Tag: #lovemakesafamily

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Learn From Everything… Heart Openings. Family Ties….

I choose to learn from those that are loving.

So it’s a Saturday morning. Most of the years of my life I would have been working right now. In fact I had been seeing the same client at that time for about 6 years now I believe. They are now in a different time slot.

This is maybe my seventh Saturday, but whose counting 😉 I now have two full real estate days to create, work, play, etc from…. I can see a favorite plant on the deck in my view right now. I’m a little chilly so before I continue I’ll put on my Untamed zip up and heat my coffee that I still haven’t drank yet.

How many times will I heat this thing up. And life isn’t even busy. Usually we make ourselves busy. Today I’m enjoying some love cleaning. Not to be confused by rage cleaning, neurotic cleaning, or any other variety. There are so many.

On my mind most lately is alone time. Lake house ? Maybe?! Monastery? Maybe. It feels so aggrandizing to speak of feeling closer to spiritual enlightenment and yet I think that’s true. It’s just pure peace. Knowing you can have all the knowledge but not a breathless need to practice it, especially on someone else.

On my mind lately is also the organization of finances and how the hell does anyone decide what to spend on and what not to if you’re being mindful.

I’m tired of mindless. And while most things in my life or not I fall into spending habits that are more behavioral and unconscious than I prefer. So I’m working on that. I’m sure any readers can relate to the amount of money spent on Amazon monthly. Even a business write off, because most are books, is not a justification I can endure any longer.

I crave moving towards minimalism and away from anything I don’t need. I crave to simplify stuff and amplify experiences. However I have a tendency to do the opposite.

I’m currently reading the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. He wrote the legend of baggar Vance, which I actually don’t know much about. The book is about creativity and resistance. I’ve often said resistance takes many forms and he summarizes that in neat concepts in the book. An easy and powerful read!

I’m also reading The Inner Life of The Counselor by Robert Wicks. The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, A Separate Peace, and about a million other things.

I’m taking many less baths, which is interesting. Hmmm I could take one now actually. Not a bad idea. I’m working my way through all or nothing behavior as well as thinking. Challenging it.

I tend to be all in my head and not in my body, and when I do get into my body all sorts of complications occur right now. So that’s something I’m being with and sorting through. There are wounds there. There is loss there. That sometimes I just cannot come to grips with.

Through that process I’m learning to be and accept myself and slowly ever so slowly eeking the poison out. The criticism, the gaslighting, the minimizing, the hyper vigilance. The judgment, the fear, the raw pain.

Healing for me, I am finding, is a lifetime art. It doesn’t have to be all dark and storms, even though yes those are there.

Anyway here I am, this is me, working to be wild and free while also contained in a safe land I’m building inside of me.

In the words of Emily Dickinson I’m out with Lanterns looking for myself.

Today’s agenda besides a lunch engagement is to clean my work desk and organize myself to focus on some of my tasks I’ve been procrastinating. An elaborate method of self-harm. But I’m so good at it. But I don’t want to be. Stop it kids. Everyone get along.

My to do list is massive it includes the next wave of changing my last name. All major tasks are done, but smaller ones, weeding out the old (and sacred), the weeds are magical too, the building blocks of my now self were nourished and founded on those.

It includes renewing my passport with my correct info, because I believe some travel is coming up soon. Positano maybe. Looking. Listening.

It includes finishing the process to become licensed in Florida. I will not ever be residing there, I can barely tolerate visiting. But when a beloved long time client relationship moves, you do what you must. And maybe there’s also another reason I don’t know yet.

Then mundane things like paying car taxes and bills, remembering to have the boiler serviced before the season this year etc.

We currently have no washer and dryer, and no flooring in the basement and a mess down there. So calls to the insurance company to follow up are also in order.

Breathe. Breathe is on the list.

And then next week my cousin is coming to visit. An honest to God blood relative that I have a few fond memories with and a felt connection that has spanned the years.

I have become sentimental. Some might say I always was, but I feel the variety maybe of it is different now.

I took a journey on 23 and me and now have three blood relatives I’m in contact with that in enthusiastic about and hold possibility not only for more knowledge about who and where I come from, but also warm, grounding, belonging in the realm of family.

It’s not desperate or seeking. It’s sturdy and profound.

I have also come into contact with my father’s sister and she seems amazing. She calls me niece and it feels nice. Simple and profound. She lives in Washington State near a state forest and that sounds amazing. I feel validated and loved and I never imagined I’d have family I could feel that way with.

Magic is happening. Loss still burns. There are still holidays and birthdays and memories that have left gaping holes. The story can be resolved, but the emotions are much different. They have a mind of their own.

Well that’s all I have for today. I want to KIS, keep it simple and in digestible amounts for now. I’m learning to do that with most things.

All my love,

C

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The Great Adventure of Understanding Me

“You can do something now to live the life you want to live.”

Grrr this was written the other day. And now I’m on a different one but just noticed this didn’t post.

Running book title: Understanding me.

If I wrote a book now that might be what it would be entitled right now. That’s what I’m working at each day.

Now that I’m not desperately trying to understand the actions of someone else (most of the time ;)), I am figuring out what I want, need, etc. Go figure. And also for me, easier said than done.

So today I find myself in the Storrs Library just over the CT state line. I’m here for my insert number here energy healing. I wonder how many that’s a good question.

I went to look it up on Venmo because I’m me, and the internet here inside the library has not lived up to my patience threshold. I crack myself up. So maybe something to get a statistic on later, if I remember. Slim chance.

So I’m sitting in the library with Things That Matter by Joshua Becker on my lap. Knew nothing about this book before I opened it. So far it begs you to ask the question of what you would regret about not finishing in your life. It speaks of a person’s work with the dung and their shared regrets and those commonalities.

It’s talking about how to live focusing (my fear kicks in with self knowledge here, my arch nemesis), on how to achieve the focus necessary to live according to your priorities.

Living in a way that makes a difference and not “wasting” that.

If you were to die today, what one thing (or few things) would you be most disappointed that you weren’t capable to complete.

Let’s see if I can work through mine here. There is the obvious sharing of my story and writing a book, the two may not be mutually exclusive. I’m still figuring out that.

I would regret not having fully apologized to those I’ve loved, where appropriate, based on the understanding I now have of myself.

Perhaps I would regret not giving enough attention to develop a counseling theory or movement based on the knowledge I have.

And not having a healthier relationship with myself, how I treat myself etc.

So I suppose reading this it’s pretty clear I’m on the path. That’s comforting. Seriously.

I just read make it a point to read books from different centuries because it will come from a different perspective and will challenge your thinking in new ways! That’s why East of Eden! Woooo! I’m ahead of the game.

So these are the five regrets people cited…

💜

And our time together today in this blog is almost at a close. I certainly do not regret making this post.

What I learned today is how close I am to living my life in a way that leaves few regrets and I could have lost all of that by obsessing over some of my mistakes and getting lost in them.

Stop it! I say to myself… stop it and carry on.

Onward! (Thanks Liz) and now I can truly embody and feel that message and how you got to it.

All my love, all of it!

C

Ps lately my thoughts are highly influenced by Soul Friends and exploring the connection that have most deeply impacted me, trauma work, understanding what triggers my symptoms and how that affects my life. Also the reading of Come as You Are, as well as Letting Go. Energy healings, movement, nature, self discovery, reflections, and the places that shows or songs or moving or reading take me.

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Just a Pupil in The School of Love…..

Love lift us up where we belong

It’s a gorgeous Sunday. I feel beautiful. Clear and peaceful and calm. Whole. Myself.

I no longer feel I’m outside of my body watching my life, or that I don’t deserve things coming my way today, or any other. Now I say this, but there are moments. The pain is not gone, my trauma is not gone.

I’ve just found a lot more peace in living, created a lot more.

I do however want to write more. I went to Kripalu and that was such an experience and I want to capture it. I made new and dear writer friends. I read bravely, shaking and crying even, but without hesitation and without shame.

I showed up!

I wrote pieces I didn’t know I had in me, many fragments of my life.

Sea glass.

I found myself in others there and vice versa.

I found out I’m a poet, a lyricist, that there’s a rhythm to my writing, and that I’m all in. I knew that. But I don’t mind finding out over and over.

I’m all in. With my whole heart.

This day feels beautiful. It doesn’t just look it. I’m no longer invisible or trying to make myself that way. So much unworthiness is being shedded.

I feel loved. I feel seen.

And I feel felt.

My home is full of loving people and music and food and joy. When I observe from the outside this is what I see and hear. People feel welcome and loved here.

I have new piano lessons that are so much better than the other. And I was able to realize that I didn’t lose any of what I learned (we never do). Once it’s in there it’s in there.

I got paperwork Friday to move forward with changing my name. Yes, I am being adopted at 42 years old, and no I don’t mind the administrative nightmare that ensues. I had been avoiding because of that.

I had a hospital trip last week, and a nurse said my last name and it felt weird. I don’t think I’ve ever felt I belonged to a last name. Sadly even those I share with my children, and is also the name of my business. It would be so easy to go back to that one. And also has the bonus of sharing it with my kids.

I need to belong to myself, and I also want to belong to a family that has known young me, that has shaped me, and that showed up.

I’ve spent long and hard thinking about this and even though I had acceptance and love from a family I kept it at arm’s length because of fear. They will write that on my grave perhaps. I was too afraid to lose it and that they were just being nice and every other fear you can imagine. Judging myself left and right. Analytical to a fault.

I’m done with that. It is with an open heart only, and still some better senses about me, that I choose to embark on the rest of my life.

How did you do it?! Not lose your heart….. it wasn’t easy.

So I am going to be Christina Nicole Jenkins soon.

When I think of love and being loved it’s them that I think of when it comes to family. Them that have known and loved me all the years of my life unconditionally and without expectation or becoming upset with me for the choices I’ve made.

When I think of how I love. How I include my daughter’s boyfriend as he’s one of the family, and holidays, it is them I have modeled the most after. How I have loved friends as my own, my desire to make anyone in my area feel like family. That’s me. That’s my own. It always was.

My first love Michael Jenkins and I… we are still in love. Not the romantic be together kind, but the kind who experienced first love together. I always did wish to marry him, so the last name will do. 😉 I feel warm and safe and seen and felt all these years later with him, and the family who loved me naturally. With him or not. They love me for me.

They just lost a daughter recently. My heart hurts for them. I’m sorry.

So I’m just realizing more recently a lot more about love. What it is. Who I am in its arms. How it’s shaped my life. Whether it was the having of it or the lacking of it. Whether it was lightning bolt love that jolts you awake to so many things, slow love that is learned, love of a friend, love of self, passion, vocation, nature.

What is love is my writing prompt from Melissa. And even if I do know a lot more about what it’s not, I am an eager student.

I used to just go blank when Melissa would ask me anything about me.

So on this Mother’s Day I have a mother and I am a mother, and there’s no internal conflict or pit of pain and despair to be found.

My life is “good enough”, not longing for anything else. Always that burning longing…. a purgatory my childhood years left me to resolve and I’ve turned pain into art.

The art of life itself.

And I love living.

So I’m sitting here pondering the consistent stable things I’ve created this past two years.

I am consistent and committed to my healing. Which includes routines I crave and love. They include exercise, nature, connection, writing, touch, learning, reading, and play. In no particular order because writing would be first, though play in last does track.

And little by little the hyper vigilant guard let’s down my walls and I swim in a sea of love without drowning or jumping out. I’m finding ways to navigate the waters. Ways into and out of myself that are constructive rather than destructive.

It’s not perfect. I’m still doing a lot of grieving. My heart is still heavy in ways that are felt in daily life, especially on holidays, and milestones. There are aches of what was, and what never was. Phantom limbs that tingle. Vivid moments.

I still do grief rituals. Deep moments of allowing. No blocking.

Those are part of life now, and I don’t worry that they will bitter the sweet. They are the product of a life well lived of pursuing that which sets my heart on fire and there’s no shame in that.

I have nothing to be ashamed of or regret, only to peacefully sort my way through gently, ever so gentle with my heart.

Tread softly on me. I have a lot of scars.

I deal with a lot of pain physically and emotionally daily. That’s normal for me. My normal. When I get too down about it life gets harder. When I have some story like I’m meant to be this suffering thing. That’s ridiculous.

I just take things one day at a time and get better at coping with those difficulties and at being at home inside my body and with my wide open heart.

This is where I am 💜

It’s the first Mother’s Day I’ve truly let go and forgiven myself for not being able to stay where I was being harmed. Not wondering if I would attend a funeral for someone who died for me a long time ago. For someone who didn’t consider my well being.

How can a mother ever be that way with a child. I’m not perfect, not near to it, but I’d never give up becoming a mother.

I never give up, and I am loyal when safely connected and seen and felt.

I would have stayed loving her if it wasn’t burning me alive.

She never became a mother.

And thankfully I did and am.

It’s hard to not regret how long it’s taken me to get here. To give without resentment and that edge I always had. It creeps up like bile crawling up my throat. I now know where to put it, and life is much easier.

I want to give now. I’m not as exhausted all the time now.

I want to be a mother and someday a grandmother who my loved ones feel felt by. That I am able to pay attention to them without getting overstimulated, freezing, isolating, fawning, covered in panic.

Separated off in my mind in some terrible intrusion.

So I do the work, walk the line, show up.

I’m emotional often now. Like a raw exposed nerve. Like a burn victim. No longer reacting at every touch. I can lean in to connection and learn.

It’s humbling and rewarding and I am present and accountable.

All my love…

Mom

Ps: oh and the entire reason I began writing was to write about my schedule adjustment, and how that feels, but this feels complete. So next post…. My writing has a mind of it’s own and takes me on the ride.

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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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Unfolding the Memoir Piece by Piece

I was never going to be able to write unless I got safe.

Felt safe

I was never safe with you and you made that about me not staying, when the truth is I had stayed past any logical point that any human would endure.

Any human that wasn’t wired with love being harmful, inconsistent and dangerous.

My ideas of love and my wiring are all crossed. I’m so angry about this. This is so painful.

They probably look like cords behind an entertainment stand, or underneath a computer desk did in the 80’s. Or still do for me because I tend to be old fashioned about things.

With my mom I was always responsible for her pain and not abandoning her. But the relationship was a one way street. Love was expected from me. Unconditional affection, acceptance, supply. But I was given nothing of the sort in return.

(To this day she pops up curious about my life, and ashamed because of how other people see her not having a relationship with her daughter. She and her boyfriend try and find pictures to print and display, from the internet. I do my best to shield all of us from that. To live far enough away.)

I was given terror.

Then when normal things would happen. Teenage moods being unpredictable I reacted like a feral animal, and not the steadfast parent I wanted to see myself as. Another life sentence inside my head of shame. I crawl out a little at a time now.

I am programmed for pain, when it comes to love. So now when I am loved it feels odd, suffocating sometimes, scary. I feel responsible to return it right away and scattered about how I should do that. What’s the formula.

I was rendered only able to think, never safe to feel.

So when I do feel now in real time, the moments become sealed forever to be replayed for survival. A reel of pictures in my own mind to survive off of when inevitably the same exile over and over will occur.

It’s hard to say these things, because if you say something it’s more true right?! Maybe if you just don’t acknowledge it, it will go away. Freeze and hide.

Once you say how you feel it could be a life sentence. Someone could take it out of context and once again misunderstand you so egregiously. I’ve served several of these after a desperate bought of honesty begging to be loved. And I never thought it could happen later in life after I’d worked so hard.

What I mean about a life sentence is having been so alone when it comes to relationship, you develop only an inner dialogue about what you’re doing right or wrong, and usually it’s wrong and why. And that’s your primary companion.

This companion serves the purpose of trying to make sure if you have even a shot at love, that you aren’t abandoned. So it critiques and controls your every move via your thoughts.

I was alone with all the things she said, running through my head, she was me. I was alone with how bad I was because I was the one who exploded right. The other is calm cool and collected. Yes Taylor, the problem was me.

I often pair love and food together. If I have felt love when I have eaten a meal, I have a photographic memory of that time. Every single detail and the taste I can recall. I crave that food. I try and recreate it, but it’s never the same.

I can only imagine this as a product of the scarcity of both I once had in my life.

I can finally speak about it without my inner roommate telling me I’m whiny, going to be judged, being a victim, manipulating, it wasn’t that bad Christina. You’re so dramatic. And the like…..

When I talk about my past my breath quickens to short gasps, my chest tightens, it feels like I’m choking. The fear is as if snakes were crawling all over my body. My ears get red and hot and I feel like I’m burning alive. Sometimes just for fun, this happens unprovoked when I’m just trying to live my life.

I felt this way the last time my mother touched me, which ironically was over my grandfather’s deathbed. Talk about confusing.

The words released were always an act of treason, my truth always caused me trouble. No where to turn but inward.

Like my love with my grandfather wasn’t complicated already. A harsh authoritarian constantly telling me I’d be a slut like my mother if I preferred the company of boys, at the ripe age somewhere between 10 and 12. Constantly commenting on my body, those long legs Chris you have to fill them up. Always comments on my body.

I was a Tom boy. I preferred the company of boys and their clothes and that was wrong and bad for so many reasons in that household. So was talking too much, and being enthusiastic, and taking up too much space.

I wore strange clothing because grandmother always tried to find things on sale. One year my wardrobe consisted of those Mc hammer workout pants popular with muscly work out men in California. They were cheap so I got every pair of a different design. Neon black and yellow lightning patterns, t shirts with kittens on them and Fanny packs.

I never stood a chance.

I was a walking target of weird. Including the bargain haircuts my aunt gave me while she was in beauty school. Nails were her gift. Not hair. My haircuts looked like a Lego man hair cap.

I’m terribly lucky I got braces. One of the only things that turned around how I felt about myself later was having nice teeth.

And paying for things for my moms bastard child came under hot scrutiny and loud verbal opinions by my aunt, and others. The welfare bitches welp is taking my inheritance again.

Every time I got a gift or something uniquely for me, it caused a terrible fight between my mom and my aunt. Every time I received I was punished. See anything familiar here.

Not a thought about how the child felt in the scenario. I heard all of it.

I tried again and again to shrink to fit, but my humanity ending up bursting forth in the form of behavioral outbursts and undesirable traits at school. Begging to be loved and seen as something good or at all, at all the inappropriate times.

My desk was always next to the teacher. I picked physical fights with boys. I was always rescuing the hurt and drawn to staying so close to them. I’ll never leave you. I know it’s unsafe at home. For me too it is, but yours is probably worse and definitely more legitimate.

You have a family. One of those unicorn things.

So anytime I was welcomed into a family circle, inside, the experience is always powerfully compelling and at the same time repelling. Terror and confusion, mixed with beginning to feel loved and seen.

Spoiler alert: it’s only a matter of time until you see how bad I am. This will always be in there, the pain of it, even if the cognition can be expelled via emdr.

Dance with the humans you belong. In childhood dancing was a sign of sexual wrongdoing. You did not do it it was dirty in every sense of the word.

Which makes sense the strong attachment I felt to my childhood best friend whose family while also Seventh Day Adventist, was a “little more progressive” and I learned so many things I loved.

She had older brothers with cool cars, and bad habits and it was so exciting, like being at the zoo seeing how other families functioned. Those real ones with moms and dads and siblings where things were not so incredibly fucked up (but still were).

I borrowed dirty dancing and faked sick from school the next day. I paused all the sexy parts and felt dirty and shameful and alive. To this day I could probably quote the whole movie by heart, and also never need to watch it again because I see it in my mind.

You could have thought it would be Footloose, but no it was dirty dancing. I probably related a lot more to Jennifer gray, her mousiness and child like demeanor, good girl persona.

Good bad good bad. Pick a side like the movies and it will play out like a movie. There is no real life. Only the one in my head.

I wanted to be good and do good, but I also craved to be cool so I would be…. You guessed it loveable.

So I could be loved.

Who knew that later in life the pairing of the offering of a family that wasn’t real, or theirs to offer, and …. I lost my thought. So painful when this happens, this is what happens when you write in communal space, and have teens lol, sigh.

I only ever could dance with alcohol and the sting of the comments by people when I looked awkward doing it, nearly too much to bear.

So that day when I danced sober with a family and a young child I loved, was magical for me.

I was only there because of something else that felt magical for me.

When something feels magical and then turns to immense suffering because I couldn’t even trust my own mind….

Not being able to trust your own mind is a special kind of hell.

My own mind is so often all there was. I was so alone with my own mind sometimes I thought I would never emerge a person.

It was the beginning of the end.

A soul death.

I am here in recovery trying to balance closing up the wounds and moving forward with my life in a way that for the first time can feel whole.

It is a gargantuan undertaking.

Recovery can be brutal and is also beautiful. Brutiful Glennon would call it. Make no mistake it’s a full time job and anyone who has to spend most of their life recovering from their childhood should be compensated appropriately so they can live out the rest of their days in peace.

If ever I am in a position to do so I would use funds to make this a thing.

I thank God, the windows, and the walls for the enthusiasm I was blessed with, that has me never giving up. Because it has hurt enough to make anyone want to.

I have more peace than enthusiasm these days and sometimes that is painful, it’s temping to feel less alive in it.

One should not have to come to great harm to feel alive or to feel love.

💜

I’ve outdone myself this Sunday. It ripped wide open. Just the beginning….

There are whole schools of thought around whether this type of introspection is helpful or not. Let alone sharing it. Allowing myself permission to exist as I am with all my parts and all my thoughts is cathartic. This is my vehicle.

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When Healing Turns a Corner, and it Gets Really Good….

*I used talk to text a lot, so this is probably an editing nightmare, and since I realize how life short is these days who has time to edit. We will do that when the finished product exists.

We are on the right side of rock bottom….

On lap three. A post started to formulate and if I continue to explain; during that time I’ll lose my actual thought. It’s that easy, to lose it, for me.

I’m walking to the rhythm. Feeling my ass strengthen, and the back of my legs. In this moment I could be a prize athlete, but only in my imagination and current empowerment.

Then though I’d look in the mirror and see the slightly overly well insulated forty two year old who in so many ways is just meeting herself for the first time.

I feel very different on the inside than I could be judged for on the outside. Hmm what a thought. And that how I actually feel about having stripped away all these layers of self and other expectations, is free.

Free

There’s a certain corner you turn with recovery when it just starts getting good, and I mean capital G ood. It’s not like there isn’t still all the other things. Memories, pain, pleasure all of it, all the time.

Time and trust are essential to this 💜

With the right (a good) formula life can get good (great). Feel good. Far from perfect, but just good. Yeah you get the idea.

Good is perfect

Euphoria was so last season, except still my favorite perfume for my chemistry. It’s mine, and so am I.

And I am the world’s.

And you were my Achilles heal and my kryptonite.

I hold the memories and the story. They intertwine like our fingers.

Push me, pull me, taste me. I dare you to erase me. It will never be real, just coping.

Cope this

Exercise makes me fiesty and a few other things. Fiesta. Foreva: silly playful.

I’m listening to A Million Dreams. It never gets old. I’m thinking about the restlessness inside of me, and how I don’t tell stories about what it means anymore. About how now I understand it as pain. I understand the irritable moods so much differently.

Yesterday I drove to Fairfield to get a B12 injection. I do this usually on Fridays once a month. Sometimes I have to have them as often as weekly, but right now we are in a maintenance phase.

I went to Barnes & Noble, to get a hard cover leather bound journal that is my favorite. Spoiler alert: Ended up with a Hamsa one, called to me, Italian leather mmm the smell.

I’d hate my sensory stuff so much, if I didn’t have so many other reasons to love it.

I might actually be ready to just write my story in it, not worrying about not having the ability to edit….

just write Christina

I will also look at the sale journals, as there are often many gems in there, I have been tasked to get the book, Come as you are, by my therapist.

Sex didn’t really have anything to do with it, she told me that the woman who wrote it, describes the cycle of trauma, in a way that, even through all of her training, that has not been matched, so I am going to read a sex, trauma book, to gather more helpful information about the rest of the trauma.

The content I’ve been with lately is so good ! What I’m reading and studying I mean.

It’s been along time since I’ve done any in office therapy, just because of how my schedule works. But I happen to be going on Tuesday, and I asked my therapist if we would do any EMDR.

We discussed that if I am going to do you will work around the negative cognition that I am unlovable.

So I’m sitting here thinking about this now. The rough around the edges of it all and I’m thinking about how, that’s not my identity, that is my pain.

The pain that lives inside me at all times.

I thought about conceptualizing it as the pain I carry, but that seems like way too much responsibility for things I had no part in. It just lives in there and I’m trying to make it a hospitable roommate. .. bend it to my iron will.

That’s an interesting way to conceptualize pain, right? I thought so.

I’m not responsible for so many things I carried and was willing to carry.

I am toggling back-and-forth between a million dreams and talk to write.

I am thinking about how curiosity killed the cat, and sometimes we see things that burn with a white hot inferno of pain.

In the need to sort out truth from all of the lies, your own experience.

And I think about how the most important things, true intimacy are the things that are not seen. They are not the flashy gatherings, the professional photographs, the websites, the events, because often times beneath those things are very different tale is told.

I think about how I am no longer duped, by outward images, and I have a much greater wisdom around that. That is safety.

I have been watching the show Away.

I always did love Hillary Swank. Thinking about how I have a passion and a family, and where does it all fit.?!

What I like most about the show so far, is the couple’s support for one another’s passion, the type of way that one knows who the other person is, no matter what, and how important that is. I love that kind of love, the kind driven by a deep understanding and loyalty for the other.

I have dreamt about that kind of love. I thought I had tasted it, and that turned out to be a rotten lie, the most egregious of which I told myself and allowed myself to believe. I was all in, and despite it hurting people I loved, I chose.

Now I allow myself to feel everything.

I have not cut off a single part of me to survive. Because the cycle must be complete. I must discharge the demons from my mind. There is no ruthless creature here. Only a beautiful human interested in helping and healing.

It isn’t something that can be sold. It isn’t something that can be manufactured, it is naturally forged through time, and staying.

Stay. Ironically I was wearing a t- shirt that said that during my last therapy session.

The word stay came up in my therapy session today, and what happens after you stay, the goal, the good. Not some benchmark for how many years you have under your belt together, or a flashy show, the real and indisposed of it all.

Stay not as a taunt or a gaslight, but the real kind. The kind where it can get good inside of the trust and warmth.

I am learning that is the formula of writing. I never needed to sacrifice to have what I wanted, only to allow and let go of what hurts.

That’s it 😉 like it’s easy?! Lol

Anyway, I’m going to walk into Barnes & Noble for now, and then I’m going to take myself on a lunch date where I spend time with my best friends, the book I am reading, and the begging to be inked upon journal.

And that was Friday and now it’s Saturday. Finishing this and a walk at the same time. Motion sick is a real thing. Maybe less walking and writing?! Maybe not.

Maybe I’ll fall in love with today.

Watched About Time yesterday and realized how much in it I am about. Learning why it’s my favorite. Every song. Especially into my arms. Oh the dreams I’ve had to that song. And the movie Life Itself. Connection. Emotional safety. Love. These are the things I’m about.

There’s no perfect in here, only good. And now that that’s softer life can really begin. Open heart and mind, kick ass boundaries. Self support and love. I deserve them all.

Dreams become reality. And I can hold space for all of it, my pain too, and the uncertainty.

I watched Stutz last night. So so good!

I have so much more to say but it will have to wait. ….

Stay Tuned

Oh ps I’m mostly keeping my no buying books 2023 goal. I had a gift card and occasionally find a way to cheat the system a little, but it’s been greatly reduced and that’s the point right. To lay down roots with the ones I already have, pay them the attention they deserve.

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Making Amends with Myself, the Primary Source….

How Do You Block the Sound of a Voice You’d Know Anywhere….

Lisa Loeb Wishing Heart and Jan Arden Insensitive are taking me back today….

I have a bad sinus cold. I woke up this morning with my head pounding, sensitive to light and sound and essentially everything. I debated strongly what course of action to take, ie migraine pill because it feels like that, but I know it’s sinus pressure.

I opted for severe sinus med and it definitely lightened the suffering though it’s there behind the pill. I don’t want to take an antibiotic if I don’t have to. It wipes out any good gut bacteria I manage to have and causes whole other issues. So there’s that.

I’m seriously reflective right now. Very within. Integrating the changes from these past years. The holidays brought forth lots of grief. All of the lost dreams. It’s not as doom and gloom as it sounds, well it is and isn’t.

It isn’t because I am faithful these days to a belief that all of these are threads in a tapestry of my life and all are sacred, even the more coarse fibers.

I am understanding my self better, which helps me to understand others better. I’m doing this in all areas and in past and present relationships.

It’s a softening.

Will I be thawing forever?

The answer in so many ways is a resounding yes. What’s different is the resentment. I no long resent this as much, that is becoming a holding it sacred as part of my path. Who even am I?! Oh hey heyoka. If that’s the name for a deep spiritual being that can hardly believe that’s a real thing and not some grandiose fantasy. It sounds ridiculous and self aggrandizing. We only believe what we can see and touch, because anything else never showed up.

I’m not behaving as if I’m living in a fantasy. My feet are firmly planted and I’m addressing myself and my needs and learning to communicate. I am learning. It’s not easy for me. Yep it’s not the other person, it’s me, just as much. Humble pie. I own my things, and own them specifically and follow through with change however and I was always capable of that. That was always possible under the right conditions and I am not responsible for the right conditions. I made my hard decisions.

I can trust that because when push comes to shove afraid or not I act with integrity. Scared or not. That is trustworthy. So when am I going to start valuing myself in that way?! Love HER Christina, choose her. She deserves and is worthy of your love. Stop fearing her, she has always meant well and tried hard and course corrected when it has been necessary without relying on manipulation.

I never relied on manipulation. When I recognized that’s what I was doing I owned it and changed and had empathy for those hurt.

Empathy without boundaries is self destruction. Yes it is. Never again. Boundaries are king and everything will be as it should because those are water tight. Crystal clear boundaries she said, a therapist from another life. Able to protect even when that was a difficult balance. Crystal clear boundaries Christina.

I remember every single thing that is important to know. Not protected by a narrative, but cloaked in taking the time I need to make the decisions that are best for me and learning how to be more than a coping strategy.

Meeting myself. Falling in love, or at least like. Sometimes love can be very overwhelming.

I am observing myself in absolute shut downs and freezes and then watching what brings me back and what shuts me down further.

I have slowed down enough that I am able to be seen, only because I am seeing myself, not only in that terrible polarity of good or bad, right or wrong. But in all of the richness and complexity I deserve. Did you hear that?! Wow.

I did. And my eyes are wet.

They thaw over and over as my heart does as well.

My head is exploding I’m going to freak out! No I’m not. My adult self will take myself to the walk in later and get on some antibiotics and trust the rest. I’ve had this pain for three days. I rearranged my day to only have a 12, and 1 and moved the rest. So I can just crawl in bed and relax. I think it’s time to also take the migraine pill. I think it’s both 🙁

It’s so painful these realizations of the way I’ve seen things so backwards and tangled with my kids and how misunderstood I’ve felt, and not being able to clear those up. I can’t believe how I’ve lived like this all this time. So separate from myself and those I love and just as a harsh executioner. Reactive, ready to jump on any sign of dissension.

I was reacting to my children all the time, when I didn’t feel in control. And shocker I’m not in control of anything, but myself now. Jesus it was about time. In the immortal words of Elizabeth Gilbert. You never really had control anyway, all you had was anxiety. Yes Liz. Thank you for being a beacon when I am lost.

How I have needed to be in control for safety. I am the things I’ve accused of and I see so much more softly now. Of myself and others and the glaciers just thaw and thaw.

What will emerge ? As I no longer reside in a story or rely on the same coping mechanisms.

It’s absolutely terrifying being in a transformation. Dying over and over. Things are so clear at least and that is a relief. and there is also so much to sit with. To make friends with.

I’m fighting to trust myself. That is my biggest area of work right now. My perception, my own ability to feel my feelings in real time, rather than a year later. That the things I say and do will not hurt me let alone another. I’m juggling so many plates in the air all the time and working at being entirely different when overwhelmed.

The tool I’m employing most often is empathy and having been so far removed from my own for myself for so long I’m wondering how the new fresh oxygen will integrate: was I without it for too long? Is the damage too great?

I’m only just beginning to peel back the layers. To not use usual coping strategies and patterns. To know what is and what is not that.

My heart is opening and softening, but I’m still an anemone. At the slightest sign of danger I close up tightly and it’s frustrating feeling so emotionally handicapped. Stunted, frozen, cold.

I am going through those things, but I am not those things. This is quite possibly one of the biggest changes inside to date.

I’ve misunderstood myself so catastrophically for so long, that finding understanding now is almost unbearable. It’s unbearably different than what I am used to.

To stop misunderstanding others, my children. My SELF.

The one safe space I understand well contained into an hour long appointment with my acute and honed ability focused and objectivity at my disposal I cling tightly to my gift to keep me steady, and it does.

Then I adjust my narrative not to pathologize that somehow, and then I do that in every other area of my life.

I am naked right now.

And I’ve never been like this before. My eyes are wet again.

The breaking and building.

My bones are powder….

At least I am not a powder keg anymore.

My heart is an ocean

One of those lovely ones that are clear blue and contain no sharks. A safe ocean.

It used to be safe for others, but not for me….

That is different now. I am different now. I am soft and scared and sacred and new and old at the same time.

My head hurts so bad…..

I just want to snuggle into my covers and cry and listen to the last two hours of Evelyn Hugo. But first a bath, a rally and showtime for two hours.

My sessions deepen as I do, and as my understanding of myself does, and my forgiveness of myself….

Onward

Ps one moment of truly being seen to the core, I have found, can thaw the thickest ice. The person opens right back up and becomes present in that safety. The person so often lately doing that, is me.

I am told I am that for so many others, but I wasn’t doing that for myself. I’m so surprised when someone sees me and so used to living without it.

You gave me oxygen then removed it, over and over until I begged for an end. In the end I made it myself.

That was just the beginning, as often is with transformations. Now the integration and not knowing whether the organ will be accepted or rejected.

Stay tuned

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Beauty is a curse, I’ve long known this

I’ve got approximately two and a half hours left of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I’ve been savoring it. I’ll feel incomplete for a short while in its absence. I’ve been all or nothing so long, it’s nice to read it bit bit and then process and listen to music. I have a nice groove going on.

I walked to Natural Kitchen and got a bowl today. I think the tuna from there makes me a little allergic, probably some preservative they use. A major goal in the new year is to begin working with a nutritionist and allergist and really attend to my health.

Another goal is to spend very little and see if I can pay off my student loans. I’m coming up with a strategy with my financial advisor. I want to leave my children with a good financial situation and also make sure in case anything happens to me with my Crohns that I have wiggle room. So they and we are safe and don’t have additional stress.

*don’t worry I’m not leaving anytime soon, I just think that far ahead. It’s a part of me.

When did I suddenly become such an adult ?! Who knows!?

I was able to do quite a bit for those I love this year for Christmas and it’s all done. I’m usually panicking the night before. It’s pinch me unreal the things I’m able to do.

I’ve been that way most of my life though, pinching myself at things I just never could even have seen for myself. How rich my experiences have been. No corner of my life unturned and I shall continue living this way.

I wore my only human sweats today and grey under armor sweater with beanie and just felt cool ha. Feels silly to say but I did. I felt cool despite having my winter weight on, some breaking out on my face. I just don’t torture myself anymore and that feels very nice.

To not nitpick myself apart about perfection. Now if I could just continue to do that with writing.

Go easy on me baby….. appropriate.

Henri is asleep at my feet. The cat dog that she is. The little prince is cleaning up after his ugly Christmas / cookie extravaganza last night. Thankful those are few and far between, and also grateful to be able to be that house and have such a good group of kids.

I feel like Diane Lane in the end of Under the Tuscan Sun, something I want to read by the way. I’ve only seen the movie. She had felt so low at one point, like she was never going to have what she wanted and then realizes she did even though it’s completely different than she thought.

Yep my face is definitely flushing from this food. I get much less anxious about these things anymore. I go with I’ll be fine, and if I’m not I’ll know and be able to get the care I need. Not going to eat this bowl again. But I will for sure walk to places to get my food and even shopping. I love walking when I can instead of driving.

Maybe next I’ll bike everywhere and keep costs down. Anything can be an adventure. I could be happy the rest of my life walking back and forth to the library and eating a picnic lunch out in the sun with a book.

The simple things…

I just want to make sure my loved ones are safe and cared for and myself and we have experiences. That’s what I’m focused on lately, and that I make choices that are congruent with that. Yes a therapist word for sure. Shocking 😉

Writing a book lately feels like more of a when, than an if. That feels so nice. I could cry just to say it, but most important that I feel it. A sense of security and that it’s solid. If my circumstances change I still am solid. That’s taking root.

It’s my birthday tomorrow. It feels different this year somehow. I’m acknowledging it and not saying it doesn’t matter and I don’t need anything. It feels calm and safe.

In fact I need to see a show, A Strange Loop on Broadway and the tree and have a nice dinner in the city with my loved ones. I’m not anxious. Well maybe a little. About not finding a bathroom or anything that can happen, but the excitement outweighs. Mmmm.

I have more than I need. I can begin thinking about what I can do to give to my community and to my field and all of it.

I have so much more to write maybe today will be a twofer or tomorrow morning I’ll take some time for me to contemplate the brink of my forty second trip around the Sun.

I was going to talk about Evelyn’s sixth husband because that’s where I am. And how I feel for people so beautiful they get trapped in the upkeep of it all, it’s one thing to enjoy taking care of yourself, pressure however is quite another.

Ok so I wrote this a couple of days ago and didn’t post. It’s more an update than passion ridden prose. A theme I suppose. I have therapy now on Christmas Eve eve. Then walking and family time. I anticipate a lot of writing as I am present and coming to the end of Evelyn’s story.

And still well at the beginning of mine 💜

Ps and in true Christina fashion I didn’t talk about the title subject much at all. Stay tuned it will come along somewhere…. Soon. I think. Maybe

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Deep Understanding Sought on Rainy Day Walks

“In Your Wildest Dreams”

I’m learning ….. that

I always need to have an exit strategy which includes an exit narrative and I’m working out the difference between that and a balanced look at things. It’s not easy work.

It’s dark out and gloomy, but I don’t feel that way. My storms are calm. For now.

“But I’d follow you to the great unknown. Off to a world we’d call our own.” I want to watch this movie. It’s been awhile. That and the movie UP are on my mind. This blog is my attempt to not lose myself in the fray.

I am lost, I am found. I’m a walking contradiction that’s hard to be around.

No.

So many changes around me and the seasons are the least of it. “So I’d risk it all just to be with you.” Yeah did that. Not anymore. I wouldn’t risk the stability of my kids and I for anything again. I have to work daily at self forgiveness. It becomes a way of life, not some singular moment.

Forgiveness and compassion for self. It starts there, and I learned very little of it. I have to start from scratch.

Yes.

Left right left right. One foot in front of another. The most simple part of my day. Me with me. Walking.

Gentle walking. Tears falling. Tension releasing. Surrender walking. White flag walking. Calm talking. Rhythmic rocking. No tik tokking. Lol. Have to play a little. A little lighter.

The rain begins to fall. I don’t know it all.

When I don’t I’m not safe. You try it the way I’ve had it and see how you do.

Coming to grips blow by blow continuously seeking flow.

Here comes the rain. Don’t know how hard it will be. Will I drown?!

One mile is pretty good for a migraine day. One migraine for a holiday month is pretty good. My stats are going pretty well. Maybe I’ll make it two, you never know.

But I do.

It’s only rainy not raining, not pouring. The difference is important. Nuance is important. Understanding is important. Black and white is dangerous.

Just breathe Christina. Breathe. The only thing you need to do is be yourself, who you truly are, and be honest about that, and what you want and need.

Why is that so fucking hard.

You know why.

You’re seeing my chat with my higher self in real time. It’s ok to have an exit strategy, but decide what the criteria is for using it or not. You get to decide. You don’t have to decide: you get to. It’s a privilege, not your sole responsibility. It never was.

What I Have. Kelsea Ballerini. Cuz I got a roof over my head, I’m doing alright right where I’m at with what I have.

The simple things like making a stir fry on a rainy day. Simplify. When all your mind does is complicate, simple is bliss.

One more loop. One more mile. One more tear slips down my face. One more epiphany. One more day of life at least. It’s not a burden it’s a gift. You’re not bad Christina. Not emotionally uncaring or shut down or cold. Unclench.

It’ll be ok. How do you want me to believe that when it never was. Let alone want me to say that to you. I don’t know how. Help me.

Have you ever actually been unsafe?!

You don’t have to be to feel that way I’m learning. The mind can play cruel tricks, but it can also heal.

A beautiful mind and a wounded heart are a difficult combination.

Gifted but only in the right places. Threatening in others.

I’m not bad. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t yours either.

Misunderstandings are a prison. Don’t let your mind be.

Plant a garden. You plant so many flowers. All of my plants die. Argue argue argue.

Minds a mess. A mind at rest.

Lay with me….

B12 injection in Fairfield. So many memories there. My first office. It took so long to feel real. Like that was my life and not a fantasy.

Surreal every day. Until the truth finally sets in. It takes so long for that to happen.

It takes all the consistency there never was, and follow through on the build.

Don’t abandon this project, she’s going to be great. She always was.

The world may, you may, but I never will. I’m right here.

These days I’m working on my relationship with myself. It requires a lot of healing and many optimal conditions for that.

My heart requires it.

So if you want a place at this table inquire within if you can be congruent without.

Meet me here if you dare.

More art. Less war. Open heart on firm ground.

Kiss me

But only if you know me, see me, understand me….

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Cotton Candy Sunrises Paint this Wounded Warrior’s Mind

That ice crust on the outside though, the moment your teeth break through. The feeling when you have the whole thing still, and the one when there’s only a bite left. Moments.

“I want to live and not just survive…. That’s why I can’t love you in the dark….Adele this morning.“

It’s finally a cold morning. I woke up needing to walk…. So here I am. The tree that was dazzling fire the other day, is already coal and ash. It changes as quickly as my consciousness does.

I was recently conceptualized as a porcupine. The irony. Rough around the edges huh. Shocking. The guards don’t relent, and they don’t dispatch either. Maybe if I’m still, meditation, contemplation, they will get bored and stray.

Doubtful. They are loyal to a fault.

Porcupines aren’t bad. They have soft underbelly’s. But reaching that space, that’s another matter entirely.

The cold air prickles my skin this morning, quills or not. The sun’s rising is creating a cotton candy pastel glow. It’s a Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper out here this morning. I am truly old 😉

As she approaches (the Sun) it’s an Orange Creamsicle now. A childhood memory fragment. On field days and other occasions my odd Seventh Day Adventist k-12 school always offered either that or a fudgesicle. How would you spell that anyway.?!

Anyway I was never a fudge girl or chocolate. But every once in awhile I’d change it up, because I knew the power of variety and learning. I wanted to try. To this day give me a plain French vanilla ice cream from a classic parlor any day. Bliss. It’s hard to come by actually.

It’s rare I remember that playground, the one I had so many nightmares about. Waking and dreaming one’s. Just a gaggle of little ones playing silly pretend games.

In recent years some of those little girls have come forward and shared their secrets and their truths with me. They felt I was safe and a protector. That’s because we knew each other. Could smell the fear on her.

I remember how much I knew and wanted to protect as a kindergartner. And now I know that shouldn’t have been. Now I can be angry and reclaim.

Now I can see the friends with children with two loving parents living their lives around their children and know where each quill originated.

I might as well be from another planet observing. What would that be like?! I consistent world of that. So much less running, and yelling. Having my truth choked out of me. With silent manipulation. With cold hard death stares. With every adult temper tantrum.

The gun in her mouth, the passed out all the time, powder and mirrors. I was a little girl.

I wasn’t.

I was an informant, a spy, a comforter, a therapist, a massage therapist, a toy, a buddy, a friend.

I was terrified and frozen and forced out of my heart and up into my head before I ever knew a thing about me. To try and preserve anything that could be, without even knowing I was doing that.

Viktor Frankl mindset before I knew what or who he and that was.

I had a good attitude about life and I loved people, as fucked up as they were. I loved living.

I have always loved waking up, even when the content of the day sometimes made me wish to sleep forever.

The gift I have is every day is a blank canvas and always has the possibility of being a masterpiece.

For so long I was chasing the ability to consistently create one, in whichever area of my life.

Now I’m walking with the world and listening and looking. No more chasing, and no more running either.

My work deepens, my clients heal before my eyes. And now I do too. So I can keep going with it. We cannot ask people to travel further than we have. Rollo May.

Did you know you can see a person heal.?! It’s observable. Their nervous system calms. Their eyes meet yours. They hunch down less, with each empowering choice they are able to make because they understand and feel supported.

Seeing themselves through new eyes and new understanding.

It IS Magic. And I am privileged.

So what if the solid ground of my identity was forged the way it was, it has created a beautiful life and career. One that just keeps getting better.

I get to watch people come home to their true selves, as I do the same.

Creating positive ripples in a hundred families. Changes that ease the suffering and create possibilities. The starfish and made a difference to that one.

We find our way together. The walking wounded and the gifts that produces. One of the greatest misunderstandings about pain.

When I opened this this morning while walking I had no idea what it would become, but here we are.

Letting go and letting things take on a life of their own. Being in a space with myself that I can allow that.

Magic

Ps mom moment: twin b is having wisdom tooth surgery in Washington where she’s staying with her aunt, to adventure. I won’t be taking care of her for the first time in our lives for a medical procedure and that hurts my heart. I feel it. That’s the beautiful part. She’s well cared for, so that’s good. And she will be home for Christmas. But this is a first that I couldn’t have anticipated the sharpness of. “I just want to protect you the way the skin protects your blood.”

Never wish not to feel something. Trust me on this one. It’s torture.