Tag: #memoir

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deep breath, and one at a time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Come what may.

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

Empowering.

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

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

💜

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

Don’t believe everything you think.

Emerging…. Becoming….. belonging …..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am already divine.

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

Watch me work 😉

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The Greatest Force on Earth

Unhealthy love claims lives, healthy love saves them…..

I have always believed in the power of love, and this portion of my life has been learning the limits of it, and of my capacity for enduring what should never be endured.

This lesson has been one of the hardest and one of the greatest. Coming to terms with myself in a fair and balanced way while also understanding what happened to me in the past and in the present.

I am coming to believe our psyches literally prevent us from accepting the existence of certain things. Perhaps that is what mythology has derived from, the human yearning to make sense of an experience.

Knowledge is power. It eventually can put the pieces back together of something broken. If that broken thing is a story, then we can see either the devastation or the transformation of a human being.

So what makes the difference?! The intention behind it. The true intention not the stated one. Someone once told me we judge other people on their actions and ourselves on our intentions. The very definition of manipulation I suppose.

To simplify the complexity: does the person care about the well being of another, and to what extent and under what circumstances…. Wait see even I’m doing it. No Christina. Does the person care about the well being of another ?

We care as much as we are capable of based on what we have been taught, our values, and a complicated elixir of our innate temperament mixed in.

Where things can go really really poorly is when it’s obvious the impact you’re having is negative and not only do you keep doing, but you’re gaining supply from it all while continuing to shout poor you.

This is the lowest of the low. And when a person high in empathy consistently identifies emotionally with that persons wounded parts (because of their own), and forgets the ways they are different, the troubles arise.

One exploits with no genuine desire to follow through correcting their behavior so it no longer harms. The other painfully devoid of support and resources keeps trying to get out of the issue by using the same thinking that started it and failing.

The victor is the person who stays in the fire of their own mistakes long enough for it to change them.

My programming is immense. My coping mechanisms are survivalist in so many ways, however I can finally be able to see who I actually am, from seeing who I am not.

I’m thinking of Stephen King a lot lately and wondering what motivated him to attempt to capture the dark sides of humanity and also the hope, in his landscapes and characters. What happened to that man? Who was he really ? He sublimated and I’m attempting to do the same.

I tried to protect my kids from anything I could become from scarcity and survival instincts by keeping them with family systems that felt safe, however my self was not able to develop. It was frozen somewhere on ice. And now I’m so out of chronological order and so aware, that shame threatens my forever separation from others.

So hyper sensitive to threat and criticism and then feeling awkward and lonely, the perfect food for a predator. And who looks crazy?! The victim that’s who. Driven to the point of insanity purposely. The victim looks crazy.

I’ve never been able to accept what happened to me then or now, because it makes me feel like it’s me. That is what abuse does. People incapable of loving in a healthy manner perpetuate suffering that is almost incomprehensible to the human psyche.

We, including doctors, counselors, people in privilege and power, don’t want to believe it when it’s right in front of our face.

Abuse

So we tell stories. And we learn about character and behavior through story that we hope a man sets forward in motion those qualities in him that are protective and virtuous in nature.

If anything I’m so protective that sometimes ends up harmful because I’m easily triggered and who to protect in what way or moment can become very overwhelming for me, and as a result of that overwhelm I act out of character and then doubt myself.

This whole process is clearing. Along with it the digestive issues, headaches, tight muscles, nausea and nauseating levels of self doubt and low self worth.

The not enough of it all. That season in my life is over. There will always be scars, but never again will I abandon my own knowing to feel loved in a moment, while not even being known let alone loved.

I didn’t think it could happen to me again….. I didn’t think it actually did the first time, the abuse.

I sound crazy right ?!

I assure you that I am not and I am. A lifetime of neglect and poisonous manipulation will make anyone crazy.

Google the symptoms of complex ptsd for a very good description of what it feels like to be “crazy”.

Do you know what crazy actually is to me? Someone who doesn’t listen to someone they love when the person says “this is hurting me”.

I vow to always listen to myself. I wanted marriage vows to save me from myself and the life I had. That security of belonging. Instead I just keep becoming visible to myself in a realistic light. My light and my dark, and I assure you all of it is enough and that I’ve had enough abuse for a lifetime.

What heals is holding myself accountable to listening and being gentle with those I love and continuing to invest in healing and believing in myself.

Enough. I am enough and I’ve had enough ….. enough ..

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Stubbornly Stuck in Love with Everyone Except Me

I am stubborn when I love. This may just be my greatest downfall, and my most grace filled salvation all wrapped into one. I am stubborn in love, for love, about love. I am stuck in love with everyone but myself, the constant agitating wool sweater of my current existence.

The necessity for self love and identity has not only entered the race, but it’s pulling just a millisecond in front ….

Is it winning the race ? Do I even want to be in it!? Sometimes winning is not playing at all. I’m not playing very often these days, but I’m trying to learn how.

Today is a nausea day, a pit in my stomach day. Then the pressure and shame of another beautiful day wasted and struggling in these chains of feeling I’m responsible for this or it’s my fault or I could understand it, or if I could understand it….

That’s what not letting go looks like. Did I mention that I’m stubborn and fierce and relentless, much like my grief right now, they are identical twins fighting for some aspect of separate identity.

Everything is uphill. Breathing is a battle. I’m am survived by the love of my friends and people who see me. That’s the only thing keeping me afloat at the moment. They help piece together the losses and remind me why I’m feeling this way.

I’m starting to scare myself, and them too I know. It feels like it won’t end, and certainly like it won’t end well. An important person in my life had a parent who was loving and good and she had a stroke. That person begged for it to be over, for “the end”, and I would so often tell them they won’t know how they will feel when it actually ends, it may not be what they expect, and to try and be present.

I feel like a fraud thinking about that now. The privileged one who has not endured such a thing sharing well meaning comforts so I can feel meaningful.

Is any of it meaningful? Is any of it “made a difference to that one” starfish stories ? Does any of it really matter at all. The prince, the rose, the fox? Or is everything just whatever story we tell in a moment and nothing more.

Faithless and unfaithful and lost…..

Nothing stops this pain. There is no fantasy to rely on no knight in shining armor. I am tasked with saving myself over and over, and I thought that would be over by now. I had expectations.

I had a dream, lots of them. And now those are dead and I’m petulant about making any new dreams. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face Christina, that’s not who you are. You know better and you know why.

My knowing is in tact. It might be the only part of me that is.

The rest of me is just a bag of bones right now. (My favorite Stephen King novel)….. I rattle and haunt the halls of my broken home carrying around my bleeding heart. Maybe they will make a museum out of this house, a funhouse of terror, the place of a future tragedy….

It must be nearing October with all this Halloween talk.

My dreams have turned to nightmares. I don’t sleep. It’s fitful and violent. EMDR is brutal.

I am lost and ironically reading All is Not Lost. Leslie Charles, one of the first author speakers that I looked up to. Two of my favorite pieces of art work that are now in my only office, were made my students at West Conn for the survivors of homicide conference. If that isn’t dark ….

What about the survivors whose souls were stolen in childhood, due to repeated terror and an utter lack of capability. Survivors whose were sentenced to a lifetime of extreme struggle without their consent, and then shamed for the bizarre ways they choose to save themselves and self destruct over and over.

Purgatory is a place the living inhabit, not anything to fear in death.

Death would be peaceful compared to this. Don’t worry I’ll always return to the All is Not Lost camp….. for right now however I’m Six Feet Under.

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Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow, but the Show Must Go On….

How is it possible saying goodbye to an office is like saying goodbye to a lover? It’s saying good bye to a time, to a place, to a different self, and to a thousand memories. I became a counselor in this space. This is a second home to me. A refuge. I thought I would be ok, but now that I’m actually doing it I am overcome with emotions.

I don’t know if I can…. Perhaps I’ll just keep it forever. Eccentric. Why does it feel like ripping off my limbs? Nothing about this is ok. I had so many dreams for this office. So many big dreams. So many dreams in general. I couldn’t have bargained for all the changes I’ve made, and that have been made for me. For how this all feels, the changes it has made in me.

Writing in this office cuts through my insides like a cold blade. My guts wrench. I spent the first half of my life being able to Men in Black shiny thing myself (erase my memory) and begin over and over. And now my past haunts me daily. I sleep terrible and throughout my life that hasn’t been an issue since I was little.

I just want to run out of this space, leave everything and never come in it again. How does anyone do this grief thing. I was in this office when we found out we lost the second identical twin boy. We were supposed to graduate to the regular doctor that week. What the actual fuck. Searing hot. Scars burning. I found out over a screen with an adolescent in my waiting room: I thought I was doing the right thing as a provider. Only appointment I ever missed. It doesn’t matter now.

What matters is how fresh all of the pain is and the only difference is it doesn’t drag me under anymore, or to versions of myself I don’t like. I’m learning grace.

I have thousands of memories in this office, some burn brighter than others, all of them legitimate and a huge piece of my history. I am aching. My heart is aching.

I had hairapy this morning. It’s beautiful out. I have hope in my heart. But one more goodbye? I don’t know if I can handle one more goodbye. Almost six years this relationship with this space and it’s time to let go.

I am taking a vacation in October, a whole week, just me. I am so happy about that. I have needed this for so long. I’m finally making a home within myself. It does get better. All of the stinging is still there, but I can breathe again in so many ways. Lean into the sharp edges.

I have no idea what the rest of my life will look like and that’s oddly comforting as the terror releases it’s grip on me.

I finished Patti Smith’s memoir Just Kids last night. I finish things now. I just keep getting back up after I get knocked down. The second sentence is old, the one before it new.

I stay.

I can’t be here anymore with this legal pad and pen staring at me. I’m going to throw up. Please …..

I remember every second of every moment in this office. Every single one. I can replay them like some fucked up episode of black mirror. The blessing and the curse of high sensitivity and a nearly photographic memory, never mind sensory memory. I can close my eyes and always access all of it.

My eyes are burning hot and wet, the tears trickle and drip. Ok no more for now. I’ll come back to this later. I don’t want to miss Chip’s visit.

I want to do fall things. To watch Hocus Pocus and Beetlejuice and to go to ciderys. It’s later and I’m utterly exhausted. I’m going back in forth between reading The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, and writing in my journal.

I’m very sleepy and deciding if I have enough time to nap before picking up my curbside order at Bj’s and making dinner with twin A.

This day couldn’t be any more beautiful. The wind is gently teasing the leaves on the trees and they are rustling with joy. Dancing and talking to one another happily. They are good company. This house continues to become a home, not unlike how I continue to become a human. Visible to myself, friend even.

Slow and steady wins the race. I’m glad I’m no longer in the rat race.

My new ink is in the itchy phase on my elbow it’s bending and driving me nuts. I relocated my office lamps to my bedroom, well one for now, I’ll need to make another trip. So hoping that feels a little more homey. I brought some of my artwork home as well. Bittersweet.

My office is a mess currently so maybe I’ll spend some time on straightening that. So many projects. One at a time and just finding joy in them is the goal versus became overwhelmed and being down a rabbit hole of anxiety. No point in that.

Everything is quiet these days, well besides the teenagers. I’ve never been so still. It’s so peaceful and so lonely. But nothing at all feels rushed or chaotic and for that I am grateful in my bones.

I’ve been doing little outings and day trips. Last night I had dinner at Gusto in Milford. I had never been before. Sal my piano teacher played there and the staff was so great. My server was so nice. I was able to be at peace by myself. I didn’t look around much at all I don’t have the gathering of families together. I thought of the opportunity this was to be with my thoughts and that there will be plenty of time for gatherings and I have plenty of warm and loving connections.

My next outing I want to do is to go to Bad Seed Cidery, it’s on Pancake Hollow rd in Highland NY, nearly 2 hours away.

I added a couple more Stephen King books to my collection from used bookstores. I will spend time with me until and then after because, I enjoy my own company. There’s so many things to do and see and I never realized it before. I was completely blacked out.

Lately I’ve been spending time with my neighbor. She has a new puppy and she’s so cuddly and cute and I don’t have to be responsible for her. Just two women; each alone, living in these giant houses next to one another. She’s so strong. I admire her tremendously. We enjoy one another’s company. And isn’t that what it’s all about anyway.

I’m between lives and selves right now and it’s a strange but not unhappy place to be. My mind continues to wander in and out of the many memories and stories of the past few years. I’ll just keep attempting to capture them and my journey and immortalize it via the page.

Onward….

Ps I think I’ll watch Mermaids tonight or Julie and Julia. I’m in a comfort mode, not lost in it fortunately, but it’s a lovely place to visit occasionally.

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A Counselor in Need Without Self Awareness is a Danger Indeed.

I’m watching ATypical with my oldest. We are catching him up on episodes one and two of the newest season. The kids and I watched the first few seasons, what feels like years ago. So it’s nostalgic and warm to be watching this now.

Comfort. This is a lot of my goal right now. As I learn healthier ways to do it, I realize how unhealthy some of my old coping was. This is a lot to sit with. A lot to sit with.

As life starts heating up to a boiling point I’m able now to marvel at how I take hard circumstances, criticism, etc, and use it to push me to keep making myself better at a reasonable pace. Well the whole reasonable pace thing is new 😉 as many of you know, lol. This is making me think of how I resonate with Black Widow, the new movie. Pain only makes you stronger, it can, but it can also make you crazy if you can’t make sense of it. If there is no structure that is safe to heal within. My current safe healing structure is friends who know me when I’m lost to myself and a therapist that models good boundaries and is objective and consistent. Safety. Deep breath.

I would have lost my mind long ago if not foe therapy and my own healing process with writing.

Truly an epic battle of light and dark inside of me, and I won’t give up the fight or outsource my self knowing to anyone else.

So today is my beloved Sunday. I’m too in my head and not enough into a project and moving around so I need to get out some energy in that way shortly or to do some walking. After Chip’s visit I will.

Today is filled with reflecting, writing, and reading.

Today I reflect on an unhealthy counseling relationship and the damage it has caused, and how dark things have been in our world for the last while. How to turn these crisis into opportunities for growth and bonding and using a creative approach.

Today I’m going to share with you how counseling can go wrong. It can go wrong when Clinicians are trying to juggle too much and or as a result not having continuity of sessions and making sure to validate change. If we don’t catch and validate change it doesn’t become reinforced and if it doesn’t then it won’t stay (stick).

I’m going to be working on some counseling models in the up and coming days. Well I already am, but talking about it here.

There must be grace because during Covid it has been tough for us all, however we have an ethical code to do no harm, and a responsibility to own when we have due to blind spots and our own unhealed areas.

Recently during a family counseling experience I am learning a lot more from what didn’t work than what did. I’ll give you a hint if the counselor is talking about themselves in any way that does not pertain to your counseling and enhance it, that’s a red flag. If the counselor seems to not be following and staying focused on your need etc, please share this with them so they may grow.

Counseling should always be focused on the client need and progress should be validated and followed up on. And if something in the relationship isn’t working, if the client tells you, be willing to repair. And also be self-monitoring with integrity at all times. It’s more work, but this is our responsibility to our ethical code.

Lazy counseling is damaging. Someone who is in it for the wrong reasons or past their expiration of energy to expend. It’s as bad as distracted driving. We have people’s mental well being in our hands. They come to us sick and scared. If we are not dedicated to this work for the right reasons we can inflict great harm.

I personally am taking this situation and using it to slow down and pay attention, listen better, talk less, and truly be with the client experience versus wanting to fix it to gratify ego. This is a lifetime process. It’s nice to see my clients faith and sticking with me over the years as I am imperfect and grow, but they know my heart is in the right place and that I’m always growing myself to better meet them where they are.

A client is the expert on their own lives, a clinician who is skilled, competent, and there for the right reasons will only enhance the clients own knowledge about themselves using an empathic mirror and warm guidance. It’s a difficult balance and a very challenging career. The only one for me!

Never give up. That’s my motto. And keep curiosity larger than fear. Keep moving forward. Makes me think of the movie Meet The Robinsons and the song Little Wonders. I think I’ll go have a listen….

Enjoy your Sunday…

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Warrior of the light, prisoner of my own dark.

Relax and Write…

Strengthening the Therapeutic Bond. Yalom

When Things Fall Apart.

That’s where we are now.

Things fell apart my whole life. I became the glue, at the expense of knowing who I was or what I wanted or needed. I became a machine that met the needs of others, while begging to be loved.

So it is not surprising that healthy love was a complete mystery for me and while I’ve spent lots of time trying to solve that with my own experimentation. Simultaneously I’ve been living in a manner of consistently seeking to make the pain stop.

I’d do anything to make the pain stop for a few moments. And then became shamed and shamed myself for it.

This is the cycle I’ve been living in for nearly 41 years of my life.

And the only way to make the pain stop is to acknowledge the experiences that shaped me and how that has affected the children I brought into this world. Which brings another red hot wave of searing pain.

The only time the pain really stops is when I can use it for meaning, which in my life means to serve others with the knowledge I’ve gained. And to also be less alone in those moments. To stay in my humanity, rather than falling into insanity. A tether to belonging that has become consistent, and hopefully modeling that to myself.

It hurts to become.

My work makes me enthusiastic and hopeful and useful enough to make the pain stop. But rarely if ever is anything unconditionally provided to me. I have to look to the Universe for that. Nature, which also usually feels like an enemy as it bites me and makes me burn and itch, and in its vast unknown presence I always feel in danger.

So I return to the ways I know how to make the pain stop.

While this is happening I have tried to raise my children to the very best of my ability. Always doubting in that, my ability. Why wouldn’t you doubt something you’ve never known ? Something that was only dangerous and painful.

The tears slide down my cheeks.

The self doubt is probably the most painful part, and what I have drawn into my life, what I’ve chosen to invest myself in are things that end up harming me further. Then I harm myself with my choices.

I feel an experiment in human suffering and would victimize myself if I wasn’t so damn curious and concerned with meaning. My saving graces. The light shines out of the darkness, but not very much right now.

The message is to rest. But how when you have never known it, and when there is no loving touch to soothe to sleep.

Craving and starving touch, constantly leading to choices that harm some more. Self harm. Way more than cutting. There are far worse wounds to be had.

It gets good when you do. They say. The mystical, mythical they. The generalizations of our time.

I do good and I feel good. I do bad and I feel bad. What goes up must come down. My mind spins round and round.

Suffering. Relieved by service.

Will I always be fragmented or am I becoming whole and I have no vision for this because there is no template programmed into me.?

It’s all meaningless my existence except for moments. Moments of relief is what my life has been characterized by, with a lot of chaos.

I hope one day to see myself differently.

In the wake of all of this grief hope is difficult to find at the moment. It is times like this we just stay the course.

Steady as she goes…. Becoming steady out of chaos, that is the path of the warrior.

It takes one and it makes one.

This warrior is weary ….

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Onward… How to do branding without the selling part.

Had to break the drought it was time….

It was a series of unfortunate events that would ultimately lead me to the most secure relationship with myself I have ever embarked on. My story is taking shape. They say you write better from a more resolved place. Cheryl Strayed for example didn’t write Wild until around ten years after her hike through the Pacific Northwest.

So I’m sifting back through the events lately, as I also remain firmly in the present reality. Whirlwind after whirlwind when it came to relationships, and all because I never had one with myself, or my own identity for that matter. And that’s scary. No wonder I didn’t trust the world or myself. The very definition of anxiety. Homework: write fifty I am statements. The first time I attempted this I had around 3 or 4, and they were just titles.

Now I’m on the ground, and while my feet feel a little unsteady sometimes, I’m enjoying having more peace and clarity. I will be fiercely protective of that. My relationships with my children are becoming real and solidifying. They are no longer this touch and go, terrified thing.

I can tolerate being present now, without being swallowed up by fear and anxiety.

So often I look back at the girl who was consumed by intrusive thinking almost constantly. It was incredibly painful. No wonder my first objective was always shelter. And that to obtain that shelter I looked for the fellow vulnerable. I didn’t want to be alone. Except that I never was, I just couldn’t feel any different at that time.

I often tell my clients that our feelings lie to us, particularly if we suffer from ptsd or an anxiety disorder. Then our feelings can be really unreliable. We must get to solid ground and not be flailing about before we assess and certainly before we decide. Feelings are not facts.

So this morning I’m thinking about the ingredients and prescription for change. The thing people come to me for. Some want me to do it for them and have the answers, some want nothing from me, and come because they have been told they should, but aren’t willing or open. And my favorites the ones I work the hardest to show up for, are in earnest desire of change and willing to hear hard things, sit and be in uncomfortable feelings, and stay the course with trust and conviction. No wonder they and this work inspires me so much.

This is what I always aspired to be and do, but a lot of the information I needed was missing.

I didn’t know I was co-dependent and what would subconsciously feel like home time and time again, is someone to heal or fix, so I could also be doing that. That the relationship would be dependent on our mutual need and addictions, and not mutually independent and parallel. If I was alone I was lost to myself and frozen with thoughts of fear and inadequacy. Love become confused with desperate need, and boy does that create blind spots.

I have such hard nights so often. Last night in particular. Nights I just want to be held, feel someone else’s heart near to mine, smell their skin, sync my breath, and my whole nervous system responds. But being safe with a person means so much more than that now.

What it means primarily for me these days is that said person has the courage to hold themselves accountable and a secure relationship with themselves. This is something I’ve asked my therapist a hundred times if it even exists, as I stared blankly off, completely removed from myself. I couldn’t answer what I wanted or needed when I began.

I was in so much pain all the time, my only energy seemed to be to obtain momentary comfort, over anything lasting, secure, and that met my needs.

What I find myself wanting most sincerely (I was tempted to say desperately but that’s old, and I am new), is someone who wants to work as hard as I do on themselves, and stay parallel to me in that process. That we ebb and flow and dance. Secure attachment, which you can only do with another secure. I’ve been spending my life becoming an earned secure. Security is anything but natural for me, but I was always going to crack that code.

An integration of mind, body, and soul: bringing all the separated on ice parts, home. Reconnecting the nerves and the tissue. It’s been a lot of surgery lately. 2014 the year of my graduation from my masters, led to the beginning of the thaw. I found Morning Pages. I finally had some time that was my own, and some hope for financial security. It was my first toe in the water of living rather than purely surviving.

2016 the thawing gave way to whole hearted enthusiasm and I jumped quickly into a marriage. We didn’t even know one another apart from that we both had genuine hearts and were kind, and seemed to both want the same things. I can only speak from my experience of course, but what we really needed was a relationship with ourselves not with another person.

We didn’t legitimize ourselves or our own experience. We hid away in shame and feared that others wouldn’t trust our union. A self-fulfilling prophecy when you don’t know or trust yourself.

I have a personal belief we grow more in relation to others than we ever do by ourselves. But there’s a time and season for each, and that growth doesn’t always have to be found in romantic partnership. That has been a big lesson this past year. My determination sometimes preceded all logic. I can chuckle at that a little now, and appreciate that in myself. It has made for a lively story.

I am now growing in relation to lots of others, and primarily myself as I sit with me and pause and reflect and that feels safe. Holy shit I can’t believe I just said that. When I have ever felt safe all alone in the world. Except I don’t feel alone, and I don’t feel adrift either.

I am in pain, agony really, so many times throughout the day as I sift through the wreckage of all my past attempts at a dream, and now I’m am restructuring as the architect of my own life.

I am learning to live without outsourcing some of the most incredible aspects of my life, because I feared I wasn’t good enough. Often it feels like being in quicksand, that at any moment I’ll be pulled back under to that old existence where I couldn’t breathe. But then I look around and realize I’m in a beautiful field, and not on the edge of a cliff.

My goodness I missed this. I believe there are many good things on my horizon. The most forefront of which is thinking about what I need to say to the world, and how to say it. I’ve been working a beyond validation model for counseling for years, and I think I may breathe some life into that.

I have this magical ingredient as a counselor and it’s difficult to even put into words, and I think I’ll take some time doing just that. If I have a valuable resource I need to, actually scratch that I want to describe it so I can share. The thing about me is I want to share not sell, so I’m nervous about that whole process. I don’t want to brand or market, I just want to be my authentic self.

I’ve made such a transformation this past year and a half and I want to share that journey. Perhaps it’s so fresh I’ll need to share more previous ones first and trust that, my own memory and lived experience.

Why ultimately do I want to share it? I would have said before to feel less alone, which means I needed too much to be able to do so in integrity. I want to share it so I can empower others to have more satisfying lives. It’s so automatic who am I to do so? Until I look around and realize this ability to consistently self reflect and put this into practice with follow through is rare. So rare in fact that’s what led to the lonely feeling.

Where are the others doing this? They are working and sharing. Brene Brown, Nicole Lepera, Anita Morjani, Byron Katie, Martha Beck, Elizabeth Gilbert, Dr. Ramani, Ross Rosenberg, Melody Beattie, Anne Lamott, Stephen King, and so so many others….

I need to stay the course with my work and my relationship with myself no matter what… I said that to the tune of Callum Scott of course. Dancing on my own… I never intended it to be that way, but touching lives and being present has me feeling much less alone than I ever have.

I know in forward motion my task is to only entertain situations that make me feel less alone, not more.

Onward…. (Now I understand why this is the word Liz uses). It’s solid. It carries with all the lessons and the pain, and also still goes forward. It has conviction and strength, and also softness. The things I aspire to.

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A Feral Child and Learning How to Hold a Fork…

And Jordan Almonds, and Necco (gross)…. It’s a wonder that man had any teeth. Red Vines were my favorite….

This year’s love…. David Gray radio. A recent wound. A beautiful song. I am sleepy and groggy. It’s day 2 of quitting another unhealthy thing. 90 more and we will be talking. There will be so much more room for my gifts.

I have therapy this evening and then tattoo therapy with Bill. Bill’s nose looks like my dads and I feel some cosmic connection and intimacy with him. I have no idea why. I mean he is placing art on my body that will be there until I die. Now I’m getting emotional. Is that weird? Of course it is I say with a smile.

I am reading toward the end of Anne Lamott’s new book: there’s a chapter called Can You Love Me Now…. Where she talks of having a phd in morbid reflection and describes the panicky feeling of being lost in her head during a show her and her husband attend and what her saving graces of this event were. Lovely.

She is my companion this morning. I ache and I’m tired. Another trip down the rabbit hole Alice. Not exactly more like walking down another street. Let’s be kind to ourselves Christina. But the same reminiscent body aches, headache, and disease are the result. No thank you.

Anyway she talks about the candy Good n Plenty in the book and I’m transported. Good n Plenty always remind me of my late father, John Rexford Wilson. I can say that because he’s dead you know, and because it’s my story to tell. I created a warm memory of him as my rescuer and preserved that for years in the museum of my mind. I would later discover the actual truth was so much different than my own lie. But that lie kept me warm and even more importantly encouraged enough to get to another phase of my life.

So this candy. The pink and white hard shells that contain a hard often stale gummy piece of black licorice, which I detest. And I realized about myself that I would make myself like something I didn’t to feel close (an illusion) to him. I would eat them just to try and remember something warm. Movie theater candy for the one or two movies I ever saw with him. The very first gremlins movie at a drive-in in Ashland Oregon. He didn’t even take me, my babysitter Shannon did. She was beautiful, he was sleeping with her I believe. I was with him five seconds and still had a babysitter, anyway she was kind and beautiful so I didn’t mind. She made me feel like a person and not some unsavory thing, the way they looked at me. Something more than Lisa’s daughter.

Ever since beginning Mary Karr’s the Liars Club, which consequently I haven’t picked up since, I’ve had a memory that is replaying in my mind. At the table at my Dad and step mother Anita’s table. They were clean and hip and way too cool for me. They ate a macrobiotic diet and my dad worked for a company called super blue green algae cel tech.

Anyway I was holding my spoon or fork like a Neanderthal apparently. With my whole fist around it scooping piles of food. Cous cous and orange roughy. I still associate cous cous as a good memory despite what I’m about to share. They looked at me in horror and laughed at me, mocked me. They told me I was eating like an animal and why hadn’t anyone taught me how to properly hold silverware, as if this was my fault of course.

My whole life was my own fault from birth.

This memory just keeps replaying. I don’t remember how old I was. I felt like I was eleven or twelve. Did I actually eat like that all the way until then in front of everyone? How feral was I? Most of my memories are erased as if I was tased by men in black and that silver thingy that looks like a pen.

I love pens. A soothing thought amidst the flames of this memory and so many others buried away for my protection. The tears fill my eyes. Determination fills my heart. To love myself better than all of this first half of my life.

The tears fall on the page, they fall with all the disappointments of then and now. They make room for the joy. The kind that only courageous hearts find.

I didn’t belong anywhere and I’ve been seeking with that fearless determination amidst a fearful soul. They clash and merge and blur into butterfly soup.

I belong to me now and I am able to be present with them, and that’s all that matters. I will show up for me, and write for the world to connect with my words. Whatever weary travelers need to come across them.

For now I am still finding ways to access and get out my story. Who I am….. this journey is not for the faint of heart.

There will be a client on the floor as I call it in thirty minutes I guess I should probably prepare myself for that honor.

Thank you for listening to a piece of my story.

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No Contact and the Romance of Self Discovery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I walk down another street.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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