Tag: #empath

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Musings from my 20k Client Day

It’s 9 pm and my client day just ended. I needed to pick up my daughter right after and on the way I found myself sifting through moments from my day.

What I experienced was a sense of reverence for what people share with me. For how brave they are. For the work itself.

I was thinking about that fine balance line between feeling self-important, essential to them, and being responsible for an outcome etc…. and what I landed on is that;

I don’t feel responsible for my clients, I feel responsible to them.

I feel so grateful for what this works gives to me, and such a respect for it and them, that I want to be constantly raising the bar on self-love, support, acceptance, and my own accountability.

This work makes me want to be a better person. Their strength and courage fuels me. I know what it takes to come to that first appointment. The sweating, the indecisiveness, the anxiety, and the cold hard fear. It’s the same as if we were looking in the mirror under fluorescent lighting.

I never see the way I do Client work as me being the gas station and them being the car. The way I do work I don’t burn out because it’s a beautiful reciprocity. Where I have true respect to my core for the experiences of each and every individual.

Listen I am by no means perfect. My mind can wander. Some people’s demons rattle the cages of mine easier than others. I make plenty of mistakes. I am a human. But I’m always interested passionately in their experience as a human being, down to the most mundane interaction they are describing. Because there are always clues to be had about their worldview or value systems.

I can do something with anything. And being given a challenge to push through my discomforts and self-defeating barriers, makes me feel alive!

Client work makes me feel alive.

It is important. To be allowed to process our thoughts and feelings in an arena that provides acceptance and safety is important.

I get energized by holding this special place in the world.

It is an honor.

I wish I could get out more complete ideas, or do an update like I have been wanting to. But this honor also leaves me spent at the end of the day. In the best of ways my brain is scrambled eggs. I think of my youth and that silly commercial this is your brain on drugs. Except in this case it’s this is your brain on Clients.

Except I could never keep a story that I am drained by it. I don’t need that to feel validated about how much I give or how important I am. It’s ok for me to be energized by my work, without the story.

When I’m exhausted these days it’s such a satisfied exhausted. After a days long hard work.

Which speaking of I did have a thought I want to look further into…. I wonder how many calories I burn being a therapist. So much emotional energy my heart is often high during sessions, but I’m animated and engaged. Tonight when I ate, I ate as if I had worked out for hours. I wonder how much using our mental energy burns in terms of calories etc. I wonder what other therapists out there are the same.

I often joke that some of my therapy days are so deep it’s as if I ran a 20k.

I’m curious exhausted. I’m happy exhausted. I’m fulfilled exhausted. I can feel great and tired and that’s such a cool thing to wrap my brain around. The only template I had about exhaustion before was to make a problem or make myself wrong.

I’ve thought things such as what if Client work is killing me physically. When in actuality my not loving and accepting myself fully is the root of all of my ailments. Never someone’s energy being harmful to mine. That’s such a dangerous belief system, and it makes the problem outside of us rather than inside.

Anyway my last shreds of bandwidth are rapidly deteriorating. Perhaps I’ll be able to follow up tomorrow morning.

Warmly, Universally, Cosmically,

your companion on this journey we call living…

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Anything is possible

I was introduced to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs when I was a student. This would be the very first time it occurred to me as to why I felt so undeveloped in certain areas. That there could be a reason for this that was not a short-coming or fault.

For the last several years I often say that theory and practice are very different things. But what I never realized as I was preaching this to others, is that I was really telling myself that I have become someone else than I ever thought myself to be.

As I counselor I often tell people they need to update their software, just like on the I-phone. As soon as they become aware of their “bugs” and have engaged in the process of correcting those (therapy). Ever so slight shifts happen, that often go unrecognized by the self. People from the outside will often be the first to make them aware, by commenting about these shifts, but even then… it’s hard to imagine themselves as different than the story they have formulated with the “help” of media, society, comparison, etc.

Self-doubt fueled narratives abound, especially in women as their tender nurturings are often seen as far less valuable than they truly are.

A nurturing mother is often times the difference between a fulfilling life and one of incredible struggle.

Much to my great surprise I found myself to be one. How am I here right now? I spent the first half of my life in a chaotic blather of creating before I knew what I was doing, doubting myself all the way along, and so so susceptible to the opinions of others.

I spent years self-flagellating, and I’m not even Catholic. At the time the only thing I knew how to do was beat myself into making sure I would not be the things I came from. Little did I know that behavior would be the very thing that could have turned me into that.

So here I sit…. a totally different self than I ever hoped to be. Not only did I turn out different, but I turned out better than my wildest dreams. And now I am just trying to update my software to stand in this grace and this power that I deserve and have labored incredibly hard for.

I can know I’m touching on something sacred because the tears come. Glorious tears from a spigot that was dry and dusty for so many years. My emotional self housed carefully on ice, deep deep within the innermost caverns of my soul.

I am blessed enough to have been able to preserve my child safely until I could parent her better. I’ve figured out how to do this, even under the demands of parenthood, partnership, and career.

I used to think I could only have one. Judge myself for wanting to much. More flagellation. I mean I was so good at it.

And here I stand in the realization that one feeds into the other, and that anything is possible with faith and friends. I have built my new sturdy foundation on the grace and mercy of friends who saw me for more than I was behaving like at the time. They didn’t feel the need to “call me out” or condemn me. They saw something else, so I could see it too.

Even friends who I have parted ways with under pretenses of terrible stories, have contributed such gifts to my life.

Lately I’ve been wondering if my dreams are too big. And still trying to pathologize myself as chaotic, rushed, crazy; etc.

I’m terrified of the possibility I could be safe as a foster parent. I’m guilty I think as well, that I will appear a better parent in the eyes of my children this time around. There it is. You see how when you write openly you unearth the deepest truths. This is what I do. There it is. I’m afraid to be a good parent now, because of how long I struggled and how much they endured with me.

Is it a justification to say that they are better people for having had to be part of that struggle? It feels it. But I can’t do that to myself. It doesn’t honor all of my parts and all of my story.

Family: I can only do better now with what I’m willing to create and how arduously I’ve been willing to work. I am my best self when I am of service to others. I become creative in ways I never imagined when I am in the trenches of someone else’s suffering. I am humbled daily. I want to serve the wounded souls that I feel most at home with. I want to be humbled by that experience and have it test my limits and feel terrified enough that I know I’m alive and trying at something.

I want to be broken open over and over until I am my soft child like self. So I can be gentle and warm. I want to be that calm in their storm, the calm I always starved for.

I don’t want to limit myself with fears. I want to expand myself with courage.

Anything IS possible….

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I’ve never been in love with a house before…

I’ve never been in love with a house before, in fact I never in my life imagined to be buying a home of this magnitude.

I’m used to being so focused on love. Obtaining it. Cultivating it. Claiming it. Keeping it. Explaining it to others. Analyzing it. And this is making me realize how that pretty much took up my whole reserves of energy (what was left after all that was already needed).

So here I am repeatedly combing through every photo of our new home wondering if it will feel as good as it seems…. if the reality of it will be as good as the idea.

My new writing studio 😉

This leap feels gigantic for some reason and I can only imagine that means I am attached to my feelings this time around. So I won’t need to worry about them catching up to me six months in and suddenly changes needing to be made are thrust upon me without warning.

I feel my feelings in the moment they are happening now.

This actually makes for less writing I think. My writing was (is) so attached to my healing that now that I’ve come so far, there is some fear I will lose the writer self too. Or that this writer self is not as dynamic as my whole self, and only had this intense dark stream of consciousness inside it and nothing else. A one trick pony.

I suspect this is not the case. That soon I will have the courage and mental bandwidth to do anything I’d like. And that possibility is as daunting as the feeling of not having it. Survival is a task set before you, and it is a demanding mistress.

In my clinical world my wisdom grows. Seeds planted have become a beautiful garden that I bask in daily. I no longer worry I won’t pull the weeds, and tend to this garden or that suddenly it will be infested and decimated. Pity this is only a metaphor, my actual gardening skills are abysmal, unlike my late grandmother who could whisper to the roses and they would bloom.

In our new yard there are twin trees. Which I found to be quite prophetic. I am not sure what kind they are yet, but they bloom and have gorgeous giant pink blossoms, whose petals shower the yard with beauty and contrast. I have twin girls, I’m in love with 1/2 a set of twin girls, and we lost identical twins in December. It make me wonder if we will have twin girls this next time and it will become a major family legacy.

So soon, we will be moving and living in the town of Milford. Everything changes. My firstborn son graduated high school a few days ago, and he will be off on his own at WPI. A terribly exciting prospect. I have not lived without my boy child since I was 19 years old. I don’t know life without him. I don’t know myself without him anymore. I’m so delighted the world will get to experience him, and he it, but my mother heart skips a beat with fright for this unknown, and knows already it will feel as if several of her major organs are missing from her.

Please keep him safe and fulfilled!

The best way to describe these days of my life are that I am living with a grateful presence. That I am growing myself as a tender gardener, not a punishing one. And that all my most sacred dreams are coming true so loudly, that I can not argue to keep any of my limitations any longer. Life does not let me, and I am so blessed.

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Love and Moving: Thoughts from Provincetown MA.

I’m just sitting here in our cute little apartment style Air BNB lodging in Provincetown MA, and thinking about what it means to enjoy someone.

Last week I tried to write a post about what was going on. Essentially how I’ve felt frozen with writing or reading as we are in the administration phase of transitioning out of our home and into a new one. I’ve been obsessively consumed and focused on this task. It has shown me I really am this way about everything, not just love 😉

I’ll re-look at our new home online on Zillow over and over, and wonder a thousand things. As a highly sensitive person I know now that this is natural that this will be very intense for me. This home on Berkshire rd was a beginning and an end. The end of a certain level of poverty and not having my own. And the beginning of an adventure into myself.

To make it work as I went through loss we moved my dear friends Jen and Dain into the mix, and then they brought Joey into the world while living there. They became family. They have since moved onto their own home but their spirit and our times shared linger.

However so do the ghosts of exes past and I also had to get my ex name cleared of owning this home. And Courtney and I want to begin fresh! Once again in this lifetime I get to take threshold photos, though I very much doubt either of us will be carrying the other. We now live in the realm of nearing 40. Aches and pains and bad backs and a few extra inches to love and snuggle.

What will it feel like that first night sleeping there? What will it be like the move? I still see things through eyes of youthful naïveté and sometimes expect it to be more fun in my mind, and then when I get there realize moving actually is very stressful. Though I should like to think that’s a matter of perspective. But sometimes it’s probably a matter of emotion and change and in the spirit of The Velveteen Rabbit I’ve become more real as of late.

Real meaning I am connected to my emotions and feelings as I go now, versus being naturally and unintentionally capable of compartmentalizing to a frightening degree. I feel my feelings and boy are they huge. I am beginning to be able to love that about me, versus shaming it.

So here I am with my wife this time on the brink of another grand adventure. On this trip I’m finally able to have some space with my feelings to see what all is going on in here… and what I am finding is becoming emotional every few minutes with a deep and intense gratitude. She is such a happy person. The antidote to my serious heavy sides.

I teared up several times driving here yesterday when she shares with me so unabashedly her affection for me. She tells me she never knew she could love someone so much. How I look, how I smell, my sense of humor. The woman delights in me and I’ve never been the subject of such deep adoration.

This kind of love is like a magic potion. It is changing me daily, and now I’m trying to learn it and be that way with my kids. I wonder sometimes if this is not the natural order of things and if I’m expecting too much from myself. But due to being a young mother who was married into the wrong one per her sexuality and actually a few other things that that blinded her to, I am oft to behave in such a way that my kids could feel a burden. This breaks my heart.

So can I at this late stage of the game when they are 17, 15, and 15 show them how I delight in each of them? Rather than being a task oriented General that commands her ship well, but has lost some of the essence of what is truly important to a child. Or rather never had that perhaps. But has now learned it through watching others and this delicious love.

There is nothing to escape anymore in this life I have made and I try to make my body and my mind catch up to that realization, but they are slower to adjust, and that takes its toll sometimes.

Anyway I just wanted to share about this love. That we just enjoy each other immensely whether we are completing tasks together or on a getaway. We work seamlessly and are always gentle with the other’s heart. Gentle is not something anyone would have ever described me as I don’t think prior to this.

I don’t know that my kids would describe me as gentle either. I am striving towards that in this half of my life, and to be a fully engaged parent interested always in what they have going on. And I am, but how to show them more, when mostly I live in my head.

In the morning when the lake of my mind is still I can see all the way to the bottom of the depths of my affection for them, but as the day goes on and the water is alive with busy, they hear did you do this, did you do that?! I’m hoping to invite them to the still lake of my morning mind to see how much I would do for them, and how they have changed all of my life for the better. How much time I spend thinking about them and their happiness and dreams.

My children and this love have saved me from a life of persistent suffering of the mind and spirit. It still lingers often, but attending to them pulls me back out into presence and now I am still building that secure foundation.

Thank you dear witnesses for seeing my journey, you heal me as well, by bestowing your most precious resource …. time.

Tick tock tick tock….. what do you want with your one precious go round in this lifetime? It goes faster, much faster, than you realize.

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An open letter about experiencing trauma in everyday life.

I haven’t been writing lately, and I have figured out why. The closer I come to what one might consider a “normal” life, the more shame I feel when I put big feelings out into the world. Somehow even a kind comment of how brave I am seems to indicate that this just isn’t how things are done. This is of course the deepest most intense version.

The regular one is that I have been busy and present for myself and my family amidst the many changes we are currently in the eye of the storm of.

This right here is the trigger: for most of my life any large decision was made primarily emotionally and with little regard to the outcome, Ie very disconnected from my own emotions. Just close your eyes and jump and hope you’ll be ok is the kind of courage I’ve had to muster to even take basic steps into the world.

Anything had to be better than the beginning.

So that model is what is making me afraid even now in my present. In a present where I am careful, wise, more gentle than I’ve ever found thus far, and not making impulsive decisions. But that fear of that chaotic self, a potentially destructive one, all the bad things I could possibly be is still nipping at my heals and it makes me feel slimy and broken when I know I’m not.

That realization put to paper brings the tears. Why should someone who has worked so hard for their healing still be mired in such shame? It seems so fucking unfair that it doesn’t just go away with the vast improvements and hard work. Why can’t I enjoy the hard work? My psyche threatens to keep me terrified my whole life. It’s a daily battle. Even as things are working out amazing for me my mind tells me as soon as I get all of this doing so much better I’ll get diagnosed with cancer, be that healthy person that drops dead from the heart attack.

I see on a daily basis how life can change on a dime and what’s worse is….

The bad guy is always coming for me.

And saying this out loud feels like it could threaten my credibility as a person, even as it has been the thing that has driven me to get to the place where I have any credibility as a person. What is credibility anyway if not people’s often false assumptions about another based on their position in the world. Look at anything from another angle and you’ll see another side. We are all multi-dimensional selves.

So much pressure to be a wholly integrated, well balanced human being. What the fuck is that anyway? If you find one send them to me so I can analyze and replicate. Are the ones who claim to be the really scary ones?

A traumatized mind is never at peace, and trauma is always with us, inside our cells. We never consented to that. Innocent children never consented to the things they were subjected to and as adults they are responsible for their actions and choices, when some of the time they never stood a chance.

This post looks dark, yesterday it would have been light. Trauma is a rollercoaster ride that you’re forever strapped into.

When you realize how deep the roots are how can you not resent the fact you had to go through that. When all the praise of how strong you are just doesn’t ease the wound anymore. You never wanted to be strong anyway, you didn’t ask for that.

Every single day what I live with is looking strong, capable, compassionate on the outside, with a terrified little girl inside. I am the first of those things and I am the latter. I am both. And I want to stand here unashamed of that.

So why does it feel so gross.?

What the mind suppresses, the body expresses.

I know that trauma we aren’t aware of can harm our loved ones and especially my clients. Don’t worry I’m always aware, a gift and a curse. If I say these things out loud someone else can come along in their fear and say I have frightening mental states. You’re absolutely right I do, and that’s why I am the best at being comforting for others who find themselves there. And we can heal together as long as good boundaries are in place. I have those now. I fashioned a secure self for me, and I can function that way, but the really unfair part is the fear of …

if it will ever feel consistently secure for me.

In this way like in my childhood I can be good for everyone else, while my inner self who that person really is constantly wriggles in discomfort. I’ve peeled back so many layers of this and each time I hope to see the beautiful original gleaming hard wood floor that just needs some TLC, and each time it’s another moldy pissed on layer of old carpet.

Hahaha of course I’m using home metaphors.

Did you know that stress extremely aggravates underlying trauma? It’s like a beast that can lay quite, and now the dragons are awake laying ruin to everything. That’s what living with trauma is like. The constant awareness you’ll need to tame the dragon again, peel back the carpet again, disappointment, rage. And then seeking ways to find relief that are healthy all the while having 0 to no energy to do so.

And then an aware person knows how little room they have for another’s feelings when theirs are so constantly overwhelming and more guilt and shame, and fight your way back out again.

It is no wonder that I am tired. Soul tired. But I also can’t seem ever to lose my enthusiasm and for that I am so grateful. If I fall down I’ll get right back out there and try again. Pure grit always.

The grit itself is exhausting. The unfair reality that no matter how hard I come I still jump at the slightest disturbance in my world, and that still makes me feel broken. That I find myself without my permission or even knowing with my knuckles burning white on the steering wheel. My body hangs on as if it were dangling over a cliff every single day.

No matter how many times I hear myself tell other people they can heal. What a fraud. Except I’m not a fraud. I am the real deal trauma survivor who let it open her heart rather than close it.

Openly wounded and letting others see myself bleed. What if they don’t trust me as a result ? Well then at least I will have honored my journey and my story. Shame keeps us quiet so I refuse to do that. When we are loud sometimes we make mistakes. I make a lot of mistakes, thank goodness because being perfect is another level of work that life didn’t leave me the energy for.

My writing will come from my pain, my shame shuts down those parts of me. I get close and then busy myself with something prettier. I can work hard and make my life look pretty on the outside. I am more than capable. What is outside beauty if inside is rotting?? So I must do it all. I get tired and that used to make me angry, now I sit in it and try and grow.

To be comforting I must learn to be comforted. To be comforted people must know what hurts and that they deserve that comfort. To be comfortable one must feel safe. A trauma survivor never feels safe. Never. No matter how the circumstances have changed. Their brain finds a way to signal danger even in the most benign circumstances, and the news reinforces this. Now you can be at school or in a place of worship or the movie theater and be shot. Trauma has a hey day with that!

The worst part is people with cancer or a devastating visible illness get support and love and attention. Trauma survivors have had to create such intense selves to survive that people run from them, they don’t get comfort they get shame. Loads and loads of it. They are dramatic, difficult to be with, prickly, and yes we are all those things, therefore reinforcing that we can’t be loved and save. See how I wanted to separate myself? They and then had to write WE.

To the people who comfort me with their words and belief in me, simple acts of kindness, know that you have changed a life. One small gesture can change a life. A good aspect of trauma is the survivor learns to turn a crumb into a banquet. I’ve been subsisting on crumbs for so long everything I’ve put on my banquet table feels as if it could be poisoned. If trauma lets loose the chains on me I’ll wrap myself back in them, because now it’s how I know to exist.

PTSD lives in the person forever. They can heal a lot and become functioning but their lives will always be effected by it. And there’s only disability or support or relief if it can be recognized and legitimized, yet most trauma survivors have needed to believe they are fine to even take a breath.

It is those with invisible illness that truly suffer the most. So I make myself visible and hope it helps someone else. But visibility is vulnerability and how often are our vulnerabilities used against us? And shame is an eager bed fellow always at the ready to become activated.

I battle every single day. It isn’t dramatic it’s true. But to the average on looker I appear to have it together and be successful even.

Someday I hope to feel the things I’ve created for myself, that I belong to them and with them, and that my creation is a safe home.

What is a safe home anyway?

I try to answer my own questions. A safe home is the one we are about to buy and saying goodbye to the first one. This time is real and raw, and a trauma survivor wishes it could be like it seems for the normal people. The ones who don’t have constant automatic thoughts of how things could fall apart.

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The Elusive Consistency of a Creative

This is the grief puzzle …. It’s finished now, though the grieving isn’t….. A perfect metaphor for process.

I’m trying to figure out so many things currently. My gears are turning and I’m deeply inside my head, figuring out how to get outside of it, when I should do that, when I shouldn’t. Ew should and shouldn’t. I preach against such words in my practice. I could re-frame right now. I “should” 😉 But I have to be human too.

I took my 15 year old daughter to her eye surgery 5 week follow up this morning. Everything is good there. I can cross that off my list of things to worry about. Good eye position, she’s healing well. I am grateful.

The things on my mind the most are consistency and self-discipline. I’m having trouble untangling because Starbucks and distractions.

I need to DECIDE on my mindset, the one I want to keep most consistent, so I do not get thrown about by every emotion I have because they are plenty. If you’re thinking easier said than done, you’re damn right.

How do we take someone who has thrived on chaos and survived not by careful planning and structure, but by the ability to bob and weave and to be constantly moving, and tell them to slow down and organize? Life is calmer and more peaceful for me these days, but my nervous system and psyche are not as ready to accept that. I still have a lot of threat response reactions, many of them physical.

All of my current goals involve self-discipline. I am a person who can talk herself into and out of anything using whatever story I decide to tell, and often I realize the stories I tell myself are not congruent with my mission. This is going to require some work.

These episodes of flushing are really getting annoying. I’ve about had it. If the solution to this is rooted in my weight and my health, then we are going to go hard at figuring this out.

How do I choose what thing to give my most attention and consistency too when there are so many?

This is my biggest issue right now. I’ve been trying to push work aside and show up for my kids, and being in my home and doing the things to make it run as smoothly as possible. This is the least easy to do because the reward has to be found by introspection and is only by looking down the road. It would be easier to get rewards I can see more easily, like the screen light up on the Vivint Board. All the screaming and yelling of my success. Rather than being yelled at at home, which is a lot of what happens when you have teens. I hope somewhere they really see that I am trying. And not that I am putting myself aside and all that martyr crap. But that when they talk I listen, and I try to actually put forth the effort.

The problem is all the areas I have to choose between. Limit your choices and discomfort could potentially go down, but there has to be another way. I don’t want to my choices limited.

Ultimately I need to feel good about myself, and not much I am doing lately is helping with that, because I keep doing different actions than the goals I have in mind. And I believe stories such as I am tired etc, but I’m more tired when I am not working towards my dreams. I am more tired when I eat like shit, that thing I said I was going to let myself have as a reward. There is something wrong with the system.

Talk less, smile more…. work on my focus more while smiling, rather than gritting my teeth. I want to feel joy in my days, and as a matter of fact I do so much. A lot of options I am successful at and people wanting what I have to offer is a good problem to have.

I have good problems now in my life, the problems I used to have I would classify as bad ones. This is like the difference of having to dig out of a 20 foot hole, versus having to avoid a pot hole here and there. And the biggest types of pot holes I need to avoid are ones that suck me into a story that takes me to an old emotional place that is outdated to all of the effort I have done.

I need to prioritize feeling good in my body, it needs movement and appropriate nutrition and this feels like it could be a full time job in and of itself. Why does everything feel so daunting? Could it be because my period is going to start at any moment? Yes, but it’s also more likely that my self-discipline is low.

Now the question is why is it so low? I am going to do some research about this, as well as dig into some of my stuff. I think a clue is how long I went without. Without enough of so many things. Not enough love, not enough stability in a variety of ways. Not enough of myself accessible to myself or anyone else. Now that I am thawing I allow myself to indulge, and then that quickly becomes habit. Hard work is no longer necessary to my survival, now that it is more of a choice, I allow myself to be tired.

But what if that’s more a story that I tell and then believe, rather than something that actually ends up making me feel better. Give yourself this reward of this thing that builds up to something that ends up making you be constantly in conflict with yourself.

There is no worse place to than in conflict with yourself, and I am so often there. I am just here trying to figure this out. One solid choice in the direction I want to go after another should really be where I focus, but my brain is like a disobedient puppy, and training gets tired after awhile.

I also think there is something to be said about intelligence and attempting to wire ourselves for automation so processes can become easier. My mind defaults to indulgence now, rather than to my goals and discipline.

I am retirement age in spirit years and this is causing my soul a lot of confusion.

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A Sunday Untangling….

The yarn is multi-colored and vivid….this above is a live capture of my brain. When I can get one thread undone and use it properly, the feeling is pure bliss.

Blog from the bath on a Sunday afternoon. I decided to attempt to restart my day as I have been cranky. A combination of my period, waking up with a migraine, and existential questioning is contributing to this.

Days never seem to go as planned have you noticed this? I once told a client the song lyric, “you can plan a pretty picnic but you can’t predict the weather” (an OutKast lyric) though I am sure the phrase has been around long before they have, and they tattooed it on themselves. Not a bad choice considering how relevant a phrase. This happens in my life all the time.

My health is what most often derails my plans, and rather than accept and nurture myself for this, I am usually hard on myself. Today is no exception. If I could just push through and create one account (for Vivint). The biggest problem with this job, while there is many good aspects, is the constant self imposed pressure. There are group chats, and a leaderboard, and it activates every competitive drive in me, which is obviously the point.

The challenge? I suppose is to trust myself more, give myself more permission and space, to not determine my worth by that scoreboard, and to find balance within, versus seeking external acceptance.

This is all well and good except…. that I can’t keep thoughts like, “if I just worked a little harder that’s 5,000 more to help my kids with college with”, and “I need to be less selfish and self indulgent.” But I just can’t drive as hard as I used to in any aspect. I can’t because I won’t allow myself to not rest, to not validate my disease.

I think I’d appear more successful to others if I could just keep up this grind and pace I have my whole life.

There it is, there is the epiphany I was writing towards….. the truth is I’ve had “grit” my whole life: it’s what has made me so successful, and also so deeply bone soul searingly tired. I am both of these things.

The truth is my spiritual self is already at retirement age. There is our chronological age, and then there is our life experience age. No one sees or recognizes the latter. In God years, Dog years, and warrior years I am 137. I just guessed at that number. I think it’s really like Methuselah (can’t believe I still remember this Bible crap), who was rumored to have died at 969 years of age. Yeah like him. Also small disclaimer I’m not actually anti anything to do with anyone’s faith or belief system. I have some deep wounds that were inflicted by the devout Christians in my life, and that’s my cross to bear. No pun intended :p Wah wah

With sales and money it only gets more seductive, all of it. The competitions, the numbers. The more money you have, the more you need to keep up. I will have to beat this system, but I catch myself already doing what all the humans do which is strive for the nicer things to validate their existence of course, as soon as they begin to get a taste of success.

I was perusing a commonality among these Vivint DMs this am, that’s district manager. Most are men, and most are tall, handsome, tattooed, and have a bombshell on their arms, and or a gorgeous family. I caught myself being envious of their trips to Fiji and fancy cars, and how their life looks.

And then I’m wise enough to know that pictures may tell a thousand words, but so often they can also tell a thousand lies. You just don’t know. Maybe yes, maybe no.

Money may not buy happiness, but it for sure can buy a certain amount of peace of mind, which is what I crave most lately, if you know you can pay your bills, you’re much more sound emotionally than when you can’t. I know that from my vast life experiences. But it is hard to notice when in the midst if you’ve crossed over to the dark side of this equation: seduction, greed, production at the cost of your health, etc.

I’m so grateful I can usually head off most destructive processes at the pass now, by doing just this. Reflecting, thinking, using an open mind and heart. Not getting too conclusive, and also not getting too careless with my emotions or behaviors. At least their is some silver lining to just a torturously analytical mind 😉

Guys I’m almost there. I’m on the brink, of teaching, talking, training hopefully. I don’t know whether this will be the product of an article I submit to Psychology Today or Counseling Today, or whether it will be down the road during or after getting a PhD, if that’s what I do.

I’m craving a change I know that. I’m always craving a change, because there’s more opportunities for learning and growth. I just don’t know yet what that change looks like. If it will be brought on by us having a baby (embarking on that journey again), or by moving to a different home, or a different state which I’m really craving. I’ve been thinking of Oregon lots lately. It’s calling me. But that would require so many logistics. So it is likely long down the ride, though I’m not sure if it has to be….?!

With only one life (perhaps I should get more into the idea of multiple ones so I can cultivate a sense of peace that everything will happen that needs to). One lifetime hardly seems enough to fulfill all one’s dreams, not this one’s anyway 😉 they are too big.

And then I’m right at gratitude again. Thank goodness for this enthusiasm for living. Even when I’m afraid my gigantic feelings could swallow me, or grief will end me, I’m so much more resilient than my feelings would lend me to believe. We all are I think.

Sometimes our resilience works against us for along while after it has protected us from great trauma. The same mechanisms that are meant to protect, also harm in ways the subconscious won’t even let us be aware of without that magical observant impartial party: the therapist.

I want to write so much more about trauma, what I have learned about my own and others. I want to trust that I have something to contribute that hasn’t been said or done in the way I will say and do it.

This is where life finds me today. In my 38th year, often wondering how long I have left, because this is how my mind is wired. Because I am desperate to share my gifts with the world. It finds me in love with myself, my children, my partner, my work. It finds me being someone others seek for solace and wisdom, a position I’m so honored with. It finds me the parent of children who are wise beyond their years, and driven, and brave, and intelligent, and determined.

My son is in love for his first time. And it’s interesting to see how much like me he is in his thinking, and depth of feeling. I’m both elated and terrified by this realization. He faces many difficult decisions, young love is not for the faint of heart, and does not favor the weak of constitution.

My daughters continue to learn and grow and navigate this world as a second sex, their birthright affording them no mercy with regard to how fiercely they will need to love themselves to suit up in this society. They will need all the strength I have bestowed them with, and all the resilience life with me has required them to develop.

My wife is grieving more gracefully than any human I’ve ever encountered. So many changes she has had since we have fallen in love. What a bad ass!

And me… I am here just learning to play and to be gentle with myself and others. How does one ask a freight train or a tornado to be gentle, after they have had such a need to develop into those things?

I’ll be here trying to figure this out…

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Travel

cravetravelblog

Why do we travel? What makes it so interesting? I am sitting in Crave restaurant, it is a local hangout in Ansonia Connecticut, the most upscale and only choice in my mind. Not because of the upscale part, but because the food is consistently good no matter what, and it just feels good. Not sure what about it accomplishes this, but it does. 

Anyway I am sitting in a new and different perspective. I am by myself facing the street. I can see the antique shop across the street, some very interesting looking industrial buildings (see picture), and a sign that says Bennet & Walsh Attorney’s at law. There is a 103 on the door, the numbers are horizontal, large black font laid on gold or silver background. The doorway is rounded and the building is of stone. So cool. 

Have I ever seen this before? The answer is yes and no. I have seen it many times I am sure, but if I never attended to it then it won’t be encoded and won’t really mean anything. 

When we travel because we have added this expectation, parameters are set for experiencing the new then our brains are more likely to acquiesce. People are going outside to smoke. Interesting enough this no longer creates a craving in me. That is a realization in and of itself. I remember years where I had a single track mind of obtaining a cigarette and being afforded the reprieve of avoiding whatever social interaction was making me anxious, but escaping into the cool air and polluting my lungs. It wasn’t even the cigarette it was belonging to a group that made me less intimidated, and the escape of it all, and it gave me something to focus intently on, that was not tearing at myself. Hmmm. 

I am just thinking of how we don’t need to travel ever to see new things. We can see new things, or through new eyes anywhere and at anytime. Be exploring with our curiosity versus drowning in conclusion and despair. This is a choice we have at our fingertips at anytime, but it never feels that way. This is a lie. I think anyway. 

Magic is the fact that I used to not know where my next bill was going to get paid from, to being able to indulge myself in simple pleasures that I give myself permission for. To enjoy the moment, a moment. 3 years ago I would have felt guilty for anything I spent on myself, that it should have been going for this or that, or to savings. And now I have created the ability to both take care of my responsibilities and also to be able o experience joy in a cup of a coffee and a flan in a restaurant. Small sips, Savor. 

I have created so many of my dreams already, and yet my human brain rarely registers this. It tells me “Christina we are dissatisfied with your performance, we know you could be doing more.” Maybe I could, but do I want to be? Isn’t that as important a question as any?

Soon (in March) my wife and I will be traveling to the International Women’s Summit in Arizona. I have never been to Arizona, and within the US there aren’t too many places I can say I haven’t been, so this will be cool. It’s going to be warmer, we will need to adjust for this. I am tempted to pack nothing, and to make part of our adventure buying some new things while we are there, but then we will need to bring back luggage, hmmm. 

What does one see in Arizona anyway? What are the famous things to do or visit? I guess we will have to do some research. 

I think I have spent most of my life thinking something has to be grand to experience it to the fullest. It must be a grand gesture or trip of a lifetime, but the possibility for magic moments are held within the everyday also. We can go to an area we never have been before even where we already live, and look around, be alert. 

Anyway back to my notes about writing my memoirs. My beautiful wife got me this pencil set for Christmas, and it IS marvelous. She has infused them with her belief in my capability to do the things I set out to do, and if that isn’t magic I don’t know what is. 

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Hamilton: What will our play be called ?!

Thank you for seeing me in this way, for delighting in me and in us. It has literally saved our emotional lives. We had our physical lives before you, but our emotional ones are taking such beautiful shape now. And I want to write about it. I want the world to know your bright love. And I what we have created here. 

The image suggests perhaps a playful post about our experience in the city. Wouldn’t that be a more pleasant read ? Perhaps it would, but it wouldn’t be written by me then, at least not tonight. 😉

This blog post is a letter I wrote to my wife tonight. Whether or not all things are meant to be shared I think there is always a power in it for someone. This letter bled straight from my fingertips, it fell onto the page in waves of truth that couldn’t make their way out fast enough. A catharsis. Isn’t it always. If someone else has a different experience with those words who am I to stop them.

Clicking publish has always been an act of bravery…. one I never gave myself much credit for. Warning it begins with graphic Crohn’s Disease material exactly as I experienced it.

I had a stomach episode tonight unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. I thought I was going to have you have to call 911. I almost screamed for you. Literally. I had visions of me passing out and dying on the toilet. I woke up doubled over completely, and I mean completely. I hobbled to the toilet. I didn’t know if I would vomit or faint. I felt like all 3. I felt like I was going to have to poop but didn’t know what thing would come first. It felt like I was being ripped in half. My shirt was completely soaked, completely, and contrary to the scary fast heart rate I will have usually during an attack my heart felt like it couldn’t even beat, it was low 50’s. 

I just held on and tried to breathe deep as I could through the waves of pain and head swimming until finally I pooped literally probably 3 toilet bowls full. It wasn’t all at once. First was getting the hard part out, and then a ton came. 

By the time I was done I was left shaking and freezing and now I’m more wiped out than you can ever imagine. I just can’t even quite describe the pain.

A couple of things happened. One, I felt a tremendous wave of compassion for V and guilt at not feeling more present. It’s like I can’t weather watching her suffer and I must because I’m mom. What a confusing thing. And two, intense fear that having not taken my injection even for a week has thrown things into some terrible state with my health. What if?! And what if V is in for a lifetime of chronic suffering with her tummy that impedes so much of her adventurous self. My god that will break my heart. And then that I really do love my kids moment. Well of course I fucking do?! How could I ever be so unkind to myself, ?’ To not give myself this benefit of the doubt. 

And then I think of the good thing that I’ll make sure she is safe and supported forever. Never scared she won’t be able to support herself. And then the realization that I’m a steadfast supporter and provider and that I’m creating / have created that from scratch. 

And this is literally what a profound RE frame in thinking looks like. I’m strong and proud and safe and I’ll keep my family safe, not some impulsive person hanging by a thread.

I’m creating something beautiful in myself and for others and it’s my story. My legacy. What I want people to say about me, when they tell my story like Eliza did for Hamilton. What will they say?! We all wonder what people will say.

This makes me think of you: do you know all anybody says is nice things about you?! I always wanted to be that person, but I make too many waves, take too many risks, and don’t think enough about how I’ll make someone feel. You think too much, and I not enough. If you take us both you have the perfect person 😉 boastful? Perhaps. 

I make people uncomfortable, but do it with good intentions lol. Don’t they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions;) I make people uncomfortable by pointing out what is so readily visible to me, that for others it takes them a lifetime if at all to notice. A gift and a curse. 

I wonder if V felt a fraction of how I felt just now. If she did I feel terrible for her. I’m gonna root around in your magic bag of goodies, the bag leftover from our dead dreams (to be dramatic and truthful) and see if I can find some life giving electrolytes in the form of Gatorade to settle this tummy. It’s feeling like knives are raking it currently and I can’t be out of commission this long. 

If anything happens to me babe please tell my story. I need my story told. The need is getting fiercer now. I need people to know how hard I fought just to be ok on a daily basis and my kids to know how strong their love makes me. They are the fuel to my fire, and everything that makes me the person that I am.

Every person I’ve ever helped has them to thank. 

And I have you to thank. You’re such a source of comfort to me. Speaking of…. I’ll need to restock our sick supplies. We were so fortunate to have all these. Though the reason we do and they are unused is still excruciating. 

Babe I know your process is different but please know that if this didn’t happen I might not in some really profound way have truly known how much I want it. How I want to enjoy the tiny new life that we create rather than ever viewing him or her as a burden. And my life has already been so heavy so long, any small thing sometimes does feel this way. But in part due to experiencing this loss with you, I know even more profoundly how much each second even is worth. 

I do in a fucked up way feel it is meant to be this way. This sense that everything does happen for a reason, and not that that’s just something we say to make sense of things when they are too fucked up. It makes me believe in destiny and magic. 

Does that mean we couldn’t have done without this toll to our hearts, this wound, and these scars… of course not. 

But life would not hold as much meaning without the whole picture, the whole journey, and my life now is beyond filled with meaning. 

While I don’t plan on going anywhere soon, I am satisfied with my life right now. I need you to know that. I don’t regret for me or be sad for the rest of my unloved life ever, because I have lived it to my fullest already. I do want more of course, immense amounts more. But if it wasn’t in my cards I didn’t miss a thing. I knew exactly what I was doing. 

I want you to find the same feeling, but in whatever way Or path that’s meant for you. That’s my dream for you, never give in to self defeating thoughts, ones that lack compassion for your full journey. 

If you did ever lose me I want you to live on for me in the way I would have. Carry my legacy and be for my kids what I would have been for them. You are up to that task. No one is as well as you or I wouldn’t have picked you. They will need you forever. 

I don’t plan on going anywhere, but we never plan for that so I want these words down. I don’t care what laws or rules or fears or whatever. We have something very special here and blood relation has nothing to do with it. We must trust that. You are an irreplaceable part of the kids healing now. You’re already written into the story. And I would never want to let you be snuffed out in the event of my demise. And anyone who would try would do so out of ego or pride etc, finally able to have their kids back from my evil clutches you know 😉 but you know better. 

You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to us. Yes little ol you, it’s true. That’s a truth. And it couldn’t be without you being so much more than you see when you look in the mirror. That distorted perception is your only enemy, it kills more dreams than a semi-automatic with unlimited rounds. 

I hope my kids will delight in my letters someday when they are old enough to read how my mind worked. Find, keep, and appreciate them all, because they are who I always really was inside and kids know so little about that.

I’ll never know much about who my parents really were inside, so much is a mystery, especially my dads side, and my mother’s, a tragedy. So for them to have this insight. To know my mind intimately. Incredible.

Wow so all this feels like a product of a near death experience. Listen honestly. It may sound dramatic, but this episode was no joke. And all this sweating and gross (being on prednisone and scared) the past couple of weeks has been really humbling.

There is a level of acceptance I am at, that wasn’t there before. 

My disease has carried a large piece of denial for the longest. I wasn’t willing. I’ve been in as much denial of it as I have how damaging my childhood was to me. I am reaching a stage of acceptance now, and it’s making me so much stronger. So much more at peace and strong. Someone that you will feel proud and safe to have a baby with. Someone stable that will enjoy that adventure with, not resent it, or fear it, or feel guilty about it because I already have kids.

That is at least the take home I’m recognizing from this tragedy. 

I will get to move forward without a doubt in my mind, and for me, that’s like having rebuilt an entire nation after its downfall. I’ve been a shaky entity bordering on panic for as long as I can remember, to be emerging this strong, still, solid force of love and compassion is unbelievable even to myself. 

I am surprising myself a lot lately. The strong I always identified as prior was a sort of forced kind of strong, a necessary one. This strong now is the accumulation of weathering storms with a sense of grace rather than a frenzy or a panic. 

It’s a strong I am satisfied and proud of, not one thrust upon me without my consent. It’s a soft kind of strong, and I can’t wait to hold our baby in these new arms made of this.

Every time you grace me with your vision of seeing the loving child inside of me. I can see when you see her, I can see her too, and it brings powerful healing. You bring that to me. 

Thank you for seeing me in this way, for delighting in me and in us. It has literally saved our emotional lives. We had our physical lives before you, but our emotional ones are taking such beautiful shape now. And I want to write about it. I want the world to know your bright love. And I what we have created here. 

What if someone else could find this place (when they couldn’t before) because of our story? Or was able to believe in their dreams?! 

Bliss. 

My tummy has burning remnants of the suffering I just went through and I can’t even be bothered to focus on that. I’ve too much shit to do with my one life. Thank goodness because otherwise I’d crumble into a little ball of stress and worry and take days to recover. 

I don’t have days anymore to spend in that way, there’s too much work to be done.

Every word on every page for every day of my life…. are for you….

Now I am going to curl up as close to you as I can and let your breath lull me into a deep relaxation, and help the pain melt away. 

All the love in my heart 

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Let’s talk numbers

So recently I’ve been having all sorts of sales numbers rushing through my brain. I must admit they take up a lot of space and I’ve asked myself a lot if I belong here (Vivint Solar). Then recently I attended their annual conference and things made a lot more sense to me about why I am doing this.

Originally I did it to face my anxieties, exposing myself to knocking on people’s doors seemed a good test to see if I could get used to that, without my heart hammering away in my chest. I also did it with a goal in mind of buying a beloved cottage which seemed a key to writing my memoirs. These were my two main motivators.

Then the unthinkable happened and we experienced the devastating loss of our identical twin pregnancy that we had spent a year working towards. This was a month long road paved with nails, and we are only now in the recovering stages.

I found myself having a dark and stormy attitude, and as a very influential person I knew this was not me, but I couldn’t find the light. It’s actually the spirit of the Whalers (another story), my New England descendants that brought me a little bit closer to myself again.

New Englanders being the first to have such a crazy person to suggest that we could change our stars around by getting into a tiny boat with a sharp stick and bringing down a whale. It is no surprise we have such sharp edges. I say we like I’m from here originally and not from the land of hippie tree huggers in Oregon 😉

Rather than seeing this whole business as sales and not who I am as a person I chose to see myself as having the privilege to be a part of something special. Helping our community to convert to clean energy, being a pioneer, a warrior, a whaler! Going out with my harpoon and stick and believing I can single handedly change my stars and protect my people and my planet. Not being skeptical, but positive and full of the live I always have been.

The power had been down on my panels, and it was time to fix my system.

I possess this grit, this sense of urgency. The ability to press the gas harder over a bumpy road, which actually works better than going slow. I’ve been this way my whole life. And in the midst of these people who are brave and overcoming their own personal limitations I kept thinking oh look I’m home. So there has to be something to this whole solar thing.

And this is where I have landed for now. So for this morning I’m going to share a post one of the top sellers posted, full of life advice I wish I’d had years ago, and what I wrote to my children about when I shared it.

Credit Thiago Barros from Vivint Solar

This is one of the big sellers for Vivint.

It’s interesting because what I like best is being amongst other very driven people. I’m not sure where or if I fit here. I’m afraid of working too much and missing you guys…. I have dreams of owning a bed and breakfast together and or a coffee shop together and working all of us around each other. And not sure without some capital how to make that happen. My dreams always were bigger than my wallet. I’m just sitting here appreciating all of you each for what you bring to my life.

Kids I’ve been pondering over your Letters and you and they make me a better person always. To learn to create space for your feelings. To have the space to give. It’s all new to me. Like being reborn 1,000 times.

I put the cart before the horse so many times in my life that now I want to teach you from my mistakes how to dream big but like this guy says above to not buy the thing til you have earned it.

I want to be home and cook more and hustle more and and and. Always driven. In the Vivint conference we were just at the guy was talking about how successful people have this sense of urgency, almost like they are distracted, they get weird he says. And I identified with that a lot. It never was a matter of not loving you, but a product of having so many dreams in this life.

It’s actually not a very easy existence in certain ways. My mind tortures me and calm is very hard to find. Peace of mind. When I look at you I see it, but sometimes it feels so far away to touch.

You guys are always my why, why I work so hard, and why I push myself past my fears, and why I get out of bed when I’m tired, scared or don’t feel well.

I want to thank you for being patient with Courtney and I as we have been so consumed with trying to bring this family a baby and with the pain when that dream didn’t go as planned. I know it’s been a little dark for awhile. A little (lot) less present. I’ve been coping with Vivint I guess, and learning a new thing. I realize we have heard very little about how you guys feel about the disappointment. Probably trying to shield you from our pain and not let it effect you, but it does anyway I see.

When a dream that has become a framework, and you think it’s on its way to success comes crashing down around you, it takes awhile to see and find the light and energy again. You will experience this at some point in your lives and I will be right there for it. I’m going to do my damnedest to be by your side for everything you want me to. Every important moment. I hope to use my analysis less 😉 and my heart more. For someone with a history of trauma this is very difficult, some might argue impossible. You become wired differently. And I’ll fight even wiring and my genetics for you. You inspire me everyday and please always tell us how you’re feeling. Even if it’s not received perfectly in a moment, we hear you and see you…..