Tag: #Growth

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Writing is my Discovery, Deep inside are the Richest Wells of Recovery

Isaw a friend’s post this morning about asking for donations for groups that have supported her due to the loss of her spouse. I have known this woman socially on the surface since we were both young, right before each becoming mothers. We shared in common being military wives and living in military housing near each other.

She and her husband shared four children prior to his passing from a military on the job related accident. The organizations she is asking to be recognized as they have received such amazing support as having her mortgage paid off. And many other things and the name for children who have lost a parent to death in the military is a gold star child.

Now I honor her experience. I’ve thought about them and what they must be going through so deeply. What I want to share is how much it makes me recognize the stigmatization of so many other varieties or grief. If you’re valid and someone can validate the loss socially you get support. If the pain is invisible or deemed inappropriate you get judged and can lack support.

It does depend on your choices. Earlier I wrote cast aside and then I didn’t like the victim voice of that. So I am working the re-frame. I use the Karpman Drama Triangle a lot with this. I just feel hurt that my trauma has been invisible for so much of my life and that it’s often felt I’m solely responsible to fix this and fast, but I suppose the reason it’s such a rush is that I rushed, and I rushed because of trauma mechanisms. It truly is a vicious cycle, and then you’re supposed to make tenderness out of this wild beast.

Realistic expectations are something I’m often talking about lately. So hard when you became trapped in a magical thinking phase and used story to soothe and regulate. Those patterns are laid down deeply. I will forever be a firm believer if you want something bad enough and are committed enough and follow through you can achieve it, but you must be flexible to the parts you cannot control, and adjust accordingly.

Acceptance is a dish served cold at the beginning, and one that warms as you go along.

I’m not sure what to do with this conflict about what is worth of support and by whom just yet. I don’t want to be bitter or judge someone else. I just want the same support someone else gets. It’s hard to be with my feelings on this. The things I’ve tried to do to survive have cast me as less valid and certainly less emotionally stable as others. If I don’t acknowledge the latter of those as true I can’t grow. So it’s a must.

Compassion is such a necessary ingredient of recovery and yet how does someone who has scratched and clawed their way through existence with very little support to cultivate that.?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this today. Perhaps it will become a part of my personal mission / branding that I’m working on. I’m not as far away from it as I thought. It’s still The Emotional Alchemist, even in a therapeutic capacity it fits. Now to take the time and consistent effort to continue to foster this development in myself and stay grounded rather than flying into flight mode in a coping mechanism induced flurry.

To be aware of these things now is such a gift. Better than any I’ll find under the tree. Though Santa Christina was pretty good to me this year. I have a lot of room freed up these days and I intend to keep it that way until a worthy investor arises, and by worthy I mean someone as dedicated to “the right things for the right reasons, and primarily consistent awareness coupled with follow through.” The pace is less important than the impact. What a hard earned lesson.

Currently I’m inspired by my son who had made some choices in the stock market that didn’t have the result he wanted. He was fearful awhile I think about embarking again, his loss equalling his tail between his legs. However it’s not that you make mistakes it’s what you do with them. Having the courage to try again. Here he is building back up from the ground. He doesn’t know how much he inspires me.

Speaking of building back from the ground we are trying a new family therapist. The sessions are grueling (well I’ve only had one with all of us but still). Sitting with and seeing the anger or hurt, lack of trust, and being with those feelings, and not doing anything about it except consistent follow through on self work. I think the most grueling part for me is needing to be still and just hold space, what even is that?! Ugh

Watching people in my office make earnest attempts at working on themselves while not being irresponsible with another’s feelings is also inspiring.

You can find inspiration in anything, and it’s most effective when calibrated and applied consistently to your own life.

I am creating. I am creating with the way I’m living right now, with my choices, and I am so very alone. It’s so quiet. I’ve slept on the couch the past few nights, after watching Maid, and again I continue to go back and understand old stuff through this lens. It’s another wave: my bedroom is so lonely sometimes it’s a tomb that houses so many of my dead dreams.

Then there are waves of time when I’m so in alignment with myself that it’s a home of comfort. It’s still so empty and I realize now I don’t want to rush that process. I can wait until I’m ready to fill it with myself and my love. I’m not there yet.

I have a dream still… and it doesn’t have to die, but it may on its own. This is making me think of the movie Serendipity, a movie that years ago helped me leave a relationship that wasn’t for me. I still love the movie. It’s not so much in my present as my past. I believe in it, but not to the exclusion of it being with someone who would be healthy and fair. And right now that someone needs to be me consistently.

My whole life I’ve gotten overwhelmed by trying to fix everything that happened at once. I tried to rush into making a family, and boy do I have lots of hard lessons. Sometimes as a parent I scarcely know what to do.

I find in times when I don’t know what to do, finding what I do know to lean on is helpful. I do know that I’ll never give up striving to do better. In my life currently that includes deep listening and total and utter presence where I am at in the moment, and that all else will sort itself out.

This is my recovery…. This is hard, and it’s gorgeous 💜

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Food is love, and real love sets us free…..

Food is love. Wednesday night and last night my neighbor and her son fed me such nice dinners and we watched movies together. I felt loved and part of a family. I realized that I can have that without being in a relationship with someone. Go figure.

I had a dream last night I was pregnant and it was lucid I felt all the nuances of pregnancy. This isn’t the first dream like this. In this one my water broke and the cramping begun. I swore I’d wake up and have wet the bed it felt so real, thankfully I did not. I never got to hold or see the baby. When life brings you to your knees …..

I’ve always gone hard at everything I do. There was never an in between. But what I wasn’t able to do was see the good in me, this. Last night I saw it in the portrayal of a character in a movie. We watched Freedom Writers. My neighbor’s son’s recommendation. How have I not seen this movie. It’s akin to Dangerous Minds. I have long lurked and noticed it but never committed.

I teared up often during the movie and the fact I was cuddled by dogs and fed such a nice meal. I saw the scarcity, and I saw the abundance of that moment. As I watched them have a banter you only do from a lifetime of affection. Their affection for one another, each knowing the others quirks and flaws and being able to acknowledge and make light of them.

There was no threat. They relayed a story of being at the other son’s for the holiday and a tense moment at the table and immediately I thought that could have been my table. I have been so tense with fear and anxiety and loss and all the things I never had. So full of fear.

This belonging even for an evening made me feel so warm and loved. An older version of me would have been too preoccupied with only achieving one main goal I desire and then emptied and having to start again. The way I am able to appreciate now is priceless.

Her son made a comment about he was glad he could show me something new. And it struck me as interesting how he sees me from saying that. I suppose as someone who is worldly and has lots of knowledge. I only ever peek out from the frightened child’s gaze. Split. I became split from my authentic self when I needed to perform and protect any tender being inside. I kept her on ice, and now as I forgive myself my transgressions and sit with my dark side, I am thawing. This thawing is the product of years of grief and acknowledgment. If you had any idea.

Last night I was thinking of who I am, at my core, the things I’ve always been. I remember reading the star fish story as a child, and how I wanted to read it to everyone and be brave enough to suggest we use it in a work meeting later in life. I was always bullied, called corny, torn down one way or another and I just instantly internalized more shame. I would always rather take it on than anyone else be hurting.

I had a therapist last October or so tell me I am a warrior. I am no man left behind at any cost. That is me. And with the right tools and a person equally as committed to seeing the unseen and understanding it will be a lasting partnership.

I often minimize my accomplishments and self so much that when I’m backed into a corner I try to spew my worth and I’m acutely aware of how I look in that moment without anyones understanding of my scarcity. I needed my own understanding, not just a harsh iron will and drive, moving at warp speed. To be fair I do have a mission, but I never had me on board so I had to keep going back and getting her.

The star fish story is about a man walking on a beach when the tide is going out, he comes across another man picking up all the stranded star fish and tossing them back into the water. The man says what are you doing, this is happening all over on beaches everywhere, you cannot possibly make a difference.

The man picks up a star fish tosses it back into the water, and says to him “made a difference to that one.”

I think of how never enough I’ve been to myself. How I rarely actually acknowledge what I do and that I’m impacting generations through deep individual healing. A ripple in the water. And that I’m dedicated and what I have sacrificed to stay committed to my own work. All while being my harshest critic and immediately taking those hurt by me opinion straight to my heart and halting my own joy and progress in life.

I thought I needed to do more. What I’ve really needed to do is see what I’m doing and who I am now. I thought of the domestic violence survivors I see in my office that begin with shattered minds and selves, so anxious their eyes dart all over during session and they stare off into the distance because they are too ashamed to be seen. I’ve thought of their transformation as they realize what’s happened to them, and that it isn’t their fault, and that there are explanations and tools to heal and help them in their grief.

I’ve watched people afraid of their own shadow, riddled by anxiety, transform right before my very eyes. I’ve watched them stop relying on their own abusive tactics with themselves and their children and start to claim their own right to exist. I’ve watched the rewire and the rise. I’ve watched the sparkle return to their gaze and them hold themselves confidently. I’ve watched them get careers they feel fulfilled in and treat their bodies and minds with a respect they had never known.

I have warriors in my office and it’s the greatest honor. I don’t need to write a book or post videos or be discovered or seen for what I can do. I know the difference it has made in a life. To be seen and understand for what has happened to them and how it impacts their life now.

I was thinking of my authentic self. My capacity to learn and apply what I have and what a gift that is, to be able to lift myself out of my story and my suffering. To have that ability, not everyone can. I was remembering one of the only handful of memories of my mom speaking about who I am. She always said even as a toddler once I was told no, I never did the thing again.

I sit here and think how interesting that is for the person I am today how stubborn and persistent and I realize that was born out of trauma, not being heard or seen. Before that I was extremely responsive and had such a desire to please my loved ones. And as an adult when I returned to that it ended up being used against me in so many ways.

So then I had to return to the adolescent who shouted to be seen and got into fights…. I became at war with myself. When I watched Freedom fighters I realize that war wasn’t started by me and I cry for that little girl. The battles were unyielding and all the time I spent trying to make sense of what happened to me, without any support, in fact the opposite.

The world telling me I was too serious, just relax. Are you kidding me? That was not the answer.

Later after the movie we all talked about passion, and her son said something about it being my real life story, and I didn’t even share anything really. How did he see me? You mean people can see me? I’m always shocked to this day when someone thinks anything good about me. That’s how painful and deeply ingrained abuse is. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you you’re marvelous, if you’re split from yourself it’s the loneliest existence imaginable.

You run around begging and scrambling for a crumb. These days I’m fed whole meals. I got brought flowers on thanksgiving when I spent the day alone, from my found father. These days I cry over a shared meal and an ounce of warmth, being invited in from the cold.

I could never get warm before, nothing worked, and then I got accused of never enough. It wasn’t enough of the right stuff. I didn’t have enough information about my trauma and my needs and wants. I lived to please and love, just to catch a glow, but I couldn’t rest for even two seconds, or it would go away.

Losing it all and myself along with it, has allowed me to rebuild to my specifications, and while it’s a challenge to even identify what those are, my recovery is delicious even when it’s hard.

I can’t wait to watch this movie with my kids and anyone who will watch it with me. Through their stories being seen they transformed. For me that is something to believe in, and now rather than automatically believe in anyone else above me, I am learning to believe in myself.

I was never asking for too much, ever. For food, and love, and belonging. I wasn’t exploitive, I was adaptive. I shamed myself for the things I did to protect my children until I could figure out how to not repeat.

Always

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I didn’t belong to myself….I could never belong with you.

And all she wanted was for someone to deeply understand why she loves comfort sad movies on repeat and music. Not merely to comment, certainly not to criticize, but to truly grasp and understand how that is soothing to her heart. Before you can learn to self soothe you must be soothed from the outside. I stayed trapped there. D

Desperate with that need. I tried to distract from that pain, with everything. People, food, drink, everything, everything and nothing was sustainable until I could sustain this pain in ways that are healthy. I’m not there yet, but I’m on that path. That gives me hope.

When I met my formerly referred to wife I was watching the movie Me Before You and Under the Tuscan Sun quite often. I still like Me Before You so much. It holds me through the storm. I would get so excited about love, but the truth is I didn’t know very much at all about healthy love, and knowledge from the outside wasn’t enough.

It’s the pain that has broken me into being a better human being. And staying the course of not fixing it with anything outside of me. Is that even within a human capacity? So I’d say I’m being hard on myself and try again and again meeting love from the outside, not having it inside. It feels impossible. I’m possible.

Then there are these people that show up and love me so unconditionally for free, not because I do anything. And that is teaching me about real love. The power of sight. It feels like I lost the best part of me is the song lyric on now. I never even got to see the best part of me through anything other than other peoples eyes. The pain is crippling.

Pathologically lonely.

The glue that held me together has been the moments I felt a sense of belonging. I’ve done this in a variety of ways, primarily loving others, and not myself. In that way I didn’t know anything about true love, and how would I. Trying to figure out how to be true love by feeling truly loving, but it could never sustain….I could not sustain it without equal reciprocity and investment, from self and other. Neither was in alignment.

I am hopeful for my future and for my present.

As an adult I stayed trapped as a child. The good aspects of this was childlike enthusiasm and dreaming, the bad is that I’m prone to childlike behaviors. Yin and Yang, light and dark. I am now beginning to hold space for both.

Recovery feels mostly dark, but there’s so much light to be found in the process.

My therapist said to me the other day about a talk she had heard. The gist is that if you were born blind and learned to rely on many devices to do things that might be normal for someone else, and suddenly were restored to sight, would you not use your new sight from then on. Versus relying on what you were used to. I received the message.

I could only love others and want to be loved by them, what I couldn’t do was love myself. And now I’m beginning to…. It’s the beginning, not the end. For that this Thanksgiving day I’m forever grateful.

It’s a tragedy when your motivation for learning what love, is primarily kicked into high gear from not being loved. when your unspoken vows and contract include meeting the needs that were not met so long ago.

Being the one who speaks the unspoken is an unspeakable burden. Thrust into loneliness again. Over and over, stuck in the spin cycle. Dizzy and anxious in an unforgiving prison.

Feeling like the mind is a prison feels an insurmountable chore. You never know when it’s complete and even if you’re moving in the right direction because your mind is constantly berating you with old messages. It’s telling you you’re blind, when you can see perfectly fine. The ultimate gaslight.

“Freedom is what you do with what’s been done to you.” As excerpted from a recent gift, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship by Beverly Engel. No one ever tells you the ultimate of this is your relationship with yourself. People aren’t even taught to think about this, the most important of all relationships, and by the time this information reaches you most likely your nervous system will be shot to shreds.

Your concentration and spirit so broken it seems irretrievable. I am here to tell you this is another painful lie. Anything that’s lost can be found. But something that’s never been wired in, can that be created. Research suggests mostly no.

Years ago another gift told me I defy gravity and it was true enough and a trusted enough source that I learned to believe it’s possible.

Healing is always possible. It’s hard, but not impossible. This is my personal mission in this lifetime. Heal other, heal thyself.

Not for the faint of heart and I am grateful that of all things I am not that. My skin is worn thin, but I won’t let that stop me. Don’t let your limits hold you back. Push through them because what’s on the other side is quite beautiful. At this point it’s mostly an occasional glimpse, one that I’m never sure is an exhaustion induced apparition.

That’s where faith comes in. This is the one area I’m learning it’s necessary to believe exists from without, and that everything within still always holds a Devine compass that will guide you if you choose not to stay blind.

I’ll stay the course, but I won’t do it blind.

Trust me I need all the help I can get. Most days I can barely breathe. But there is always hope.

Today I am grateful for hope…. And for the privilege of the pain so many share with me that I am able to learn from and the lessons applied are truly transformative.

I am grateful for transformation even when it is one tiny thread at a time. This is going to be one hell of a tapestry. Stay tuned. Stay grounded and grateful, stay loving and courageous.

Stay

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Thread by Thread Cross my Heart…

This is interesting because it’s everything I’ve been trying not to be…. And this reminds me there is magic in it too.

It’s been a morning. Many things have gone unplanned and it has left me some time to lament about how emotional this healing process is.

Today someone I love dearly is putting down his very old dog. She can hardly be called that so we call her doglette. Looked like a man walking a rat on a piece of dental floss lol. I feel for him and the loss for his people. It makes my heart hurt. And that’s a space my heart is used to lately.

I’m sitting here in between an old self and a new and that is when things are seen with the most clarity. My gratitude abides my spirit that is so weary lately. Mostly I spend my time resting. Actual resting not pummeled into an exhaustive pile and then gigantic forced spurts of productivity spurned by the sting that scarcity leaves.

My tattoo itching and healing reminds me of my heart. Is it itchy yet? Are we there yet. I was always so impatient and now I dislike the state of being that way, so that I may know this more mature season of my self.

My neighbor is in pain today and I’m helping with her puppy. I didn’t need to be asked. She isn’t the type to want to, it hurts I can tell (to ask), and I know that all too well. I think of how lonely and hurting I was, last season at this time in my life with a puppy myself and no relief, and what a different human I was then.

I was a human doing and there was no being about it. I was being hard on myself, being filled with agony, being alone and scared. The doing distracts from the being, but that like all the rest is only temporary.

This morning I gave the privilege of taking my daughter to the doctor, helping my neighbor, and seeing clients later. To me living is a privilege and I never was able to see it that way before. So much of my life being in my head has felt a terror filled burden, and I’ve scrambled for a sense of security. It was with me all the time, but we don’t know until the embodiment of lived experience. What a trickster the universe is….

It’s never too late is my mantra as of late. That painful thought has seduced me into so much misery over the years. I always felt behind, not enough, and many other untrue woundings.

My biggest battle right now is with all or nothing. I listened to a Lisa Romano video last night on PTSD on abuse recovery and she said “when you’re having your psychological self chopped up into tiny little pieces by someone who has managed to get into your heart space, this is debilitating.” And I literally burst into tears. Feeling seen. Feeling understood. In the video which I’ll link here she talks about how learning can literally rewire you and how the more powerless we feel at the time of a trauma the more dramatically it affects us. That made so much sense to me. It unlocked a level of forgiveness I have not been able to reach and it opened the flood gates of pain lying on the other side. https://youtu.be/eujm1NARGg8

I’ve been in so much pain. Enough to change my heart and my relationship with myself and others. I’m changing daily. I surrender so much more quickly. Becoming gentle with myself and others. This experience revealed my dark relationship with myself and all of my trauma filled tendencies of operating in the world.

It’s so much to hold space for. 🙁 My nerves are frayed and the acute awareness of my irritability is too much to bare sometimes. This isn’t my natural state, there’s a whole other person inside of here. One that enjoys playing and is creative and has a beautiful imagination.

I just want to be in a safe home with her.

A song is on that keeps repeating I want to love you but I don’t know how…Neptune by Sleeping at Last. Beautiful lyrics. My heart swells, shrinks, expands…. “Thread by thread I come apart, if brokenness is a work of art, surely this must be a masterpiece. I want to tell you but I don’t know how.” This song is unreal.

In the video Lisa talks about how trauma affects our hippocampus and we have a hard time differentiating between the past and now and with context. Trusting our own reality.

Right now I am in a state of acceptance finally. That is truly surrender. Recovery is one step at a time and I need to hold my choices and their outcomes in one hand, and my pain and mistreatment in the other, and to balance it all. Meanwhile keep it simple. Caring for others is a salve. Even if I do have to ask all the time if I’m being co dependent, but it’s not so bad. At least I am aware.

I’m moving from vicious awareness to a gentle protective awareness I will always be able to access, but also not let drive the car of my life. He can be with fear, his twin, in the toddler seats strapped into the back. Love is going to drive now. Fear and awareness can have a sippy cup, a snack, and a nap and then wake up and behave themselves already.

I am making my life a smoother ride for me, and as I do everything else comes into alignment. It’s two steps forward, one back. Breaking and building…..

This is my life right now…..

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A Letter from my 2007 Self Tearing me Open.

It’s time to break the silence. My silence. My stopped up pain. The red ears and head that feels like it will explode from swallowing it all down. Sometimes recovery feels like it will kill me.

I’m seeing a lot of clients right now and I grow as a result, exponentially every single day.

I often can’t capture my many selves or feelings or experiences and that frustrates me. It’s a sneeze that doesn’t come, and it itch I cannot reach. It plagues me really.

The song A Million Dreams is on, from The Greatest Showman. That movie is powerful for me in so many ways. I was that little boy in so many ways, and the older one. Desperate to be seen as good, worth something, enough. All sorts of ideas, but all of that getting away from me, as well as everything I already had.

Whatever that even is because right now I’m just plagued with uncertainty and it’s nearly intolerable. Becoming able to tolerate and to stay with my own experience and develop a self is the necessary component.

Can’t meet my needs outside, uncomfortable in. Anxiety, loss, doubt, scarcity creating a Black Plague that eats possibilities and joy. It’s so painful. Like burning in an eternal hell. Hell is definitely a creation of the mind, a mind trap versus some place you can end up.

The world is on fire…. People are scared and hurting, and no amount of wanting to be a warrior to help can distract me from that being my ultimate deflection of saving myself. I want like heroine to save everyone and everything else, and then need to resist that.

I keep coming across people who tell me so emphatically how good it feels to be around me, they feel they become better around me: what an honor and what a burden. I need a space where I can feel better too, and the consistent message is that needs to be with me.

It’s so hard to say no and not be afraid I’m isolating or depressed or letting someone down or this or that thing. It’s so much work to know myself and it’s so fucking painful in here. Let me out! Can’t I just do what I’m so good at and have that be it? “They learn to be loved for what they do rather than who they are.” Dr. Ramani Don’t you Know Who I Am?!

God it hurts. No wonder we hate change so much. It takes so much less bandwidth to adapt and survive, being mindful to undo this whole process is excruciating and right now there is no relief, because my patterns of that cannot be trusted, and if I cannot trust myself that is an agonizing existence.

So one step at a time we build consistency and security on a new foundation. So many times I lose sight of the architecture and throw my fucking hammer. I want to cry out.

And then there’s that breakthrough moment when I feel like Lady Gaga in A Star is Born where amidst all her self doubt and fear, she discovers herself. Goosebumps. I get a glimpse and then back to the pits of hell for another round of lessons. I’m pretty sure this is what recovery looks and feels like.

I hate it!

Can’t I just go back to not knowing. Life felt better then. But did it? Did it really? If it did I wouldn’t be here now.

We are on to Skylar Grey Everything I need and I got the love vibes.

I’ve been in the bath for hours. Today was a hard one. I got very lost inside myself, in shame spirals and triggers. I had a ptsd episode yesterday driving my daughter and that set off a shame spiral. 🙁 I’m ashamed of my triggers and my coping and so many of my actions. How does anyone actually forgive themselves. I want to lash out, cry, isolate, get into bed, but the world pulls me back out because I am needed.

My coping, but also my co dependence. How do I separate them? I just keep returning to path, truth, and me. But I’m so tired and so lonely some days. Not all, but some I am.

I went to a Coda meeting yesterday. I will be attending regularly and I couldn’t speak. I lost my voice because I was afraid I was going to do it wrong, afraid I’d make others uncomfortable with the breakdown I choked back. In a fucking meeting where that’s supposed to be allowed. I actually sat there and contemplated getting someone else a tissue, and then realized the very act of being there was to get my own tissue and allow my own tears.

Not speaking or expressing emotion made me even more hard on myself. Like a scared wild animal I just wanted to run, but I didn’t. I resolved to do better, strike that, to be kinder to me next meeting and try again to open up. The question staring at me was something about Gods will for me and all I could do was be locked down in my own will is all there is. There is only zuul:p Ugh.! Will I ever feel better consistently? Ever ?! Or rise and falls that are exhausting.

Will it ever be more than circling the drain and getting back up. These episodes of ugly crying break downs. This is such bullshit. Christina you’re just feeling shitty and that’s ok. You’re so much farther than you’re giving yourself credit for. Stop hurting yourself and allowing others to hurt you.

Just stay baby ….. I’m right here. I have your back. We don’t need the story or narrative or shame or anything else to stay removed from emotions because they are no longer not being responded to. You can do this. You’re right here. All the good parts that always were. You’re right here.

We are becoming whole. Just hold on through the pain. ….. just stay.

I forgot to mention I found a letter I wrote to my very first therapist from 2007. At the beginning of my first divorce and school. I broke into so many tears. My heart breaks for that scared lonely girl and is also learning to love her. I’ve been doing this work so long and have never left. That is security. 💜

I’m getting ink this week. I got scared again last time but I’m going to keep going and I’m beginning to fall in love with the process, not worry about the outcome. Trust is such a process for me. It’s slowly coming together. The line work for st X bi plane and the lamppost on a planet. On my upper inner arm.

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I am who I am, and who I am is allowed to change and move and grow….

Can’t make this up…. I was thinking of Dirty Dancing this morning and boundaries. Right this second I can’t even recall the exact thought (because a lot goes on up here), but Hungry Eyes just came on as soon as I opened this post.

So story time? Maybe. First, I put on a shirt this morning. I felt like looking human because I felt like it, and because admittedly I have new clients coming in today. That’s right I’m going to do some couples work and I’m a little nervous about it. So silly considering my confidence in my gift. However the events of the past couple years could explain my lack of confidence in that arena. But I just never forget that’s in my personal life not my professional one. I never was much of a compartmentalizer, in fact I hardly believe in it.

Anyway I put on a shirt that’s kind of feminine thinking that I wanted to look nice in a way I’m used to viewing as nice, and the shirt is nice. How it looks on the hanger and at the store and how it feels on turn out to be different and if that isn’t a metaphor for everything and life itself. See what I did there 😉

I’m not looking to ask someone else if they like it or not I now know if I want to wear it or not and am going to let it go because it’s not me. And it’s a nice shirt. I’d like it to fit or some external validation to help me to like it. But try as I might (and why would I, that is a million dollar question right now), it doesn’t feel right.

Also a top my to do list is to get some bras that don’t make me want to lose my will to live. That feel comfortable but also I feel good about my figure in. What a challenge already anyway. But how I feel in it has become more important than how I look to someone else because I can’t concentrate on anything if I don’t feel right in my own skin and clothing, and if I’m not who I am.

Getting to know me is starting to become enjoyable rather than a burden, exhausting, impossible, etc. I’m starting to enjoy getting to know me and I just smiled ear to ear as I wrote this so I know it’s true. what a relief. Deep sigh.

The blog post that was brewing this morning was other aspects of who I am and how desperately I want someone who knows that to show up and stay, without me having to do anything besides be me and work on me. And I will hold out for that.

Lately I’ve been sharing this as part of client work, helping them understand when their standards raise as their self love does, that it’s normal to be lonely when you aren’t accepting just anything, and how that’s actually a good thing. I tell myself as I tell them. It’s part of the magic.

I am coming to life, living. It’s been so hard to let go of this old self and the people who have been on the journey who began this, but in letting go I am free to live. I experience freedom. I can’t fix or change anyone or anything but me, and I can enjoy rather than being overwhelmed or daunted by that process.

Anxiety was running so much of my life, and I thought I was through with all of it, but really I was just at another opportunity to level up. This is me. Here I am.

Earlier in a session someone was mentioning how we would rather stick with a terrible president for example than venture into the unknown, because it could be worse and it was making me think of some emotional blackmail I’ve witnessed that connects with this. It’s so sad to me, how people won’t let themselves grow and change in the name of fear and anxiety. It’s brutal. And then I bring myself back to letting go of those feelings because it’s not mine. My work is right here.

Hey spaghetti arms this is my dance space and this is yours….oh hey I wrote my way to it. Boundaries. A dance and no one stepping on anyone’s toes or standing on someone’s feet being whisked around the dance floor. No matter how romantic that may seem. One step two step, and how follow through and self trust are the lessons of this season in my life, and how I’ll never compromise that again. There are plenty of mistakes but that particular lesson is laid down.

Lately in therapy I am confronting my damaged programming and my broken attachment system. It’s humbling and gorgeous and I’m the most me I’ve ever been, and I am enchanted by the work and that infects the rest of my life.

I have my voice in tact now rather than waiting for decisions to be made for me.

I watch my fellow co dependent travelers who would romanticize death if it meant they would permit themselves to relax, or who hope for a car accident to prevent them from having to go into work, rather than feeling the ability to choose and handle the outcome of their choices.

It makes me grateful for my healing to be privileged to witness the space they are currently in. I smile because now I know it isn’t a forever sentence, just a stop along the way.

Humbly yours, with my self in tact, learning….

C

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Everything is Possible Every Day…. Another Day….Someday

If there was a tragedy or disaster you probably wouldn’t know what I was feeling by reaction. Similarly if a really good thing happens it takes me a bit to register how I do feel about it. I have to wait and check my feelings for safety, and what is real, and then decide on a reaction. I have to peek out of the foxhole of myself for awhile first. And this process can easily be misunderstood for something else. It’s a difficult aspect of me that I never asked for.

I’m quite aware you’re just supposed to naturally feel what you feel. That safe process that most don’t know as a privilege was never a part of my wiring. And I always feared it meant something was wrong with me until I could get the knowledge and information to share about myself. Until I could believe I could be loved with all of this. I didn’t even see me how could anyone else.

And that’s the last thing on my mind these days I’ve never been more alone in my life, and somehow that’s not killing me. My phone barely dings and it’s never that high inducing looking forward to it being someone special. And for me after all these years there is a peace in this simplification of living. At first it was boring and meant I wasn’t special etc, but every road I went down led to less me, and that wasn’t an option.

So here I am becoming a solid self. Not rigid but solid. There’s a difference. Solid in that say what you mean and mean what you say kind of way.

I am reading Another Day, the second book in the Every Day series. It’s from the girl he is in love withs perspective, and boy it’s impossible to refute that the right books at the right time cross our paths. I won’t get judgy on myself about this being in high school, because really I have rebirthed and am now reparenting the younger parts of me, so we can all amalgamate into one big happy family.

I got Halloween pillow covers that say Dead and Breakfast, the black flame candle co, and a few others. I like them. One piece at a time this house will become a home, not the way I thought it would, but nevertheless.

I have finally snapped into gear with the administrative tasks of my life. I finally requested a rate increase from Cigna, fixed a billing issue with BCBS that has many claims in the ether. It’s ok one big pay day when you have to play hunt and find w your money. It’s like a fun game :p I mean I’ve never liked easy right?

These days I value peace of mind above all else. Peaceful inside usually peaceful outside. With the exception of the never ending battle w my first born over his bedroom. Battle of the wills and struggling to balance relationship that is healthy between us also. All as one person.

I can get better only a little at a time and I need to be ok with that.

Friendships ebb and flow as people navigate their own lives, but they are solid and stable.

I am on the brink of having “adult” relationships with my children. That change is not easy. They are no longer children and not yet adults. They are in between and I am in the meantime. In my meantime things are so quiet that life is expanded to all the delicious simple pleasures, like the home smelling good and feeding loved ones. I have settled down into the value of that without needing to force something that felt unnatural for so long.

Give me a home cooked meal, the chatter of my children and loved ones (at a dull roar of course;)) a cozy set of slippers, blanket, and mug of hot something. A fire crackling perhaps. …. Bliss.

Last year I could not crack a box to decorate or breathe oxygen and my children yelled at me and I heard it as personal. I didn’t hear I miss you. I heard you’re not doing your job well and I saw red.

This year I’m going to enjoy every little moment.

This year I’m imagining what kind of parent I want to be as they age in terms of being involved if they want me to. I imagine what kind of grandma I’ll be, and how consistent and what role I’ll have and I am excited.

I never knew how much I could love being a mom because I never had or stood a chance, and I’ve done the unthinkable and rewritten my stars and their very histories. All of our lives could have looked so different. There were so many forks I could have taken that would have led to less for them.

And I’m just getting started, really just beginning in so many ways.

For now I’m going to read my books, I can make my goal on the Good Reads app, love that thing. I’m 10 behind for the year so I’m thinking the everyday series and then the wrinkle in time series and actually finish it, and then East of Eden and perhaps I’ll finish The Midnight Garden on audiobook on my upcoming vacation.

I’m still vacillating between don’t leave me alone with me that long and sheer and utter bliss thinking how hard I pushed for that alone time even when I was stable and loved. The grass IS greener where you water it. For now there’s plenty of my own lawn to do that with. My writer self needs tending to, to coax her out of her dormancy. Writers are sensitive creatures, creativity flits like a fickle butterfly. It alights where and when it wants to and the energy guides it.

You have to make the conditions, make an environment that is suitable and welcoming to the work. Trying to force it has never worked. You have to listen and adjust, listen and adjust course again and again. If you can listen…. You will hear your knowing. But nothing can ever be forced in the realm of authenticity.

I recognize now I always had to force myself to even be ok… and I got so used to that way of being. It felt impossible for things to be different, but from this side I can assure you it is anything but.

Everything is possible…

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George Michael said You Gotta Have Faith…

My faith wires were crossed with control and terror. Rewiring is not for the faint of heart

It comes together and it falls apart. Life. The self however I don’t think should come together and fall apart so often, that’s supposed to be stable I would imagine.

I’m reading the book Everyday and it’s so staggeringly relatable I’m not sure what to do with it. It’s about a person who wakes up in a different body everyday. The person finds a feeling for a person and begins to break all of their own rules for this feeling. The person (who is genderless, their name is “A”) calls it the enormity, which I interpret to mean something beyond themselves.

A finds understanding of others through their experiencing of someone and describes concepts like depression and also many family dynamics. One day they wake up in the body of Rhiannon the person they love. To me that’s exquisite to imagine. It is unfathomable. And as a person who has always wanted the most full experience possible to get as close as possible that would be a dream.

In fact I think that’s the question I always asked as a child, what is it like to be that person. What’s it like to have a penis as I don’t know that. What’s it like to be adored by parents. What’s it like to be a star athlete. What’s it like to be stunning. What’s it like to be controlled by a wanting that supersedes all else whether that be a chemical substance or a human. What’s it like to be popular.

I don’t have to wonder about things like what’s it like to feel awkward and not belonging. What’s it like to be terrified. What’s it like to feel not only unwanted but also “bad”. What’s it like to be a product of and then bathed in fear.

In the book A ends up in a body that he doesn’t get home in time and so the boy wakes up on the side of the highway in the morning having no idea he got there. A tries to cause the least amount of disruption in the lives of others and has a code of sorts for himself to achieve this. He abandoned this to see his love, and as a result the boy ends up harmed.

Normally A clears his browser history of an email he uses to try and keep some memories of the self inside the bodies. He forgets in haste this time and Nathan writes him that he knows who he is and believes he’s been possessed by the devil. He spreads this all over and believes it so entirely that it consumes him and separates him from others.

To cling to a belief system for the security of whatever is secure about that robs him of so many moments and connecting with others. He’s angry and damaged by something since he can’t make sense of it, he comes up with something.

It’s an interesting part of the plot.

It’s no wonder I always wanted to like books, was attracted to them, even if I could be still enough to hardly ever read one. I’m working on that now and they are portals into human experiences that don’t cause harm. A safe resting place for a weary yet still curious heart. Calm and safe yes still being adventurous.

Why would I want someone else’s adventure. I always wanted to create my own. That was always my story. But I think there needed to be down time in between where I spent time with carving out what I wanted and needed. How does one do that with only a set of survival mechanisms and no stable set of traditions etc. without a system what is a self?

What parts are created and what parts are the enormity, the things beyond us that speak to us and pull us. To answer those calls and why or why not. The big questions that the great philosophers and the lowly authors have always tried to tackle.

A life lived in my own way not on anyone else’s terms has always felt important to me, but the how was a much more difficult aspect. Like a car without fuel. How can one exist in this manner without the fuel that is love, affection, belonging, and that from someone somewhere some form of that is unconditional.

I can’t change or want to change any of my path. But maybe I just need to believe it’s for a reason because that comforts me and there really isn’t any reason at all. That Pink Floyd has it right when he says “all you’ll touch and all you’ll see is all your life will ever be.”

I can’t have all the lives. I’ve almost had them really. But the one I never had is the one that looks the finest in the eyes of society. A long and consistent marriage that is celebrated… and I could go on… but I won’t at this moment, because I always wanted that one person you go through everything with and they are a constant. I made that a dream about love, but it’s fairly obvious that’s supposed to be a parent.

In the absence of certain core things I believe we can spend our life frantically searching or eternally unhappy no matter what, and the only thing that soothes is the story. I’m not willing to manipulate myself to feel better over finding the truth.

But finding my truth was always more important. This excavation process of finding pieces of me, and simultaneously trying to do that through relating because we see ourselves more clearly in relation to others. But that relation also changes us as we go.

The self evolves rapidly I find, or it can if that is the desire. Most people it seems are terrified of evolution, I suppose I’m not separate of that, but my enthusiasm always outweighs my fear. That is a piece of myself that is consistent. Would you look at that.

How do you get excited about being brave when sometimes being brave causes harm. The self versus the system. I’ll always be someone who has to know. Now I’m working at what do I want to know and why and being more responsible with myself first. To and for myself having a loyalty I didn’t have before.

If there’s no loyalty to the self there can be no loyalty to another because there’s no stable ground under the feet. You can circumvent this by religious beliefs and or adopting a set of family values, but what cost to a soul and why?

What I do know is I won’t regret chasing my dream. I know who I am. I know when I’m sorry I mean it and a swift change follows. I know once I know that I’ll enact change. I know my heart.

I didn’t know or trust those things before.

I know pain causes massive transformation if you sit with it and stay….

I am here with me…. Holding me, figuring out what comforts me. When I hear lines in this book about skin on skin and the enormity that exists between two people the tears start to slide immediately: I cannot change this looming winter into a permanent fall and spring, nor can I change the seasons of my existing.

I can only seek meaning from the experiences now that I’m not controlling them with every fiber of my being in one way or another. I’m being in control of myself and accessing my knowing and that’s the still I will stay in and the faith comes in believing I’ll have another season where I can connect this self with another self in a safe, healthy, equitable, and most importantly fulfilling way.

For now friends and love can be found everywhere as I’m willing to look. Rather than trying to change a season with my will surrendering to faith.

💜

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What Kind of Writer and Life will Emerge from All of This….

All the intellectualizing falls away and only I emerge. A singular woman with simple details and a complex set of coping strategies.

Life is simple right now. I sit on my couch and marvel at how on fire my mind was and how on edge all of my senses were a mere year ago today.

Today I watched Bourne Identity, with my son, after clients. I ate comforting fall type food. I stayed comfortable, and I napped hard. Hard deep sleep. I browsed hotels for the girls and I since the air bnb cancelled, annoying, but not life altering. Something better must be out there.

I sift and waft through memories, but no longer do I feel the battles and emotions of life and death. What is this variety of living. This might be my heaven, even in the absence of all I thought I wanted.

Utter groundlessness. Only moments of impact. I am just calm. There is nothing else. When I’m not calm, I’m really not calm. I’m a triggered frantic wild primal animal. Thankfully I am rarely that anymore. Life doesn’t burn as bright either, however it’s settling into something real, something spherical, no jagged edges. Something wholesome and good.

An assassin of the senses who is finally allowed to retire. “It’s over”. What is it? Possibility? Is that dead? No! But all possibilities thats are not healthy and transparent and what you see is what you get. All of that is over.

I’m also reading, because of course I am, a book called Every day. And a part I just read inspired this post. “I have to decide the importance of each and every memory. I only remember a handful of people, and in order to do that, I have to hold tight, because the only repetition available- the only way I am going to see them again – is if I conjure them in my mind. “

“I choose what to remember, and I am choosing Rhiannon. Again and again, I am choosing her, I am conjuring her, because to let go for an instant will allow her to disappear. The same song that we heard in Justin’s car comes on – and if only I could, I’d make a deal with God….”

“I feel the universe is telling me something. And it doesn’t even matter if it’s true or not. What matters is that I feel it, and believe it. The enormity rises within me. The universe nods along to the songs.”

In some ways I feel like I’m office space that I have been hypnotized. I just walk around dazed wondering what to do next. Unable to get extremely stressed about details, and also unable to feel intensely good either.

I look out over the landscape of my life, At everything I’ve conquered, every possible ending beginning and everything in between.

I live in the present now, which means I live in moments rather than in stories. I look around most of the time and can’t even believe the possibilities or that this is my home and I have the means to make any decisions. I forget that when I become instinctively overwhelmed from old programming. When I forget that I have stability and options.

I’m working on refinancing this home: I can do that now. I’m looking at the possibilities more than the devastation and somehow that doesn’t feel real. I must be missing something. This is all mine. I created it and it’s stable. If I need a new refrigerator I can pay for it in full. I don’t need to take out a line of credit and wonder how I’ll pay the bill.

I must be missing something. I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it probably will, it just won’t be what I think. It won’t be what’s on the radar and that’s scary.

Deep breath, and one at a time.

What unforeseen thing will happen that is unimaginable. It isn’t possible that fairy tales exist, only moments, and I’ve already had so many. Could things actually get good beyond my wildest dreams, as I do.

If you had seen what I came from. I never imagined I’d have all these adult choices to make, or that I’d even live this long. Now my overwhelm is from abundance and not scarcity.

Now I can what if over all the choices and no one to bounce it off of. Why is it so impossible to believe I’ll do a great job, beyond great even.

I’m getting sleepy now. I didn’t expect that because I napped. I’m so tired lately. I do need to move my body and get some energy, that’s highly out of whack right now, but I will.

I have this beautiful home, these beautiful children, and this whole world, and life says that could change at any time. I can’t be too fragile for difficult circumstances, however I can also still believe in dreams.

I think of the things people regret, and I’m listening to that in the Midnight Library, and of course it’s having me take inventory. I realize in my life there’s very little to regret. I was so lost in all of that. I’ve made mistakes, I have issues yes, but nothing so much worse than anyone else.

In my 40 years I’ve become a mother, on that first day, those first days, and every day after. I didn’t wait for perfect conditions. And for better or for worse I’ve left a legacy. I’d like to think better. I’ve gone after a meaningful career and found my way to something I love doing, and it’s in no way over. I can still do so much with it. And love I’ve worked as hard as any human ever has to crack that code, with all my attachment wounds.

I’ve done therapy. I’ve lived in many different states. I’ve met people. I’ve taken risks. I’ve tried and failed at many things, and succeeded as well. If I were to get that phone call tomorrow, no portion of my live is unlived. Nothing has stopped me:

The rest of this is literally just getting to choose what I want and having that choice and being capable to make it for the right reasons and in the right ways.

Everyone is all strapped in tightly together and come what may….

Come what may.

There isn’t a single stone of my soul unturned. I am not afraid. I have comforts. I am not dying any longer burning alive in fear alone in this over sized bed. I can go to bed at night and be comfortable. Don’t get my wrong it’s not my preference, but I also don’t need to abandon any parts of my soul to go after what I want.

Empowering.

I went back and got all my childhood pieces and United them, and I don’t need anyone to understand this journey, because the right people already do.

Watch me live now…. My life is beautiful. I burn off insecurity by the second. There is nothing left to fear but fear itself, which sucks the joy out of life.

💜

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Committed to Creating the Story, not Believing Everything my Mind can Come up With.

Don’t believe everything you think.

Emerging…. Becoming….. belonging …..

I saw my energy healer Julie in her new home yesterday. The drive was nice other than the nausea that has been plaguing me. My crohns is not wonderful right now. In October we shall get an inside look on that. My favorite. Colonoscopy number six. Is that like mambo number five? Honestly I’m so much more surrendered to navigating this disease and able to honor my path with it.

I loved the old healing space so it was pleasant to not even notice, now that I’m thinking about it, the difference, because it truly is about the person and the work. I’m less about the space although it’s nice to make it homey. The work happens through the person.

I am reflecting on my first energy healing and how rabid and wild running my mind was. I could barely sit still and when my body was, my mind was racing. A mine field of disaster ridden and frantically paced thinking. Brain in overdrive. I am so very grateful to be healing and have it be so different now.

It’s nice to find myself ahead of my own game. I had shared with her some older wounds I had really already worked through, but I was afraid as always I hadn’t. It was so lovely for that to be reflected in the table work. Holy shit I can relax now and I can receive. I went to be loved and nurtured and I could not ask for more support. We find our tribe. Whether or not we start out with them, we can find them. It takes a courageous and pure heart though. At least in my experience.

The most important thing Julie said to me was that I am committed. How do I not see this about myself, just as my piano teacher said I was consistent (until I wasn’t). I haven’t been able to touch the piano, I was so lost in the darkness. But I’m ready soon to keep going with that.

I am thinking now of the past four years in the bath recovering my self from the depths. How that’s what it took to access me, that much quiet, warmth, security, etc. 4-5 years in the tub rebirthing myself. My baths are much less frequent because they are now a joy, then they were a necessity. Should I not be lost in the depths of my own suffering.

Over the past year my therapist reminds me that I’m all in…. Dedicated to my work and clients. When I’m afraid all the time I’m doing something wrong or I’ll do something bad. No, bad things happened to me repeatedly most of my life, and I’ve taken those and used them to become my most authentic self.

The tragedy truly was never seeing the reflection of what this life has created. Which is a loving human being who is always spreading knowledge and love. Generous with knowledge and love. I could never see myself at all really, let alone well, and in that dark and triggered space is where true hell exists.

It isn’t the battle of good and evil outside of us that needs contending with, it’s the inside one. What we will believe about our character and capabilities, the reason for things, and the security of our gifts within the world.

Heaven or hell truly is a state of mind, not a state of being. This however is no easy task to reconcile with. But how how the lost will ask. I am the lost too, so I know.

Heaven for me is a moment when I connect with my children, a moment when I see the beauty in these things and in myself. Heaven is the food that has been made with love, and or shared with loved ones.

Hell is being exiled from the beauty of oneself, by a shattered perception, a lost identity or sense of meaning. Hell is judgment, fear, misunderstanding, hate…. Hell is a separation from our divinity. Divine purpose.

I am the fallen and the risen. I am me and I am you. We are all one.

Heaven is a pot of warm soup, the house smelling nice. Making someone’s cold feel warm again. Heaven is being held by someone who loves you, and being held can be so many things. Being listened to, understood, shown up for, loved consistently with great care. And even to be fought with, if both parties are fighting to understand the other and fairly.

Heaven is watching my kids learn the world in a way that isn’t filled with terror. Belinda Carlisle has it right 😉 oooo heaven is a place on earth.

Heaven is the trees in my backyard in bloom, it is my cozy office where people show me the parts of them that are hurting, and also share their successes as well.

I have created heaven on earth in the form of my life. I’m fortunate enough to have crawled my way out of hell enough times to be able to appreciate it, and that makes all the difference.

I know I will not occupy this space for long. The wide open expanse of this peacefulness. Not because I can’t, but because my mission is learning. I enjoy it. Now don’t get me wrong suffering does not need to be inherent in that process, however realistic expectations are important. That natural ebb and flows of the tides of a life where the emotions are in tact and have not been abandoned.

I’m excited to see what work is able to open up in me as a result of my commitment. My studying and perseverance, and even more excited to tackle the rest of this living securely attached to my true self.

I am so far from the deep pathological loneliness that has plagued me most of my life. I desperately wanted to cling to my suffering story to validate my existence. What I learn from Julie is I don’t need to validate something in that way.

I am already divine.

I vow to commit to joy in my life rather than suffering and I understand the undertaking that this is.

Watch me work 😉