Tag: #lovedoneright

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Everyone deserves someone who has their back no matter what

Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person.
Madeline L’Engle

It’s so interesting I’m reading East of Eden right now. Nothing is an accident ever.

Years of generational trauma are coming to a head in my little family. We are all facing our stuff.

I had a dream ……

I think of the beginning of Mama Mia, how many times I watched that movie thinking I just liked Abba. Ha. It took years to click that a movie about a girl who has three father’s that show up all wanting her, was obviously going to tickle my fantasy.

I remember my own father (during a short reconnecting I initiated, it was not a warm reception) mocked me for liking such a corny production. Oh the irony there. He was a smart man from the little I knew him, but severely lacking in emotional intelligence and empathy. Or maybe that’s just because he never continued his connection with me. I most likely will never know. It matters less in this present time. Not as much of a gaping wound.

Mama Mia is an intelligent play with a brilliant cast. You’ll never make me think differently.

I also dreamed of being a good mother, a dream that often felt out of reach. People would try to encourage me, and I would make sure they knew they just didn’t know what lurked inside of me well enough.

But as it turns out if you’re courageous and you don’t give up, you can absolutely attain what you desire.

As a generational curse breaker it was never going to be easy. I couldn’t have imagined it would be this hard, or this worth it.

I stand with the misunderstood and the misunderstanding in their pain, and now I also stand with myself.

My children are strong and beautiful and all heart, at times to their detriment, but that’s normal.

They are kind to others.

My children are kind to others, not perfect. They are kind.

They too are learning to turn their pain into power.

We have been in family therapy for going on three years now. We have all wanted to give up I’d imagine. We have been through therapist’s, and harmed by them at times. Others have helped.

We show up.

It’s often a slow hard slog through painful sludge. At times it’s excruciatingly like being burned alive.

Most of the time I’ve doubted it’s the right thing, as it’s not the popular way. Just let them be kids leave them alone, and do it in a more acceptable way. Make things look better don’t introspect it’s dangerous. I feel the opposite, it’s dangerous to people when you don’t/can’t/ won’t.

Most of my life I’ve doubted the good in me. I’ve spent it separated from myself. That is excruciating. It is torture.

Then I became tortured.

I didn’t want to breathe anymore I was so lost. All of the truths I thought I knew shattered and an even worse view of myself to climb out of.

I stayed the course.

I still have plenty of healing to do. We still have plenty of healing to do. But the heaviness is lifting, and in this new freedom we all attempt to connect naturally as best we can, with no force involved.

No having to constantly control my own emotions or attempting to control anyone else’s so I can have an illusion of safety.

Just a free fall into the clouds. This blissful peace that warms my sore bones.

I feel at times like I’ve been hypnotized or am in an alternate universe. That’s how far away good has felt for me. If something is good it feels like it’s in a dream, foggy ethereal, surreal.

And certainly not mine…..

I remember driving to my office in Fairfield and just asking over and over if this was really my life. I actually was aware how dissociative I was, but I stayed right near me until it was safe enough to embody my body.

As it turns out that can be the most painful “surgery” you may ever endure. Once inside you feel everything via the body.

You feel everything

I feel everything

I am love

You’re love

Misunderstandings won’t keep us apart.

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A Tie That Binds: Shame a Game of the Same.

“And now that you don’t have to be perfect you can be good.” Steinbeck

I’m listening to a Codependent Mind, Brian and Stephanie talking about trauma and shame from a unique perspective.

I’m reading East of Eden. Sometimes novels are a lifetime of therapy all in one story depending on what you bring to it.

I’m working a Course in Miracle’s, albeit very small bites at a time and lots of reflection. See my tendency to explain my ability to produce. Would ya look at that 😉

Atonement. Atunenent. To self and other.

Slowing. Staying with me.

“Am I practicing what I preach” is my usual alignment question. Or preaching more than I practice. Preaching is easier, less vulnerable. Vulnerable is the heart opener: it must be exercised over and over.

A typical refrain lately is “it’s a practice not a perfect.” Annoying counselor isms for 500 please Alex.

Double or nothing.

I have returned from the shore. Restful bliss. How did I go so many years without? That is the question of the hour, the day, the week, the year, and my life in so many ways.

Along with how did I learn how to cope, and how has that impacted the trajectory of my fate.

Amor Fati

I’m on episode 7 of the first season of the co dependent mind and they are talking about how emotions become cut off and compartmentalization. Yep I’m in the right place.

I love the rainy ness of the day. I never understand why people don’t like the rain. I love how it feels on my skin just as much as the sun. Both are necessary.

The green is here and so also is the sounds of lawnmowers and gardeners alike. My hair is doing that wavy thing it does with moisture.

Plumbing work on the house. The deck is in finishing stages (finally, I hope). The pool will be opened soon.

A house continues to become a home: as does my heart. Parallel lines in my universe.

I’m here just swimming daily inside the depths of myself, and coming up more often for air than I have in the past.

I love that for me.

Long time coming.

If I’m a poet I’m a poet.

If I’m a song I’m a song .

Less obsessive thoughts about what’s right or wrong.

Where did that come from anyway….

You know

A story for another day.

For now all I have to do is walk.

I was finally ready, and chose a new piano teacher. The scar is more brown than pink now. So despite the argument of my nervous system best to get back on the horse and all of that.

Tally Ho !

I’m making some schedule changes I’m anxious and excited about. I’ll have significant more time for myself, and my god does that challenge all the programming cable car pathways.

I commandeer my own vehicle these days. Any mistakes are mine, and all victories large and small as well.

I’m no longer agonizing in so many of the ways I was, as if every step could be a land mine.

What life is this I often say.

Heaven really is a place on earth and make me a believer baby.

I am

It’s evening Christina. After six clients Christina. Walking again. Taking in the spring sights and smells. As the day winds down.

I just used foresight of regret as a motivation for change with a client and it’s giving me pause to contemplate my own. Because of course it is.

The trees are aglow. The clouds highlighted in the same.

I don’t have what I thought I did in the tank for writing. Only being for me this evening.

Good thing I got a little down during less wiped out Christina time.

I plan on writing here more. My follow through and consistency has improved in so many other areas, it’s time for it to be so in my relationship with me.

Oh but before I go a random but probably not thread. My piano teacher is the mother of the boyfriend of a favorite bartender at the place formerly known as Crave. She introduced me to East of Eden. She (my new teacher) just finished it.

I remember the day I sat at the bar with my books and drink exactly. She has quotes from the book tattooed and I was excited even to be in the presence of another lover of the written word and thought whatever makes a person feel so passionate to preserve this art on their body…. I want to read that.

And several years later here I am, with her boyfriend’s mother as my piano teacher.

The universe has plans

I feel it…

In my fingers

See what I did there 😉

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Coming Home to Myself…..

“Inside my skin there is this space, it twists and turns, it bleeds and aches. Inside my whole heart there’s an empty room, it’s waiting for lightning it’s waiting for you. And I am wanting….and I am needing you here. Inside the absence of fear. My bones call to you from their separate skin, I make myself translucent to let you in…. “ Jewel My favorite set of lyrics from way back and all time, and believe me there are many.

These days I’m most often looking at the nature of my relationship with myself. I am sifting through my history more objectively than I ever have. It’s a good feeling. I know that it means I’ve moved forward in health with my mind.

I’m seeing myself with such compassion and so realistically these days. My light and my dark, and their origins. Blame or spirals or deep dark thinking seem far away. There is a lightness of being.

I am present with and for myself and the simple things become special. Like a haircut and seeing a movie on a Sunday. And moments with my loved ones. There is gentle where savage pain was.

I felt inspired this morning to write some truths I’m thinking about myself.

I spent years living with a myriad of health symptoms that signaled to me I was dying or would at any moment. This made my world very small. I became afraid to do things out in the world. The truth is I was having intrusive thoughts anywhere and everywhere and using all my energy to act as if I wasn’t. To try and stop the thoughts they made me have about myself.

Lately I’ve been noticing my coping so much more clearly. I’m able to know what I’m doing and why I’m doing it and speak my truth. Those words, just words, hold so much power. They rock me to my core. That is a safety I’ve earned and provided and no one can remove it.

I in fact do a schmorgasbord of coping mechanisms daily at the slightest hint of something that could become “unsafe” and it’s tremendously affected by the moods, tones, and behaviors of those around me.

So unsurprisingly parenting teenagers was a special kind of hell for all parties involved for me. I was being triggered constantly and fully reacting from that place. After the trigger comes the shame spiral, and after the shame spiral being a puddle on the ground that must resuscitate herself. After the whole process usually a week of symptoms. Flare, migraine, stomach pain, crippling exhaustion.

I must forgive myself for what I did not yet know…..

All the while showing up for myself and my work. Knowing I must give more than I take there, or I’d lose the one source of positive feedback about myself. Yes as a counselor I was also co dependent and I knew if I didn’t get that under control I wouldn’t be able to have a good relationship with myself or a healthy one at work either.

I reflect on the “one source of positive feedback about myself” and my heart aches with the lonely and scarcity of that statement. Things were out of balance. They were always going to be while I was separated from myself for safety.

I was my very own authoritarian parent abuser.

I could make the marionette dance, but not feel things. There are limits to that power. I sought a more gentle source. How when feeling feels immediately threatening to anything solid, and all you began with was a single plank a thousand feet in the air over a pit of poisonous snakes.

I spent a good forty years pacing anxiously back and forth across that plank until I finally sat still and accepted my circumstances and started being curious about what I could do to make things better. Not only was nothing else working, but I kept repeating cycles that affected more than just myself, so more evidence I was bad.

I was really trapped inside myself.

The only signal of distress was for my body to become sick, because it’s the only model I’ve ever had for getting to a point where I could allow myself to receive. If you know you must be sick to receive you will be sick I can tell you that.

These epiphanies have just clicked for me lately: with the help of many therapies. Julie, Melissa, love from my people, and most of all a connection to myself, rather than being disconnected from her. Always vigilant for her to mess everything up, and become horrible at any second.

So right now I’m grieving a deepest layer. The way I have regarded my tender beautiful self. My mouth gets dry and the tears come.

So lately I’m walking a lot and being with my mind. My poor frazzled scattered brain and how quickly it darts to all the horrible scenarios. I’m just providing lots of comfort and safety like I would have to those foster children, if I didn’t need it more for me at the time, and not even know it.

I needed to love me, not always look to be able to love me by loving someone else. And I have only grace and compassion now for the fact love was so foreign to me. It’s different when you learn it through concept and not experientially. It’s different.

I am still learning. I will always be devoted to learning and to being loving and gentle and steadfast. I crave consistency and I insist on building it. There’s nothing else I will accept at this stage in my life.

Of that I am sure.

In other news I saw Bros yesterday and I was so delighted to see gay men allowed to be seen in a major motion picture. I was also sad at how much we forget how much pain minorities have to endure, and how much is insidious and viewed as if it’s all ok now.

I loved seeing Ptown on the screen and all the gay culture references and it did make my heart swell with pride. Just two people each being who they were in all their stereotypes, boring, too much, all of it, showing their true colors to one another and finding love.

Trying for love to build it. You don’t find it, you must create it. Love is crafted.

Yes, I will always be a sappy idealist when it comes to love. No, I’ll never let it allow harm to come to myself again.

The light and dark of a life well lived. (put it in my tombstone folks, but not too soon ok, I have shit to say first)

Please

I have lived and I’m not even close to done yet. Let’s go as my teens would say. Lol.

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Penetrating the Defense Mechanism…

I remember it all too well….

I wanted to say membrane for artistic quality, however it’s way to thin and tame a word for our subject matter.

Word salad, bread crumbs, generalities, banalities, poppy cock, and balderdash. That’s what the defense mechanism speaks. It wreaks of bullshit. Activated, deactivated. My friend calls it morphin time. Spoiler alert he’s a pink ranger fan.

The very fact he can speak about it as if it’s a choice shows the healing work that’s been done. The thing that brings hope and life to life.

I’m walk/run writing which means I’ll probably end up motion sick and nauseated. That’s old hat for me anyway. Are you kidding?! Stringing together beautiful words that never really say anything at all.

The water is low, very low. It smells that way. Peeeee ew. Blech. Death will eventually turn to life though…. And so it goes.

I hate lying and manipulation with a fiery passion these days. I somehow never seem to have less of it in my life. It seeps through. I can do all the work in the world and it still wafts through the air. I pick up on it like a bloodhound, get called crazy for my troubles, and become spun like a top.

Then it’s my reaction to the abuse that becomes criticized. How I save myself. Acts of violence even after all weapons have been put down.

A full surrender…..

Untangling myself from the mess of misperception. The very place I seek help from only becomes another source of misunderstanding. This I’m told is frequently peoples experiences in counseling.

Some counseling misunderstandings cost dearly. Those are the people meant to protect. We trust them more.

Thank God, the windows, the walls, whatever, that I finally learned that lesson. Those legs are still wobbly but they stand firm, shakes and all.

Listening to a counselor try to reason out why it’s difficult to apologize, rather than get a layer deeper to understanding. Don’t try and fix it, that’s ego, try and understand it and find the art to show the inhabitants of that magical safe space, the one space they are committed to listening, that’s safe enough.

Wouldn’t it just be easier to apologize?! What must it be like in a family without being able to do that?! Gee, you think?! Maybe first check what kind of family the person came from 101. Then add their experiences. These are not excuses they are understanding.

To help someone understand themselves by being understanding and compassionate. That borders on the miraculous.

Understanding is salve and balm. Cooling and soothing to the burning hot infected wounds. The disease has metastasized by now. I fall to my knees.

A human walking talking defense mechanism, who struggles inside her own life, and clears up misunderstandings for others, because of the knowledge she’s gathered. This process was not trivial.

A light warrior with a constant stream of dark thoughts about herself. That’s how I’ve kept my humility, it’s kept me. Trapped. Prisoner of war. I’m working on a different kind now. A kind with a wise guide rather than a harsh task master.

The war rages on.

A tear slowly drops down a child’s cheek. They know better. They know war can be replaced with love. But some people will always love war, more than peace. And some have a constant battle within. It’s those that know the value on peace. And there are those that never will.

One priest who couldn’t control himself all those years ago would ensure my abuse continued throughout the span of my life. One depraved religious crazy has had such an impact on my life. That’s what happens when you damage a child. You fucker. There’s a special place in hell for you.

I would never protect the adult over the child’s pain, it’s something I need to stay mindful of in my office because it’s easier to do than you think. We don’t want to be uncomfortable, don’t want to believe in monsters.

Counselors are constantly faced with the truth they are alive and well living right among us. The rest of the population would prefer to cover it’s eyes, and to create routine and distraction. Live your best life. Not everyone has that privilege.

I may serve the literary muse, but even a romantic heart knows, that’s the biggest ruse.

How can you damage a child? How can you break their trust and spirit before they even begin. The nausea turns to sickness. I can’t watch this shit because I’ve lived enough. Their spirit won’t be free again until death. When they can dream again.

Even I know some things break beyond repair and I’m in the healing business. And I’m not God or whomever. I’m just a person with a lot of knowledge that didn’t consent. It feels that way when I feel angry. But according to Julie I did exactly that, and those lost children did too?!

I don’t know.

I don’t care how much meaning can be made from suffering, breaking the spirit and trust in a child, watching the playful go out of them. It tastes metallic. I clench my jaw until my teeth press into my gums with the pain it being locked down inside somewhere and continuously misunderstood.

Because one human couldn’t control his cravings. Because he believed he was living as God intended. Incorrect belief systems in the hands of the wrong people keep the war waging. And hedging your bets is the biggest sin of all. Manipulating both sides. Agememnon.

I need an Achilles. With maybe a few less hair tosses lol. His destiny was his justification to fight mens wars, so perhaps not. He had to be arrogant. Does anyone have to be? One foot on earth, one with his mother. See, even Achilles has mommy issues.

When you’re locked down in a trauma mechanism it sure feels that way. Education, time, commitment, and determination help.

Can you break threads of destiny (would you want to) or are we all just deluded puppets after all.

I’ll leave it to the great philosophers, for I am just a good enough mother down on her knees praying to be forgiven for what she didn’t know, and still doesn’t.

One more circle around the block, then my coffee, my reward. My journal, my oxygen. Then clients. Then a soft safe space to rest before it all begins again.

Green light…..

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Something I’m Learning is You Learn a lot about Loving from Death

I remember it all too well and Taylor Swift’s Clean were on repeat this morning.

Despite the repeated migraines, nausea, joint pain, and other afflictions, I had to get out and walk this morning. To move some energy. My thoughts were dark and intrusive. I’ve been clenching my jaw and tossing and turning.

There’s a combination of distressing things happening currently, and all around that is regular every day life. Life that I love. The distress threatens to swallow, but it can’t with this spirit. It’ll never break my spirit. Et Lux Intenebris Lucet.

An ex lover and partner’s mother is actively dying. In one year’s time cancer has ravaged her. I had no idea how something like this would feel. The memories it would walk me through. I’ve never been so close to death before. I never realized how entirely I love, and that no longer being connected to the people never removes it. It just exists there.

It helps me to experience myself as loving and I need that right now with everything else I’m going through. The threat of parental alienation is real. I was programmed to always believe it was me, that’s bad, wrong, causing things. And while I’m by no means perfect my perception of myself has been the biggest battle in my life.

It’s plugged right in. People have plugged right in to my trauma and taken over where the previous left off, and the worst part is it felt like home. Love that wasn’t love at all, but a mask for insecurity, a bizarre attempt at control, a lot of things. But not love.

The impending loss of this woman who was a mother to me, one of very few, surrogate mothers. Who cried as I wore a wedding dress. Who loved my children and I…. sits like a stone in my stomach. I am heavy, foggy, and struggling with focus.

I burst into tears to her and her husband when I asked permission to marry their daughter and I meant it. I meant it. I didn’t mean to be the way I was, to not have room for anyone else’s feelings to exist. To be consumed inside my mind. To not stay. Those I didn’t mean. There was a lot I didn’t understand much less meant.

She is happily married now to a person who is well suited and she’s happy. She still loves my children and her partner holds that connection sacred. So they visited a few weeks back. I was nervous and they handed me their little one. Welcoming. Another baby I wasn’t able to have with a woman.

They are about to have their second, any day, while any day the glue and the matriarch will take her last breath. Vibrant, laughing, alive, kind, loving, Karen. It is unthinkable. I cannot even think it because what comes with this will be all manner of intrusive thoughts of myself or my loved ones going like this.

I stare numbly at the wall.

It’s almost show time. The time I show up for my client’s and give all I’ve got until I run out. My energy, focus, love, wisdom. What meaning would my life have without this exchange. It is not a question, it’s a statement. It’s everything. The sharing of knowledge that could make a moment of passing even a tiny bit lighter. I hope..

I hope for the family who is saying goodbye that the new lives beginning, at times provide temporary anesthesia for the pain.

Mother daughter relationships are complex. I’m struggling immensely in my own right now. This morning my mind is busy sending it’s energy to my former lover and friend because I know what that connection means to her, and what losses she’s already endured.

In some ways this is one of my first. The first up close death of one of my surrogate mother’s, and a loss to people I love deeply.

When love is true it still exists whether near or far. There is so much of that in my heart right now. Love and loss, the full spectrum.

I am learning it’s just still all right there. Ulay Ulay….

I am grateful for my deep connections and all of the love that’s helped me get connected to myself, every thread is honored.

Twin A begins college today…. Twin B prepares to move out West, a one way ticket for now with so many possibilities, my family is changing. It is a beautiful agony. One that I don’t know if I could have ever prepared for.

There will be a funeral soon. Life is just an endless cycle of birth and death I suppose after all, and this clinician is most concerned with the meaning between the lines and what’s beneath the surface. It’s not a bad way to live. It’s not too shabby.

Remembering and forgetting moments all while simultaneously creating new ones, because never give up is something that I live by. For me there is no other way.

Will you hear my heart tearing when the plane takes off, and the last breath is taken? You never know the last time you’ll see someone, hug them, appreciate their laugh. That’s a lot to be with, that reality.

What I do know today however is that real love never dies. It only transforms and is transforming. What a comforting sentiment amidst all of this existential suffering…..

💜

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We All Become Our Parents in the End? I Don’t Think So

Christina Aguilera Just a Fool is todays angsty song …..

Random thoughts before I begin my client day. I’m out walking around the green. Looking longingly at benches to read on. Longing….

I’m contemplating words of an ex partner, some of the worst that could ever be said to me. We all become our parents in the end was the gist of it. I vehemently disagree and in my case I’m no where close, but being accused by scorned lovers when the relationship died was very unpleasant.

I went to lunch at Edge of The Woods yesterday. Their wraps have really gone down hill since the pandemic. The experience was lovely though. Exploring and finding new things.

I’m in the midst of discovering and becoming, finding the kind of adventures I want. Without that being daunting and feeling filled with land mines.

The sun beats down on my skin….. sweat drips down the small of my back and my neck and I love it. Primal.

Peaceful and primal is possible? I should think yes.

I bought a gardens something protein powder yesterday and I’m excited to make a smoothie with it this morning, even though it never tastes like smoothie king. Oh well. Drip drip….. sweat.:.. music…. Movement…: dreams!

I’m craving and pursuing health in all matters and as a human that’s hard. Consistency is hard, but I love the fruit of this labor. The flavor melting in my mouth. Descriptives.

So I wrote this the other day and didn’t post it. And now I’m in Asbury New Jersey. Joisy. Sun, sand, walks, reading, kiddos (little ones not mine), and just observing life.

And now this is weeks later again and I’m home on another adventure. I have a date with twin A today. My eighteen year old beauty who loves horses, and has a gigantic heart. We are getting lobstah rolls and then let’s be honest probably icecream. Mmmm.

It’s a Friday, therapy in the mornings, often a client or two peppered in to offset the ending of financial support from the other parent, and then an endless span of hours that’s usually filled faster than they can unfold. Today is pest control (mice ick), and notes, many many notes.

I bought a microphone, the one doctor Ramani has, lol. On Amazon Prime day of course. Will it be another item in my collection to dust, like the video camera and pulse oximeters to do Gottman therapy with. Sigh. Will I have a podcast? How can I choose just one thing?

Where is there room for me in my life. It’s all about you, the critic from past relationships gone bad chirps. Everything is always about you. Nothing was ever about me. Cognitive dissonance. Trapped, in the past, in the future, inside a coping mechanism.

Caged

Free

All or nothing

This is me….

I was talking to my therapist the other day about how I had imagined my life. As it turns out my first divorce still haunts me in the form of how that has effected my children’s lives. The way things were dealt with or not dealt with.

Anyway, I was telling her I had always had a dream of being with that one person your whole life. Knowing them in a way where you know all their selves. Where you grow together. I was devastated by divorce and realizing I was gay, it was a betrayal of everything I had dreamt of and everything I set out to do.

(Everything after became a dissociated blur in so many ways. In such a hurry to correct. To still have that with someone while my kids were little. And all the rushing was always the thing that made life the hardest. I had no discipline or no secure foundation to know that. To know there was another way. I didn’t know. Can you forgive me? Can I forgive me. Please.)

Which was to create a family that stayed through it all.

Now I just try to find where I fit ….into life, into my self, into another person, another family…. It’s often overwhelming, it’s often beautiful.

Mostly lost, a little found, inside a life where insecurity used to abound. There’s a budding security.

She reflected that I had that with my kids, but it doesn’t feel like it, because I was always desperately searching for my lost self.

I was

And desperately seeking to be loved, and more to be understood, when I didn’t understand myself.

And maybe that means they were searching for me…. That’s heartbreaking, but when I go back and look I held, I read, I snuggled, I was right there. I had the privilege of being home with them their most formative years. Do their little bodies remember? Will my painful mind?

What do I do with all of this now?

I get up and try again…. To be more loving, more present, to listen and hold space. To believe it’s not too late to be the mom I dreamed of having and being. It’s much more difficult now as I have to translate this to a template where they have their own lives and need me differently.

I want to go back and also I don’t….

I keep moving forward….

Being the change

At the conclusion of this post, which is now, I’ll be full circle to where the post began. Feet hitting the pavement….. pounding.

Walking my way through recovery.

Dancing my way through life….

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“Deprivation Runs Deep, it Creates Blank Spots in Us”

And longing ….

It’s late for me to be writing a blog post. Only one or two times have I ever attempted this feat. As if we are talking about extreme sports or something. Kind of.

I put on K.D Lang’s Constant Craving, it mimics how I feel right now. But what?! Could be so many things. Presence? Warmth? Food? It goes along with the title of my Memoir: Starved.

Am I doomed to be restless forever? Even as so many things are so good in my life?

I’ve been working hard. Harder than I ever imagined. I’ve become more me than I ever thought possible. A self, a real self. I’ve been working to make amends with my children, and building trust in myself has everything to do with it. As outside changes take place can I maintain those stabilities? Yes.

I watched The Tender Bar the other day and also have Hillbilly Elegy on the radar. I purchased both memoirs and have been researching the authors. Better at purchasing books than reading them. Another addiction? Maybe…..

I’m reading Beyond Codependency, and a line today struck me. “Deprivation runs deep, it creates blank spots in us.” That line alone could release grief, torrents. I read the passage during several sessions today. My people. The walking wounded. The brave.

I guess that’s why I feel starved no matter what I do.

Listening to Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver, on repeat. The piano. Haunted. JR Moehringer writes about the ache of hearing his father’s voice while never having a relationship with him, and how being at the bar was at least something: his uncle Charlie teaching him the man sciences.

The ache …..

No story or obsession can protect me any longer. I live as a real human now. Sometimes I wish I could go back. No, I wasn’t better off. My mind spun. I was in a frenzy. My mind burned. Now it’s so quiet that sometimes the silence is deafening. It’s so still.

Peace is still so foreign and yet I’m better. Better to and for others, better with myself. Softer somehow. Grief has softened me. Every where. :p I struggle with my relationship with my body. Without my all or nothing and my addictions I can’t command myself into whatever is needed, because there is no longer a compelling why.

The last being the anxiety of being good enough. I know I am. So have I lost my edge, or Just my ability to torture myself into performance. I could go numb before and just obey. I know you know what I mean. I gave that up. The dark gift (passenger). The ability to swiftly disconnect. I traded my safety, for a real human life.

I guess I know why the Buddha is round ha. He’s so happy though. I too am happy. I scarcely know if I’m allowed, but my toe is in the water.

My mind is so still, if you saw the difference you would cite demon possession. Perhaps I had a lobotomy in my sleep. So now where is my story in here? Who am I without my coping mechanisms, without the guards. Most of the time I’m too guarded to even trust emdr I have found. But I grieve ….oh do I grieve.

I grieve that chaotic frantic woman ….. she was my constant. I don’t know what to do, as this new self. I’m quiet sometimes because it’s hard to trust new, even when it’s better.

And I love…. As hard as I ever have….. and I get up after getting knocked down….

My whole heart on the line. This is a gift the way that I live. With every fiber of my being. People crave this existence and a touch that makes all the difficult worthwhile. And I have it all, and I give it all.

Every day I live a year long. I’m so fulfilled at the end of each day, even when I’m restless. I fall asleep hard and fast and sleep deeply. Movie reels playing all night long, safely far enough from consciousness, but they are there. My dreams. Body slack. Not waiting for a pin to drop.

Mostly I am humbled daily by the work. Asking for forgiveness, learning, gently having my own back. Self supportive. What even is this….?!

Honing in on what to learn next. Realizing that while I lost a dream there are so many I didn’t realize I was already in. I’ll have grandkids, and I’ll be there every step of the way consistently engaged because I can and want to. Simple. Like how Charlie loved JR.

Sometimes the simplicity of love is startling. What is even more unsettling is how natural for me it is to complicate everything.

The kids and I are going on vacation soon…. West Palm bound. We sat around the table tonight playing skip Bo and talking about the different things we want during that trip. There was no tension or fighting. After all this time, we get to relax together. And the relaxation doesn’t have too high of a cost like it would have before. Stress somewhere else.

If you asked me if I would have been able to afford this vacation by myself or any of the other things we have I would have laughed. The life I live now is one that I saw as out of reach not that long ago. Impossible.

Even better I am rich in the knowing that my children have emotional safety. It was touch and go there for a minute, but I was never a lost soul. I’m too much of an advocate for that.

Sometimes arriving begins with breaking the silence without a plan in mind. This is a jumble of many potential blog posts I never chose to write. It’s tempting to feel it’s less good in its jumble but maybe the habit is the most important part. Just putting words to the page. Say anything…..

One post that’s rattling in my brain is “time will tell….” I think I’ll make that my next. I’ve said plenty here.

Goodnight 💜

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The Tank is Full

What makes life worth living for me….

I cry for how long I’ve judged my process and my decisions and choices. I cry for how hard I’ve been on myself when I’ve been surviving my whole life. Just because no one could see it. Judged for the ways I chose to save myself. Because I’m a mother, these choices meant I was selfish. The worst part is I allowed myself to believe those criticisms and as a result pulled away from my children.

I pulled away because I didn’t want to infect them with my particular disease. Survival is a great burden, and it’s hardly understood, except by those who have had to. I didn’t want them to understand, and then to feel close I needed them to. And that too became and unrealistic demand. I judged myself so harshly, and held on tight to that.

Holding on and letting go. Figuring out what to hold on to and what to let go of. The stakes feeling so high. I’ve softened all of that. Mistakes are the portals of discovery. In fact some of my most recent joy had so many in the beginning and that is what has made it feel perfect. The imperfect.

Because it’s real. You know? 😉

This morning on my sacred Sunday I am reflecting and wafting through my life. I’m listening to Exile by Taylor Swift and Bon Iver. I am just overwhelmed by the abundance I’ve created in my life by the self-work I’ve done. I’ve done the impossible, changed my wiring in so many ways. People don’t do this, but I am. And I’m fucking proud.

I’m so emotional lately…. That is when I can stop holding my breath. I still do that. I hold on and wait for the bottom to drop out, but I know when I’m doing that, and when I’m not, and it makes such a difference and when I’m feeling safe, when I can reflect, the tears immediately come. The gratitude. The joy.

I made it out alive and I kept my self on ice, ready for exploration once safe. Now I’m here, and so often I’m overwhelmed that it feels like I won’t get the experience in some way. Even when I’m right here in it.

This is a journey not a destination. This journey is so beautiful it brings me to my knees with emotion. The good, the bad, and everything in between.

I ran so fast and so hard. I ran on empty so long, that it’s hard to know how to operate on a full tank, and not just keep watching the gauge. No matter how many times I check, it’s full, won’t stop me from trying. Some things are hard wired.

I’m operating this new soft self. My mind tries to drag me to every worst case scenario and exhaust me into that familiar irritability, but I’ve hedged my bets with all the support I’ve allowed myself permission to seek, and to accept it.

My authentic self is finally taking the lead…. Slow and steady wins the race. I am steady. I am a rock. I am reliable and trustworthy. I am consistent and nurturing and so loving. I can see myself and it’s overwhelming.

I spent most of my life overwhelmed by fear, and now I get the privilege of being overwhelmed by love.

I just took a deep breath. Whenever I’m overwhelmed now, that’s what I do. The restless settles into security and then the fruits of my labors shine and sparkle all around. I blink my eyes and try to bring them in and out of focus. Yes Christina this is real.

It isn’t any longer all or nothing. My life is piloted by self trust, not story telling. And I will not shame myself for what developed out of survival, for I have always lived the philosophy of Maya Angelou. Once you know better do better. And I always have.

And now after 41 years on this planet I’m in my body. Through hell and back so many times. Fighting myself, fighting every battle that crossed my path, permanently in fight and flight mode. The story protected the mechanism and as long as that was the case the pattern repeated.

Now I am broken free. Out of jail and purgatory. It’s like having to learn everything from the beginning again, so vulnerable and raw.

I’m so exhausted, prone, in a good way. Laying spent across the earth finally without all the thoughts of illness and death.

Everything is a first right now in so many ways. Out of the dark night. Reborn. Now when I don’t want something to be over rather than dissociation, I open wider and connect more. It’s never over, the moments, they become absorbed into my being.

Becoming solid, whole, and present.

I am present, alive, for the first time in this way. Overwhelmed by possibility….. life is beautiful. I know I always believed in that, but I never felt it, not like this.

Recovery is a long road, and it can be beautiful. It doesn’t have to be dark. Turn on the light. Allow the universe to have your back and shine its gifts on your pain. Everything is connected….

Stay tuned

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The Simple Things and On Writing

Hi. I can’t remember the last time I said hi and meant it in the way I’m thinking of now. Actually I can.

I just read a passage in Stephen King’s On Writing that has inspired this post. Page 56. When you write a story, you are telling yourself the story, he said. When you rewrite, your main job is taking out all the things that are not the story.“ Gould said some thing else that was interesting on the day I turned in my first two pieces: “right with the door closed, rewrite with the door open. Your stuff starts out being just for you, in other words, but then it goes out.”

I made a promise to myself that I will finish this book from cover to cover before the end of the year. It feels like a good goal. A few years back I read the first half, and it felt so sacred and emotional, that I could not bring myself to allow it to be over. Or at least that’s the story I tell. Also I couldn’t focus on one thing at a time or move slowly.

I am relieved these days that I can be still. I had a spiritual experience this morning. The weather is beautiful and I just sat in my living room looking around and the abundance I have created. I had everything I ever set out to do right under my nose the whole time. People tried to tell me this so bad often, but I wasn’t ready to let go of my pain. Or to let it let go of me.

When I slow down and comb through my life I have so many things I didn’t even pay attention to. I was amassing and moving more quickly than I could appreciate. Now I am slowing down and looking through the piles and boxes and dark corners and making new discoveries all the time.

Like this mornings which was a video by Esther Perel on listening. Esther Perel on Listening there were several gems in this. My favorite aspect of it is her owning mistakes as a counselor. I believe in this, but hadn’t yet found the courage to do so. She helps me. We learn more from our mistakes and it also helped me with some work I’ve done recently.

This afternoon between driving one of my twins to her job (we are down a vehicle currently) a pending ski trip motivated some closet cleaning. Amidst some of that were maternity clothes new and still in the bags, as well as many sentimental artifacts from 2019 until now.

The last time I did the first round of this cleaning I thought the emotions would kill me. It’s refreshing to see that this time I’m able to do it, feelings still in tow, but with a lot more acceptance.

The gift I have received from all of this darkness is presence. In the Esther video I referenced above she talks about languishing and about how the opposite is eroticism. Of course that caught my interest. The things that make us feel the most alive. The most present for the sensations. I recalled a time on the beach when I had met a lover I was quarreling with. We could not communicate or come to any understanding. So I requested we sit at the beach together, but not be allowed to say a word.

Now I can appreciate this creativity and effort so much different than I did then. I still remember that day fondly. Today as I was thinking of it I was thinking about eyes closed and just feeling what sand flowing through your fingers feels like. Whether it’s cool or hot, lumpy or smooth, moist or dry. The full sensory experience and how if you tune out the world and tune into the sensations, we are capable of the miraculous, without any cost, …. So simple.

I think of how my traumatized mind made simple things more complicated as my mind jumped to every possible scenario the very epitome of anxiety.

I think of how any trip I embarked upon was riddled with intrusive thoughts of bad things happening, and how I never understood why my mind did that, and worse, I felt defective, crazy, or bad. I shrank inside myself to try and make sure that didn’t infect anyone else.

I tried to protect others from even the possibility of becoming something “bad”, and I have a lot of appreciation for the things I did to adapt, and those that I faced.

I’m making a tender and soft self to operate from these days. Presence and intentionality. If I take a day or two to think about things I’ll usually see how I feel and what I need to do with so much more clarity than I ever was afforded before.

My ego runs the show so much less. It’s not nearly as fragile. I say I’m sorry and thank you for reminding me, and don’t have expectations for my children I couldn’t even keep up with when no one is looking. They truly are my greatest teachers. The work I’m most interested now is working on my listening and doing research around this.

After almost a year of horrible family therapy, now that I see what a good relationship really looks like, with a committed therapist, it’s a true game changer. I was so vulnerable I didn’t even know it shouldn’t have been like that. And I’m a therapist!!! We can’t see ourselves no matter how smart and aware, and vulnerability and grief changes the whole game. I wish I knew this sooner, but I’m glad I do now.

I appreciate Esther and Stephen’s company and guidance today. Fast friends. For now I’m going to listen to some old school Eminem and finish cleaning out my closet.

Merry Holidays Everyone. Life can be anything you want it to, if you’re committed and consistent.

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The invisibility of domestic violence ….

I was getting kind of used to being someone you loved

It’s Tree Day and Koenig Family Therapy is getting a facelift, a new front door. I’m sad to let the original one go, but it just didn’t fit right, cold air was coming in, and it wasn’t working. It’s bittersweet, what a metaphor.

I finished the limited Netflix series Maid last night. It was a show I wasn’t going to watch because I’m careful with my psyche and triggers, but as it turned out it’s something I needed to see. It’s so ironic that my initial training was in domestic violence. My first internship was at a shelter, and at that time I was so naive.

I was more caught up in work dramas and my own head to fully capture in my mind the importance of the work we were doing and the great minds I was around. That internship yielded a mistake that would teach me one of my greatest lessons. I was so green at that time. I made a lot of excuses for myself. I remember a supervisor there, not mine, helped point that out to me and coached me through a situation. She told me just to say I made a mistake and not all the reasons I felt I made it.

I took that lesson and kept it and cultivated it. It was a seed that’s still growing and still needs to be nurtured. It helped me learn at that time the significance of being with our mistakes. And if that isn’t what I’m having to do right now.

I’ve told so many stories about what was going on. They matched my ability to tolerate discomfort about myself. It doesn’t leave you much to trust when you know you can lie to yourself to feel better, but that won’t get you very far. Most of this isn’t conscious unless you do the work for it to be.

Sometimes I’m ashamed of the work, it feels heavy and too serious and the bullies of the world would tell me just don’t think so much. I’ve been told that my whole life, but what wasn’t happening was people having the understanding of why I was so serious. They just didn’t get it, so I for sure couldn’t and didn’t. More low self esteem just got internalized. The walls of the shame house got reinforced until I was inside a cel.

My trauma has been a solitary confinement I was longing to be out of, but I’d reinforced my survival mechanisms so much that it felt (it feels) impossible sometimes. Until my therapist reminds me I’m already out of the cel I just don’t have any program for this new life.

Stockholm syndrome is real and so is domestic violence. The worst part about it is that often no one can see the mental prison: I’ve been in a mental prison, for so long, that freedom feels like a heavier burden than captivity. I longed for my captor and my mistake. I longed for rage and contempt and mercurial torture, and then I shamed myself for that too.

In an episode of Maid yesterday which I sat and watched by myself…. you watch her lose herself inside the abuse, and it cried hard. It punched me in the face. It punched me in the gut, it beat me raw with the truth.

When she goes to the shelter again and she just rests for days, and can’t tolerate anything. When she doesn’t remember her favorite color, it slapped me across the face hard. It hurt so much I couldn’t breathe. How she walked away from the healthy person who loved her well and ended up back with her abuser because he’s the one who understood her mother and what she came from. It’s excruciating.

She went back for herself….. I went back for myself. When I stood there that day refusing to give up my ground it was about ME. I didn’t have any relationship with me. I didn’t even have a favorite color. I didn’t know what I liked, It was anything goes.

Everything I set out in the world to do was to not ever choose an abusive relationship. I’d abuse myself first and that’s what I did. I held myself to the fire to become someone worthy, all of these years. I squeezed every drop of me that ever emerged to make sure and stay on task. To make something of myself.

I held myself together for my kids, and every person who has ever judged me for my behavior has never seen what I was trying to do. Holding a River of shame that roared beneath the surface constantly at bay. I’ve been fighting for my life. I was holding back all of these memories that felt like they would kill me. I just tried to get away from them.

I used my whole will to try and make the nightmares stop, to walk away from fucked up love, to leave my mother. And even when I watch something like Maid I feel guilty and bad for leaving abuse. I feel guilty and bad for getting out alive. No matter how sick I got in the situation.

I’ve been fighting for my life. I was fighting for my life when you met me, and in that way I did put my kids first, even though I’ve been consistently called selfish. You have no idea what burdens I’ve been carrying inside. I separated myself from them so I could function all these years, but what I didn’t realize is I couldn’t have a self either.

I’ve been going back into the burning building and collecting her one piece at a time. I’m not a hero, I’ve made so many mistakes, but I am a warrior. And I’ll never give up the fight.

This is an excerpt from my morning pages. It’s been a tear filled morning. “Set the bed on fire…. Teddy. I had a rough wake up. Talked to Jen and didn’t even know how bad I was feeling. What about for the people who have choices as far as domestic violence. I chose to stay. The less visible something is the harder it is to get out. I felt empowered by choosing despite being the target of a rage that dialed right into the stream of shame that always ran just beneath the surface. Think the pink goo from the original Ghostbusters. I kept trying to dam it up, rather than drain it. Hustle for my worthy…. Thinking of Beene. That’s the only love I’ve known, the hustle. A narcissist demands loyalty without actually providing anything except rage and contempt. I cry for the little girl in me that thought that was love. I’m living with the consequences and the growth. I was always going to have to go back for me. I put it off until my kids were 20 and almost 18…. I patched holes in a sinking ship furiously. And now I’m a variety of tired I can’t even describe and a loneliness that’s like I’ve been hollowed out. I creak and rock. My bones call to you from their separate skin. I make myself translucent to let you in…. In the absence of fear, a Jewel lyric, I’ve loved a long time. This doesn’t make me any kind of hero, a warrior maybe, but I sure don’t look like one to all of the people I’ve tried to do love with, and since I could only view myself externally I just internalized more shame.

It has been vicious this pain and abuse. I’ve been fighting for my life. In my own head where I was banished to live…..

Knowledge is power, once someone gets their story clear, healing can happen. This is a cause I can get behind with my whole being. It’s what I do, and as I live out my own story with courage I become more and more capable to do this.

Clarity and Connection has resonated a lot with me this year. Yung Pueblo. It will hopefully be named poetry book of the year.

The fog lifts and I emerge and that’s almost the heaviest burden of all. When the wires are so crossed that possibility feels like a heavier burden than limitations.

Scarcity is a cruel master…. I have to actually learn how to accept abundance. ….