Tag: #nottoomuch

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We Bounce Forward

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Naked and still….

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

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Misunderstandings: “Just Like Me”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Lost Back in 2016

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I can’t even remember that girl.

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

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

Lily Collins is absolutely gorgeous. Gahhh

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

Have I really been running my whole life?

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

I felt them. These things.

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

I can get everyone to love me, but me.

What a cruel trick.

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

Or maybe in Tuscany or anywhere else.

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

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

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Courage Under Fire

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

They create an energy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Back to my story.

Narcissism (24 years old)

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

And I became very depressed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A brilliant tortured sad lonely beautiful mind.

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

Frozen. Seemingly unfeeling, but very much the opposite.

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

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

Until she can fully reconnect with herself ….

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Trauma and my Heroes

What no one tells you is that trauma is a lifelong sentence, you didn’t commit the crime for. An invisible dark passenger that makes living and loving an entirely different thing. No matter how hard you try love will never feel like it does for those wired with it.

They just seem to be able to manage better. They don’t need to live going over and over every detail of something looking for threat for a crumb of safety. To add insult to injury the sufferer worries they are crazy, less than, and can be hijacked at any time.

And with trauma comes the many addictions and vulnerabilities the person will blame themselves for: unhealthy love, food, sex, substance, work, busy, isolation, television, scrolling, and on and on.

More evidence to prove their fatal flaw.

Jail is peaceful compared to the bars and cell of your own mind. Your own worst enemy is your constant companion. And everyone expects that you’re a free man.

To all my survivors right now during the Covoid-19 Pandemic. We will be ok. You are not alone. I am right here with you. Never has there been a more triggered time for us my loves. In the words of Glennon Doyle, “We can do hard things”, and we don’t have to do them alone.

So in this 39th year of my life I’ve found myself with something in common with my heroes. The survivors. I’ve found myself at rock bottom. They tell me this is what happens before the ascent. If I could feel anything right now I might believe that. I can’t even feel the water on my skin.

I’m on the bathroom floor with Liz (praying….. like to God), on the Trail with Cheryl, Expecting Adam with Martha, in the Arena with Brené, underneath with Glennon, lost with Abby, and in my late father’s house lonely and facing myself each day.

Last March I attended the International Women’s Summit, a life changing experience. Elizabeth Gilbert spoke, and sometimes I wonder if our exchange, the hug she gave me, changed the talk she gave that night. If my bravery and tears inspired her. She had made a comment she decided to talk about something else.

She told the story of her late love Rayya. One of the themes of the conference was Mercy. And she described Rayya, since she had been an addict, as having mercy, but also radical boundaries.

Liz spoke of how during her cancer she vowed to take the best care of her, and then how when her stomach lining ripped and she was given pain patches that Liz was putting them on her and she wasn’t getting any relief. She sat and watched her love writhing for several days not understanding and aching herself. She was failing caring for her.

Then she realized days later she hadn’t taken off the thin film of the pain patch to adhere it. So her love had suffered because her own incompetence after vowing to do the best by her. When they realized what had happened Rayya looked at her like she wanted to rescue Liz from her own self hatred that she had done that. She gave her compassion even in all her suffering. The way she describes the look in Rayya’s eyes…. there wasn’t a dry eye in the venue. You could hear a pin drop. Everyone’s breath and their tears.

She was trying to protect Liz from her own pain and herself. Mercy. This is how Liz describes her love with Rayya.

She said she went into the bathroom and got on the floor and she cried like a baby, wracked with sobs. Then she said she thought of her friend who had not been attentive to her toddler and the child ended up injuring themselves and dying. And she thought if her friend could live through that she could forgive herself.

So she said, “I kissed my tiny hand and forgave myself.”

Mercy

She then described the rest of Rayya’s journey which included relapse after all that time clean and how Liz tried to give her what she needed and the money spent, and the drug dealers and how her beloved became lost to her to addiction again in those final days.

And how could she set boundaries, how could she abandon the monster she had created, but her life was a dumpster fire.

So she had to ask for help from Rayya’s drug dealer ex. She had to concede she couldn’t be her angel and hero. So she turned the stash and the monster over to people who had loved her previously.

Left with a crater in her home and her life. She had to move and she was decimated.

Rayya got clean again. One last time. During pancreatic cancer.

She returned to Liz and she said, love if we had time I know this would take years to heal, the pain I’ve caused you. I know who I am as an addict. I will listen to every hurt I’ve caused you. But then could you forgive me?

And they returned to love for her final days…..

And Liz had another bathroom floor moment in her life after Eat Pray Love.

She said that Rayya’s return to and from drugs again during their time together and the pain patch and lessons in mercy was how she downloaded Rayya into her forever.

This is how we keep people, by the most valuable lessons they teach us.

So Mercy on Me right now…..

I am on the bathroom floor and I need to kiss my tiny hand.

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Love In the Time of Corona

Did the love become the virus, or was the virus a manifestation of the love? Can anything truly be that powerful?

Is love helped or hindered by extreme passion?

One of the first loves I ever left was because I watched the movie Serendipity, and I realized then and there I didn’t feel like that and I wanted to. This book was a feature part of that movie. So I downloaded it on audiobook and listened while stocking produce on the shelves at Trader Joe’s all those years ago.

And here I am taking a deeper look at the meaning of this book. Everything truly does come full circle.

I’ve been thinking a lot about adapting lately. Historically when we think of this I would say we also think of evolution. They can go hand in hand. However, adapting can actually go in either direction.

You can adapt to things you would never want to.

I am adaptable nearly to the point of shape shifting. This is a sharp realization as of late. Something I used to be praised for, something I’m being praised for now. It’s labeled patience. But the changes that are happening to me. I’m not so sure.

As always some are good, and some are not so good.

The people of the world are so incredibly anxious right now. We are in the middle of being history. Not making it, but being it. Forced to adapt in ways we never asked for, and feeling rather helpless and scared.

The changes in my life that preceded this I thought I chose. Do we choose our destiny without even realizing it? Or is there truly certain components that go beyond logic and awareness?

I’m reading Untamed by Glennon Doyle Wambach. She says, “What I thought would kill me didn’t. Every time I said to myself I can’t take this anymore- I was wrong.” That she can use pain to become. “I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever. To be alive is to be in a perpetual state of revolution. And pain is the fuel of revolution.”

“Everything I need to become the woman I’m meant to be next is inside my feelings of now. Life is alchemy (uncanny given the entire premise of this blog), and emotions are the fire that turns me to gold. I will continue to become only if I resist extinguishing myself a million times a day. If I can sit in the fire of my own feelings, I will keep becoming.”

Glennon’s words, her warm and funny videos, her audiobook and the paperback, are a life raft for me right now. I found her because my spirit animal Elizabeth Gilbert shouted the praises of Love Warrior. I pre-ordered it purely on recommendation and I was not disappointed.

Some day I hope to join the ranks of these women. Actually I’m already in their ranks, my words just haven’t hit the shelves yet. Thus far mine have the most impact in 1-1 connection. I never met a dream I didn’t tackle. I can know it’s in process/progress now because I wake up with words swimming and begging. They beckon me from my slumber and demand of me.

As you can see my ability to try and intellectualize my feelings rather than boldly state them in the first person, is Olympic in its quality.

My entire life has been lived adapting. Surviving. I thought my word was survivor but truly it’s adapter. Because what I used to survive was to get the hell away from what was happening at home and try and find what felt/ looked healthier than what was happening. I did this by being like-able.

Even more importantly I did this by being useful. I received love in childhood only when I could be useful, never for free. No one ever just delighted in me because I was born. In fact my being born was a sin done by a sinner, and something even my grandparents couldn’t face.

I’m not sure where they went “wrong” or if that can even be put on them. That an older man (a married one I think), got their beautiful young daughter pregnant.

My mom would proudly tout a shirt that said, “good girls go to Heaven, bad girls fo everywhere.” My grandmother hated it. Mom you would be proud the jury is still out on heaven, but I have for sure been everywhere.

Funny about that I spent my entire life wondering what was the good thing, how not to be bad. I have a conscience like you’ve never seen before. Perhaps this is to do with being highly sensitive and having more mirror neurons than the average human. See article on this here: The highly sensitive brain

My good began in earnest but it required the repression of everything I was. I had to be rigid and I sensed way back then I couldn’t grow like that. So I did what Glennon says above except not having any of my resources met, add adaptability and you get a recipe for living to survive, quickly like you’re outrunning a monster (your thoughts about yourself).

Add ADHD and a component of impulsivity and you my friend have the recipe for one hell of a story. And I have 10,000 stories of all the love I have embarked on within one very sad story about a very lonely girl, who never was naturally given the ability to discover her gifts.

I have a lot of stories.

Well if Glennon’s right perhaps I haven’t had it wrong this whole time by feeling things the way that I do. I don’t feel like the humans do. I feel every second of my life in full array. If you knew what it felt like to have all your nerve endings exposed all the time.

Would life be any gentler with me? Would I want it to?

Like Glennon I will feel and I will become. I just wish I had ever been able to undertake these things without needing to keep people along the way for my safety. That I didn’t grow oddly as a product of scarce resources like those trees that grow all bent and sideways because they are reaching for the sunlight.

Nothing is safe right now, not my health, not my heart.

So for now I’m going to have to burn, and find out who I will be on the other side.

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Unexpected Journeys

The only thing you get when you fall in love with someone else when you’re married is two broken hearts.

And as a matter of fact exponentially more than two in this case.

People you used to love that you can no longer look in the eye anymore, and then you can no longer look at yourself. And you still love them, and you know if they looked at you they will want to throw up.

A total lack of trust in everything. The worst thing for someone with C-PTSD.

A desolate boneyard where dreams used to be. And you no longer have access to yourself anymore either…. that is the most crippling part. Literally, figuratively all of it.

This is what happens in the realm of fear and shame anyway. There are other options, but since most people run their lives on a healthy dose of fear and shame all the time it’s easier to join than to feel alone one more second. I’ll join anyone in any state they are in as long as I never have to be alone again. And yes yes I know I never am. I truly never am I have an amazing support system. But it’s a different kind of love I speak of.

And as someone I care for very much says you can’t un-know. But sometimes you still have to move forward with all your knowing because you just do. Because life moves forward with or without you. The seasons will change no matter what you do.

So in true Christina fashion I tried to science the shit out of it. Like Matt Damon stranded on Mars, and this is appropriate because I feel about like I’d imagine he did. Faced with imminent death, with shrapnel he had to pull out of his side and staple himself up, and then figure out how to survive. Yep, we are there. Here we are.

As it turns out, according to my extensive research, this sort of thing either happens because of destiny or unmet needs not acknowledged in the relationship until it turns blue with the need for oxygen. Then a smelling salts wake up. Sharp.

I feel exactly like him (Matt on Mars). Every small victory seemed to yield a larger set-back and he was constantly faced with giving up hope. Spoiler alert. He didn’t. And I don’t either because I’m not wired that way. But since I’m not stranded on Mars hope is not substantial food for the work I’ve done to create my life.

I’m a big girl with choices, hard ones, but I won’t subsist on crumbs. I never deserved that beginning and for sure I won’t return to there now.

If we do return to our beginnings there is always a lesson.

I wish I knew now what I will in a year or so. But why do I wish to not be in the lesson, if I always appreciate the fruit it bears. But you have to ride out the storm and the winter if you want more moments of calm and sunshine.

How did we get here you might ask. Oh a variety of things. Things so complicated it feels almost impossible to get anyone else to understand, and with all the responsibilities on top there isn’t even room to try.

So you lose all normalcy. The compass is broken.

There is no True North, only a spinning dial that matches your brain. Round and round in circles trying to grasp onto a story that creates the least possible shame and suffering all while trying to feel the feelings, and everyone else’s, and maintain.

I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy. And the doers, the ones who fell in love, they are the bad guy. The shameful, naughty, dirty thing. The immoral. The ones without values. The creep.

But in real life there is so much more to understand than what meets the eye.

My original post was about letters. I have a lot of letters, and not a single one of them makes me know any more how to be in the face of this. Because my heart is invested here. I am not an objective bystander. I try to use my objectivity to endure, and every other tool in my belt.

They have fallen short so I will sit in the decay of my broken dreams, and not be able to distract by already creating new ones.

I will be still.

My letters are AS, BS (yes that is about right), MS, NCC, LPC, ADHD, C-PTSD, PTSD, HSP, and there are probably more I’m forgetting. None of these letters have in any way shape or form prepared me for this. We can have all the education, street or in the classroom and life can still surprise us.

Life has me on my knees. It’s made me it’s you know right now. And as I believe I’ve said recently I guess I’ll need to learn to pray.

But to who? Goddess ? The Universe ? The great philosophers ? To myself? To Buddha, the Genie…..

Praying is so passive. It implies faith in another versus faith in self. I believe you do need both. Because if you’re going to ask for help, you need to know what you’re asking for and why. And where you want to go?

You need to know what you want and where you want to go. Otherwise any work is empty.

You will always need to know these things on a journey. If you don’t know them you aren’t on the journey.

What journey do I want to be on??

I know I want to be on a journey and not a ride that’s for sure.

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Heaven or Hell

A good person, a bad person. Perfect, imperfect. Heaven or hell.

These are some of the conflicts and experiences I am having lately. And the fact I am having them at all means that I am allowing myself a humanity that has never been present near my surface at least before. Not like this anyway.

Why is this humanity always seemingly at another’s expense?

Does healing need to be as relational and experiential and intense as I do it? And whom am I doing it for. Myself or other.

What are the parameters?

We meet our needs with other people. We tell stories about this to make ourselves feel and or look better. But that is in fact what a relationship is, we wouldn’t have one if it did not meet a need.

Meeting both needs for two people in a way that can endure can seem impossible.

Humans are trying to meet their many needs in a variety of ways every single day.

It seems to me that the world is in such a way right now that most of our wires are crossed on even what our authentic needs are.

Take our current political climate. Divisive. Filled with distrust, anger, fear, self-righteous judgments, unrest. I could go on.

I don’t know much right now, but I know to be a human with all of those things swirling around inside you is it’s own personal purgatory.

We tell stories to feel better about our actions in a variety of ways that are primarily subconscious. What those actions are come down to a result of a complicated array of values, belief systems, and mostly are derived from our experiences. Usually within the nuclear family. I have a wide array of experiences here because I’ve been a piece of a lot of different families.

Then there is our feeling selves. That natural innate place we all began. Pure presence. The closest to an innocence (child), we can ever get. Magical thinking, open enough to explore the world in a sensory way.

Cut that process off too soon or have too little freedom in it and the person spends the rest of their life driven primarily by their senses, as a result of the repression of expression and acceptance.

“Who was I before….”

Sensory and logical mind arguing daily. Trying to meet the need. Trying to define the need to even know what to meet.

Being a human being is much more complicated than a set of behaviors and unmet needs. And that realization is aggravating to the mind of a psychologist who would wish to reduce it down to that. Or needs by the very definition of the profession to do that.

But what about what is outside of that? Unseen forces. Destiny. Is that a thing? And why do people believe in it if nothing else than to have a story that makes them feel better.

Agency gives us the ability to write our own story. So how do we trust an unreliable narrator? And someone seeking will always be unreliable wont they?

Abundance or scarcity mindset, and the ability to craft a life to allow for the experiences one chooses most. To be able to live in ambiguity. To have to readjust what security means in this world.

No one wants to be alone in sickness or in death. So what are we willing to exchange for that security?

Fear is a greater motivator than curiosity or even love …..

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Finding my Memoir

Full circle smack dab in front of the mirror facing all of my shit. My patterns, my ugly, my everything. The lights are fluorescent and unforgiving.

I have never been so lonely. That’s the irony here. I look like the one who has it all, has it all together, and that’s the worst thing, because it can’t be further from the truth.

I’m terrified to create. My thoughts are so disorganized it hurts so much all the time. The only thing that gets them to be still is being a counselor and pouring all of me into another. That’s the only thing I’ve figured out to make myself still enough to be.

To just be.

I cannot just be. It’s impossible for me. And this gets me into all sorts of trouble my whole life. I never asked for this. Worse yet no one even knows what to call it or how to see it. I am unseen, but I am not unloved, or unappreciated. So that’s something.

I want everything.

You never think you’ll get lost again, and again, and have to find a new self again and again. No one tells you this about life. And for most people I think they won’t even know or worry too much about this.

But not for me. Everything is different for me.

I wish I could find anymore words but for tonight I can’t.

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Intentions and the Cosmos

“I am not a stranger to the dark, hide away they say, because we don’t want your broken parts. I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars, run away they say, because no one will love you as you are.”

Lately a great many things are shaken up in my life, in ways I never imagined. I’m finding a self I didn’t know, yet again. It calls into question everything. And when everything in your foundation is shaky it’s unsteady. My stomach is rumbling like the tectonic plates of my very foundation.

I’m always so sure about my truth. It speaks so loudly to me, but what it can never know is what the next day will bring and the next. To have an adventurous life you must be willing to continuously face down your fears. For me this is necessary.

As necessary as oxygen.

I have always been a seeker. A seeker whose main objective is security is making for an interesting cocktail. Obtain security then seek, obtain security, then seek. What if I had security from the beginning? I want to know who that person was too! I need to know her. It’s not a choice.

What I am finding is a security in myself that will keep me grounded and authentic to me at all costs and this is not a path for the faint of heart. This is loving my unloved child inside more than anyone else, because she needs it the most.

This isn’t a journey most can understand. It’s cold and lonely in here and yet on the outside everyone thinks I have it all figured out. One of the largest incongruences of my life. I’m human too.

Spoiler alert. I don’t. Not at all. But I am committed to my heart and my truth and recovering that little girl who deserved a real life full of love and support. This is my recovery.

This is me!!!! I could listen to this song and watch the beautiful dancing in this video a thousand times. It’s my song for 2020.

I’ve been shamed a thousand times during my life for my wounds, shamed instead of understood. And that pain has turned me into 100 percent heart. It’s open and it’s raw and if you want to see it just sit with me for an hour I will show you.

And if you’re my friend I will hold your heart with mine. And this is me. I cannot only be loved for what I provide others. I need to be loved for the very center of me, everything that has made me the things others benefit from.

The thing that wakes you up?! That’s a product of my suffering. It did not come cheap.

So here I am at 4 am, battling my Crohn’s Disease and holding my hurting heart. Zofran, toast, ginger tea, my trusty laptop and journal by my side. I’ve lost 10 lbs since Christmas, there is nothing easy about this.

“I am brave, I am bruised, this is who I’m meant to be. I’m not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me.”

This last year in my 30’s is mine. I don’t want to heal at anyone else’s expense, but I’m also not willing to help someone heal at the expense of me. I’m not sure what that looks like yet, but here are my intentions.

I intend to write about trauma, in a way no one else has before….. in my way. I intend to be more connected to my children than I ever have, and give them my wide open heart and presence. I intend to be still for me when I need to figure that out. I don’t have it figured out yet, but I intend to work on it.

I intend to discover and honor the body that has carried me this far. I let it take the brunt of the world. It needs to stretch and move with joy. It needs to release years of shame and being stifled and huddled terrified. It deserves to be nourished and cherished.

I intend to love bigger and harder than I ever have, and to always include myself in that equation.

“Look out because here I come. And I’m marching on to the beat I drum. I’m not scared to be seen and I make no apologies this is me.”