough money, have enough time. There will never be “enough” of those things, but think of how much can be wasted with a skewed perspective.

As my fear melts away, there is just more and more beauty to bask in.

If you had seen my life you would absolutely wonder how. I truly believe like a stray that has found its forever home I live in constant gratitude for the tiniest things and it’s a constant ecstasy.

I never imagined you could have a relationship where you truly fall more in love every day. I dreamed of this, but then romanticized and become crushingly disappointed by continually picking the wrong fit because I couldn’t move slow enough to pay attention to the details.

Prior to this I chose partners who were no where near ready nor did they want to be responsible to a family unit. They fell in love the same way I did, with the idea of something and someone. Not truly knowing what they wanted out of their one precious life. It created love to be the battlefield from whence I came, and that pushed me toward illness, depression, fear, and longing even further.

When I met my wife I had already seen that she loved in partnership the way my value system works which is that love is prioritized above all things. The love itself is what continues to expand the dreams. Not resentment or playing out with each other the legacy of our family systems.

This love is bliss.

It’s interesting to watch others reactions to my shouting from the rooftops. Responses are often critical and judgmental such as “if you have to share it all the time on Facebook then…. and maybe you should be more private about it.” Or with skepticism or with behaving as if it’s corny to love this hard and talk about it. If this is your response you probably want to check in on your own unmet needs.

Well meaning advice from those who see their world quite differently. Also it means those people don’t understand me at all. How I work. That I delight in having permission to share my truths as often and as loudly as I like. That I was shushed often as a child and told that little girls are supposed to play quietly in the corner with their paper dolls, and that children are meant to be seen and not heard.

If they aren’t for you move along. I used to accept shame and judgment so easily. It used to make me crumble. I wanted so badly to belong and fit in, I did anything, sold my soul, again to people who weren’t ready to create a big life with me.

Keep your dreams at the forefront and your enthusiasm for living. I wonder how much I was born like this, and how much is my chosen perspective. I wake up wide awake at 6 am every morning with thousands of thoughts. I used to wake up with those being terror filled, and the day being a gauntlet of symptoms to survive and my own dark thinking of how badly everything could go. My mind can do dark things. I’ve lived in dark places.

The saving grace is my determination towards the light. I am fiercely protective of this life I am creating. I know that loss does not discriminate, and that I am not immune. And that I will feel the effects intensely. Which will only make the beautiful things that much more special.

I continue to keep warming my inner child and bringing her into myself and feeling whole.