Tag: #empath

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No Contact and the Romance of Self Discovery

Because lately she was becoming found more quickly than she could be lost….

I had been under another giant wave of grief. Rejection was everywhere, in every Avenue I ventured down. Threatening to make me doubt myself, my inherent worth. The lesson is full circle. My therapists words stuck with me, if the work was actually done, communication wouldn’t look like this. Communication what a joke. We have reached that same page of letting go I think. Only a we in that sadly.

It hurts and I won’t be silent about it. But now in my life the fully embodied lesson that can’t be lost is nothing hurts worse than the abandonment of the self. Nothing. I won’t ever do it again, and you and everyone else knows it. I’ll make mistakes but nothing so catastrophic as that.

Nothing is a catastrophe Christina, only a lesson. This is the ultimate lesson. That way life can unfold without the constant sounding of the alarm.

I went down a rabbit hole. Oh words have power, but I saw it this time, and didn’t fall in. As the poem goes. It goes like this:

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes me a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in. It’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault. I get out immediately.

walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.

Portia Nelson, There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk: The Romance of Self-Discovery

This is truly the journey I am on, and I’m doing the work. That is as solid and real as the ground beneath my weary feet.

And what is happening as a result is the miracle, connections that don’t have any substance fall away, and new layers of myself and my focus are revealed and I am consistently becoming more of who I always was.

Everything I am attracting truly is what I am putting out. Clear sight is the answer and not telling myself a story and not defaulting. Staying the course as a parent and eventually as a partner when the time comes.

That is the fully embodied lesson. Taking so much less personally. That is always a journey, but I am doing it!

Anyway I already called the electrician, one of the girls friends dads. So that’s good! Monday morning and already did that. I need to shower for one of many hair removal appointments lol. Ridiculousness. But I’ll feel good, so perhaps not so after all….

Yesterday the kids and I watched Black Widow…. Such an amazing message wrapped in Marvel. We are expanding consciousness with our art. It’s rising to the occasion. I could definitely RE watch this one and will for some time.

My creaky bones today tell me that a 5 k without training might have been a tad much. Our bodies always tell us if we listen. This is an area I need to work at with my diet and exercise. I’m so excited to do it from a place of love versus harsh drive. If that doesn’t sum up everything right now. All my relationships. It was a fun spontaneous adventure though and was not without its beauty.

The girls cooked a hello fresh together and played and listened to music and then had some friend time. A balanced day filled with play. The work is happening. It gets good when you do. Everyone is taking things less personally and we are all blossoming under that tutelage. Yes yes !

I’m falling in love with my new arm. I was very unsure about it all at first. Is this who I am? I was being so judgmental of myself and so scared. Was it my own?! Or was I doing it for some other reason because it was all mixed up in the many changes of my life.

Who the fuck cares. I like it. The images are authentically me. I like the man who did them. And the process has been beyond valuable. I will continue to enjoy pacing with regard to this. Choosing the right artist for each piece as I decide what I want and learn more about who I am and my value. About valuing myself properly.

Getting rid of some of that icky criticism residue from the year and a half long emotional cold and drought I was experiencing. Stop lowering the bucket into a dry well and expecting water.

I am patching holes, floating, righting the ship, and pretty soon it will be a yacht sailing. I often try to bring others on this journey, no man left behind. But I now recognize the value of people sailing their own ships and if they line up with mine naturally then it just works. You don’t have to fight so hard or try so hard.

Black widow resonated so much when they were trying to figure out if their memories were real or not. My god that made my heart ache with memory. That is how I feel. I watch and marvel at how they always survive everything like that isn’t already me.

Marvel is right. This warrior loving with never even having been given any to begin with. Heart. The themes about losing your heart, lost souls and such. I never lost my heart. It’s been calling me home.

Feels like home is about me, my relationship with myself. My first song on the piano. I am grateful to have and to be firsts, however forever always held more investment and I never knew that before.

I am comforted in the fact that while I may roam I will never be lost now I was after this first half of my life.

I am whole…. And nothing is going to interfere with that.

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Courage the Cowardly Dog and Running

So I’m walking / running to my water and thinking of my favorite coward. And mother effing her up one side and down the other. Then I think where are your manners Christina. You’re being positively uncivilized. You’re an animal.

And out of nowhere the show courage the cowardly dog pops into my mind. How I was always drawn to it despite how effing bizarre some of the content is. Then I thought why is it called that and who wrote it. Because well …. Me. That’s what I do.

I’m supposed to be walking. I’ll probably get hit by a car or wander into traffic. Don’t put that out into the universe. As if my self preservation and hyper vigilance would let that happen.

Near the Sundae House. A piece of history. Anyway this show…. Courage was scared all the time, and yet when someone needed help he did the thing anyway. That’s what I recall. And now I’m wondering more about that creepy woman and man he lived with. Did the writer have narcissist parents, probably! And that’s a way I was held in childhood and didn’t even know it.

Perhaps I owe my empathy and fixing tendencies to courage the cowardly dog…..

My skin is loving the sun. Next threat after pancake, sun death (fainting). Isn’t anxiety fun?!

Good thing my knight in shining Buick shall be showing up with Gatorade and Groceries. I have changed the rule of our visit game today. Without any warning. My speciality. He had learned to just go with it, lol. A patient man. I would say a saint but he would give me this incredulous look like I might be crazy!

Guess what I am! Spoiler alert. But you’ve known that a long time. What’s that Alice in Wonderland quote, something about being mad, and the best people are. Veronika Decided to die, the alchemist, City of Girls, Alma Whitaker ….. Brene.

Abby and Glennon….. nobody puts baby in the corner. 80’s movies. Young love between the popular rich and the other side of the tracks girl/guy.

Tale as old as as time…. The battle between good and evil. The truth and the lie ! Rayya and Elizabeth…. That Brazilian guy, Craig.

All the breaking and the bleeding. Back breaking metaphorphisizing change.

All your posts about blame. Shall we call it displacement of responsibility for emotional comfort ? Is that more mannered for you.?

Selling an idea of how things should be while not actually possessing an ounce of the courage I do.

As I’ve been seen the faint of heart need not apply and I’ll shout this from the roof tops. Mary Poppins style with the chimney sweeps, they raised me after all.

As it turns out reclaiming my original soul has not been without its wounds. They burn and ache so good. Like my feet and my heart right now.

But not only am I alive, but I am loving my own life. It may be lonely and full of mistakes, and I’m ok with that. Watch me work. Spin straw into cold. Kiss a princess, and go on an adventure…..

Watch me….. kiss me…… tell me.

Show me I have no use for your empty words…… they won’t activate anything in me anymore.

Show me a warrior. Loyal Brave and True…..(and yes I am those things as it turns out yoy do have to be loyal to yourself first in certain ways that are the opposite of selfish, had to learn the very hard way, as usual) because that’s what fairy tales and made of and magic is made by the bravery of our hearts, not the passive longings of our childhood selves.

It requires follow through….

Now watch me practice what I preach because I was always going to….

New and most real danger, walking into a telephone pole or street sign or mailbox just almost did that. Moving to the side of the street where I can watch the cars because the drivers are often doing what I am, and pancake is still also a threat.

There’s always a threat outside but what I can confidently say is the one from within is being purged daily.

Ok head up and eyes forward and weight back as my knight says ….

The water is on the horizon any second….

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Heartbreak that Registers a 9.5 on the Richter Scale!

If You Knew How Lonely My Life Has Been

I’m very emotional this morning, this week really. Something is happening. The winds of change are blowing and truly this time I don’t know what.

I am genuinely a blank canvas right now. Actually that isn’t true at all. I’m more like a beautiful landscape with a cottage by a lake. The door to the cottage is open, and I’m in a chair by the lake…. Reading, writing, and smiling. Calm.

It’s my sacred Sunday and I’m thinking of her. There are several hers for me to think of, loving is easy for me. I enjoy it. And you can find so many things to love about and connect with others. I love each for their own reason and in their own way. For what I’ve learned on my journey with them. This Sunday morning I’m thinking of being by the water, and the last time we had coffee together on. Sunday morning, in that foreign living room. We talked, that was always my favorite part believe it or not.

How does that quote go ? Love is a life long conversation. The empty chair on my beautiful front porch staring me down, Or me staring it down. I’m filled with love in so many ways all the way around. Love of my chosen family, my children, for my work, for writing and reading, for nature.

The other side of my king size bed is cluttered with clean folded laundry, books, journals, a people magazine with Pink on the cover, and probably dust. The other side of my bed depresses me, whether I am happy or not.

So many brief stops and starts. Always stopped before it started. Heartbreak of a 9.5 magnitude on the Richter scale.

Recently my therapist brought up the concept of lost souls, and my response was so naive. As if that is not possible. If you just love hard enough, they can transform. No man left behind. The real result is actually the pain of this naïveté and the journey has been transforming me.

These days I can only fix and rescue myself and life gets better because of it. It gets good when you do. I remember my mom had this shirt when I was growing up. It was hideous, sleeveless and blue, and in typically rocker chick 80’s the bottom was frayed, long dangling strings of fabric. She was a fan of this style. I never was. She also had a mullety haircut at this time. The shirt was blue with white writing. I’ll find a photo and post it.

The shirt said, “good girls go to heaven, (but or and I can’t remember), bad girls go everywhere.” If there ever was a shirt to sum up my mother. My grandmother hated it, that says it all about their relationship. In this moment I wish I had known the little girl her, except in a way that’s all I ever knew of her. She never grew past/up. Interesting how we stumble into things. I had no idea I’d write this when I began.

I hear a plane flying overhead and think of the girl who would always ask me, “where do you think it’s going”, that wound is fresh. Full of unknowns. Not even closed over. No bright pink tender scars yet. Plenty of those in other spots though. The path of the warrior. Warrior of light as Paulo says. The pilgrimage just popped into my mind. One of his best as far as it resonating with me. I took the journey years ago. Half the book was underlined. Look how far you’ve come Christina. That’s what people keep saying to me.

Sometimes I can’t see myself in relation to time: the chronology of me is a fascinating thing.

I am the walking wounded right now. If you could walk inside me you would find a museum of love. So many artifacts of war, dusted, rusted out. Water logged, bullet holes. Trauma. But oh the stories you would find. The courage that resides in these memories.

I am not without. I am within.

I was teetering between worlds. Almost a lost soul. Nearly dead. That assessment is only because of how invisible to myself I had become in wanting to love everyone else back to life, because loving myself seemed and insurmountable task. It still does, however I’ve been working towards this awhile now.

I hear the world waking up from my beautiful upstairs room. I opened the blinds, the French doors so I can experience the outside while I am in. I imagine people preparing breakfasts, or to go to brunch, their Sunday best. Sacred sacred Sundays. A full day of unlimited hours spread before me to do as I wish with. Mmmmm

I can feel the promise of fall in the air this morning. My favorite months are on the tip of my tongue. I can taste them.

There is magic in the air. The magic is me. The way I choose to see the world and live regardless of the pain. The choice of being fully alive and feeling no matter what. Now a stream of songs are coming at me. It will be time to take a walk with my headphones and see what the universe has to say to me through music today.

I am begging for a reprieve of these restless nights. For fall to run its fingers through my hair and cradle me. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately and doing this not as a result of a person is new.

Muse ? Is that you ?

Yes.

I am always always here…..

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Home is Where the Heart is….

It’s been such a very long day…. Literally non stop even though I sat a lot of it, which is regrettable. I can only focus on so many things at once.

It feels like every home project that gets accomplished, five more happen before it’s even complete. Today a new whole house fan went in, and also new storm doors. Complications! First of all the door was brown and it was supposed to be white, something the installers didn’t know. So this will be a whole pain. Also the front door needs a larger storm door so good thing since it’s the wrong color they have to come fix it. In theory. Which requires calls and a whole pain again. I hate such things.

Although I will say it feels good to be making a home and taking some pride in joy in these things. They still aren’t my priority but I can enjoy making a home beautiful and be really into it, because I want to, not because I have to. Also the whole house fan needs a certain kind of switch, and there are outlets that aren’t working downstairs and are not an easy fix. So to complete that project it still requires and electrician to come out.

Once these smaller projects are done, the back stairs and then the deck and Juliette porch, and the pool will be up and running again next year.

I already need a plumber again, another leak, grrr! It never ends literally. However I’m just thankful I can do all of this without stressing financially. It’s more the time that’s frustrating.

So today to distract myself from discomfort I decided it would be fun to delete over 60,000 emails from 4 different accounts. Eight hours later. I kept saying I’d stop here or there, and obsessively I had to keep going. When I am determined I am determined and I won’t stop until I see it through.

That feeling of no notifications, which ironically I don’t even really care about. Life is too short. But we will call it a step in organizing my life in general to make sure I stay on top of things.

I don’t look forward to anything in my inbox anyway sadly. Not like me at all, but this is where I am.

Life is short. My tattoo artist got a stent put in on Friday, we were supposed to finish my books (highlighting, and some white) that day and do some more sleeve planning. We will do it Tuesday now, after clients, an eye appointment for twin A, and my therapy. Long day.

Most of my days are long, fulfilling, satisfying, and desperately lonely. I am making friends with lonely. Just being in and with her.

Today I cooked a delicious hello fresh holy moly it was good and everyone was fed and happy. Jen hung out and we watched movies all day while I deleted my emails and the house was being worked on. We watched Stepmom and something else and some Schitts Creek.

I already need a haircut again. Is my whole life just going to be a series of hair removal and preening. It’s stupid. Oh that’s what else we watched It’s Complicated, a favorite. I never realized how entirely a dick her ex is in that movie. I mean really selfish. It’s funny though. In particular was what made me remember when I was talking about hair removal. He says “I see that you have stopped getting bikini waxes, you’ve gone native, I was into it.” Lol!

All my bad habits are quit. I’m a few weeks out and the stability of that is taking hold. Now to get addicted to movement and strength building because I want and need energy. Discipline and routines and focus and writing.

In this moment I’m thinking about cuddling and how much I miss it. Affection and warmth and passion. The loneliness aches and burns.

This will now be the first post of August. Only five minutes in. I can’t wait for fall. I’m looking forward to snow and hoodies actually and the before and the running and hiking. Reading while snow is falling outside, and the silence that is felt when the world is covered in a white blanket.

And one of my favorite things when ice forms all over the trees and the sun hits them, and it looks like something out of a fairy tale. God I love that.

Anyway this helped me get sleepy…. I’m so so happy with all of my heart it’s Sunday tomorrow. I want to read and take a bath for sure. I haven’t been doing my bath much. Partially because that bathroom keeps trying to kill me, but mostly because I’m so busy from morning til night.

I’m just sitting here thinking how working on this house is making me feel affectionate towards it in a new way: we are creating a bond. This is becoming home. My home. I’m no longer a guest. There are still a lot of tweaks and I’m still not ready to do anything to the bedroom except take out the flooring. But for now I’m doing too many other things. I’ll be a monk like minimalist when it comes to that. My bed is all I need.

I’m finally working on playing my first actual song on the piano, though it’s been very slow going because I’ve been laying it all out with my clients. Seeing lots of people and showing up fully, there isn’t a lot left at the end of the day.

I need to move tomorrow running early before it gets hot!

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The Courage of the Noticer Attending Weddings and Funerals

I have so much to talk about right now it’s hard to know where this will go. I was going to say to know where to start, but that’s actually not hard anymore, I just do. Progress over perfection.

So let’s start with this morning. I went to a funeral. An all day long funeral. This is something I typically dread. The first reason I dread it is because I’m a special breed. I’m not only highly sensitive as a trait, but I have come to fully embrace that I’m an empath. Anita Morjani describes it best in her new book Sensitive is the New Strong.

The type of alien I am actually has a description. High sensitivity is sensory and perception, and empath actually feels other people’s feelings with them, sometimes before they do, and we have a sixth sense. Deep intuition. Sometimes I talk directly to people’s higher selves. When I describe this it’s hard not to feel grandiose or self important, however it is the truth.

So needless to say being crammed into a hot room with many people feeling big feelings, especially some I care about tremendously, is not easy for me. Since I don’t have much family I’ve been fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to not have many to attend.

Complicated grief. Is there a simple grief? I think so. Complicated grief is not even knowing if, when, or how to grieve because there is no familial or other structure.

As I sat and listened to people describe their loved one, particularly as a mom here were some of my thoughts…. Besides being present of course because I was, but it also creates my own thinking. What will people say about me. Will anyone besides primarily my clients (if that’s even a thing) be there to say anything. Now I used to think these things much more bleak and not have answers: today was actually not so bad. Immediately as I hear the good things said I think my kids wouldn’t be able to say that about me, and I want to fall in despair.

Then I bring myself back to how I arrived as a guest at this celebration of a life and the integral part I have, and I try to look at some different things, primarily myself differently. But what sticks is how alien I feel and truly I know hardly anyone that has my situation.

Even children who are given up for adoption have some kind of structure. I slipped between the cracks, and the only way I was even visible is when I was quiet, accommodating, and useful to others. I was loving and engaged and would go to the ends of the earth, and it’s easy to see why I don’t expect reciprocity in this area now, because there wasn’t any. That expectation was never set. (It shall be from now on)

So then the preacher man laments about how 40 some years ago he had also married that couple, and my despair grows deeper. Here are the good and better people, the ones who got it right and come from good families and Christina you don’t belong here. That’s what it feels like. No need to feel sorry for me, no one wants that, it’s just the truth.

I literally burst apart with their pain of separation by death that is spoken of on that day of vows and how much sooner it came than deserved. I was present for them as well, but I am human, so these events bring forth my story as well.

The persons children spoke, and I wondered what mine would say. We all know mom struggled a lot. Is that what it will be? Is that all I am? Struggle? Why do I have such a distorted view of myself. I know why.

This funeral made me think of weddings, my last one in particular. In my living room w my kids and wife only, a fact hidden from her family. We hid in shame. I hid in shame. I’ve been fucking ashamed my whole life.

Today I recognize why there’s never an event where someone has something to say where they know me well, I want to say I never stay long enough, but my god that’s being hard on myself.

I try with my whole heart to do so many things at once so my kids didn’t miss out on anything, and so I had ground under my feet to love from. I tried hard and I tried fast the best and only ways I knew from my life and I got shamed and faulted for it. Where was someone to ask what happened to me?

Where was that person who saw something seemed not quite right and it wasn’t a fault or flaw in me, it was something fundamental I never even had and I’m still trying to live like and with those who did! Where was the one to say I see you, and the wisdom to help me feel secure.

So I became that.

I think of how I didn’t know I deserved to wait for someone to see me and take that time with me and that it does exist. I think of how you promised me a family and how opposite that was and how now when you post videos of blending families and relationship articles it’s so bizarre to me because those people are transparent, genuine, congruent, honest, considerate, brave, etc that’s how that works and why that works. I think of how you try and make it seem like it’s me, and how that doesn’t work anymore.

I wasn’t the one you needed to talk to about cohabitation and outside the box situations so I could accommodate. That was what you were supposed to be doing in the therapy you said was for co parenting. That was your job to do with your ex partner and family to lay that groundwork and communicate with me, and everything would have been on the table, nothing to hide. You post these things that you aren’t living congruent with. I am not the issue, and you know it. Blame isn’t my thing. Growth and forward movement is and we both know I’m perfectly capable.

And how if you had done that work, any of it, you wouldn’t need to try and manipulate me from a blog, it wouldn’t even be a thing. We would already be living it. I think of the emotional black mail, and how that has nothing to do with me. I’m light years beyond that and open and free to have a loving and fully invested relationship when I find someone willing to show up their whole authentic selves and be all in with me.

I think of how I know it exists now even when I’m in dark and lonely moments, which are often as of late.

So this evening I came home and wanted to write, but first I listened to an episode of a podcast and it also made me feel so many things. The link is below. Hearing Glennon and Craig talk to one another makes me wish that I had the wisdom as well as the support to have had this grace with my ex husband and not taking everything so reactively. I mean he had his part, but my biggest threats were tapes I played on repeat, of my own creation.

Glennon and Craig talk about divorce and co-parenting

Sidebar what I found most wonderful of the many things in here was the idea of everyone having a voice whether things were agreed upon or not. Our family therapist brings this to my attention a lot during sessions, very strategically I might add. And I recognize that by fighting against what their dad thinks of me, I shut those voices down, because of my own ego and my triggers and I regret that deeply. I’m working on healing that now. So they feel heard and deeply respected by me, and we can have the relationships we all deserve.

Attending family events has always been bittersweet for me. It’s so validating to hear many clients with difficult trauma histories like mine, share how difficult events like this are. How many feelings it brings up. Today was no exception. But what was remarkably different is that I didn’t want to crawl out of my skin and leave as soon as possible.

I didn’t feel so awkward I could barely breathe, and I didn’t feel I didn’t belong: I knew I did.

I thought about my last marriage a lot this morning and at the event. The last funeral I went to after all was her fathers. A father who refused to acknowledge who I was to her or hardly at all. I never became part of that family in any real way. The closest I ever felt were with an aunt and uncle, and her cousins.

Don’t get me wrong no one did anything wrong. They did the best they could in general, all of them. But I never knew where I stood, and I’m still trying to sort out what might have made that gap bridged differently. But they weren’t my family to know that about. We showed up around one another, but never knew one another that well.

I think what were we thinking getting married so fast. Why? Why didn’t the one w a family think maybe we should get to know my family first. I mean if didn’t decide and create it all myself right ?!

I think of the line in The Little Prince it’s the time that you spent on/with your rose that is special. And that any amount of investment is never wasted, however I am exhausted of starting over. I don’t want to. I never did. But I was always going to need to be in the equation and what I’ve gotten good at over the years is being invisible and accommodating and ok with that.

I’m not ok with that. I’m as worth getting to know, for a willing partner and family to be enthusiastic about, at a realistic pace when the time comes.

But here is what I’ll never be again, anyone’s dirty secret, anyone’s lie, anyone’s anything that needs to be hidden, and I don’t need to make myself into something for that to happen. It was never supposed to be that way.

I am on a journey of not hiding how I feel, think, my wants, needs, emotions, in an attempt to not lose something or to get something. I will not be modifying, disappearing, shrinking to fit, pleasing, hiding, or any other thing.

This is me…. I exist and I’m not going to try and earn my existence or explain it away by my efforts. That is exhausting.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have a wedding again traditional or otherwise. I don’t know whom will be in attendance or what will be said at my funeral,

But I do know from this time forward I will know I am worthy of belonging somewhere and to someone, or perhaps everywhere and to everyone….

And that makes all the difference as to what you accept and what you don’t…..

Onward as Beautiful Liz says….

Onward

Ps my kids have been gone and will be back tomorrow, it’s so strange being in such a silent house. They have my car so I’ve been rocking the silver civic, Louis ha. I haven’t been sleeping much this week, totally unlike me. Oh also I realized during the funeral I have never really mourned the loss of the babies we lost. I did just like I’ve always done and tried to just keep going. I thought about how we honor our losses, and that for her and I we didn’t even honor our union by having family and friends present. I never felt worthy, and that’s a lot to sit with.

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I imagined the call so many times before, your mother is dead. I said, “that happened long ago….”

Bucket list: read all Stephen Kings books in order before he kicks the bucket

I can’t tell you how many times I begin my memoir. A solid beginning paragraph that engages the reader and makes them want more. People always give me feedback they would want to read more. Even if it’s just my circle. And there is not just about my circle, the weary, brave, and beautiful are my people.

So I am going to share what came so easily this morning in my pages. Something I’ve done a thousand times and then never followed through with because I give my time and energy so freely. I am not resentful of this, it’s what separates a man from being a martyr. In fact it’s not only a calling, but also one of the most fulfilling ways to live a life.

I sit here a “normal” woman, with regular responsibilities. This morning I’m awaiting the delivery of a new dishwasher. I must confess I read the fine print last night and it said if you click the haul away option you must have the old appliance out on the curb ready. Yeah I know nothing about that, and considering an average pink Himalayan salt lamp from home goods burst into flames and tried to kill me the other day, I think I’ll pass.

I’ll play dumb, when it comes to being an electrician I don’t have to play. And hopefully they will take pity on a poor single mother and remove the thing for me. Sidebar: I think I’ve been watching too much Schitt’s Creek and channeling my inner Moira. The only kind of pity I’ll take, sympathy for heavy lifting and home improvements I know nothing about, but am slowly learning after being thrown in the deep end alone. Because I will tell you, that I refuse to drown.

Anyway my story begins…

“I imagined it the same way I had a million times before. Getting the call that my mother is dead. These days I don’t even know who it would be from. These days my response I most often hear gurgling up from my depths is …. It’s over. It’s over.

The turmoil I’ve lived with, worrying it was me who is bad or wrong for walking away from loving her, fixing her, comforting her. Soul death by slow poisoning is how I would characterize this disturbance. Yet I am so removed from the memories that would help me piece together the daily battles of my reality.

Which are knowing what I want, need, and who I am. How I feel when I feel. What decisions to make without vacillating in terror. Freezing, fawning, fighting, falling….

When my therapist asks me any of these questions I just go blank. I dissociate when asked anything directly about or for me…

And that’s as far as I got in my pages, but as I write it here I was immediately ready to go further. So that’s a great sign. Another great sign is the consistent purging of what’s unhealthy for and of me this past couple of years. I have been shedding layers of habits, belief systems, memories. With this shedding has been tremendous loss, things I never meant to shed, never intended to, but they went nevertheless.

Some of this shedding has created extreme self doubt conflicts that take all my energy and leave me broken and bleeding for days. I recover. We do recover.

One percent better every day. I had been determined to be perfect all the time. The only way I ever saw to even obtain an ounce of love. Those wires were crossed. And like the new dishwasher that will be installed today (hopefully), my functioning is new. New as we know it is very scary.

I won’t know what buttons do what. And you can bet your ass I’m a trial and error gal, not an instruction manual reader despite my belief in knowledge is power. The best teacher is a lived experience. Try and fail, try and fail. From the delightful Pema, Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better.

I tried to be Pema, Elizabeth, Brene, and on and on…. Friends who seemed to have the magical formula based on their lovely pictures of family and events.

I tried to be everyone but myself and now she’s so buried it’s sometimes hard to breathe.

I’m coming up for air…. Ash, dirt, water… use whatever metaphor for you like because I’m about to breathe from now on, and for forever.

Ok the dishwasher is 10 minutes out. It’s showtime. Damsel in distress here I come… I’m not above it 😉 I’m not above anyone or anything….

Stay tuned ….

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Those not willing to do the work need not apply… don’t distract those of us that are….

The FIRST TIME. This isn’t an issue of compromise or lacking it, when will that be acknowledged. That’s where you would need to begin …. That if you did different this would be different, you’re in the outcome of your choices.

Also the image upload is having an issue and I haven’t the patience to fix it today. Sundays are for relaxing, and rain and grief apparently, at least this one is…..

It’s a rainy Sunday. I am in grief today. Not getting what I want is often a blessing in disguise I realize. It forces me to slow down and know me. I’ll know me good soon.

I can’t practice the piano, every week I want to. I go to my lessons without fail, but for me touching that piano is something I’m passionate about. And lately every time I try to get passionate it gets cut off at the knees. So today I’m passionately angry and passionately exhausted and passionately lonely.

I can’t touch this piano. Once again I was trying to move grief faster than it’s ready to move….. I cannot afford to be immobilized, my life is passing me by too quickly. To be so aware all the time feels like a curse. Peaceful, joyful, and aware, is needed.

I’m angry, furious, wanting to crawl out of my skin. I am going to thoughts of indignation at people not showing up, and then I bring myself back to the wounds I have caused and try to right the sinking ship of reality. I do this so I can grow properly.

I didn’t follow the rules. But whose rules am I following? I am following my path, but along that path I made contracts I couldn’t keep. I didn’t keep. See what I did there. There are no victims. I will never believe myself to be one. I did them for practical reasons in entirely impractical ways. That about sums it up, that line brings me back to a light humorous self, it brings me home.

I keep coming home to what I deserve and who I am, and when it shows up whole I am ready. Nothing else will suffice and I do not need a story to make myself feel better. I am not a coward. I do not need a rigid set of rules to make my feel safe in my life.

My contract and my vows never included being willing to abandon myself to accommodate fear. It never would have and it’s never will.

The clue app popped up serendipitously to make sure I knew I wasn’t entirely losing my mind, or that if I am I’m in my own right to blame these feminine cursed hormones I’ve been blessed with.

I no longer bleed but you can bet your ass I make up for it in tears and the pms symptoms that cause emotional tidal waves are alive and well. Fun.

I want to sit and read but my concentration is shot, only something physical will suffice. I may run until all my anger, longing, unmet need has been thoroughly pounded into the pavement. I want to be like Forest Gump and just keep going.

I am suppressed inside all of the supposed to’s and the shoulds and the things that are not understood and I’m going to explode. Don’t go wasting your emotions, lay all your love on me. Who? Who do I lay my love on? I don’t have that answer, but I do know who not to…. Anyone not fucking showing up for themselves.

What is the common denominator of these lucky ones that have a partner. These ingredients are not magic. They are respect, devotion, choosing, seeing, and above all neither party can abandon themself to be with the other. They must have a developed self, not state they have one, actually have one.

Which means Christina the only thing you can do right now is keep working on yours and breathe. There’s my higher self. I don’t want her wisdom right now. I want to be held. I want raw hot sex. And more importantly than either of those things I want to talk about life, love, and all these feelings to the same person every day of my life consistently.

It does not need to be perfect. In fact imperfect is perfect, but it has to be consistent and devoted and secure for all of the days. I could tell a story that I bailed on that, and believe me I have, but I know me well enough to know that I won’t bail on someone authentically themselves who does their own work and can stand healthily on their own two feet.

I know this with all of my heart. I’ll never buy another bullshit story. Ever!

I keep attracting every manner of emotionally unavailable person, which can only happen if someone themselves is emotionally unavailable. Breaking into emotional availability is not for the faint of heart, and especially if you allow yourself to be wronged by those that came before. The shame inhibits you to see things clearly, yourself clearly.

I’ll take accountability because I desire learning, but I will not take your criticism or judgment of me, when you were there too, and had choices too, that created outcomes.

I will always stay with the correct ingredients and I don’t need to blame anyone. Blame is boring and weak and leads to emptiness.

I keep creating stories to think I have those correct ingredients. I keep going back and forth between pick your favorite train wreck and roll with it, which I want to believe in, make something work.

But only Christina, only with someone as two feet in as you are with their own self awareness, investment in their own happiness. Only then! That’s it. Don’t try and make something else work, or invest, you’ll suffer every fucking time.

Put some skin in the game or get off of my field. I won’t be accepting anything less than 150 percent these days of your own personal determination towards self mastery, peace, and joy. Unhappy people need not apply.

If you’re unhappy I’ll sit with you and have a conversation and wish you the very best, but don’t distract me from my mission w doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I want someone to make magic with and that’s not asking too magic. Magic is coffee in bed and talking about life. Practical magic.

Not too much, and I’ve had enough.

I want China pavilion in solidarity of a fellow griever whose pain knows no bounds today. He is about to learn another before and after lesson, and I’m sure he’s angry too. 💜 a last breath was taken during the night. Heaven gained an angel somewhere between yesterday and today, and her loving army will be in hell for as long as it takes to adjust to her absence. Broken hearts abound.

Can soul pain be fixed with food? Not too much of it, but food that’s cooked with love perhaps…..

I’m not stubborn, well I am, but this is not the issue here. You’re not there and you know it. No more gaslighting….. if you can’t talk about the issues specifically with vulnerability why even do it. ?

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Does Anyone Value Relationships Anymore, or Has that all Been Replaced…?

I’m in a mood this morning. First, I wrote a blog post last night and for the love of God it won’t post. Is something in retrograde? I’ve tried everything and when this has happened before I’ve copied and pasted into a new one, but now with this faqing block editor that would take forever. Have I mentioned that technology and I are not friends?

Can’t anything be easy? No guess not.

I don’t know how the unfairness manages to continue without even contact. Oh yes I do. The Hoover is strong with this one. Something that appears to be so invested, going to therapy consistently, writing, reading. All while not having an iota of consideration for me at any bend in the road, and still clearly not acknowledging the half of that. Fuck that. Talk about something real not bullshit generalizations or mental masturbations to ease yourself. Still an island.

I am reading Dusk Night Dawn by Anne Lamott and this woman is so unapologetically herself I want to stand up and clap at so many of the lines. The self awareness and awareness of her marriage and just all of it. Where do I find these people?!

Where do I find the people who also aren’t addicted to the fucking television, and anything and everything else that has nothing to do with knowing themselves and me. Where ? Do any old souls that could sit and talk for hours about anything and everything actually exist anywhere and why don’t I attract that into my life.

I called off a wedding in 2012 ish because of many things on my end as well, but primarily a lack of engagement from my partner. She had a relationship with her dvr, and ours was secondary. Now she appears to have gone on and have many of the things I wanted. She has a beautiful baby girl, and her family is still loving and supportive and they do fun things together. I miss that family, the embraced the kids and I. It was something that will never be replaced in terms of experiencing security and family, but the partnership by itself did not meet my needs and I am not asking for too much.

For the love of God I’m not asking for too much. The ultimate gaslight. To have consistent safe reliable passionate engagement with another human being that prioritizes our relationship and believes in soul and purpose.

I’ve had enough !

Im cranky this morning, and sad. I’m just happy it’s Sunday because I’m tired for now, and I can read. Oh and appreciate gifts my little fairy elf friend left on my porch. Oh and the lights hanging there.

I get discouraged so easily,, but do I? Do I really ? Or is this more gaslighting. I have hung in through things many could not even imagine enduring during my life. I have endured things people never should for long stretches of time. I am disciplined in not meeting my own needs and not having a voice, and these are taking a lot to undo.

Hopefully before this posts I’ll get last nights blog to post! Grrrr ! Yesterday I had a date with my daughter and it was delightful and one of the best times I’ve had in so long. I speak about it in the post that won’t post.

Where are the other passionate people? The ones willing to be scared but do it anyway….

And the one that will see me and stay and work on themselves.

It’s not too much to ask….

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Recovery is Such a Long Road

Often my enthusiasm was all I had to hold onto, now I sit in all the ways it’s gotten me in trouble….. readjusting always….

I am raw this morning…. I usually am after family therapy. Thank goodness I’m able to catch nuance and notice the most important part is that we are allowed to talk about our pain. This therapy truly has me practicing what I preach.

However if I insert any of my experience into the sessions then it is immediately justifying. That’s difficult to sit with. So I’m going over what’s the difference between justifying and also wanting room for your experience to be considered and seen. I think the difference is follow through with changed behavior. The words in the moment don’t do anything but invalidate the persons experience and I am truly sitting with having to hear hard things and sit in my mistakes as a parent and not squirm out of it, but also ask that I am also seen.

Not an excuse or a justification, but I need to matter in the equation and with parent child relationships “it’s not about you” applies. It never was about me. I began at such a deficit in attention, safety, love…. That I am tired in a way that has me operate in ways to outsource things.

I outsourced love I couldn’t find within myself amidst the survival, and I have to find out how not to shame myself for that as I am watching how it has hurt my kids. It’s also been widely judged by a variety of people. I could not be in three places at once. I made choices. Choices for a career and self development and trying for love as well, so I could not only love them, but also show them how to live.

I have to look at it like now I am strong enough to weather the storm of showing up in a new ways regardless of the built up pain that often comes at me. It’s almost unbearable, but when I realize I’m being allowed the opportunity to build trust one interaction at a time and I am following through, albeit still with mistakes, I gather the strength to go on.

I want desperately to be understood and to have a safe space to relax and rest in, and I’ve had to create that in myself so my children can have it at some point, if I haven’t made them into overly independent (a trauma response of course) by now. A certain amount of self sufficiency is good, abandonment is not.

I felt abandoned my whole life, and as a result my children felt that abandonment through me. It is heart breaking. My only solace is that grace and compassion and understanding will help us all heal. It’s finding that balance of having it for myself while fighting the intense need to protect myself at all costs.

Courage under fire

That line is what I most resonate with right now. And don’t give up on me. Me to me, and me to them. Please don’t give up on me. I never wanted to be selfish in the ways that I was, and a first hand experience has changed my heart.

In short I have hurt enough from hurting others that it drives me to change. What always got lost in all of this however was my SELF. There was none. Only responses and triggers and survival templates.

Now I am growing a self….

Growing a self from scratch, while providing a modicum of something I never had.

It says in the trauma book by Oprah and Dr Bruce Perry, you can’t give what you don’t have, and so I found a way. I always believed where there is a will there is a way. And if there wasn’t a will, if I didn’t cultivate that belief system, I would not be here today to be writing.

For much of my life my will to survive is all I had.

I am struggling and have always with the shoulds imposed on parents while they have very little support and understanding. It’s the trickiest balance you can imagine to validate someone’s experience, and also challenge them in ways that are loving and supportive so change can occur.

This is my work: what I can and will strive for in my counseling office, and I will do so with all my heart. It’s easier in there, many boundaries keep me safe and able to work. Then when it comes to applying to the messiness of real family, without that structure, without a beginning model or template. It’s unimaginable.

But I will keep working at it. Walking the line. I walk the line every day. Of validating my own experience and theirs and also not accepting any story u might tell to feel better emotionally, but then as a result not follow through with changed behavior.

I’m exhausted of having to modify my behavior on top of all the roles I hold, but thankfully I also appreciate the journey and am energized by life itself as well. Light and dark intermingling and never giving up on a story that’s being written and the one that needs to be told.

I’ll never give up….

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Marveling ….

So this morning I’m watching my teenage son pick himself up from some of his personal struggles and a new grief and I am in awe. I made that, but nothing could prepare me for the privilege it is to watch him grow. And if the events of this past couple of years didn’t happen, I might have missed it. That would have been tragic.

He’s so beautiful. Learning to be himself, and so are you Christina. My friends would say that, because they often see me better than I see myself.

I am coming back to life. I am breathing life into this home that felt like a tomb housing all my dead dreams. But nothing died, life just adjusted me back on my path.

A dear one sent me a Jay Shetty podcast where he was interviewing Martha Beck and this quote is what began it, “The variety of an ordinary life is infinite and precious.” Yes yes yes! She talks about what integrity means in the sense that she knows it. Which is when we are aligned with our true nature and purpose and whole versus when we are divided by being what society wants us to be. And the sheer difficulty of this because biologically we are wired for belonging.

For me, never having felt a secure beginning of belonging the only thing my frightened mind could do was focus on that pursuit and then society came along and caused people to judge me, knowing nothing of my origins or my pain.

Recently even a family therapist has contributed to some of this shaming, without realizing it. It has shown me how easy it is to shame/judge another, when what they need to grow is understanding, acceptance, and support.

It is so easy to say what a mom should or shouldn’t be while never even knowing her story. You cannot give what you do not have. And I’ve spent my life making sure I got it so my kids could have me available to them. Ironically that path and financial scarcity created the opposite. I’ve been in a hurry to become someone they needed. I did it without being given it naturally. I’ve been doing the impossible for a very long time. Defying gravity.

This has been challenging my approach as a counselor as well and there’s a shift happening in me. Moving towards the natural ability to nurture and support. One I always felt I was and would forever be without.

It is grief itself that has softened and humbled me into a calmer more loving person. I think of that anxious terrified girl who looked so strong and intimidating clothed in her defense mechanisms. A scared child, and easily irritated adult. I just want to hug her, she is me.

Witnessing how much suffering a human heart and body can endure is truly humbling. And our culture says just keep going. And yes we need to keep going, but at what cost if we leave ourselves behind by not acknowledging our own lived experiences fully.

Acknowledging, knowing, is the sweet spot between blame, shame, and or blindness and numbing. Acknowledging allows us to see what we are working with at full value and adjust accordingly. But for intolerable circumstances we make up stories about what’s happening subconsciously in an effort to feel better, but what that does is make us even more locked inside ourselves.

As I get to know myself I realize how invisible I’ve been to me. I’m often surprised when people say something that reflects they see me, and I see it so differently.

Learning to be Christina….

My relationships with my children are evolving, repairing, it’s slow, but it’s happening all around me. The realization of how much beauty I will get to experience as I get to watch them become. I could not have asked for a better life. I say that as if I did not create every second of it. See invisible.

Lately I’m filled with love…. There isn’t a part of this last time that I regret any more because understanding wipes that away. It’s exhausting to fight your own path, your own self. Especially now that I know my own heart, and have a new understanding of how my early life impacted me. It is not and will never be an excuse. It is reality. I was so so hard on myself.

Something I’ve unwittingly ingrained in my children, and now hopefully as they watch me change that, they can heal also.

I think of that feral self I was, and have so much compassion for her pain.

Martha Beck describes so eloquently the pain one can experience when divided and I was divided from self and any family system and I’ve been rushing to get to a place where I can enjoy my children and be connected to them and me, but that journey never looked like that to the naked eye, because you would need a deep understanding of brain, behavior, biology, and my story.

I am working on that last part now, the claiming and the telling….

Anyway it’s time to shower and counsel humans (my greatest privilege), and then have my own counseling. Just a typical Tuesday. I had so many thoughts as I always do, but lately it’s the quiet of my mind that I marvel…..

💜