Tag: #lightwriter

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Love is an open door

Hurt people hurt people.

I see the very realness of this every single day in my office, in my own life, in the life of my friends.

It’s what we decide to do with that pain that makes the difference. Yes you can decide to do something with your pain. You don’t choose that it’s yours, but you do get to decide what you will do with it.

Yesterday a dear friend reached out to me about a wound that she was experiencing as a result of her mother not being able to fully understand how to love her, or what she needed. She shared that pain with me.

Last night another dear friend wrote me a string of texts about how her mother did not see her progress she has made with her sobriety and with going to school to change her life around.

In my office so many people sit with me, and show me their wounds. It’s intimate and scary. They reveal themselves to me. I am in awe that they trust me so much with their heart.

It doesn’t matter the why’s of it all. It’s just so beautiful all the time. If their wounds can be beautiful and I can learn and be privileged by them, then so can mine. This is what heals me into a whole person. The courage of others to let me hold their pain with them, and they hold my pain too.

I know they can see it and feel it because they chose me to share their open hearts with.

The courageous are not the ones who have all the answers figured out. The courageous are those who go looking for it, knowing all the while they could experience disappointment again and again. They look anyway. These are my tribe.

Yesterday my wife took her progesterone and oil injection, no thanks to me. I chickened out. My anxious mind wonders what vital organ that giant needle could hit, and feels threat at the possibility of her imminent loss. This is what a combination of PTSD and anxiety can do to you. If you believe anything is possible then you aren’t limited by the mere medical knowledge that there is not a vital organ in your hip. Every part of her is vital to my existence. What if I did something wrong? What if she wasn’t ok? Oh anxiety. Sigh.

I wasn’t anxious before. What is this? I wasn’t human before either. I was a feral terrified wisp who fashioned herself as best she could. I was devoid of real human emotion that would have been poured into me by the wanting of my sheer existence. My existence was not wanted, so I didn’t know what to do with myself either. A person with this sort of beginning will always wonder why the wanted people are interested in her. It feels like a different breed.

But what I realized this evening is it is only our own story that keeps us from being loved as well as we could. The universe provides us with multiple sources to help our gifts come forth from us.

Spoiler alert. It isn’t always our parents and family.

Did you hear that? Sometimes it’s a teacher, a friend, a neighbor, a pet even.

It’s 3 am. I woke up like a shot at 3 am with all of this beauty and realization in my heart. 3 am actually seems to be my prime writing time, when without pretenses or agonizing self-criticism I can just pour my heart onto the page. Adult me knows that this 3 am bullshit will bite me in the ass later, in the form of nausea, dizziness, crushing wall of tired at exactly the wrong time.

But right now childlike me can allow herself to get up and participate in magic making. It’s never as good on the page as I experience it inside of me. That’s a real challenge I want everyone to see what I do, as I do, and right now. I want to be seen like we all do. But then I remember again all of you who share your heart with me. All those who seek my warmth and my counsel, and I know I am seen.

Lately I am seen so well it is staggering. I am regularly in disbelief about this. I was having a few moments like this about it over the past few weeks, and was sharing with a new friend these thoughts vulnerably. They asked me if it was perhaps my sense of worthiness preventing the reception of this. I said that it wasn’t. But as I sit here with all of these people’s shared hearts laid on in front of me I think I must change my answer. It all comes down to worthiness.

I am in shock that someone could come along and see me as safe, beautiful, someone they want to get to know more, someone to look to to learn from. I realize I don’t have a template for that inside myself. And that helps me realize that is what good love does for us. It gives us a template to go off of in learning to love ourselves. Which just makes life so much easier.

When I just said that I got really worried about my son. He is at that very delicate period of finding himself. His first year of college. I’m so afraid that perhaps from not yet having this template he doesn’t have it either and will suffer unnecessarily. I hope the love of others while I was chaotic and frantically searching, and as much love as I had was enough so that he knows he is special, and worthy, and he has permission to find out who he really is without torturing himself with the pressures of society, student loans, and all the negative possible outcomes of an existence.

Bumpy roads still can lead to fantastic destinations. Don’t worry my little love. Worry never did a damn thing, but limit my imagination and possibilities. Yes

While I was responding at 3 am to my friend who is hurting I found a message in my inbox that another friend of mine is getting ready to make her next step towards a dream of hers. She shared her beauty with me too.

Life is a giant canvas mixed with brush strokes of beautiful agonies. It is art in motion. It never ceases to challenge and amaze me. The pain of some of my friends right now, their loss, it sits heavily in my arms. So many people that I love are feeling so many big things right now.

And I am too. I am right in between the possibility of a dream and crushing disappointment right now. I’m standing here and all I can do is love as hard as I possibly can. And I can accept the gifts the universe offers me.

Dear new friend, I accept you seeing me and being interested in investing. You are here at exactly the right time. Thank you for seeing me.

And to all of the people who trust me with their valuable feelings, thank you. You are a gift, and your faith in me renews my faith in myself. It has opened up my heart.

My heart is an open door…

This is a big time for all of us. There is a crib in our room. There are baby things waiting. They have been waiting a long time. Fuzzy sloth blankets, cute little onesies, books on cooking for baby. They are in boxes in bags, packed away. There’s a photo of our embryo we transferred on November 8, 2018. Little pieces of our hearts also are packed away with those things. We begin foster classes tonight at 6 pm. The first step in a lifelong dream.

This love is bursting and flowing over. We must do something, many things, worthwhile with that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Disconnectedly Yours….

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

What do you think that means ?!

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

The human spirit amazes me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Musings from my 20k Client Day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Client work makes me feel alive.

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

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

It is an honor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Warmly, Universally, Cosmically,

your companion on this journey we call living…

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We all float down here….

I’m feeling the need to write, as in it’s a must. But I’m back in that mode where I’m getting tripped up by what to write about and how to organize it instead of just doing it. So here I am just doing it.

Another freeze and another thaw.

Here we are a year later on the brink of fall gearing up to “put our hearts out to be shot at” (for those whole don’t know that’s a JRR Tolkien reference). We are going to transfer an embryo as soon as all our ducks are in a row, or even in the vicinity of a row. Realistic expectations are important.

So many things in my world have shifted on the inside and the outside. For a little while there I thought I (it, they, etc) was lost. I felt so anxious and disrupted, but I realized that was an emotional flashback. Feelings from another time, another self.

The universe whispering gently, “it’s only change Christina, just change, you’re always safe and loved, you’re on the right path, your path.” You’re not on the edge of a cliff, as a dear therapist said to me recently. And she was right. Solid ground. Stability. The unthinkable. Unicorns and magic.

Our firstborn just turned 18 years old. He is at college out in the world navigating his own ship, and doing all while having a safe harbor. Our girls are thriving despite all the pain of leaving all they knew behind as well. Finally my feelings are not so consuming that I have enough to see them simultaneously. They are not falling through the cracks as they so often were in danger of.

I’m seeing and choosing being a mother over every other kind of existence and emotion, and I love it. How dare this not just be natural and a guarantee right ? When everyone gets so excited about a new life. But I have learned it’s not. Like any kind of love you have to work at that shit. To be less selfish, to see deeper with an understanding heart. To see beneath. To break open, no matter how terrifying.

We watched the movie IT the other night. The only way I will watch a horror movie anymore is if there’s a beautiful underneath, and with Stephen King there always is. And I caught myself wondering if I could be that brave. One of the major themes is these kids promised when they were young to go back to the thing they fear the most and protect others. And in the movie you see their struggle. One of the members even takes his own life prior because he knows himself well enough to know he doesn’t have that in him, and all of them must be there. That’s how scary.

When I imagine if I could face the scary monster I always think no way I would choose to stay safe. As I cringe in fear and am shaking. And yet this is ridiculous because I have been facing my own monsters and others my whole life without backing down. And I am finally appreciating myself for this.

Owning and feeling when people notice my brave. I believe it now and it’s enhancing who I am as a parent and how much love I can offer the world. My smaller world, and the larger world. I have love to give and damnit I intend to bring it. I’ve spent so much of it so afraid I wasn’t truly loved.

And here I am…. truly loved. And even better …. a truly loving person who doesn’t ever have to doubt that again. I refuse to ever doubt that again. That’s a promise to myself. She deserves it.

That’s the surprising part. When you are always ahead of yourself and your feelings catch up later sometimes (always) it can be hard to trust yourself. But trust is exactly what I am finding. I would venture to say faith even. Faith I am where I want to be, need to be, am supposed to be. I feel connected, as much as someone whose journey has included what mine has can.

More connected than I ever thought I could be. I live on earth now with the other humans. Not nearly as much in my head, where at one time it was so dark and scary that I understood Stephen King on a more intimate level than most. How his mind could travel to such horrific scenarios and yet beneath is such a deep understanding of humanity and a man who wanted to bring to light, in his own way, the struggles we all endure. The bullying, the tragedies, the terrible. How he must have suffered throughout to have such an understanding. I wonder if he would trade it? I doubt it….

The beautiful moments between the scary stuff. Our connections, our humanity.

So we are embarking on an adventure that includes being the parent I never had, and the one I always knew I could be. And in my process I’ve found the love of my life to do this with, and my tribe is forming. The like minded who wants to support and be supported. To contribute to this cause and they have found belief in it as well.

We are becoming registered to do foster care, and have a baby of our own. And whatever presents itself first as it’s meant to be we will welcome with open arms. Babies, career shifts, adventures, hand in hand… up we go….

It always seems so scary not knowing what’s going to happen next, but I have a feeling this next chapter is going to include more trust that whatever it is, even with the scary parts, it’s going to be novel worthy.

It always has been and always will be…

ready set go…. write…. create…. love….

repeat….

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A human wedding

I think what is preventing my regular writing currently is being in awe. Yes that word hits the nail I believe. Often, just to make really sure, I’ll look up a definition to see if it fully captures what I’m trying to convey. So let’s do that.

Awe: A feeling of reverential respect filled with fear or wonder.

Yep, nailed it.

Not only have I found, but I am also creating my forever family. In so many ways it’s off the beaten path that I can’t even register or recognize how special, and often my mind tries to tell me it’s inferior to something else, and it will all come crashing to a halt. Like a huge “just kidding” moment. Back to what you know was always your lot.

And when I stand outside and look at how hard it is for me to feel this good and great life is real, I now have compassion for myself. It really was that bad. I didn’t make it up. I really do have C-PTSD, it isn’t me being dramatic. I shake with fear at times, and yet I keep going.

Now I badly want to figure out how to put into words how I achieved these transformations. So others can know this level of healing is possible. So others can know the way they express emotions and the timing of them isn’t something wrong with them, it came out of deep surviving. Living in emotional wastelands barren and devoid of their most essential needs.

And not having a narrative or understanding about this makes it all that more confusing.

Last night we witnessed my wife’s brother’s wedding. It was exquisite. I’m almost human during those events now. I still feel eerily somewhere else inside and hoping no one will notice. The place I go is to wondering if I belong among the people who belong. And my beautiful wife sees me and never calls me out, she just invites me back to earth with her warmth and smile. I am able to ground and my thoughts don’t need to go to the foreign nature and the sadness that I’ll never have a father daughter dance, or a mother daughter anything.

I do sit at events like this and wonder what it might have been like if I had parents, even a parent. If I didn’t grow up in an emotional war zone. Someone who loves you so much they are moved to tears watching you take this momentous step in your life. So many of my tears are still frozen. I wait carefully to decide how to feel, which is something prior to this point I faulted myself for. Awareness can also be a sword.

I think of a time I felt so much that I cried like that. When I got hugged by my hero, Elizabeth Gilbert. When she read a few words I wrote. I dream of her reading my story and seeing me, and yet she already has.

Another time I cried that way is when I married my wife. When she cries I cry, and I never could do that very well before. I felt it, but it all stayed choked up inside. What I realize now is I have to be safe enough to feel anything. And no one should ever have to be emotionally harmed to that degree. Ever.

But since life can be rough and hurt people can hurt people the second best thing is that we can heal. This is where my passion lies. I will sit with you while you uncover your truths, while you hurt, and while you heal. It heals me too.

The fact I am strong and capable on the outside and can be so put together and yet I carry an immense lack of safety every single day that I was wired with. I can do all the work in the world and yet my mind will still travel to terrible scenarios so I can keep myself safe.

Safety isn’t a logical process it’s actually an emotional one. It can seem like you would be safe, but inside can tell you you aren’t. And that battle is exhausting. To try and live like the humans do.

Where do I belong at a human wedding and at all the other special human events. Will I be able to dance with my children at their weddings with a feeling of belonging and safety? Or will I be somewhere else in my head. In my own painful past.

I fight for presence and I am thawing and I am healing. So I can feel every ounce of life in real time. And most of all so my kids can feel how I love them. At the deepest part of my wounding I could never feel the presence of a parent. There it is. And so my deepest darkest fear (that’s actually a very real one) is that they won’t feel mine. And I know how often they don’t. I am almost always some place else.

But what I have found now and what I want them to know is that I’m finding my way back to them. I’m doing the undoable. Breaking my very wiring. I am forgiving myself for what I can’t control and what came before me. And that breaks my heart open enough to learn connection. But it’s raw and shaking and takes all the energy I have each time. Then I must rest.

I burn myself up and out and then rest in this battle for presence. It isn’t logical it is emotional. And if you’ve been in a war zone as long as I have you would understand. And if you read my book someday you’ll understand too.

I just have to get safe enough, and I have to prioritize my family connections with the humans and that takes all of my energy and then some, because I wasn’t wired this way.

I’m just standing here most of the time in awe this is my life. And this awe is still and quiet. It doesn’t spill over with all the emotion that churns inside, because I still need to make sure I’m safe before an emotion comes naturally to the surface. And it should never have needed to be this way. A child should be loved and protected and ENJOYED!

And I intend to enjoy mine and the safety I create for other children, bringing my own healing full circle. So stay tuned as we get registered to foster care, Courtney goes to school, and we breathe some life into our many dreams, and as I play with the humans.

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The Elusive Consistency of a Creative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dear John ….. a birth and death… full circle at the Grand Canyon.

Wow so because I am going to post this letter I went back and revisited it. First of all this letter was written February 22nd 2016. It feels like lifetimes ago this happened. We reconnected on June 12, 2010, had a relationship via e-mail, never saw one another in person, until around January of 2014, and around that time I was at the height of discomfort with my disease and seeking understanding and lashing out at the things I couldn’t make sense of. It was around this time he cited that I was exhibiting frightening mental states on a public platform, and reminding him of my mother. And that was it for us. I didn’t have it in me anymore to be abandoned again. I chose not to abandon myself and my needs in the name of reducing anyone else’s discomfort.

I lost a relationship that I had always dreamt of with a father, I called off a wedding to a person who was the safest place I had, her and her family. I risked harming my children, and miles and miles of criticism from others. I was more alone than I have ever been in my life.

One of the things I didn’t realize until re-reading this today is that it was something in the book Big Magic, by Elizabeth Gilbert that helped me write my way to my own closure. This morning as I am reading some of the things that felt so amazing to hear from him, and then some of the things I wrote, and some as we fought, it tears the wound right open.

John Rexford Wilson (my father) died on December 28th at 11 am. He died from tuberculosis at 70 years old. He did not believe in the healthcare system. My brother stated they would be scattering his ashes at the Grand Canyon, and that he would keep me updated. He didn’t. I was not included. Once again the illegitimate. But in the end I chose to let go of him or my ideas about him, and any relationship we did form, because it was the healthiest thing for me.

My mind is trying to tell me now as I read the few nice things he said to me (the things I would try and gather the crumbs of to make something whole that didn’t exist), that maybe if I wasn’t so difficult I could have maintained a relationship with him until he died. We could have left on good terms. Time and time again I see people as this their biggest fear when it comes to not abandoning themselves. But what if we have a negative interaction and then the person dies. Well that is exactly what happened here. But only if you focus on the time we were in contact. What about when we weren’t? Wasn’t that his responsibility? Wasn’t he the parent? He just spoke so pragmatically about it all, about how men are and in those days. Like no big deal. Like it wasn’t a big deal to me. He didn’t allow any space for my feelings, and this is why I’ve dedicated my life to trying to allow space for people’s feelings, and to have enough room by doing my own work to be able to do this. It has taken lifetimes of healing.

It is so interesting that all of this comes up for me at the Grand Canyon. I never even thought of this. It all just came together right now. And about how I just met Elizabeth Gilbert and thanked her and why I cried so hard when I did.

Here I am at the Grand Canyon, where my father’s ashes are possibly spread, and feeling all of these things, that I didn’t know where they were coming from.

Here it is, full circle.

Dear John,

 

I was reading the end of Elizabeth Gilbert’s book “Big Magic” this evening. The section on Trust. Where she speaks of the difference between martyrdom and the trickster and how to find “lightness” in the pursuit of your passion versus a commitment to “being the tortured artist”. I for very many years had been committed to my suffering. It is the only way I knew how to be until I didn’t. I have contemplated greatly over the subject of “too much introspection” and your words on the matter, and your feelings. I have gleaned a lot from that in terms of finding balance in my own life. I wanted to thank you for that. I even use it with my clients in private practice. It is true you can overthink. However I happen to appreciate the way that I think things through and it has served me in my pursuits. 

 Today I completed the first day (my orientation) at Wheeler clinic. I was recently hired as a senior clinician, heading a team of people in efforts to ease the transition of foster children who have struggled exceptionally into their new homes with their families. This is my first “big girl” job with a real salary and benefits and all of that good stuff. At 35 this is my first time knowing what it feels like to not struggle financially and to feel secure. In addition to this over the past couple of years I have done some amazing self work in leaving old wounds behind and finding a “lightness of being”, one that I never even imagined could exist. I feel as if I will finally write the way that I have always known is in me, I just have never trusted myself enough. Trust has not come easily for me. One of the most glorious parts of getting to talk to you was recognizing the writer in me that I believe came from you. I believe I have lots of parts genetically that came from you, and I am grateful for them. 

 In addition to the new position I have my own private practice that is thriving and for being a clinician fresh out of school I have a lot of people referring to me, and the consistent feedback is that I am helping people move further in their journey toward growth than they previously have been able to do. It is rewarding and I never would have gotten to this space without the entire process of self-doubt, fear, and a  degree of introspection (not to be confused with rumination). Without that whole journey I would not be at the space I am in now. I was thinking about this tonight, and my heart got heavy. It got heavy because you’re missing out on all of it. This is not even the most important part of the greatness that I have created in my life. My children. I have 3 intelligent and phenomenal human beings that I helped create and they are beyond wonderful. Everyone feels their children are wonderful, as well they should, but these kids are so special. They bring so much to the world with their kind hearts and very bright minds, and that is just barely scratching the surface on them, and again you’re missing out on it. Then I thought to myself this is probably mostly a projection and not a reality because its all subjective to each person’s own human experience and I doubt that you feel or realize that you are missing out. Not because you don’t have the capacity, you most certainly do, but more because of your commitment to the choice you have made and as you told me at the time you were not interested in rehashing any of the past but only to move forward. I desperately thought I could be willing to take any amount of being allowed to know you no matter what the cost to me. But the process by which all of my feelings existed is natural, wondering about a great many things that I never understood is natural. It is not only natural but also warranted without it causing shame to me or that my process is invalid. 

 Of course I hurt. Of course I wondered why we were not in touch, or how you didn’t wonder about me and how I was doing. Of course I wondered if it was that necessary to never have contact with my mother again, to pay the ultimate price of not also being able to know me. Especially since those things never needed to be connected, they could always have been independent of one another, thought maybe that at one point felt impossible, or maybe that never mattered anyway and it really is more of just a choice of yours. Of course I wonder all of these things without it being shameful or wrong. 

 I could sit and tell you all the wonderful realizations I have had and sell you this idea of everything you are missing out on, but ultimately that process is about me and nothing to do with you and how you feel. The fact remains that I would try to be impressive to you in some ridiculous effort to feel loved. It’s what I’ve done with everyone I have ever come across to try and earn their affection with my merits and my effort. An exhausting pursuit to be sure, and also that has nothing to do with real love. Real love allows space for all of the parts of someone to come fully into their being in whatever process is needed. That is the kind of love I needed to find to become comfortable in my own skin. I had to stop searching for it from a million different resources that looked like a well in the middle of a desert, only to be dry at the bottom when I lowered the bucket. Ive been doing that process my whole life when all the while just over the next hill was an entire ocean. I am sailing right now and smiling and my heart is still heavy that you’ll never be on this boat with me. For whatever reason that is. I won’t tell myself its because I was too sensitive or I was out of line by expressing pain in any way shape and form. I won’t deny myself those feelings they are mine, and they are valid. But what I do take back is any amount of making you wrong or hanging onto any anger. I release myself from that prison. I don’t need to understand. I wanted to see or know or be a part of your process or feelings or anything with you. A romantic notion to be sure that is again more about me and my heart and the way that I work, than it is about anything I have missed out on. I am not missing anything and I do not need anything. I want to share my thoughts and my mind because it is the truth of my feelings and for no other reason than that. 

 As with most things in my life I moved very quickly through being terrified having Crohn’s Disease would turn me into my mother, or that it would ruin the rest of my life. At the time it felt like a death sentence, at the time I felt afraid and alone. I see that person now and only have compassion for her, a compassion that it appeared at the time you were not able to find. I would like to say i would just move forward and embrace your pragmatic probably well-meaning advice and renounce taking what happened so personally, but again that would deny myself the natural process I was having, and it would allow me to accept a relationship that was also unhealthy, one that was based on the convenience of you experiencing an aspect of me without knowing much about the real story, like reading only a chapter in a book and making a decision about it’s value. In real love we don’t get to weed out the undesirable aspects or parts of the story and keep the ones only that we want. If you need to chalk me up to emotionally unstable by association of your experience with my mother, if that is the process which you need who am I to stop you. 

 Amidst the wreckage of all of the old versions of me and many dysfunctional relationships has emerged a person who is powerfully influential to the world. A person who refuses not to feel every inch of everything even when it burns. I am a writer and I choose to only be grateful for getting some of that from you, but the credit for getting to the place where it can begin to come to life is all mine, and at least I get to know that. I get to know that. I will always wonder about a great many things with regard to you, but everything that truly matters is within me and I am ecstatic for this existence that I would not have without you. I can thank you for that regardless of what feelings may come and go. 

 

Thank you,

 

Christina 

 

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Shame, Disease, and Dad: Grand Canyon Ponderings

I’m a little homesick this morning, so it makes sense that I am going to turn to my constant companion that is with me everywhere: my safe haven of the written word. Somehow I always feel better after I have bled my experience on the page, and someone hears it. I think we are all like that. I am sitting in a cute little coffee shop called Brewed Awakenings on Route 66 in Arizona, just a few minutes shy of the Grand Canyon. We are supposed to have a Pink Jeep Tour at 2:30 today, but on the Groupon it says “pending” and I am not sure what kind of weather these guys operate in. I am also not sure if we have the appropriate gear. We somehow assumed that Arizona would be warm. We rented a convertible car LOL! It just so happens that it is snowing this morning, and rainy and wet, and is supposed to be this way all day. “You can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather.

It is however a great day for the permission to write. I have several things on my mind this morning, it’s exciting to see what I will untangle from them. The most prominent thing, much to my frustration is my Crohn’s Disease, and it’s close companions are shame, a certain level of confusion about validating my own experience with it (and in general of course), and this brought up feelings of my Dad, and about how I “lost” him again. Though you can’t lose something you never had, and that isn’t the correct narrative. I chose to eliminate any source that would shame me without looking or investing in me.

So Courtney and I went to a little restaurant last night, it was an interesting experience. There was one cook, and one waitress and they became slammed. The Yelp information made it look like an established and popular establishment. Overall it wasn’t a bad experience, though I would not get food there again. The beer was delicious and probably because we didn’t eat much with it, I ended up squared up with my disease again.

Over the years I have really tailored any drinking because I can tell my body has a very hard time processing it. I essentially got to the point where if I have even a few drinks I get a very bad experience with heart palpitations and tachycardia, and sometimes even atrial fibrillation. However I have been rolling pretty smooth in the land of disease, until I got bronchitis over a month ago now, and had to skip an injection. I’ve been struggling since then, in ways that I haven’t in 6 years. I dread the possibility of another difficult round with this disease or having to change my medication and play that “game.” And at the same time what did I think was going to happen. That I would just take Humira and never have an issue again.

I struggle particularly after being at the International Women’s Summit, where there is lots of talk of sickness in our bodies being a symptom of repressed feelings, un-lived potential, etc. I have always struggled with feeling I’m injecting myself with poison, that is experimental, and doesn’t my body know what to do to heal itself. And on the other hand my GI tells me that this thinking is unrealistic, and that staying on top of this disease in a top down fashion can give me a much better quality of life. Confusion.

How do you know what is intuition and what is superstition?

This is a very important question. We human beings have very superstitious ways of thinking, the way we connect the dots in our experiences. And this isn’t limited to “unhealthy” things, most people think in these ways.

So anyway I woke up last night shortly after falling asleep with my heart beating so hard it felt like it was going to shake me out of the bed. My beats per minute on my Fitbit were over 100. TERROR. I could hear and feel my heart beating in my ears. Seven years ago when this would happen I would go to the emergency room, only to be told I had anxiety. So I gave up doing that long ago, though now I have to be nervous I won’t get help if I need it. I’ve worked that one through with a therapist as well. I’ve tried to cultivate a sense of faith in myself that if it continued to get worse in a variety of ways I would seek help. Except who knows what kind of medical care is available here. I mean people live here right, there must be something. But I’ve been spoiled living only 20 minutes from Yale Hospital. Where bad doctors can exist as well, arrogance can be as dangerous as anything. But that discussion will lead us off topic, as if I ever stay on topic, HA.

So my episode. I take .25 of Xanax to head off any panic attack this can cause, and because I am superstitious of course I believe it will lower my heart rate. I mean relaxing a little can’t hurt in that department right? And then the bathroom things happen, sweating, erratic heart rate bad bad things is what we will leave it at. When that is over I am left shaking and sweaty and cold and aching. Pain radiating up my back. So many symptoms that they tell you to watch out for in a heart attack, because that isn’t stressful. I sit up vigilant lest I pass away in my sleep. I don’t wake up my wife, because that makes it more real, if she gets afraid I’ll read her fear and then really get anxious. So I work my way through it. Eventually I get it down to 90 ish, and I’m doing deep breathing, and making my trips back and forth to the bathroom.

EXHAUSTED.

I wake up this morning feeling like I was hit by a truck, pain radiating up through my kidneys, bags under my eyes. Here I am at the Grand Canyon, and I want to BE fun. Notice what we do? I’m not worried about how I am feeling, and that I deserve to feel better. I am worried I will ruin someone else’s time. Because I know she will be disappointed if we stay in. I know the disease deserves our anger here, hers and mine. Not me. And I never know if I really have to or not. I never know when to push myself to just keep going, or when to validate this thing I don’t want in the first place. My dark passenger, Crohn’s Disease. When I put it like that I am grateful it is not the urge to murder anyone. This was a Dexter reference if you didn’t know.

So when I am grappling with shame and doubting my own experience, this time I am looking to the origin of it. When I got diagnosed with my disease I was so unseen in so many ways. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. After all I didn’t know what to do either. A dear friend of mine had rekindled a relationship with her father and I was wondering if that couldn’t be the same for me. My father stopped talking to me around the age of 12. There was no explanation he just disappeared. I suspect a complicated relationship with my mother and my grandparents, and a lot of confusion to blame, but it was never my fault, and yet I am the one who paid the ultimate price. He made a choice. There is still so much I’ll never know about that choice, so many unanswered questions.

So when I found my 1/2 brother on facebook and was able to look him up and we began corresponding via e-mail I was overjoyed. It felt like falling in love. He of course became romanticized even more so than the average parent in such a situation would because anything was better than the situation I grew up in. He always got the hero role by default almost. Because his energy felt more sane from what I remembered, it felt more normal than what I was going through at home. But as it turns out he was intellectual, and quite pragmatic to a fault. At first I appreciated these things, but as we moved further and further there was no empathy for my experience there. He stated he did not want to re-hash anything of the past only to move forward in relationship, this clearly had nothing to do with my needs, but then again it never did, did it? That was the first flag. But then I thought ok well I can work with that as long as I get to know him. I would do anything you know to have a relationship with a parent. Plus he was so smart and so worldly and doing such neat things. He was living in Xico Mexico at the time and writing a blog about life there.

We struck up a writing relationship. I was smitten. I couldn’t wait for an e-mail from him, and what was even better his take on me being gay was that evolutionarily this was the more intelligent thing to do. He said men were assholes mainly, so he was glad that I was with women. Another interesting perspective. Not one I expected, but I was so hungry for acceptance at this time. He even posted a picture of my daughters on his blog. We belonged! He was willing to own us as family is how it felt at that moment. I felt a taste of acceptance and belonging, one I had yearned my whole life for. He didn’t post a picture of my son, or of me, or anything else. I recall hearing about him that he was a womanizer etc, he appreciated beautiful things, cars, women etc. But I don’t know how much deeper his integrity or his heart went than that. He did stay with his wife (my step-mom when I was little) Anita, for the whole rest of his life. So that’s a sign of health one would think, but then again, people stay together all the time and are not necessarily healthy.

Here is what I do know. When I was lost and scared, riddled with physical symptoms and diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease, and in a relationship that didn’t feel particularly loving in the ways I was needing at the time (due to my behaviors as well)…. he said to me “daughter your posts as of late tend to exhibit some frightening mental states not unlike your mother”, and our relationship was over at that point. I cut it clean. I felt no warmth or empathy from him. I just thought I might find it there. It was like a mirage of an oasis in the middle of the desert, and to realize I was sucking in dry sand rather than water. My heart had to break again. The loss of him, or perhaps only the idea of him, to have a father, and then to lose him again. I then vented at him all the things that were hurting me. All the unanswered questions that burned at me my whole life, that I had to carry around. His responses were scathing and only burned more.

Then I got an e-mail from the brother I told you about that he died (this is 2 Decembers ago now). He was 72. I was only vaguely regarded with any information of his passing, even when I asked if perhaps I could attend the services for my own closure. I think his parents didn’t even know about me, and much of the rest of his family. I know I wasn’t given any empathy. There was only shame. SHAME SHAME SHAME.

This morning I saw a post from a friend reaching out on Facebook, and it made me think of people’s statements about whether people should or should not post about their lives on there. What an arrogant statement. Who is someone to know what another person needs. Perhaps in that moment facebook is all they have in terms of nurturance, and one person saying they are there for them may make the difference between life and death. How do you know? Is it really so shameful for someone to vent their sufferings in a public space? I think we need more of this, not less. We need less of the shaming.

Anyway I am going to add an additional post with my final letter to my father that he never read because I knew I was writing it for me, and I knew it wouldn’t be appreciated or received by him, and would only give another opportunity for me to be harmed. So I wrote it for me. It was a huge part in my growth. The decision, MY DECISION that I didn’t choose a relationship with him, rather than feeling abandoned or not chosen.

My letter on the next post….

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Meeting my Spirit Animal: Liz Gilbert

Good Morning from the International Women’s Summit in Phoenix Arizona! Just hanging around with Laverne Cox (no big deal), Elizabeth Gilbert, Cheryl Strayed, and Glennon Doyle. NO BIG DEAL! You know what I realized this time around however, is that I am not as star struck as I used to be. I realize that due to their bad ass ness I have these power house women available to me all the time anywhere I want. Elizabeth Gilbert for instance has been downloaded into me (this is actually something she spoke about here, about her beloved Rayya). Her words are literally a part of me now, and so too I am realizing is her spirit. So when I was able to have the courage to show her some words I wrote about my experience in 2015 and receive an amazing nurturing hug from her, I absorbed it into me and it just gave me more encouragement for my own journey as a bad ass.

I’m just sitting here trying to wrap my mind around this experience. I was going to write that even words fail to capture it, but that simply isn’t true. Words haven’t failed me before and I am willing to bet they won’t now either. I just don’t know which ones will come forth at this time. Isn’t that exciting?!

Isn’t that the very definition of magic, that we don’t know what is going to happen next?

It can be magical. And for people with anxiety it can be terrifying. I am both. It depends on how grounded I can find myself in any given moment and what I am facing down in the mirror that day. These events have a way of doing that to you. Bringing you face to face squared off with any existing feelings of unworthiness. Four years ago at one of these I could barely make eye contact with anyone. I was so afraid they would see straight through to all the hurting parts of me and decide I wasn’t meant to be there. At the same time I was desperately wanting to be seen. We can be both, ALL, all at once.

Elizabeth Gilbert ended up telling us a very intimate story (that she stated she hadn’t planned on) about her beloved Rayya, that she lost two January’s ago. By the way if you haven’t read Rayya’s Memoir, “Harley Loco”, I highly recommend it. Harley Loco !!! She describes the process she needed to go through to come to terms with losing the person she always went to for everything. How could she exist in a world without her, and she ended up saying at the end of the story that this process made the download complete. She talked of radical mercy, the kind that defines who we are as people, not the person we are being merciful with. She keeps Rayya inside of her now, and can access her voice at any time, because she knows her so intimately, that she knows exactly what she would say in any given situation.

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. This idea that we can keep people well beyond their expiration in a variety of ways, not just through the written word.

Also at the panel lunch (that only gold tickets have access to, something I can hardly believe I am able to do, never would have been able to before), they talked about this idea of leaving a legacy and how much pressure we women feel to do that AND all of the other things on our plate. One of the bad ass women said something along the lines of rather than thinking of some large scale way to do this, the end result our biggest dream come to life. We leave our legacy anytime we touch another human life with connection, mercy, kindness, integrity, anytime that we see someone that needs to be seen. This idea was so comforting to me. It gave me the sense I am exactly where I should be RIGHT NOW. Not that I am somehow desperately missing some imaginary mark that was set for me. A way I have always felt restless and disturbed about.

I am experiencing more peace, even amongst all of these very big emotions, and so many different energies, here this time. In my personal journey peace is probably the thing most would describe could seem the most unattainable for me. I do not have a peaceful mind, often I have a vicious one, but I am learning to love it/her right into submission. She is melting into a puddle of positive thoughts, and solidifying into a beautiful deeply rooted willow tree. Strong and grounded, and capable to allow her branches to be lifted and moved by life’s experiences, without fearing total annihilation at every turn.

I barely even recognize myself on this trip.

So for this morning I will share one defining moment from it, there have been many. At the top of this post I shared a passage I wrote in September of 2015. At that event I wandered around, not knowing whether I was doing peace or being spiritual correct or not, feeling very insecure about my place in the world.

This time I took my shot and I asked Elizabeth Gilbert to read these words in the front of my very worn copy of Big Magic. She READ MY WORDS! And she gave me the best hug, she didn’t let go first she just held me. My hero held me for a few moments and read my words. I can do anything now! She saw me. And that was enough. It didn’t need to be more. And so perhaps maybe I too can entertain the idea that I am enough, and nothing needs to be more, and then hopefully I can model that for all of the women who look to me. My daughters, my wife, my friends, my clients, my found family, and anyone I come into contact with: WE ARE ENOUGH! We are exactly where we are supposed to be, and life can be full of magic if we are willing to face off with our fears enough and to keep going when it burns enough to see the horizon over the next difficult spot.

Keep going my friends. Dreams do come true. Here is what it looked like when one of mine did…

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A Sunday Untangling….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’ll be here trying to figure this out…