Tag: #notalone

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Childlike Enthusiasm

You have to live spherically – in many directions. Never lose your childish enthusiasm – and things will come your way.

Federico Fellini

In my lifetime I have tried to crack a lot of codes. Usually this is focused around other people, rarely is it focused on me. I am learning that if I don’t focus on me, I won’t be able to teach others how to love me in the way that I need. Or engage with life in the way that I am meant to.

I am a meaning centered person. I am a person who has always wanted to share meaning with others. I am a person who seeks and finds meaning and lives in the depths of it.

I am learning that when I perceive others to take away my child like enthusiasm it’s a huge trigger for me. I am learning that I need to be enthusiastic about myself and my dreams, whether somebody else is or not. I cannot always bring someone else on that journey. They must arrive willingly.

All the things I was naturally enthusiastic about in childhood were constantly shot down. I was told to be quieter, smaller, less of a burden. And as an adult I’m trying to correct that in a meaningful way that works for my life.

This is no easy task. Not for the faint of heart, spirit, and soul.

Reclaiming one’s child like enthusiasm, it’s not easy when it was removed at such a young age. It is a chaotic process. I am not chaos I am calm, but chaos has been my legacy in life, so much that I will end up creating it over and over.

We re-create our childhood wounds until we are strong and capable enough, give ourselves enough permission to resolve them. To heal.

I am healing. This is a beautiful and perilous journey.

It is an honor to be a warrior for myself. To reclaim what was taken.

The Warrior of the Light



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A Matter of Existing

My existence makes waves.

Does Every Existence Have it’s Own Prewritten Destiny ?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately and how my upbringing, if you could call it that, has lent me always to believe those waves are a bad thing for anyone who comes across them.

Perhaps this is why I have dedicated my life to trying to make my existence useful and positive for others. And yet I continue to battle with the notion it’s the opposite.

Do I really have to make up for myself ?

I don’t have to do anything but exist to make an impact.

To try and be seen or attended to at all, my greatest trick was running my mouth. A chatter box, a blabber mouth, a chatty Kathy, a nuisance, a burden. I vacillated between this and making myself invisible to relieve the stress on my caretakers. I tried all manner of things to be seen with joy. I sold all my dreams and my soul to become small and quiet.

I learned to stand up for myself by doling out a wounding that might keep them away, so I wouldn’t be confused any further. Because trying to be loved by the sources that keep wounding you is an endless purgatory. I never knew what I was going to get. How does one adapt to that amount of uncertainty. The only thing I have ever been certain about is in my own ability to anticipate the next change so I can be ahead of it. Survival.

Evolution developed a sharp tongue on an otherwise loving individual. An array of defense mechanisms like many tangled weeds around my pyramid.

The closest I got to myself was finding some people scattered throughout the world who found my presence to be enjoyable, usually for the insight and unique way I had about me for seeing the world. A rare few took notice. They may never know how they saved my life.

I still feel great guilt and anxiety for how much space I take up in a room. I clamber to try and make up for my own existence. I embrace it and then apologize for it. I get excited about the impact I’ve had and then ashamed for it.

I am all in or all out. All good or all bad. Even when I have an understanding most don’t about all the shades of grey in a life.

My very existence is a contradictory thing with a life all it’s own. It constantly pulls me about the world saying, try this, no wait over here try that, until I collapse in resignation. Resigned to what though? I produce more questions than I create answers.

I am always looking for a place to call home that is a consistent shelter from the storm that is living. When things strike one as this profound every moment of every day it’s exhausting. My shelters are always temporary. Was I only ever meant to adopt and choose myself ? It’s not as if I haven’t been the one to leave the homes I find. When you’re on a mission how does all of that work? Spoiler: I never knew either. I just have a courage that makes me stupid enough to keep trying.

An ignorance I am strangely grateful for, while simultaneously longing for the fears that bind. I want the binding to be ties not fears. There’s a difference.

I get that confused with me being the exhausting thing, and once again try and make up for, clean up, my own existence.

I dream of creating something of beauty (besides my children) that can pay my debts for the pain I caused my family. Not every birth is celebrated. What becomes of the ones who aren’t. The jury is still out. Stay tuned.

When I see a Broadway show I imagine what it would feel like to be the beloved person who created that. To be celebrated. I am told that I should be celebrated just for existing, but this is too close to the grandiose roots from whence I came. A foreign concept at best. One I try and bestow upon others, but struggle with myself.

My most resonant prayer is that my children never face the exhaustion of existing that I do. Not in the way that I do at least. My rabid and vicious thinking that’s most often received by people saying, “you think too much”, or “too much introspection isn’t good” (my father), “you’re too sensitive”.

They might as well just say you shouldn’t have been born. I shouldn’t have. In the name of religion it was the worst thing that ever could have happened to my mother and therefore the image of my family. What is a family if not their image.

Perhaps that’s why I prefer to live in the depths, where true meaning exists, because that’s where my existence is beautiful.

So I’ve spent most of my life trying to find, and then give myself permission to be who I am. To claim my own voice and story and believe it’s contents. And while most of this post sounds terribly sad, I’ve experienced such beauty in my 10,000 lifetimes amongst this one.

And this season of my life is no exception.

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Rules for Loving a Trauma Survivor

This post needs some editing, but I wanted to get it out into the world for now while it is under construction.

To Really Love a Woman (Person)

It’s hard to admit for someone that they need “special instructions”. Especially when society ingrains in us the idea that there is a right and a wrong way. From the time we are socialized in grade and middle school we are separated into factions of varying degrees of cool (worthiness). So this way of categorizing ourselves and the rules of engagement are laid down early on. It is difficult later in life to deviate from our various functioning and upgrade our systems taking into account what wounds our lives have bestowed upon us.

I often joke about being a gremlin, lol. I have special rules. I am privileged to be able to joke about this now. The work I have been able to do is a privilege that not everyone is able to obtain the means for, whether that be financially, intellectually, or circumstantially.

Trauma survivors are a different breed. As a member of this tribe I will try to speak for us in this regard. We love differently and in turn need to be loved differently. So here are some of the things I have learned about myself through my experiences with others.

A trauma survivor learns to be invisible, especially to ourselves. We have become so accustomed to not having our needs met naturally, that we get really good at meeting them ourselves. This also creates a special kind of tired, a soul tired, that can hardly be put into words. Sometimes it can be seen in the eyes. I have a theory that rarely do two survivors get together and join because perhaps they are both so depleted, or maybe the nurturing that would take place could be easily rejected in favor of something that feels more like home. And that if and when they do sometimes they can fall into over indulgences of such comforts. Who knew there ever was such a thing. I believe now that there is.

You have to emerge from that solace and return to yourself and the gift you’re meant to be to the world. We have a mission. We were chosen to have the childhoods and the paths we did for a reason. This is what I’m thinking lately anyway. The theories are works in progress.

Survivors become carefully attuned instruments in anticipating the needs of others and trying to give to them what we didn’t receive. We will usually know what you need before you do. This can make great partners out of us in the right circumstances, and a really difficult situation in the wrong ones. Because we also have a lot of hurt buried deeply within us that can flare up at the slightest hairpin trigger. The less secure our world is in terms of consistency and love the less emotionally regulated. Then the survivor is shamed for their behaviors, when the rest of the world wonders why or how they could act like that.

What you must understand about a survivor is that there have been times in their life when things have felt like life or death. Particularly in childhood when they had no agency or control over the terror that was occurring. This is different for everyone. What is terrifying for one may not be for another. So it’s not only difficult but also unfair to try and assess the worthiness of the claim on someone’s trauma. If it impacted the person significantly, particularly if it causes them to struggle throughout their lives, and feels more like a reflex than a logical decision it can justifiably be claimed as trauma.

Which brings me to my next important point. Survivors almost always minimize not only their own needs, but their own reality. They spin their wheels trying to make sense of what’s happening and to know whether they can trust or not. If very little to no trust was ever had, how are we expected to just behave that way now. This makes survivors much more likely to accept and adapt to unhealthy relationships. We are used to subsisting off very little if nothing, and very happy to be grateful for very little. Which can give you a positive attitude about life and a nice presence to be around, but lacks in the areas of self-development and ability to advocate for our own needs. We weren’t allowed to have them, or there was no room for them. So making them obsolete ourselves was necessary at one point.

No one will love you like a trauma survivor. If you want to be loved by one you must not take us for granted. The way we have learned to love and the things we have needed to overcome to be able to were not easily gained. It is typically through suffering that such a generous heart is formed.

We will pour our very soul into you. However, resentment can bubble up from all our unmet needs, as well as chronic anxiety and health issues that are stored within our body.

Survivors typically need more rest, reassurance, comfort, and stability than your average bear. This does not make us weak, in fact quite the opposite. Above all we need understanding, and someone to be willing to learn what our lives were like for us, and see past the over-functioning we are so used to.

Never take a survivor for granted, we can see you in ways, and bring things out in you that you were never aware existed.

Understand that when a survivor is choked up or cannot get the words out, we are most likely stuck inside a trauma reaction. The same applies for many other areas of functioning. Maybe it appears that we aren’t paying attention or present, try and ask gently, and you’re more likely to get a response. Study and learn about the Four F Trauma responses. Resource: Pete Walker Complex PTSD Information

Understand that attachment is different for the survivor and take the time to educate yourself on this if you want greater success in your relationship. Neither party should have blatant continued bad behavior excused, rather both should be responsible to educate themselves and know their own wants and needs, and have healthy boundaries. This isn’t easy for anyone. For the trauma wired person it can seem almost impossible, but with understanding, psycho education, therapy, and self-awareness and reflection we too can have healthy relationships. The expectations need adjusting though.

And above all things when you see our child, that little person who is still in here, pure and deserving of love; if we let our guard down enough to show you, never forget the cost to us, and the beauty involved in that. It is sacred for a survivor to allow themselves to be seen, and held. It can be a nearly impossible journey to accept.

When we advocate for what we need please listen to us, it’s likely we spent a long time without.

💪🏼💜

 

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Now seeking: Myself

Now seeking: myself.

I’ve looked high and low, but most of all I’ve looked to find myself in everyone and everything else. Where I could fit, belong, thrive, enjoy life. I’ve looked in characters in books and movies and tried to emulate what they do, but nothing has ever seemed to fit.

That’s because I never looked to myself. I never even knew I could, that this was a thing, or that I had permission.

So many greats have paved the way for the self work I’m doing now. Carl Rogers, Rollo May, Jung, Nietzche, and then there was the women. The “mothers” who adopted me through the words they put out into the universe. A baby blanket. The arms I always needed.

Cheryl Strayed, Anne Lamott, Anne Patchett, Sylvia Plath, Joan Anderson, Martha Beck, Brené Brown, Oprah Winfrey, Glennon Doyle and Abby Wambach.

And my spiritual mother Elizabeth Gilbert. The woman whose daughter I could be for our many similarities. And oddly it’s innate and learned, even when our DNA isn’t shared. It makes me believe in the ephemeral in a way my science “can do” mind has never lent to.

If everything you need is always inside you it’s hard to figure out what to do with that when all the research suggests a feral child like me has so much less chance for thriving. It makes me wonder if my mother had even less than I did even with two parents in their traditional slots.

I’ve learned a lot this past few years about not romanticizing things at face value, that just because people have families doesn’t mean they have suffered any less.

I am learning now that suffering is a state of mind more than a state or circumstance regardless what one goes through. Because we all have our stuff. It’s not the hand, but how it’s played. And we will play it from what we know, until we know better. Oh I forgot the beautiful Maya Angelou above.

I have woven together a tapestry of love from fragments for as long as I can remember. And is there anything so wrong with that? Is there some better thing to strive for? Or did I have it right all the time.

“But you don’t know what it feels like to fall in love with you, you don’t know what it feels like when you can’t go back” plays on Ruelle radio that has also been a staple of this time in my life.

I was thinking about the things that mark each time period in our lives. The signature drink, the favorite outfit, the fears, the desires, the songs, the vehicle we drive, and the smiles mouths and body we share during that time, and how they change and once they do that time period is over.

Would life really be better with warning signals?

We don’t know when it will begin or end. Even if we work really hard to know these things, we don’t.

I’m in the mountains with beloved found family. Gifts from the universe. Good people. I find myself and lose myself amongst these experiences. We are all interconnected and yet we all have our own emotional experience, and those are colored by the things that have shaped our lives.

The closest we can get to connecting is bridging the gaps in understanding by sharing our feelings. We each do things our own way, but we still strive for togetherness because we understand that’s where the most meaning is found in living.

I love these guys. I love being here right now. It’s exactly what I need. When my mind threatens to take me somewhere else I bring it back and there is joy to be found.

There is no glory in staring at a door wishing that someone will walk through it. Someone asked me the other day if I ever let anyone surprise me, and it made me think. It called me to look back over my life.

I survived by creating fantasies in my mind of just that, someone surprising me with showing me they were thinking of me and would show up. So I turned myself into someone who could make others feel that way. I became what I was looking for. Because that’s what the mystical they says about how to manifest what you’re looking for. Become it.

I became the guy with the boom box in Say Anything. But the thing is I never counted that. It didn’t count because it was just me being that and unless someone showed up for me in that way, it never counted.

It’s a hard thing nearing 40 to realize you never really felt connected to yourself let alone anyone else. I thought I was, that’s the thing. I was doing the best I can and I did it with my whole heart.

There’s nothing wrong with that. But I missed so much about me. Who I am. What I need. I became an incredible tool to see others in the way I always wanted to be seen. But because I was so good at, and everyone is in such need of that, it never moved past that.

I thought they would recharge and then pick up and do that too. Not exactly like me at all, just the effort. And maybe I just couldn’t see their effort in their way. I need to work on that. I have lots I need to work on.

So here I am on the brink of 40 a blank slate, having my whole life before me rather than behind, and my God I’m grateful.

The tears began streaming as I’m writing this. I’m alive and I’m ok. And I didn’t even know that. I’ve been in survival mode my whole life and I’m grieving that. Everything that came with. Every way someone has seen the product of what I created to get through my life with, but not the whole thing.

Someday someone else will show up for the whole thing, no matter what, just like I do for them….

For now I will show up with more of my pieces in tact, the ones I’m tending to gently every day, reconnecting them to myself is a slow and painful process. It’s surgery. Much like therapy. Yet very few people understand and respect the seriousness of this work, because we all want to see things for the surface and believe you can work that and just manage.

Yet we have tired, ragged, masses, angry, hurting, sad, lost, starving emotionally. We insult the new generation who are trying to teach us to recover ourselves. We call them all manner of things. They are not tough because they acknowledge emotions or what they need.

A society of martyrs who cause horrendous damage insulting those who take responsibility for their own happiness. But that looks shameful in the face of tradition.

What’s shameful is the cruelty than can be afflicted when we are not aware of ourselves. To allow continued suffering because we are too afraid to face ourselves.

I am not a perfect mother, in fact I’ve made more mistakes than most. That’s where wisdom comes from.

I am looking forward to being connected to myself and those I love for the rest of my life. It’s taken me nearly 40 years to travel here. I respect myself for this journey. I’m too tired for anymore shame.

💜

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I am an Instrument

Recently I had a really good talk with a beloved friend. I had said something along the lines of I’m usually that person that will bring something to someone’s attention, but I rarely get that same. And she said… “let me be that for you right now”.

Ask and you shall receive.

I have never felt I fit in anywhere. I’m reading Braving the Wilderness by Brené Brown, and it’s exactly the medicine for my heart right now, and it’s perfectly geared towards the pandemic. She’s ahead of her time and I am of mine as well. No wonder we can’t find anywhere to belong.

I spent most of my life afraid of myself, a robot or an alien. My recent realization is that I am not those things.

I am an instrument. And as one let me be the cello, the piano, the violin, and the guitar. I have always wished I could be watched for the concerto of creativity and warmth I can cultivate in a client session.

Lonely oh so lonely without being seen as we all want to be. But lately I am seeing myself.

In my life because of scarcity every time I am meant to be an instrument maybe just in a small dose, I go all in always with my own need and it muddles things. I do have my own needs but I was always meant to fill them with source, my own source not someone else’s. So I’m not left hollow and wanting and internalizing exactly the opposite beliefs about my self.

And yet it’s this very suffering that cultivates the level of compassion needed to change the world. And yet what an overwhelming task. Who am I to and how am I to change the world? Is it one person as a time as I’m doing now, especially beginning with myself?

What is my task?

My life need has created this constant cycle of deep attachment and bonding only to part ways. I think I was never meant to attach my whole life all those times. The person and I were meant to cross paths, healing was meant to happen, but that didn’t mean that everyone you come across you try and create a life with.

Family, making one, being in one, was my unmet human need. So everything became about that. If there is an unmet core need it will continually trump anything else. It will override logic and create a lens that makes everything look one way, but not clear.

Three or four years later the water calms and clears and then restlessness and chaos ensues because I don’t have the answers.

I was trying to fulfill my destiny without any solid ground under my feet. The solid ground became the priority and I missed so much else.

However if we use faith, this says that everything is exactly as it should be and no horrific harm has come, and everything will be ok, especially me, and my tender worn out heart that has been through the shredder as of late.

There are no victims and no perpetrators, no us and no them, no sides. There is only the fulfillment of ones own personal destiny.

And everyone’s is important. And mine is a slippery one to nail down. It comes into view in brief moments, beautiful, and then everything goes dark and I flounder again. Lost and found, lost and found.

I am not an alien, I am an instrument. It’s overwhelming being an instrument with no map or music. What kind am I? What am I supposed to play? Especially when I can’t carry a tune, but perhaps that level of self doubt is outdated, if not entirely human. More human than human. Imposter syndrome at its finest.

I think I’m finally ready to accept I am an instrument and there is more to life than my frantic search for belonging to a person, like that will solve everything.

When I read Brené I am envious of her Steve. Of their dialogue and support of one another, and their journey, and taking the time to understand the other. The discipline and self-awareness love demands.

I want those things, but those are not for me to create. I have other things to create and perhaps that is where and when I will be found/and find someone who wants to do life with me enthusiastically and being willing to show up, the way I am for them. With my mistakes and all because there are plenty.

So much of the reason my path has been as it has is being revealed right now. I have been gifted so much love in so many corners of the world. I was moving too fast to feel it before. But now it’s wrapping me warmly. Coming out of the woodwork and showing up.

Whenever I come into contact with someone they react or connect to me. They feel my presence and I can make a lifelong friendship from one conversation in the car. The feels almost beyond my comprehension. I have had to weed out all the critical thoughts about how wrong this is. Especially in Connecticut lol. Stay in your own lane.

So out of balance with my confidence and my own need, my gift always gets confused and then causes chaos. It hasn’t been properly channeled because it has had to come together, and I’d like to believe it couldn’t come together without the exact path I am on.

So I can forgive myself for my sins.

Everything is a blank canvas right now, but this time I know I am the pen.

On being an instrument

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We Bounce Forward

So today I’m at the Honda dealership waiting for a new AC condenser to be installed. I am reflecting on my very first blog post ever, written in Ansonia at a small coffee shop waiting for my Jeep to be serviced. I’m at another full circle beginning of a new life so it’s appropriate and poetic.

I need to find my way back to me, my writing self, my heart. Also though you can’t go back to something you never started with. So perhaps I don’t have quite the right calibration on the wording.

Because we don’t bounce back we bounce forward (after a hard hit) according to the great Martha Beck. So this is completely uncharted territory and that brings with it absolute terror. I’m trying to find enough excitement to balance it out to become unfrozen so I can budge.

A whole new world and a whole new me. I didn’t want either of those things my toddler whines. I wanted the comfort of the known, to be held softly at night while I sleep, to have the routines I am used to, to see the smiling faces of my children feeling secure and loved in as far as I’ve gotten towards those things.

Which was not as far as I believed. That’s a stunning realization.

I’ve been traveling the dark wood of my own soul for around seven months now. My life and my self is unrecognizable now. I have soared to the highest heights and crashed through the earths crust and straight to the center of hell. I’ve been bathing in flames lately, not the soothing water I had found.

Another death and rebirth. I am finding there are hundreds of those across a lifetime, not just one or two.

I am breaking another generational curse right now. This work is not for the faint of heart. I do it so I can be a beacon of light for others. For my family, my friends, my clients. I lose myself so I can find myself again so I can know.

So I can I know what’s on the other side, the inside, the depths. So I can be the tour guide on inner journeys.

But lately I’ve become stuck when the work involves needing to play and rest. I don’t know how to do those things by myself apparently. I know how to show other people. I can do this work when my nervous system is calmed by the steady heartbeat of a lover. I become my full self.

But left to my own devices I freeze. It’s a shame filled thing these traumas. You don’t end up working like you’re “supposed to”, and finding compassion when compassion isn’t what saved you, is nearly impossible: truly.

Could I really have been running all this time in one way or another …. is that really possible? Half dissociated and half frenzied running. Love is the only force powerful enough to slow me down or wake me up, but sustaining it like this became another matter. Add another layer of shame.

I have been running and when my feelings catch me, it is a storm. The degree to which I feel things is unreal. A product of the battle to keep my feeling parts, when it was unbearable so long. I was fierce to keep them, even though they end up burning me alive.

I long to put this way of living down. It’s too heavy. I am in this process. Putting down an entire way of living is like not have any skin to protect the nerves, the air hits them and the pain is excruciating. Every day for me is like this right now.

Eventually the battle breaks you open into your heart, and the space where it’s soft. Where you’re your full light in the world and love doesn’t feel so hard anymore. It’s something that flows naturally.

I cannot run anymore. I cannot default. None of my tools or tricks work anymore.

Naked and still….

Ps. Today is a very special day in a place of my heart that isn’t allowed to exist right now. So keep me in your warmth please. My heart is raw there.

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Misunderstandings: “Just Like Me”

I started out this morning wanting to talk about my little girl. Not either of my daughter’s but my own little girl inside of me, the one I have carefully preserved, and along with her all of the gifts that are meant to reach the world. In many ways she is just waking up now.

However for now I am sidetracked by an important conversation I had this evening. So the theme of this post is misunderstandings.

If you follow my blog you may recall an old post entitled “The angry ex club”. I have spent most of my life feeling judged by and tremendously guilty towards my ex husband, whom I left on account of being not only young and stupid, but also gay. Neither of those things would have led to a life of nuptial bliss with him.

These feelings caused me to project all sorts of unsavory things onto him. In seeking his acceptance I was completely disagreeable, unable to ever hear his valid opinion on things, and a whole variety of things. We lashed out on one another over the years each in our own ways.

So much to my surprise after an almost two hour conversation this evening would you believe once things are laid on the table and revealed, the things in our soft under bellies, we are more alike than we are different.

Spoiler alert. We are all more alike than we are different. 

He is hard on himself too. He wants to belong and be accepted too. He just wants to be a good parent, and is afraid at times he isn’t, just like me. We were both just trying to get through this world as best we could and for so many years we made the other an adversary, when that was never necessary.

Truly you must walk a mile in someone’s shoes before holding them in contempt and having rage inside towards them. What a mind bleep when you realize you never even had to use all that energy all that time like that. I could have been doing so many productive things, if I just knew what I know now. But at least I get to know it now. So many people go their whole lives without this.

I am encouraged that we will attend things for our children the rest of our lives and be able to give one another a real genuine hug, and not an awkward strained thing masking our distaste. That will we now be able to show up for one another. I was able to tell him how much I appreciated him always showing up financially for our children. Rather than criticizing him from my own guilt of why he stayed in a career he is unhappy with (this felt like my fault). He stayed because he believed the benefits and health insurance was the best thing. And truly I have the career and the life I am able to have because he made that commitment. Who’s to say what is right or wrong here, but I am sure him being able to hear how grateful I am for where I’m at in my life, and that is largely due to his support of the kids over the years. I never had room to say those things to him before. I never had the sight.

The truth is it’s incredibly difficult when you “fail” at a relationship, particularly a marriage. There is so much pain involved, it spreads like shrapnel throughout. Failure was not an option. You have failed your children, each other, yourselves, the world at large. Just another statistic. It’s brutal.

You can come out on the other side with more reasons, like any human needs more, to feel unworthy and not love yourself. I am finding we all feel insanely unworthy and wonder why we are not chosen for this or for that. In love, for the position, for so many things. When really as I see it I think life (destiny if you will) has plans for us, and there is divine intervention all along the way. But we are so cynical. The world/society has done a number on our souls. The living breathing spirit inside of us that has enthusiasm about things. And then those of us that are lucky enough to find ours just go around touting it so the rest of the world can feel like they are missing something.

To be able to help someone find theirs. Now that is a life worth living. I hope to always be that for others and to remember how and when to give to myself. I am working on that now.

Which speaking of that leads me to my next point which either will unfold in here (trauma brain) or in an entire other post. It deserves its own post, but it’s the other main thing on my mind today.

How often I become that little girl who is just wanting to be acknowledged. When I love I sit and wait. It reminds me of Secret Life of Pets actually. Max waiting for Katie. In love I am like that. Lately I am re-writing the script and rather than looking at the door all day long loyally (while not a bad concept), I am not waiting. I am enjoying my own light and love and slowly figuring out what that looks like.

So last night was mostly sleepless, my life is going through lots of changes right now. I had so many epiphanies and I can’t imagine that I did not energetically invite the interaction with my children’s father and myself, by doing my work. I did not expect this, it wasn’t the thing I was looking for, but I was able to pay attention to its significance and to sit in the feeling of it all.

So often lately I am able to sit with and actually feel things. Most of my life has been in survival mode, something I am only able to truly acknowledge now, and to fully grasp what impact it has had. I am beginning to not feel like my body is crawling in snakes about it though. This has been replaced with a slow spreading smile across my face when I remember that imaginative little girl and all her dreams, and the fact she never gives up on them, no matter how tough it gets. I am developing an appreciation and a respect for myself, which are great foundations for love.

There are foundations being demolished and foundations being built, the most important one I continue to come back to is the one I always have the power to change at anytime, and my one true constant, my own.

The little girl and I are becoming acquainted. The memories of her are not just huddled in a stairwell seeing things she should not see and hearing things she should not hear. I am remembering the other parts of her as well. Rainbow Brite boots and catching butterflies, journals and note pads, and countless trips to the library with grandma. Who would record herself with a small old fashioned tape recorder. The original audiobook. I remember those stories and stacks of library books, it was one of my safest and my fond childhood memories. It created a love for language and reading that have become a cornerstone of who I am.

The light shines out of the darkness. We are resilient creatures capable of still becoming all we were meant to be, no matter what our circumstances. During this time of immense uncertainty it is very cathartic for me to keep this in mind.

I just did five years worth of therapy in a day, haha. It’s time to plan a vacation soon. It’s time to play.

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Lost Back in 2016

Is there anything better really than clean sheets and a freshly made bed?

I’m still sleeping on an eighth of it, but nothing lasts forever.

I watched Stuck in Love with the girls tonight. It’s a very full circle kind of thing. Very! I was watching this movie on repeat spring into fall of 2016. When I was taking my next steps into finding my writer self. Rescuing her out of the rubble. That was a year of discovery for sure. And of Jeeps and french bulldogs, oh my.

We even had a Stuck in Love themed Thanksgiving. That was actually really fun.

That was the year I got my first office that was all my own. The year I got Sigmund Freud, the fantastic Frenchie. The year I began morning pages. It was my four year pages anniversary this April. The first time I ever dated dated. Oh the perils of that, lol. I have some crazy stories. The first time I took three solo getaways by myself. The year I learned one could romance themselves, and that I didn’t need to be with someone to justify a nice restaurant or lavish evening.

The year I got my Et Lux Entenebris Lucet (the light shines out of the darkness) tattoo. My first real adult job that I ended up hating. This helped me learn to trust myself, being able to walk away, and hang my own shingle.

I was so much more naive and innocent then. I’ve grown backwards in so many ways.

I can’t even remember that girl.

I asked my therapist tonight how come some people seem to have it so much easier. Being wanted, chosen, things coming more easily to them. While others no matter how hard they work or try, things seem not to work out for.

There isn’t an exact answer I can share, other than dynamics and human behavior. I personally think it’s a privilege to be calm and grounded. One not afforded by everyone. You have to have had a certain kind of life, things you could depend on consistently for that wiring. I envy those people. Not enough to not be grateful for my exact path, but I do.

Lily Collins is absolutely gorgeous. Gahhh

Rian has my hands. My daughter has my hands. Right down to the lines on the inside of our palms. I don’t think I’ve ever stood still long enough to notice.

Have I really been running my whole life?

What does slowing down look like ? I don’t know but I liked my moments with her this evening. And teaching the girls how to drive and getting ice cream at the Sundae House.

I felt them. These things.

It’s staggering sometimes to realize how much of my own life I’ve been a guest star in. Never fully Inhabiting my body. My own ghost, and haunting.

I can get everyone to love me, but me.

What a cruel trick.

I’ll find myself between my own pages in my own story.

Or maybe in Tuscany or anywhere else.

I am going to busy myself planning a vacation soon. The idea of being all on my own with nothing to do or be responsible for is entirely appealing. Just quiet and calm.

My eyes are getting heavy….. it’s time to rest.

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The Arena

So lately I’m sitting in my stuff. It’s been a long time since I’ve been intimate on here because of shame. Isn’t that always why we withdraw?

I have been battling shame. A lifetime of it. For how I’ve needed to live to survive. I’ll shame myself. Because how I’ve lived to survive has impacted others along the way, in sometimes very painful ways.

I am trying to tow the line of taking accountability for that and also realizing that we don’t grow and change without pain, and have that be a universal truth and not a justification.

I will say in my battle of shame that I have never in my life purposely misled anyone. I have primarily not even known myself, and I look like someone who knows a lot. Sound like someone who knows a lot. I have a lot of information.

However having integrated that information into creating a whole person. I’m not even close. I’m as scattered as my adhd and c-ptsd ridden mind. That is true.

It is deeply painful for me. That is also true. And becoming involved with me on an idea of who I am without knowing the depths of what is in here can be very painful for others. And for me!

Only took me until (almost) 40 years old

To figure that out.

But what each person does with their pain is their own responsibility.

My pain is no one else’s responsibility as it’s filled with my interpretation of the world and what is just and what isn’t. I’m the only one who can save me.

So many Bruce Almighty moments. “Smite me mighty smiter.”

I’m the girl who tried to figure out human connection from 80’s movies. That’s probably why I’m so good at cheesy romance 😉 and then like the ending of a 90 minute movie there’s another broken heart.

But my heart breaks too. I experience another loss I never wanted too. And when I lose someone I lose everything. My family. My identity. My safety. My pain reliever. My grounding force. Because that’s what another human being always had to be: everything.

That’s what happens when you begin with nothing. Forced co-dependence. You never stood a chance against it, without an entire RE-wiring.

An idea of who I am as a human being. Trying on lives trying to find something that fits. It’s the most exhausting clothing room try on. The lights are fluorescent and they burn.

They burn.

So I am going to burn for awhile into ashes. I think rising as a Phoenix at this point is a tall aspiration. I think I need to stay ashes for a bit.

Like an addict recovering I think I’ll try to keep a house plant alive for awhile. You have to walk before you can run. I flew before I could breathe. I was an adult before I was a child.

I’m all out of order.

The chronology of me is a painful thing.

It’s created one hell of a ride.

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Courage Under Fire

Every person in a relationship experiences a different version of the person they are with. Two people together are an alchemy.

They create an energy.

I remember being around twenty four years old, in a house provided by the military, in Connecticut. I had three young children and a husband. I remember feeling very dissatisfied with my life and I couldn’t figure out why.

Later I would find there were so many facets to this untangling it is unimaginable. I am still doing that work to this day.

The first facet was being gay, and having not even realized it or having any indication and then finding myself with a husband and three young children. I did that to survive. Created that family to have one. Having no idea how to be a mother or a wife. Just that I needed a family.

I needed a family. Expansion: I needed a safe family.

As I well know now this is not why you create a family. I wouldn’t have known any better then, and I’m aware that many people begin in this way. And that who they become from the experience is the most important part.

I remember looking for my answers on the Internet. It ran much slower back then. Not quite the days of dial-up and you’ve got mail, but not very far out of that time either.

My seeking made me feel selfish at the time. I was supposed to be a mom and a wife forsaking all others. But I wasn’t even anyone to myself yet. I was an outer design with a burning inner emptiness and suffering.

I was absorbed inside myself. While I watched my husband play with our young children with complete envy. I envied the children for being played with. And I envied the husband for being able and knowing how to play.

I envied anyone who looked like they knew how to live, I merely knew how to survive. But I didn’t know that then.

I sat there lost inside myself having no idea what was wrong with me, because that was always the question of the first… Well actually it’s still the question, only with a little bit further along on the self-love journey.

So I focused more on my selfishness that I could notice, then the things that had happened to me to make me so lost. So I ordered about seven different books on narcissism. I became a narcissist scholar if you will. Malignant Self Love. The Narcissistic Family…. and so on…

Here’s the rub. I had to become so self-focused to figure out how to even be, that it was a self fulfilling prophecy. And I’m startled to find myself back at square one with myself again in this place. That is the most humbling recognition I could ever have.

I thought it was just figuring out my sexuality, the reality is this pattern would continue over and over until my untended self and my created self could reunite.

I’m about to be forty years old folks. A well respected clinician, a like-able gal, a mostly good mom most of the time. And my wounds, they still haunt me. And they still effect anyone who dares love me.

Back to my story.

Narcissism (24 years old)

The first recognition of this tumbled me into complete and utter acceptance of my fatal diagnosis. I was a monster. There was no hope for me.

And I became very depressed.

This depression led me into the office of my very first therapist. Who said a few words to me that have changed my life forever. He was the first person to ever recognize or say something to me like “I’m surprised that you’re alive.” I looked around for who he might be talking to, because it couldn’t possibly be me. I was fine just look at me. Strong friendly outgoing energetic attractive.

Sidenote; this therapist having only seen me about one year in total, upon me calling him and telling him I was graduating with my masters degree, attended my graduation ceremony. He was the only parent type figure that was there. My therapist. He had asked me at one point during a session what I thought I might like to do for a career. At this time I hadn’t finished through the 10th grade of high school and I had my GED. I had looked right at him and said I think I’d like to do what you do. And here I am.

So now I know where to begin my memoir and what I am going to write about. I will continue to figure out how to keep my thinking not frenzied and chaotic, and how to stay grounded within myself.

What I will say for now is that even with all of that work studying and knowing these dynamics, when you are wired with intense terror Over a significant period of your life and abuse and manipulation, your life will look entirely different in One way or another because of it.

People deal with this in a variety of ways. Each of their ways is never a thing that should be judged. For nobody, not even them sometimes, is able to see or realize what they had to do to survive emotionally.

Where do the emotions go when they are unwelcome by our safest sources?

They become internalized in one way or the other. Either a frighteningly low self-esteem, being incredibly hard on oneself, A variety of addictions, assorted masks, I could go on for a very long time.

The person is left to deal with their emotions by themselves, and when we are little we have absolutely no idea how to do that. So we develop coping mechanisms subconsciously that will play out our entire lives. In who we are attracted to, how we handle that. Our ability to delay gratification for being responsible. Etc.

Is it any wonder that these survivors on top of already living through hell in their childhood, end up having very short fuses, lots of irritability, a sense of dissatisfaction that can’t even put their finger on, and they need to go in wild cycles of hating themselves, and then doing impulsive things just to try to make themselves feel better in an immediate moment.

This is the land I live in. No matter how far I’ve traveled it takes constant awareness and effort just to exist in the world in a loving way.

Being able to connect to someone else’s emotions and to be kind to them, and to listen, and to take accountability for my actions. Instead of being so fragile that I become an entirely different person. One who doesn’t fight fair. Unrecognizable to myself and no one that I would want to be around.

I read this vampire series by Linda Leal Miller when I was a tween, in the final of the series the vampire and a human who had fell in love make a baby. I wonder if twilight stole from this. Haha

She’s a half breed. And so am I.. ….half narcissist by absorption, half empath by effort. Finding knowledge and cultivating awareness to sew up my wounds so I don’t cut others with my sharp tongue, with every ounce of pain I’ve been carrying.

A brilliant tortured sad lonely beautiful mind.

Capable of warm connection when all the right conditions are present, and also capable of cutting off from emotion like a switch. And then terribly aware of what that feels like for the other person and the damage that has been caused, but unable to correct it until later.

Frozen. Seemingly unfeeling, but very much the opposite.

The child the adult the child the adult the child the adult. Is it any wonder how confusing it all is?

Until she can connect to herself with the written word. A survival tactic. At least this one is a favorable one to balance out the others.

Until she can fully reconnect with herself ….