Tag: #notalone

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Music, lyrics, water, ice

I said to my friend this morning that I have a big family. It just fell out of my mouth, and then all of my insides smiled at the realization. How can that be?! How can all of this change have occurred and right under my nose.

I’m always vigilant for threat. But for happiness…. I can’t even see it when it was always available to me. Just some fine tuning of perspective.

This hunting, constant hunting for belonging or acceptance has left my soul tired. What I actually had to do was to let go, not hold on tight. Then everything just opened right up to me.

I’ve traversed lifetimes of growth just this morning. A time traveling warrior of light. Transcending typical chronologies and customs, and all barriers of logic and reason. A traversiamo; I’ve crossed over.

I had a beautiful line right here, and I didn’t save the draft properly, and it’s gone. It was exquisite, and I’m feeling rather heartbroken. But isn’t this just how life works? If I sit here not writing, let the whole thing ruin my mood, when all the lines come from inside me anyway, and if it’s important it will come back again.

I’m in a freeze again. I’m waiting for something, the next something, and there will be a something after that. So why wait I suppose? Write what I can right now?!

I can write that life is happening around me so fast I feel like I can barely keep up. This creation has taken on a life of its own, and some of my parts (sum of my parts by Mary Lambert, a favorite), still feel like they are in that other life. I am constantly checking the evidence and pinching myself. That must indicate some pretty radical transformation right ?!

I can’t stop thinking about that line, and I can’t stop thinking about other things… my mind just rolls it over and over in the palm of my hand like glistening agates bathed in ocean water and sunlight. Mesmerized. They could turn to dust at any moment these dreams, and I know that like I never have before. I now know what it means to have the courage to go after your dreams. I used to think what’s the big deal? That’s because I was separated from myself.

People thought I was brave. And I was but I couldn’t feel it, and they never knew that.

What direction is my life about to go?! What many directions ? What do I have to offer the world ? I am excavating, contemplating, exfoliating. Laughing. Playing.

Mary Lambert sets my soul on fire. I want to do what she does for the world. With my words. Before my child got lost she wrote. She wrote a lot. Always had a pen and paper. She wrote poetry and song lyrics and tried so sing, not well. And then people made fun of her and she tucked all that away on a mission for acceptance. She watched and became anything she could to be chosen, wanted, to belong.

It’s not all tragedy though that lost child created the very thing that helped her become found. It was effortless to have those three gems, or at least it feels that way this many years out, and within this new journey. They are effortless to love, and yet I was blind for so long. Now I see everything. I spent a small amount of time fearing it was too late, but there’s no such thing really.

It’s never too late. I want to play the piano. I want to dance with joy. I want to weave words together into a brightly colored tapestry and then sit back and see me from the outside in a way I never have before. I have dreams and a heart, that are thawed.

It’s so hard to explain this life in words. I burst with gratitude to the point only unintelligible sobs can escape. I’m nervous to show the world so much feeling, they don’t know what to do with it, and I hate anyone around me being uncomfortable.

I make people uncomfortable, just before they find themselves.

I needed enough insight to realize how to hold on through the storm so I could witness the sunlight. Most of the storms of my childhood were unbearable. So it’s taken several trips through hell to learn how to sit in discomfort.

“Don’t go looking for some kind of rescue, you are the only one who can save you. We are we are more than our scars, we are more than the sum of our parts.” -Mary Lambert

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Fox Tattoos and Trauma Hues

I picked up my son from college last night. How is this even a thing ?! What happened to all those years? I was just surviving but I wasn’t alive in my heart. I’m grappling with this realization right now.

I provided my children with what appeared at face value to be safe people. Everyone was safer than me because I could become some dark thing at anytime.

That’s so sad when I say it now and feel it. No dissociation only raw realizations here.

My son has been talking about getting a tattoo. And my mom side says wait til you know who you are and what you like. She protects and guides and also thinks no don’t be so grown I can’t handle it. It’s scary. So my response was always no. Closed off from him. What he was asking for what he wants in exploring the world. So he went to another source. That’s what we do with unmet needs right ?

Anyway he was talking with my ex partner (now friend). She had said she was going to take him to do that. And something about this felt off to me. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Was it jealousy?! If it was I would manage that. But it was more. I’ve not been controlling with my children in fact I’ve let them be given to the world: however I think I did not even have a template for how important I am to them, and vice Versa.

I did not know how. I didn’t know how to mom or how to child. Chaotic confusion.

They have seen this mother. Always seeking, but most likely always at more of an arms length than is comfortable for me to sit with. But the truth sets you free, and opens up new possibilities, especially the hard ones. Most people aren’t ever willing to admit… it’s too uncomfortable.

That arms length was not believing in who I was as a mother. It was never them, and hopefully showing them now, and this connection blossoming now. I provided others for play, while I worked. While I worked at school, worked at my trauma, worked at Trader Joe’s.

What breaks my heart is that it was all so intense for me. I always could have been connected to them as much as I wanted. Children are open and loving always. I kept myself from their love because I didn’t want to use it inappropriately, like what was done to me. I was frozen. Trauma freezes our beautiful soft selves.

Now I’m thawed and they are older and the only way they will ever know how much of my love has always been theirs is if I write so they can read my story. My heart is opening. I can see them now and connect. What if I hurt them all that time? Were they lonely? It’s more than most parents will ever look at in themselves.

I think children might rather have consistency even than any other thing. And my c-ptsd has left me bouncing around the world like a brightly colored super ball. Were they lonely ?! They must have been because I was. I did the supposed to’s properly, but connection I knew nothing about that. I just tried to learn about life from the damn movies; not from any real connections. So that left a lot of room for error!

So this whole tattoo thing. I realized I want to be there with him for that and asked him. I asked him for this connection and to accept my place as his mother and his friend. I asked for my need and also let him know he is important to me. I could have just stayed in the backseat out of fear of myself.

I’m ready to accept my place in their lives. To love myself enough to accept my role and to fulfill it properly. I am sorry it’s taken me so long. But I promise no one has ever loved their children so much. I’ve done my own surgery and my own stitches and I’ve been living wounded without anesthesia for so long.

If I had something visible I would have had people gasp and run to my aid. Because it’s not visible I’ve been shamed and judged. And that created more bondage.

I am a trauma survivor. I live with PTSD every single day. I can’t even ride in a car without jumping 60 times. Most days I spend monitoring my heart rate and flushing from cortisol. So many times without my consent. My body and my heart are so tired.

I’ve called it Crohns. I’ve been in denial. Anything else. Because a trauma survivor story is filled with such shame. It will be no matter what work you do around it. How to not be seen as attention seeking or pity seeking. How to not have shame around this. When you’re responsible for everything.

Coming out as gay was only the tip of the iceberg on my coming out. I had been strong for so long I forgot I was soft. It’s my soft parts that connect with the world and my children.

I don’t talk about it. I really don’t. I live with it but I don’t talk about it, because I’m always afraid of taking up too much space.

It’s time for another healing journey, one with my body, my heart rate, my mind. I stopped looking, because I was looking to the wrong sources.

The medical community has failed me, the family system has failed me. And I get so angry…. not getting answers but I’m focusing on the wrong thing. If I had a medical issue it could be easily fixed and seen and there’s a pill for that.

I deserved to be seen so long ago….

Everyone deserves to be seen….

I’ve spent my life becoming the mother I want to be. It’s a lot of work. I hope this new little one is ready for me. I am ready for her…..

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Soul and mind stuff

Life can still surprise me. My awe this morning says “there’s more”. How is that a thing?!

There’s more magic. I have so much already. It’s not fair. What if I’m taking up someone else’s. My natural state of being says these things.

This magic is meant to help me fully grasp my own power as a human being.

To use my voice without it shaking with old wounds and loss. They are ready to let go of me. These insecurities are ready to let go of me. They have taught me all I need. And I don’t need them anymore.

And who will I be after I shed this skin. I’m going to be someone else again and that’s terrifying. We humans do not like to change it makes us severely uncomfortable I am finding.

An energy shift entered my life unexpectedly and I had a migraine over a week, intense anxiety, old insecurities and suddenly all of my old shit staring me directly in the face. The ego hates this. It says no no no we have already done this work, make it stop.

But our work is never done, which also means the magic is never over either. Life just keeps surprising you. It can be beyond your wildest imagination, but first I can say confidently from experience it will bring you to your fucking knees with terror and grief.

It will rack your whole body. Rock your whole world. You’ll be standing like Dante in the dark wood completely lost, and think you’ll never find your way out. But first it will burn. And you’ll think all the darkest thoughts about yourself.

“It’s always darkest before the light”.

My self has always tried to resist the woo woo stuff. Actually my ego is the resister, my self is soft and kind and receptive. Ego is a nasty master. It says stay safe and still. Don’t take any risks. They are all going to laugh at you.

After each new gift that’s placed in my path my vision, voice, and soul grow stronger. I see it as it’s happening. I feel it. It’s the exact opposite of anxiety. It’s a confidence unlike any other thing. One that hardly ever seemed possible.

Layers and layers and layers of healing can happen, but it’s not for the faint of heart. It’s tearing open wounds each time. It’s painful literally. It’s illness in the body, fear in the mind. That’s how hard our soul hangs on for dear life. There’s a lot that can happen to a human being.

But there is more than this lifetime and this body. Did that really just come out of my “mouth”. What the ?! Who even am I right now. Ack ! There’s just too much evidence that has to be true.

And Josh Radin “Here, Right Now” comes on, because of course it does. I’m coming home to me. The me before the trauma. The true me. The me that looked in the empty eyes of her “mother”, and the mother said, “I knew you knew more than me and were wiser and stronger the day you were born.” “You were the mom and I was the baby”, she said. Perhaps she was an infant soul. https://lonerwolf.com/soul-age/ perhaps it’s mental illness. Hell maybe it’s Maybelline I don’t know.

Not very many things my mother has ever said have meant too much or resonated. But she had that down. She said I was a tiny adult. If she told me no once I never did it again. The perfect child. Well I didn’t have much of a choice.

But in the words of the amazing Lady Gaga, “I was born this way”. And this all leaves me with a lot to think about.

What I will say is I woke up this morning very happy. I’m in my element being my weird ass self. Writing in my bathtub (sanctuary). And I feel one with everything, this sense of peace and love. The very opposite of my beginning and it’s heaven.

It truly is Nirvana.

Pure love, without demands, it’s a thing that radiates to all beings. It’s not held back or contained and there doesn’t need to be a 2D story about it. Is that way they say.?!

“Before I get into this topic, I would like to remind ourselves though of the phenomenon, that our ego needs to label everything. In 5D terms, we would not ask ourselves the question, whether we met our twin aspect or a soul mate, or if we are experiencing a catalyst situation. Because, no matter what experience we go through, we know that we agreed on having it before we incarnated.

There is no better or worse. It does not matter if it is a twin connection or some other type of soul connection we are going through. Our soul chose it for a specific reason. They are all necessary to contribute to our awakening and growth. So please, honour and value the experiences you go through without putting any label on it. As Caroline Myss says: “The soul always knows what to do to heal itself. The challenge is to silence the mind.” Source: Waking up

Yes I have really gone down the rabbit hole now lol. But if I keep going in my right direction , my true north, it won’t really matter and I won’t need to be nervous.

Now I must return to my earthy dwellings and rush a teenager to practice and be a counselor.

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Love is an open door

Hurt people hurt people.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My heart is an open door…

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Heart on display

Today is for homemade chicken soup, snuggly bulldogs, and heavy contemplation. It’s for music, blankets, kisses, and decorating. For acquainting ourselves to a novel corner of our new domain. Creating a new feel to the already existing landscape.

Today is the brink of another brave journey down the IVF road. We are embarking upon try number five, and I’m scared like hell. And you aren’t allowed to say that. Because you’re supposed to say how positive and excited you are. I am those things too, but if you haven’t experienced the searing pain of disappointment in this arena you don’t get to tell me how to conduct myself. All you need to do is listen and be kind to me, that’s all.

I’m not afraid I won’t be ok. Or that I am not loved and have a great support system. My heart isn’t thin glass. It’s incredibly resilient. This isn’t fear or a lack, its raw. It’s naked in Times Square. It’s holding nothing back.

It’s as if I’ve pulled my heart out of my chest, holding it carefully, and have placed it on the counter. It’s just sitting there outside my body. Anything can happen to it at any moment. It’s sitting next to the ten thousand syringes and needles of various sizes and alcohol wipes. It’s out in the open and I have no idea what will happen. I’m just standing here marveling at it. How beautiful and strong. It never was the dangerous thing I always feared.

We are becoming friends, my heart and I.

I have woken up out of a nightmare and into a fairytale. Knowing that in real life fairytales there is still pain. I’m still here regardless of outcome. It will only add another layer of depth to my soul. But these layers aren’t cheap.

The Halloween decorations are down, the Thanksgiving / Christmas ones will go up. Our first Christmas tree in this home. The first of so many, if we are blessed. This home will house laughter, and a thousand possibilities for a secure space full of traditions and love. What life is this? How can it possibly be mine? I just keep pinching myself.

This is nothing I have ever known.

Hyper vigilance gives way to peacefulness. Anxiety is replaced with security. The neural pathways laid down attempt to derail progress, the progress is too consistent and too great. I’ll lay down an entire new railroad if it means I can love and be loved.

A life once only dreamed of comes clearer into view. I’m no longer naive enough to think I’ll be happy if or when…. something always comes along. Life changes on a dime. Be happy now, exactly as is. Your perspective and circumstances can change in an instant, then life will change you.

When I no longer live inside my head anymore, what will my writing be like then? I’m changing more quickly than I can keep up with. Am I ready to pour this molten heart into children who desperately need love, and to be seen, as I did? Am I ready? What is ready? They weren’t ready for their circumstances.

So if they have to be brave, so will I. If they can be brave and open, amidst crushing disappointment then I will too.

It’s just the unknown, which has as good of chance of turning out beyond our wildest dreams as it does bad. Our biological wiring is made to detect threat rather than possibility.

I’ve spent a lifetime surviving. Now I’m ready to live.

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Disconnectedly Yours….

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

What do you think that means ?!

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

The human spirit amazes me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Childlike Enthusiasm

Despite my conflict about this medication how I am feeling on the regular is this crazy optimism for life. I wake up every single morning literally bounding with energy for what could happen throughout the day. What special thing? What human connection. What could happen today?

I have woken up (thawed out) to a childlike enthusiasm for living. And I’ll never go back to sleep from that. Now I just want to give from a place of abundance and fulfillment to anyone and everyone who feels as if they don’t belong in some way, are too much, are not enough, not worthy. I want to warm them up and thaw them out.

I realized yesterday it isn’t because I don’t have symptoms and lots of various health things anymore, it’s because I’m so well cared for.

Yesterday we watched my daughters soccer game. They beat their town rival for the first time in the history of JV soccer, both of them played wonderfully. It was cold out, and once the cold gets into me it’s very difficult to get out. My lips get purple, my hands and feet and nose are freezing and no amount of bundling typically helps. I used to become so afraid of this. It’s very unpleasant and it can’t be good right. My joints ache after. I’ve tried all sorts of things and had all sorts of testing.

Do you know what heals me the most?

Love.

Once I got into bed with my person she lovingly warms my hands and her touch brings me right back to life. I believe 100 percent if you allow yourself to receive from source (for me love and the earth) that you can heal. When I’m cold like that I also ache and all my muscles tighten up, and it can cause a migraine etc. Normally I go to such a fear space in my body and I’m in my head, and can’t get out.

She brings me right back to earth and safety.

My secret is you have to reach a place where you reduce down to the truly important things. Not getting caught up in whether your house looks nice, your body, various appearances. Whether you’re good enough (you’re good enough), make enough money, have enough time. There will never be “enough” of those things, but think of how much can be wasted with a skewed perspective.

As my fear melts away, there is just more and more beauty to bask in.

If you had seen my life you would absolutely wonder how. I truly believe like a stray that has found its forever home I live in constant gratitude for the tiniest things and it’s a constant ecstasy.

I never imagined you could have a relationship where you truly fall more in love every day. I dreamed of this, but then romanticized and become crushingly disappointed by continually picking the wrong fit because I couldn’t move slow enough to pay attention to the details.

Prior to this I chose partners who were no where near ready nor did they want to be responsible to a family unit. They fell in love the same way I did, with the idea of something and someone. Not truly knowing what they wanted out of their one precious life. It created love to be the battlefield from whence I came, and that pushed me toward illness, depression, fear, and longing even further.

When I met my wife I had already seen that she loved in partnership the way my value system works which is that love is prioritized above all things. The love itself is what continues to expand the dreams. Not resentment or playing out with each other the legacy of our family systems.

This love is bliss.

It’s interesting to watch others reactions to my shouting from the rooftops. Responses are often critical and judgmental such as “if you have to share it all the time on Facebook then…. and maybe you should be more private about it.” Or with skepticism or with behaving as if it’s corny to love this hard and talk about it. If this is your response you probably want to check in on your own unmet needs.

Well meaning advice from those who see their world quite differently. Also it means those people don’t understand me at all. How I work. That I delight in having permission to share my truths as often and as loudly as I like. That I was shushed often as a child and told that little girls are supposed to play quietly in the corner with their paper dolls, and that children are meant to be seen and not heard.

If they aren’t for you move along. I used to accept shame and judgment so easily. It used to make me crumble. I wanted so badly to belong and fit in, I did anything, sold my soul, again to people who weren’t ready to create a big life with me.

Keep your dreams at the forefront and your enthusiasm for living. I wonder how much I was born like this, and how much is my chosen perspective. I wake up wide awake at 6 am every morning with thousands of thoughts. I used to wake up with those being terror filled, and the day being a gauntlet of symptoms to survive and my own dark thinking of how badly everything could go. My mind can do dark things. I’ve lived in dark places.

The saving grace is my determination towards the light. I am fiercely protective of this life I am creating. I know that loss does not discriminate, and that I am not immune. And that I will feel the effects intensely. Which will only make the beautiful things that much more special.

I continue to keep warming my inner child and bringing her into myself and feeling whole.

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Anything is possible

I was introduced to Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs when I was a student. This would be the very first time it occurred to me as to why I felt so undeveloped in certain areas. That there could be a reason for this that was not a short-coming or fault.

For the last several years I often say that theory and practice are very different things. But what I never realized as I was preaching this to others, is that I was really telling myself that I have become someone else than I ever thought myself to be.

As I counselor I often tell people they need to update their software, just like on the I-phone. As soon as they become aware of their “bugs” and have engaged in the process of correcting those (therapy). Ever so slight shifts happen, that often go unrecognized by the self. People from the outside will often be the first to make them aware, by commenting about these shifts, but even then… it’s hard to imagine themselves as different than the story they have formulated with the “help” of media, society, comparison, etc.

Self-doubt fueled narratives abound, especially in women as their tender nurturings are often seen as far less valuable than they truly are.

A nurturing mother is often times the difference between a fulfilling life and one of incredible struggle.

Much to my great surprise I found myself to be one. How am I here right now? I spent the first half of my life in a chaotic blather of creating before I knew what I was doing, doubting myself all the way along, and so so susceptible to the opinions of others.

I spent years self-flagellating, and I’m not even Catholic. At the time the only thing I knew how to do was beat myself into making sure I would not be the things I came from. Little did I know that behavior would be the very thing that could have turned me into that.

So here I sit…. a totally different self than I ever hoped to be. Not only did I turn out different, but I turned out better than my wildest dreams. And now I am just trying to update my software to stand in this grace and this power that I deserve and have labored incredibly hard for.

I can know I’m touching on something sacred because the tears come. Glorious tears from a spigot that was dry and dusty for so many years. My emotional self housed carefully on ice, deep deep within the innermost caverns of my soul.

I am blessed enough to have been able to preserve my child safely until I could parent her better. I’ve figured out how to do this, even under the demands of parenthood, partnership, and career.

I used to think I could only have one. Judge myself for wanting to much. More flagellation. I mean I was so good at it.

And here I stand in the realization that one feeds into the other, and that anything is possible with faith and friends. I have built my new sturdy foundation on the grace and mercy of friends who saw me for more than I was behaving like at the time. They didn’t feel the need to “call me out” or condemn me. They saw something else, so I could see it too.

Even friends who I have parted ways with under pretenses of terrible stories, have contributed such gifts to my life.

Lately I’ve been wondering if my dreams are too big. And still trying to pathologize myself as chaotic, rushed, crazy; etc.

I’m terrified of the possibility I could be safe as a foster parent. I’m guilty I think as well, that I will appear a better parent in the eyes of my children this time around. There it is. You see how when you write openly you unearth the deepest truths. This is what I do. There it is. I’m afraid to be a good parent now, because of how long I struggled and how much they endured with me.

Is it a justification to say that they are better people for having had to be part of that struggle? It feels it. But I can’t do that to myself. It doesn’t honor all of my parts and all of my story.

Family: I can only do better now with what I’m willing to create and how arduously I’ve been willing to work. I am my best self when I am of service to others. I become creative in ways I never imagined when I am in the trenches of someone else’s suffering. I am humbled daily. I want to serve the wounded souls that I feel most at home with. I want to be humbled by that experience and have it test my limits and feel terrified enough that I know I’m alive and trying at something.

I want to be broken open over and over until I am my soft child like self. So I can be gentle and warm. I want to be that calm in their storm, the calm I always starved for.

I don’t want to limit myself with fears. I want to expand myself with courage.

Anything IS possible….

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When everything feels like the enemy…

I’m feeling completely out of whack. To the point of almost constant severe discomfort. I should (oh no the s word) probably stop trying so hard at getting back to my writing and putting so much pressure and just take walks until I am grounded again.

Since we have moved I haven’t written or been able to read hardly at all. The two things I want to be doing most. I feel completely adrift physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I know everyone says on the outside: “oh boy a lot of change at once”, but I didn’t bargain for how actually difficult this would all be.

I could probably benefit from surrendering that now is not the time to write or read and busy myself with organizing and unpacking.

Where did my adventurous up for anything self who loved changed go? I am finding now I do not love change. I did find an article this morning that is helpful. Validating.

Why it’s difficult for a highly sensitive person to move

I can’t get comfortable. Not only is it uncomfortable in my body right now due to weight gain etc, but now I’m uncomfortable in my new home. That I was supposed to be so excited about. There’s that damn word again! Grrrrr!

On top of your garden variety aesthetics and just typical HSP stuff, there are a lot of unexpected overwhelming issues occurring with the home. Mice! Smells 🙁 the bulldog has health problems and is so loud and that needs attention. I think it’s worse because it’s so hot in this house it’s causing more yeast for him.

Which issue to fix first! And no sanctuary anywhere. This house has no central so windows are open a lot, screens aren’t all in correctly so I’m eaten alive day and night by bugs. I’ll be in my bed with a mosquito snacking on me and that’s not relaxing at all. It raises my irritability to an insane level. And then I can’t sleep.

This move has been a nightmare and I need to be allowed to fucking say that without someone telling me to just be positive and grateful and look on the bright side. It’s been a god damned nightmare. From the movers, to breaking and losing our stuff, parts of my furniture still not having the shelves in them. To my wife’s father dying during our closing. Oh yes just that. Yes I’m angry he died then, yes I am. You can call me whatever you want for it. If you got up close and asked you would see the unseen. Or you can judge on face value.

I want to crawl out of my skin.

Yes I’m taking a deep breath, it’s all actually I really can do right now. Just breathe and hope this gets better sometime soon. So I can write something that “gives attention to the reader, not something that begs for it.” Oh let’s add some self shaming to the mix because that’s fun.

This house feels like the enemy right now. Everything feels like the enemy when you’re this tangled up. It is not a fun place to be in. So when you see me not writing, see me not myself…..

This is where I am.

I want to come back to me. And yet there’s nothing to go back to. It’s a new me… it’s a new everything…. it’s overwhelming.

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It’s not just the boxes

“The music is all around us, all you have to do is listen.”

My wife being brave….

If I don’t write this blog post I think I might spontaneously combust. I just have to start somewhere. Being out of the habit all the old doubts have had time to creep in. The self-consciousness clinging to me as close as the tiny beads of sweat that have been my constant companion since moving here. We have no central air in the new house. Now I know why they call it “central” air. :p

We live in a new home, in a new beautiful town. My wife’s father is dead. We didn’t even know he was going to be dead. It was thrust upon us, as death often is. It was unannounced and a swift blow upside our happiness.

The very real threat of a victim story unfolding and a woe is us why so much grief in one year trying to barrel roll me to the bottom of the bayou and choke out any remaining life. Yes it’s been this intense.

From movers that didn’t arrive til 7 pm (scheduled at 3), and moving until 4 am the next day right before our closing, while her father was in the ICU. We found out there wasn’t any hope the same day we signed our papers for our new home.

Everything was out of place. Our hearts and souls were like the many packed boxes. Jumbled and scattered. Unfound. Riddled with broken items we have held dear, the natural losses any move yields. Now we are standing bewildered at where to begin unpacking all of this. It’s not just the boxes.

Unimaginable timing. My wife and her two siblings standing wide eyed with horror bracing themselves for an unknown journey of probate and estate settling, while packing their grief away for the time being.

And my wife said to me the other day, “and life just keeps going”, as in that’s it. It’s just over. He was here for so much of their years on this earth, meant so many things, and he is no longer. What do you do in the wake?

I feel like we are in the upside down. I didn’t actually even watch Stranger Things much, but the reference somehow feels right to me. Everything dark and unknown, and not being able to get back to what once was. A delineated before and an after.

Grief is the great divider. We are together, but right now we are also separate. I cannot be where she is in her feelings. The closest I can come is what she is able to put into words. I guess that is why writing is so sacred. But I still cannot know what it is like to be her right now. And when she is consumed I have to wait. A triggering position for me. She is oh so patient with my many scars.

I think as humans we are tricked into expecting a happily ever after once we have done so much work, as I have, to find your person. And we have immense happiness together. Is that why we are being offered up so many challenges? Four failed pregnancies, one ending in surgery and utter sadness, and the loss of a parent, and a move in the period of about one year.

No baby, a funeral, and a whopping amount of change all at once. I feel as if the tectonic plates of my life are shifting, constant earthquakes, and the aftershocks are still coming. When will my earth feel secure again? And if anything all this has done is made me know that anything can and will happen anytime. You are not guaranteed any kind of happy. So if you have it even for a minute absorb that shit! Pay attention to it. Be grounded. Be grateful.

The tears just started to pour. I can’t explain what it feels like for me to write, or maybe I can and will right here and now. Your first sip of water after being stranded without for days. That first touch of warmth after being cold with no relief. It’s an inhale and an exhale. It’s holding on and letting go. It’s a communion with my higher self. It’s joy and ecstasy. It is raw. It’s August’s symphony. If you haven’t seen August Rush, see it now.

It is the most profound relief to put my heart on the page. It is everything.

Amidst everything going on around me there is a lot going on inside of me. I am approaching my 39th year. The last year of my 30’s. My body is changing, my mind is changing. How can someone simultaneously become more confident than they have ever been as they are also acutely aware of the descent of their metabolism and a great many other bodily related factors. Just how?

I will not even touch on my son leaving for college in two weeks. It’s too heavy to even add. The stack of cards will crumble. That is another post. How can one heart possibly hold all this feeling ?

August Rush. A fairytale. I downloaded the song of course so I can listen to a beautiful composition with so much heart as I am doing just that. This movie. A lost perfect boy with amazing talent, who plays music to find a set of parents who both want him as much as he wants them. A fairytale indeed. Good for you August…. no genuinely good for you.

Watching a set of siblings grieve their father, my wife grieve him. I couldn’t help but have a huge missing portion of my life highlighted. The best case scenario is that I say at least I was able in a strange way to have that experience. I’ve been grieving the absence of my parents my whole life. And it’s made me who I am in so many ways, the good and the bad.

I watch from the outside an alien. I watch the humans with my nose pressed to the tank. Human in moments, robot in others. Carefully choosing which emotion suits me the best because naturally feeling them was abandoned long ago. It sounds so sad when I say it. Don’t saaaaaay it. But it’s so beautiful too.

What a paradox that the more a person suffers the more kind and open hearted and brave they become. Why do these qualities require such suffering?

So here my wife and I are, on this journey. Somehow together, which is my greatest privilege. And living with our whole hearts. Which people can actually see and they respond to it. Two people building their confidence in a world that would keep them small if it could.

My wife has been taking singing lessons and watching her battle through her self-consciousness to that glorious moment that makes it all worthwhile. That smile when she hits the “C”, that high after her lesson when she is in profound joy. And I am doing the same thing with my clothing and with my counseling. We are being brave, blazing trails, and enjoying one another in this life.

Even amidst all the sorrow I just described. What I am finding is that life is both beautiful and devastating, all the time. Your best hope is to fashion a self that can manage the hurdles. To be humbled by the losses, and to carry the people we love, even if only in memory all the days of our lives.

I am stitched together by moments….and to my beautiful wife and to my children… you are my greatest. I’ll climb through hell and back a thousand times just for one more with you. I’ll fight all my demons to show up for you, and live my life with great heart.

I hope you know….