Tag: #notalone

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Onward… How to do branding without the selling part.

Had to break the drought it was time….

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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A Feral Child and Learning How to Hold a Fork…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My whole life was my own fault from birth.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thank you for listening to a piece of my story.

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No Contact and the Romance of Self Discovery

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I walk down another street.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Heartbreak that Registers a 9.5 on the Richter Scale!

If You Knew How Lonely My Life Has Been

I’m very emotional this morning, this week really. Something is happening. The winds of change are blowing and truly this time I don’t know what.

I am genuinely a blank canvas right now. Actually that isn’t true at all. I’m more like a beautiful landscape with a cottage by a lake. The door to the cottage is open, and I’m in a chair by the lake…. Reading, writing, and smiling. Calm.

It’s my sacred Sunday and I’m thinking of her. There are several hers for me to think of, loving is easy for me. I enjoy it. And you can find so many things to love about and connect with others. I love each for their own reason and in their own way. For what I’ve learned on my journey with them. This Sunday morning I’m thinking of being by the water, and the last time we had coffee together on. Sunday morning, in that foreign living room. We talked, that was always my favorite part believe it or not.

How does that quote go ? Love is a life long conversation. The empty chair on my beautiful front porch staring me down, Or me staring it down. I’m filled with love in so many ways all the way around. Love of my chosen family, my children, for my work, for writing and reading, for nature.

The other side of my king size bed is cluttered with clean folded laundry, books, journals, a people magazine with Pink on the cover, and probably dust. The other side of my bed depresses me, whether I am happy or not.

So many brief stops and starts. Always stopped before it started. Heartbreak of a 9.5 magnitude on the Richter scale.

Recently my therapist brought up the concept of lost souls, and my response was so naive. As if that is not possible. If you just love hard enough, they can transform. No man left behind. The real result is actually the pain of this naïveté and the journey has been transforming me.

These days I can only fix and rescue myself and life gets better because of it. It gets good when you do. I remember my mom had this shirt when I was growing up. It was hideous, sleeveless and blue, and in typically rocker chick 80’s the bottom was frayed, long dangling strings of fabric. She was a fan of this style. I never was. She also had a mullety haircut at this time. The shirt was blue with white writing. I’ll find a photo and post it.

The shirt said, “good girls go to heaven, (but or and I can’t remember), bad girls go everywhere.” If there ever was a shirt to sum up my mother. My grandmother hated it, that says it all about their relationship. In this moment I wish I had known the little girl her, except in a way that’s all I ever knew of her. She never grew past/up. Interesting how we stumble into things. I had no idea I’d write this when I began.

I hear a plane flying overhead and think of the girl who would always ask me, “where do you think it’s going”, that wound is fresh. Full of unknowns. Not even closed over. No bright pink tender scars yet. Plenty of those in other spots though. The path of the warrior. Warrior of light as Paulo says. The pilgrimage just popped into my mind. One of his best as far as it resonating with me. I took the journey years ago. Half the book was underlined. Look how far you’ve come Christina. That’s what people keep saying to me.

Sometimes I can’t see myself in relation to time: the chronology of me is a fascinating thing.

I am the walking wounded right now. If you could walk inside me you would find a museum of love. So many artifacts of war, dusted, rusted out. Water logged, bullet holes. Trauma. But oh the stories you would find. The courage that resides in these memories.

I am not without. I am within.

I was teetering between worlds. Almost a lost soul. Nearly dead. That assessment is only because of how invisible to myself I had become in wanting to love everyone else back to life, because loving myself seemed and insurmountable task. It still does, however I’ve been working towards this awhile now.

I hear the world waking up from my beautiful upstairs room. I opened the blinds, the French doors so I can experience the outside while I am in. I imagine people preparing breakfasts, or to go to brunch, their Sunday best. Sacred sacred Sundays. A full day of unlimited hours spread before me to do as I wish with. Mmmmm

I can feel the promise of fall in the air this morning. My favorite months are on the tip of my tongue. I can taste them.

There is magic in the air. The magic is me. The way I choose to see the world and live regardless of the pain. The choice of being fully alive and feeling no matter what. Now a stream of songs are coming at me. It will be time to take a walk with my headphones and see what the universe has to say to me through music today.

I am begging for a reprieve of these restless nights. For fall to run its fingers through my hair and cradle me. I’ve been burning the candle at both ends lately and doing this not as a result of a person is new.

Muse ? Is that you ?

Yes.

I am always always here…..

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Home is Where the Heart is….

It’s been such a very long day…. Literally non stop even though I sat a lot of it, which is regrettable. I can only focus on so many things at once.

It feels like every home project that gets accomplished, five more happen before it’s even complete. Today a new whole house fan went in, and also new storm doors. Complications! First of all the door was brown and it was supposed to be white, something the installers didn’t know. So this will be a whole pain. Also the front door needs a larger storm door so good thing since it’s the wrong color they have to come fix it. In theory. Which requires calls and a whole pain again. I hate such things.

Although I will say it feels good to be making a home and taking some pride in joy in these things. They still aren’t my priority but I can enjoy making a home beautiful and be really into it, because I want to, not because I have to. Also the whole house fan needs a certain kind of switch, and there are outlets that aren’t working downstairs and are not an easy fix. So to complete that project it still requires and electrician to come out.

Once these smaller projects are done, the back stairs and then the deck and Juliette porch, and the pool will be up and running again next year.

I already need a plumber again, another leak, grrr! It never ends literally. However I’m just thankful I can do all of this without stressing financially. It’s more the time that’s frustrating.

So today to distract myself from discomfort I decided it would be fun to delete over 60,000 emails from 4 different accounts. Eight hours later. I kept saying I’d stop here or there, and obsessively I had to keep going. When I am determined I am determined and I won’t stop until I see it through.

That feeling of no notifications, which ironically I don’t even really care about. Life is too short. But we will call it a step in organizing my life in general to make sure I stay on top of things.

I don’t look forward to anything in my inbox anyway sadly. Not like me at all, but this is where I am.

Life is short. My tattoo artist got a stent put in on Friday, we were supposed to finish my books (highlighting, and some white) that day and do some more sleeve planning. We will do it Tuesday now, after clients, an eye appointment for twin A, and my therapy. Long day.

Most of my days are long, fulfilling, satisfying, and desperately lonely. I am making friends with lonely. Just being in and with her.

Today I cooked a delicious hello fresh holy moly it was good and everyone was fed and happy. Jen hung out and we watched movies all day while I deleted my emails and the house was being worked on. We watched Stepmom and something else and some Schitts Creek.

I already need a haircut again. Is my whole life just going to be a series of hair removal and preening. It’s stupid. Oh that’s what else we watched It’s Complicated, a favorite. I never realized how entirely a dick her ex is in that movie. I mean really selfish. It’s funny though. In particular was what made me remember when I was talking about hair removal. He says “I see that you have stopped getting bikini waxes, you’ve gone native, I was into it.” Lol!

All my bad habits are quit. I’m a few weeks out and the stability of that is taking hold. Now to get addicted to movement and strength building because I want and need energy. Discipline and routines and focus and writing.

In this moment I’m thinking about cuddling and how much I miss it. Affection and warmth and passion. The loneliness aches and burns.

This will now be the first post of August. Only five minutes in. I can’t wait for fall. I’m looking forward to snow and hoodies actually and the before and the running and hiking. Reading while snow is falling outside, and the silence that is felt when the world is covered in a white blanket.

And one of my favorite things when ice forms all over the trees and the sun hits them, and it looks like something out of a fairy tale. God I love that.

Anyway this helped me get sleepy…. I’m so so happy with all of my heart it’s Sunday tomorrow. I want to read and take a bath for sure. I haven’t been doing my bath much. Partially because that bathroom keeps trying to kill me, but mostly because I’m so busy from morning til night.

I’m just sitting here thinking how working on this house is making me feel affectionate towards it in a new way: we are creating a bond. This is becoming home. My home. I’m no longer a guest. There are still a lot of tweaks and I’m still not ready to do anything to the bedroom except take out the flooring. But for now I’m doing too many other things. I’ll be a monk like minimalist when it comes to that. My bed is all I need.

I’m finally working on playing my first actual song on the piano, though it’s been very slow going because I’ve been laying it all out with my clients. Seeing lots of people and showing up fully, there isn’t a lot left at the end of the day.

I need to move tomorrow running early before it gets hot!

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I imagined the call so many times before, your mother is dead. I said, “that happened long ago….”

Bucket list: read all Stephen Kings books in order before he kicks the bucket

I can’t tell you how many times I begin my memoir. A solid beginning paragraph that engages the reader and makes them want more. People always give me feedback they would want to read more. Even if it’s just my circle. And there is not just about my circle, the weary, brave, and beautiful are my people.

So I am going to share what came so easily this morning in my pages. Something I’ve done a thousand times and then never followed through with because I give my time and energy so freely. I am not resentful of this, it’s what separates a man from being a martyr. In fact it’s not only a calling, but also one of the most fulfilling ways to live a life.

I sit here a “normal” woman, with regular responsibilities. This morning I’m awaiting the delivery of a new dishwasher. I must confess I read the fine print last night and it said if you click the haul away option you must have the old appliance out on the curb ready. Yeah I know nothing about that, and considering an average pink Himalayan salt lamp from home goods burst into flames and tried to kill me the other day, I think I’ll pass.

I’ll play dumb, when it comes to being an electrician I don’t have to play. And hopefully they will take pity on a poor single mother and remove the thing for me. Sidebar: I think I’ve been watching too much Schitt’s Creek and channeling my inner Moira. The only kind of pity I’ll take, sympathy for heavy lifting and home improvements I know nothing about, but am slowly learning after being thrown in the deep end alone. Because I will tell you, that I refuse to drown.

Anyway my story begins…

“I imagined it the same way I had a million times before. Getting the call that my mother is dead. These days I don’t even know who it would be from. These days my response I most often hear gurgling up from my depths is …. It’s over. It’s over.

The turmoil I’ve lived with, worrying it was me who is bad or wrong for walking away from loving her, fixing her, comforting her. Soul death by slow poisoning is how I would characterize this disturbance. Yet I am so removed from the memories that would help me piece together the daily battles of my reality.

Which are knowing what I want, need, and who I am. How I feel when I feel. What decisions to make without vacillating in terror. Freezing, fawning, fighting, falling….

When my therapist asks me any of these questions I just go blank. I dissociate when asked anything directly about or for me…

And that’s as far as I got in my pages, but as I write it here I was immediately ready to go further. So that’s a great sign. Another great sign is the consistent purging of what’s unhealthy for and of me this past couple of years. I have been shedding layers of habits, belief systems, memories. With this shedding has been tremendous loss, things I never meant to shed, never intended to, but they went nevertheless.

Some of this shedding has created extreme self doubt conflicts that take all my energy and leave me broken and bleeding for days. I recover. We do recover.

One percent better every day. I had been determined to be perfect all the time. The only way I ever saw to even obtain an ounce of love. Those wires were crossed. And like the new dishwasher that will be installed today (hopefully), my functioning is new. New as we know it is very scary.

I won’t know what buttons do what. And you can bet your ass I’m a trial and error gal, not an instruction manual reader despite my belief in knowledge is power. The best teacher is a lived experience. Try and fail, try and fail. From the delightful Pema, Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better.

I tried to be Pema, Elizabeth, Brene, and on and on…. Friends who seemed to have the magical formula based on their lovely pictures of family and events.

I tried to be everyone but myself and now she’s so buried it’s sometimes hard to breathe.

I’m coming up for air…. Ash, dirt, water… use whatever metaphor for you like because I’m about to breathe from now on, and for forever.

Ok the dishwasher is 10 minutes out. It’s showtime. Damsel in distress here I come… I’m not above it 😉 I’m not above anyone or anything….

Stay tuned ….

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Those not willing to do the work need not apply… don’t distract those of us that are….

The FIRST TIME. This isn’t an issue of compromise or lacking it, when will that be acknowledged. That’s where you would need to begin …. That if you did different this would be different, you’re in the outcome of your choices.

Also the image upload is having an issue and I haven’t the patience to fix it today. Sundays are for relaxing, and rain and grief apparently, at least this one is…..

It’s a rainy Sunday. I am in grief today. Not getting what I want is often a blessing in disguise I realize. It forces me to slow down and know me. I’ll know me good soon.

I can’t practice the piano, every week I want to. I go to my lessons without fail, but for me touching that piano is something I’m passionate about. And lately every time I try to get passionate it gets cut off at the knees. So today I’m passionately angry and passionately exhausted and passionately lonely.

I can’t touch this piano. Once again I was trying to move grief faster than it’s ready to move….. I cannot afford to be immobilized, my life is passing me by too quickly. To be so aware all the time feels like a curse. Peaceful, joyful, and aware, is needed.

I’m angry, furious, wanting to crawl out of my skin. I am going to thoughts of indignation at people not showing up, and then I bring myself back to the wounds I have caused and try to right the sinking ship of reality. I do this so I can grow properly.

I didn’t follow the rules. But whose rules am I following? I am following my path, but along that path I made contracts I couldn’t keep. I didn’t keep. See what I did there. There are no victims. I will never believe myself to be one. I did them for practical reasons in entirely impractical ways. That about sums it up, that line brings me back to a light humorous self, it brings me home.

I keep coming home to what I deserve and who I am, and when it shows up whole I am ready. Nothing else will suffice and I do not need a story to make myself feel better. I am not a coward. I do not need a rigid set of rules to make my feel safe in my life.

My contract and my vows never included being willing to abandon myself to accommodate fear. It never would have and it’s never will.

The clue app popped up serendipitously to make sure I knew I wasn’t entirely losing my mind, or that if I am I’m in my own right to blame these feminine cursed hormones I’ve been blessed with.

I no longer bleed but you can bet your ass I make up for it in tears and the pms symptoms that cause emotional tidal waves are alive and well. Fun.

I want to sit and read but my concentration is shot, only something physical will suffice. I may run until all my anger, longing, unmet need has been thoroughly pounded into the pavement. I want to be like Forest Gump and just keep going.

I am suppressed inside all of the supposed to’s and the shoulds and the things that are not understood and I’m going to explode. Don’t go wasting your emotions, lay all your love on me. Who? Who do I lay my love on? I don’t have that answer, but I do know who not to…. Anyone not fucking showing up for themselves.

What is the common denominator of these lucky ones that have a partner. These ingredients are not magic. They are respect, devotion, choosing, seeing, and above all neither party can abandon themself to be with the other. They must have a developed self, not state they have one, actually have one.

Which means Christina the only thing you can do right now is keep working on yours and breathe. There’s my higher self. I don’t want her wisdom right now. I want to be held. I want raw hot sex. And more importantly than either of those things I want to talk about life, love, and all these feelings to the same person every day of my life consistently.

It does not need to be perfect. In fact imperfect is perfect, but it has to be consistent and devoted and secure for all of the days. I could tell a story that I bailed on that, and believe me I have, but I know me well enough to know that I won’t bail on someone authentically themselves who does their own work and can stand healthily on their own two feet.

I know this with all of my heart. I’ll never buy another bullshit story. Ever!

I keep attracting every manner of emotionally unavailable person, which can only happen if someone themselves is emotionally unavailable. Breaking into emotional availability is not for the faint of heart, and especially if you allow yourself to be wronged by those that came before. The shame inhibits you to see things clearly, yourself clearly.

I’ll take accountability because I desire learning, but I will not take your criticism or judgment of me, when you were there too, and had choices too, that created outcomes.

I will always stay with the correct ingredients and I don’t need to blame anyone. Blame is boring and weak and leads to emptiness.

I keep creating stories to think I have those correct ingredients. I keep going back and forth between pick your favorite train wreck and roll with it, which I want to believe in, make something work.

But only Christina, only with someone as two feet in as you are with their own self awareness, investment in their own happiness. Only then! That’s it. Don’t try and make something else work, or invest, you’ll suffer every fucking time.

Put some skin in the game or get off of my field. I won’t be accepting anything less than 150 percent these days of your own personal determination towards self mastery, peace, and joy. Unhappy people need not apply.

If you’re unhappy I’ll sit with you and have a conversation and wish you the very best, but don’t distract me from my mission w doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

I want someone to make magic with and that’s not asking too magic. Magic is coffee in bed and talking about life. Practical magic.

Not too much, and I’ve had enough.

I want China pavilion in solidarity of a fellow griever whose pain knows no bounds today. He is about to learn another before and after lesson, and I’m sure he’s angry too. 💜 a last breath was taken during the night. Heaven gained an angel somewhere between yesterday and today, and her loving army will be in hell for as long as it takes to adjust to her absence. Broken hearts abound.

Can soul pain be fixed with food? Not too much of it, but food that’s cooked with love perhaps…..

I’m not stubborn, well I am, but this is not the issue here. You’re not there and you know it. No more gaslighting….. if you can’t talk about the issues specifically with vulnerability why even do it. ?

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Does Anyone Value Relationships Anymore, or Has that all Been Replaced…?

I’m in a mood this morning. First, I wrote a blog post last night and for the love of God it won’t post. Is something in retrograde? I’ve tried everything and when this has happened before I’ve copied and pasted into a new one, but now with this faqing block editor that would take forever. Have I mentioned that technology and I are not friends?

Can’t anything be easy? No guess not.

I don’t know how the unfairness manages to continue without even contact. Oh yes I do. The Hoover is strong with this one. Something that appears to be so invested, going to therapy consistently, writing, reading. All while not having an iota of consideration for me at any bend in the road, and still clearly not acknowledging the half of that. Fuck that. Talk about something real not bullshit generalizations or mental masturbations to ease yourself. Still an island.

I am reading Dusk Night Dawn by Anne Lamott and this woman is so unapologetically herself I want to stand up and clap at so many of the lines. The self awareness and awareness of her marriage and just all of it. Where do I find these people?!

Where do I find the people who also aren’t addicted to the fucking television, and anything and everything else that has nothing to do with knowing themselves and me. Where ? Do any old souls that could sit and talk for hours about anything and everything actually exist anywhere and why don’t I attract that into my life.

I called off a wedding in 2012 ish because of many things on my end as well, but primarily a lack of engagement from my partner. She had a relationship with her dvr, and ours was secondary. Now she appears to have gone on and have many of the things I wanted. She has a beautiful baby girl, and her family is still loving and supportive and they do fun things together. I miss that family, the embraced the kids and I. It was something that will never be replaced in terms of experiencing security and family, but the partnership by itself did not meet my needs and I am not asking for too much.

For the love of God I’m not asking for too much. The ultimate gaslight. To have consistent safe reliable passionate engagement with another human being that prioritizes our relationship and believes in soul and purpose.

I’ve had enough !

Im cranky this morning, and sad. I’m just happy it’s Sunday because I’m tired for now, and I can read. Oh and appreciate gifts my little fairy elf friend left on my porch. Oh and the lights hanging there.

I get discouraged so easily,, but do I? Do I really ? Or is this more gaslighting. I have hung in through things many could not even imagine enduring during my life. I have endured things people never should for long stretches of time. I am disciplined in not meeting my own needs and not having a voice, and these are taking a lot to undo.

Hopefully before this posts I’ll get last nights blog to post! Grrrr ! Yesterday I had a date with my daughter and it was delightful and one of the best times I’ve had in so long. I speak about it in the post that won’t post.

Where are the other passionate people? The ones willing to be scared but do it anyway….

And the one that will see me and stay and work on themselves.

It’s not too much to ask….

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Unapologetically Myself is Always the Answer…

  • Solo at bars equals less lonely these days…… when you just need to be around people….

I’m anxious this evening and I don’t know why. It’s been a long time since I’ve been anxious. Haven’t been taking anything for it or had any migraines. Most bad habits have stopped. Still definitely indulging in some “binge of the bad food” days, but not out of balance.

I’m listening to this RIOPY piano that I found an add for while reading a Gottman article. I’m reading and eating everything in sight and suddenly will listen to Fall on Me.

I had a date with Twin A today and it was delightful. We got lobster rolls and went to Rj Julia, and got a bunch of things that stuck out to us in these cute little shops. She got the cutest sun hat I’ve ever seen in my life, and a matching necklace and earrings that are simple and delicately beautiful. It was so nice to see her enjoy herself. We missed twin B who was working, and my little big guy who is working on his life.

And then there is the books…. Always….

I love the honesty with which Anne Lamott writes. I love her! Purely and truly. Bird by Bird is phenomenal, but today it’s her newest Dusk Night Dawn, and currently she’s describing what it’s like to get married in your late sixties, when you’re in “the third third of your life.

The day was mostly good. Despite not taking any new clients one slipped through the cracks and I had an intake (first session). These days I only get clients who literally appear as if they are sent specifically from the Universe. Literally nothing else. It’s a beautiful place to be in. I’m the abusive relationship slayer these days, a protector of young and adult children who have no language for what they are going through.

They come in for one thing and end up finding another, as often happens in therapy. My wisdom on interpersonal dynamics is unparalleled in a variety of areas, it’s just true, and my intuition gets sharper by the second. Someone commented the other day that I should have Brene Browns money or something along those lines and said when I get big to take them with me/ don’t leave. I’m told this regularly.

How? I just don’t see it. I know it but don’t know it. But regardless my response was I don’t think I want to be big. What if I couldn’t do this? And their response was along the lines of me needing a wider audience because the world needs it.

But I don’t know how to bring it forth without it being activated by 1-1. I don’t know, and anyway again I’m not sure what direction I want to go with my life right now. But I am sure I want to serve and that I have a certain sight.

What if I’m exhausted and just want to play with words all day and write fun and light fiction. I’m almost laughing as these words fall onto the page, at how I’d be laughed at by anyone who knows me well, if I was sharing this info right at this moment.

Anyway twin A wanted to go to her boyfriends, and passed on dinner. She’s crazy. So I sat at Founders house alone. I aimed for a seat w a view of the goings on on the green, outdoors. But all they had was at the bar. And low and behold while I had planned to write on the inside covers of my haul from Rj Julia, especially on twin A’s book, I am seated near a woman who keeps holding back tears. She had a bright teal top on.

She wasn’t very successful because they would slowly come down when she was quiet. Then she would wipe them away and go on talking cheerily. At one point my heart literally squeezed because I have been there so many times! I knew there was no getting out of her force field once I was settled despite my intentions and bounds these days. And sure enough….

So I sit here marinating in new disappointments and old, my heart aching, and then trying to comfort by reminiscing about my day.

I just heard a bang and am perhaps more jumpy than usual as there was just a shooting a street over today 🙁 Chip dropped off fresh bagels this morning and shared there was a civil unrest he could tell, and then reports of more info have slowly arrived throughout the day. We drove past it on the way home while they were filming live so who knows maybe you’ll see us in a news clip.

I have a new skin care routine to try tonight. I’ve never believed in such things. Usually they squeeze money out of you counting on preying upon your insecurities. For the most part I believe the body is an amazing design that takes care of all those things naturally. I don’t begrudge anyone something that makes them feel better, but personally I cannot get behind plumping, injection, cutting, carving etc.

But I tried some products the other day and I woke up with my skin feeling like I had just been born. So I digress. I’m still not sure I believe in it, but anything that makes me feel some comfort these days. Why not?!

The manager of the restaurant (I believe that’s who she is) is married to a woman who was at the bar with a friend of hers. They were chatting me up and commenting on my tattoo. I got w bunch of compliments today. They asked if I was an author because they saw me writing in covers of multiple books, ha. I said I hope someday and they said I looked like one. Loved that. also they told of how they met 15 years ago and they are so cute, so that made me happy for them, but sad for me.

Kids are doing well. I’m seeing more and more what I’ve done right, and not just all the threats and hard stuff.

So many things in my life are complete, but I am desperately lonely. A soul aching lonely. I am lonely for front porch sits consistently with my person, and consistency in general. I want what Joan Didion and her husband had, the type of relationship that makes you write gorgeous things, because you can’t not ….

There are so many moments I’m not missing anything and present and happy and self-loving, and forgiving, and moving in my life, but tonight I have hit a sad anxious period.

At least tomorrow is a sacred Sunday… my children will be around me… and I can wake up feeling the after affects of my soft skin, and smelling comforting smells, and appreciating every little thing.

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Recovery is Such a Long Road

Often my enthusiasm was all I had to hold onto, now I sit in all the ways it’s gotten me in trouble….. readjusting always….

I am raw this morning…. I usually am after family therapy. Thank goodness I’m able to catch nuance and notice the most important part is that we are allowed to talk about our pain. This therapy truly has me practicing what I preach.

However if I insert any of my experience into the sessions then it is immediately justifying. That’s difficult to sit with. So I’m going over what’s the difference between justifying and also wanting room for your experience to be considered and seen. I think the difference is follow through with changed behavior. The words in the moment don’t do anything but invalidate the persons experience and I am truly sitting with having to hear hard things and sit in my mistakes as a parent and not squirm out of it, but also ask that I am also seen.

Not an excuse or a justification, but I need to matter in the equation and with parent child relationships “it’s not about you” applies. It never was about me. I began at such a deficit in attention, safety, love…. That I am tired in a way that has me operate in ways to outsource things.

I outsourced love I couldn’t find within myself amidst the survival, and I have to find out how not to shame myself for that as I am watching how it has hurt my kids. It’s also been widely judged by a variety of people. I could not be in three places at once. I made choices. Choices for a career and self development and trying for love as well, so I could not only love them, but also show them how to live.

I have to look at it like now I am strong enough to weather the storm of showing up in a new ways regardless of the built up pain that often comes at me. It’s almost unbearable, but when I realize I’m being allowed the opportunity to build trust one interaction at a time and I am following through, albeit still with mistakes, I gather the strength to go on.

I want desperately to be understood and to have a safe space to relax and rest in, and I’ve had to create that in myself so my children can have it at some point, if I haven’t made them into overly independent (a trauma response of course) by now. A certain amount of self sufficiency is good, abandonment is not.

I felt abandoned my whole life, and as a result my children felt that abandonment through me. It is heart breaking. My only solace is that grace and compassion and understanding will help us all heal. It’s finding that balance of having it for myself while fighting the intense need to protect myself at all costs.

Courage under fire

That line is what I most resonate with right now. And don’t give up on me. Me to me, and me to them. Please don’t give up on me. I never wanted to be selfish in the ways that I was, and a first hand experience has changed my heart.

In short I have hurt enough from hurting others that it drives me to change. What always got lost in all of this however was my SELF. There was none. Only responses and triggers and survival templates.

Now I am growing a self….

Growing a self from scratch, while providing a modicum of something I never had.

It says in the trauma book by Oprah and Dr Bruce Perry, you can’t give what you don’t have, and so I found a way. I always believed where there is a will there is a way. And if there wasn’t a will, if I didn’t cultivate that belief system, I would not be here today to be writing.

For much of my life my will to survive is all I had.

I am struggling and have always with the shoulds imposed on parents while they have very little support and understanding. It’s the trickiest balance you can imagine to validate someone’s experience, and also challenge them in ways that are loving and supportive so change can occur.

This is my work: what I can and will strive for in my counseling office, and I will do so with all my heart. It’s easier in there, many boundaries keep me safe and able to work. Then when it comes to applying to the messiness of real family, without that structure, without a beginning model or template. It’s unimaginable.

But I will keep working at it. Walking the line. I walk the line every day. Of validating my own experience and theirs and also not accepting any story u might tell to feel better emotionally, but then as a result not follow through with changed behavior.

I’m exhausted of having to modify my behavior on top of all the roles I hold, but thankfully I also appreciate the journey and am energized by life itself as well. Light and dark intermingling and never giving up on a story that’s being written and the one that needs to be told.

I’ll never give up….