Tag: #sharingjourneys

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Tattoos and Transformations

All I know so far….. “you throw your head back and spit in the wind…. Let the walls crack because it lets the light in. “Perhaps this image will go on my upper arm in portraiture. Hmm

Good morning. So as it turns out I’m way more of a bad ass than I thought and at this point a lot of the habitual anxiety that I carried with me throughout my life is free to go. Thank you, but your services are no longer needed.

I’m working on a tattoo sleeve and in many ways not even sure how I got here. To be getting one. I’m a naturalist and I love the look of natural skin and I can be judgmental of myself while loving them on other people. What even is that?! Fear? Yes fear. That absolute asshole that separates us from a bold expressive existence that is our own. I have lived riddled with it, and it has obstructed so much of my joy.

These days what I am trying my hardest to do is honor and acknowledge what happened to me in a way that encompasses a wide range of compassion for my needs and desires. I was talking to a friend yesterday morning, my dear Mary and Pippin, outside in her beautiful oasis of a backyard, and talking about the difference between needy and needing. Lately I’ve been using this re-frame in my office. If someone says oh they are so needy, or oh I am so needy, my immediate question is: what are they/you needing? And it immediately changes the energy.

It’s literally astounding to the person asked that it could be seen any other way.

I am astounded by my life right now, and many days I’m not sure whether that’s a positive or not. It is not at all where I imagined I would be, and some of that borders on the miraculous and some if I am not careful threatens me with an impenetrable sadness.

I am deeply lonely right now, and also so far from alone. I’ve never understood things more or been closer and connected to ny loved ones. I am literally surrounded, and I can feel it and be present in it. It and I, are not invisible. That is priceless. I sleep well, for the most part, although this week has been riddled with anxiety and restlessness. I was so so anxious about this tattoo.

And I’m so grateful for that because it has shown me I am thinking less impulsively. Did you hear that? Not only thinking but behaving less impulsive. It felt impulsive or a mid life crisis. What a judgment there right ?! Who am I to have art on my body that is sacred to me if it means I could be judged or worse judge myself.

I looked at an arm that was not my own this morning and keep getting anxious I’ll reject it or won’t like it like that. It’s new and permanent, and it’s making me think of Attachment. I am continuing to read the book Attached by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller. I have been reading, absorbing, life rafting with that book for months. I believe I can finally mark it read soon. And not be so far behind in my reading goal in Good Reads.

The truth is I am slowly ever so slowly reading and writing more now. It has snuck up on me, this ability to attend and be still in a moderate way. Learning my way out of all or nothing, fight or flight, into real relationship.

The days that led up to my tattoo I was anxious for three nights, waking up all the time, strange dreams, and I’m remembering my dreams lately. The morning of (yesterday) I was nauseated with it. It’s insane to feel things this much, but I am beginning to embrace it.

In 2016 I got my et lux intenebris lucet (the light shines out of the darkness), Viktor Frankl quote on my inner left arm. I was so anxious I thought I would drop dead, pass out, get an infection. My intrusive thoughts were insane. My threat level was at a constant defcon 5! I didn’t realize even then why that was. So now in 2021 to have sat for 3 plus hours and got more done than I imagined. A half sleeve well underway. And I enjoyed it. Relaxed. Learned more about the guys at the shop. We shared trauma stories and I love them. Connecting. People stopped in and cared for me, my children got excited for me. I am literally surrounded by love and affection.

I noticed that I still want to ask other people, do you like this or it and go with what they say. It is still my tendency to be anxious and want approval, but now I pause and land on how do I feel and do I like this and I find my knowing. That is priceless.

Navigating anxiety, rather than it controlling me. I am driving and anxiety can be in the toddler seat, buckled in, where it belongs. I never even knew it spent most of my life driving me. I breathe a sigh of relief and the tears roll down. I am unashamed of the things that I’ve dealt with, and that make me me.

I am unashamed of my softer forty year old body, that’s sometimes hard to love. The changes in my skin, somehow slacker, and more lines than their used to be. I can’t even get lost in that because my eyes dance and are alive and not darting nervously, wanting to crawl out of my skin. You can’t unknow once you have decided to love yourself with the same ferocity and unconditional nature you would bestow upon someone else.

I am going to have fun with the images I put on my tattoo sleeve, the represent my life, my pain, my joy, my story. Sitting and having them emblazoned on me, is time and attention I deserve to bestow on myself. It is not an act of rebellion, it is an act of love, and I don’t need anyone to understand it.

But only to gravitate toward those who are gracious with their time and attention and desire to hear my story and appreciate it. and to let the rest burn. Not rejected, always redirected. Always path….

It’s Thursday and I love Thursdays because I get to have the best dinner company. I love it because I’ve never had anything this consistent in my life and it teaches me about love and life. It has stabilized me over the events of the past year and a half, and for that I am forever grateful. Does the man with the sad eyes and gigantic heart know that I don’t need to be walked down the aisle or spend every Christmas with him to understand that “because I knew you I am changed for the better, for good.”

The characters in my story are brilliant and I am loved, and I love them immensely and forever.

It is as legitimate as anything else in life. It doesn’t need to fit a traditional box and neither do I. I don’t need to be outside that box either to be validated.

Just walking that line of bravery between belonging and creating…. I love learning to walk that line. And the very act of living and creating an epic story with every moment of my life…..

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The Unknown

The unknown is not outside…. For that is scary enough…. If the unknown is inside it is the impossible. Existence of the unknown is excruciating….

One healthy decision in front of another. I was tired and depleted last night and I wanted some usual less than healthy comforts. Instead I commanded my body to take me on a walk. It starts out creaking and groaning. Protesting why after a long day of work we must do more, it feels like having to do more. However once a rhythm sets in, the walk gives more than it takes. Isn’t that always the answer? Making choices that give more to us than they take. If it takes our self-esteem, confidence, and worthiness. Is it worth it?

The walk felt amazing and I got so many good pictures of things I appreciate about my life living in Milford. Downtown Milford is beautiful. Lavender sky painted backdrops over harbors of boats. The smells of many local restaurants making me glad I didn’t have my credit card on me. I wanted to disappear into one and indulge. I always want to indulge. The walk gave more than it took, and after the craving passes, I feel alive and attractive. Buzzing with vitality.

So last night a line in my book Wild Game stopped me in my tracks… I’m a little over half way in the book and Adrienne (the memoirist, has a new friend, and is now in college. Her new friend says to her that her mom is lonely. And Adrienne scoffs and says she has dinner parties every night, and has been juggling two men for years. That her mother is not lonely. And the friend says “you’re wrong, loneliness is not about how many people you have around, it’s about whether or not you feel connected. Whether or not you’re able to be yourself.” Adrienne: “I was at a loss for words.”

“The lonely feeling comes from not feeling known.”

This is the thing we all want, to be known. To show our true selves, our soft underbellies.

Feeling lonely and unknown can lead to a series of not so good things. Depression, anxiety, loneliness, and actions that cannot be undone. Only healed and moved forward from.

The promise of being known in a way that seems unique in all the world can lead to breeches of sanity that are almost unimaginable. A promise without a follow through is potentially one of the cruelest things to live through. Karma is real. It’s not in fact a bitch, contrary to popular slogan. It’s the thing that it used correctly, that keeps us on path to integrity.

The biggest route to change is fully feeling, an embodiment of experience to the point that discipline outweighs desire, and compassion and understanding lead, rather than impulsivity and greed.

I am learning you can’t simply know the lessons cognitively. To become real, it must be the journey that brings them to life inside of you….

It is painful to have realized how disconnected from myself and others I was. How my desperate mind was buzzing from threat to attachment, threat to attachment. how unsafe I felt in my own body and home, because in my mind it was still a haunted house.

I cannot speak enough about how presence is a gift and a privilege and how many people are not able to be in it, for a variety of reasons. I think of how it must have felt for my children to see my eyes so blank. Wild with terror….beyond any loneliness. Shattered, scattered, and lost. In ways that no one understood or put together. The logical conclusion was selfishness. When one doesn’t have any presence with themselves they cannot access executive function and the higher ordered thinking, regardless if they have empathy or not.

They were never blank like my mothers, my eyes were never those of the uncaring, the permanently disconnected….

I was however lost inside myself….

And now I’m coming home….

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Short Cuts….

Loving the sounds of the water this morning. Also loving on this article Glennon or Abby 🙂

Sal said I’m consistent this morning and I about swallowed my tongue with surprise. Who me? Consistent ? You mean consistently shitty at practicing because I become consumed by so many different things. And terrified before every lesson because I didn’t do and am not enough? But now I go anyway. I keep showing up. Ok, I guess I am consistent. I used to say consistently inconsistent, hard on myself to a fault. That’s not my fault, it’s what I used to survive and the wiring was buried deep.

Today Sal said “you are going to make mistakes, the more you practice they become less.” Could it really be that simple!? A mistake always felt like life or death for me. And I almost said have I really made everything that hard. Again, everything is hard because it hurts to be human not because I’m bad or wrong. The major wire crossing of my whole life. What will I do once I’m free in the way I am now.

Peace should not be terrifying, but it kind of is.

There’s someone filming a guy talking at the water, and I’m curious. Also don’t they know this is my beach. My haywire attention pulled in so many directions. My heart and soul are grounded. I feel solid and in my body, which is a new sensation. One that I like.

The next interruption is going to be my bladder. Always something. It’s muggy, oooh pink shorts I like, tattoo I like, a nice….., and the water calls me home. Just presence.

I’m reading this book (maybe I’ll actually finish this one) called Wild Game. It’s about a woman whose mother began an affair when she was 13 or so I believe and how becoming her mothers secret keeper guaranteed her the importance in her mother’s attention, but at what cost to her. I imagine I’ll find out as the book unfolds. I’m learning you only need one or two really solid lines that make you understand a character. And that the things we remember most about someone are things that make them unique to us in all the world. Like the Little Prince’s Rose.

People are who they are. Life may be what you make it, but when it comes to people, we are pretty solidly who we are. You can change behavior and functioning, but core things are core things and change is dependent on that persons dedication to it and more importantly their why (motivation).

My motivation has always been to create a life I didn’t have, and in so many ways I’ve already achieved that. Back and forth between create it inside, or see it from the outside. I’m seeing lately how many people in other ways have a hard time picturing who they are or their path lining up with their idea of who they are or someone else’s expectations.

Go with the flow or upset the apple cart. And how much? How little? It’s all so overwhelming. That’s why I suppose Glennon’s suggestion, of finding your knowing is so wildly relatable, and very helpful.

The article I posted above they talk about their joy and dedication to processing and I feel seen and heard. As someone who has oft felt too intense, too serious, it was very validating. So where are those people, my people? How do I find them?

Do I call them in by writing? Do I need to be seen first? Can I get there without first being seen and encouraged.

Scary, everything is so fucking scary. Isn’t it so good though. If you aren’t afraid or a little uncomfortable you aren’t living. What is the threshold? That varies greatly. Old me wouldn’t have felt she had one. Dangerous lol. Because then I couldn’t see others either.

I’m here trying to find the rhythm of my life, pacing, timing. When you play piano you have to be able to think about all of these things simultaneously. My threshold there began at less than one thing at once. Now I’m slowly learning to let those different processes dance together harmoniously, even if it doesn’t feel the most natural.

My brain tries to make all these short cuts to be more efficient and it also begs me to rush through as if I will barely make it out alive. Where’s the fire says Sal, metaphorically of course. Slow down Christina. Confidence. My hands stop shaking, I drop my shoulders, let out my stomach, release my shoulder blades and sit bones from their clenched position, and take a deep breathe. Something clicks into place and I joyfully move through timing, note reading, and glide across the keys.

A big smile spreads across my face when by the end of the song I’m still alive. because for me so much of life still feels like life or death. All or nothing. Black or white. I am trying to learn how to write that as the beautiful story that it is. To account for the courage and creativity that has led to more than getting out alive…. That has led to becoming whole.

The traumatized mind makes shortcuts, so many shortcuts. If you don’t know if you’re going to live or die, you’re thinking in the fastest terms possible to accomplish a task. Peace of mind is a privilege not afforded to everyone. Those who have it should be dedicated to making sure those who don’t and never did have space to find it.

We have to care about each other. When we lose the ability, time, motivation to do that; we lose our humanity too:

Anyway back to my bladder..: it’s time to drive home and ground for sessions… time to learn, to breathe, to share, to grow, to ground, to play, to create, to hold space….

Sacred …..

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Music and Lyrics….

Never noticed the sticker on that container before whoops lol…. Life’s little imperfections

I’m trying to explore my own writer’s process. As inspired by the talented and handsome Casey Hurt. His brave lately and posting about his process is inspiring me. Also didn’t hurt that he sent me some writers goodies in the mail today. A journal that has the most buttery paper. To go along with my new blackwing pencils. Swoon. And the illustrated version of Strunk’s The Elements of Style, which I didn’t know was even a thing.

We were talking on the phone the other night and he was calling me on my excuses of being frozen and locked down and feeling a fraud, and it’s pulling me out of my repressed existence, and also having me explore the origins of that.

So today I pulled up Glennon’s new podcast about addiction, had my coffee, the book Attached. My new notebook and pencil and I started my very own jam session. Kind of how he does but with books, and companions who have put their work in the world, the place I want to go. And I just started vibing and finding my rhythm. Resonation…. Like a tuning fork seeking a home. There was a rhythm and a beat, and they were my mind and heart. Bliss and flow.

I would listen to a few minutes of Glennon, pause reflect and jot down some notes. Then text a friend and jot some notes from that. Listen to a song and take notes from that. All in my new notebook of course.

Receiving, Recognition. Reciprocity. Kindred connections….. life itself….

So here is some of my writing time from today…

I dissociated from myself. At a young age I split off from all of the things that I would one day come to know as integral parts of who I am. It was at that time that I began to give everything I was to everyone else. And to be invisible to myself. A relationship with myself and my art as well was non-existent and it’s taken miles of recovery, that in many ways is just beginning.

I became my own parent, but not the kind I ever wanted to be. Since I didn’t know how to be a parent at that time, I became one with a harsh authoritarian tone who tried to seek out anything and everything I was doing wrong, so I wouldn’t become those things.

And I sort of used that approach for everything, and it has been harmful to me my whole life.

People so often say things that imply everything isn’t about trauma. I so often have what I say redirected and I wonder sometimes if that’s their own discomfort.

Because for me it’s me still trying to find my real story. Trying to acknowledge years of the unacknowledged. Lately that’s been happening a lot. I think they just want me to feel better or see myself better. Normalizing can be helpful and it can also be harmful.

“Everyone goes through something”, with all due respect on that I think we need to respect the differences of people’s experiences as much as our shared humanity. The things I have been through are not often the same, and to to be heard, honored, have space held and listened to. Tell me more rather than shut it down I’m too uncomfortable.

People need to tell their stories as many times as they need.

I was also gifted a pasta maker, which was very thoughtful. I just had a profound moment of joy at being thought of in all of those ways. It feels like a long time since anyone has sent me things that reflected that I am seen. And that’s happening more lately as I choose myself.

Something about this blog post felt incomplete so I was going to finish it, but then days went by and I’m already in a totally different space with me. The alien pod in the corner dripping with goo from the emergence 😉

Get ready for today’s,,,,, walking between worlds, inside and out….. I will be writing it now.

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It’s in the Details

So here I am 11:22 at night. Not like me at all. And I’m thinking about the little things. The intimate things that we know about someone that no one else does, or maybe most people notice. And how many I have as part of me now.

A partner who cuts their nails over the toilet, convenient right ? Or sharing that one brushes their teeth in the shower. A hair part that’s unique in all the world. The quirks, mannerisms, things we have picked up along the way.

I think of how I appreciate Stephen Kings writing so much because of his attention to seemingly mundane details. I love his descriptors. I still remember 11/23/63, he describes old fashioned homemade root beer and I felt like I was inside the book and tasting it. That day I went out and bought fancy root beer and very fancy French vanilla ice cream and made floats. Partly to be in the book and partly childhood nostalgia which the book opened up the portal into. I can still hear his describing and taste the root beer.

The little sayings you can always depend on and you find yourself saying unconsciously. What, “you what”. Hi. I’ll never hear hi the same. Hi means something now. It means I just left and I still want to make sure I’m connected to you. And it also means I can’t say anything else. It means below the bare minimum. It means pain and a sick feeling in your stomach, after so many times it meant euphoria. Hi will never be the same.

Oh gee look at the time….. and it was terrible (about the food) after it had been consumed with great joy and voracious delight. Weight back…… and so many more.

I saw 7 clients today, after a very long day in other ways. Monday and Wednesday I have lots of time to myself the first half of the day and usually I indulge. I treat me very well these days but I’m still tired by the time I begin my day of six back to backs at two pm, I should be grateful and rested right. I’m beginning to think rest isn’t about your schedule and more about connectivity and consistency. Sigh.

I had a hot dog that I microwaved, a few chips, and an old school Hood ice cream sandwich for dinner. Yep. Chicken with my head cut off. After clients and a quick porch visit with a neighbor I still had clinical notes and billing. I did it gratefully.

These rituals and routines have taken shape to attending to the details. My porch mate mentioned that my energy is much less scattered lately. Essentially. She used a different word and I can’t think of it now.

When I started this I was going to describe details of me. There are so many that I solidly know now, rather than trying automatically to choose or dispatch them based on what’s pleasing for others.

I cleaned my new tattoo tonight..:: it was peaceful and relaxing. I love how it looks all shiny and protected. Relaxing. Spreading a gentle aquaphor film on an inflamed area.

My eyes are getting heavy I’m drifting, perhaps I’ll finish tomorrow:)

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Family Therapy: Gains and Losses

I thought I was…… I was wrong

Never have I understood grief the way that I do now. Never have I had connected empathy versus cognitive, the way I do now. This morning I went on a journey watching old videos of my life, my kids, our dogs, our found family members and I saw so much happiness and play and joy in them. I forget/forgot those existed as I stayed trapped inside a cage in my own mind. My own personal hell played over and over, which can be described as constant thoughts of what I was doing wrong or could do differently. That was my default.

I was talking to my dear friend Jen on the porch yesterday morning. We often talk about mother’s. And I said to her that I’ve played scenarios in my head a hundred times what I will say or feel when I get the call my mom has died. And resoundingly where I land lately is my mind screaming “it’s over”. That I will weep for all my pain, and also release. And what I realize about what I will let go is the struggle inside of me that if I just did something different could we have a relationship.

I would have done anything to love her better, I mean love her so much she became better, felt better. I would have tried everything and I did at one point. But I couldn’t ignore the anxiety and illness that plagued me as a result of that one-sided love and intermittent lashing out mixed with just enough of a crumb (so she didn’t look like a bad mother to other people).

I still feel like I abandoned her or being a daughter and not like I got out alive, the way I deserve to be able to feel. My mind plays tricks on me. It is not in my wiring to abandon. I have to be able to be honest and work through things, but it is not in my nature to abandon. Except I abandoned myself a long time ago, right along with all of them. And I’ve been reclaiming her for my whole life, while also trying to be a mom, with absolutely no template.

Sure there is no instruction manual, but I didn’t even have a rough draft. And I made myself into a good parent anyway. Not a perfect one, thank God, but a good one.

Chip dropped off potato salad this morning and then groceries later. I made breakfast burritos and dropped twin A at work, she drove and did well. Life just keeps happening around me, and now I am here too.

The entire energy in my home has changed. I never thought I would be here, never thought my best could get this good. It didn’t seem possible.

We had our first good therapy session as a family this past Friday night. For so many weeks I felt filled with bullet holes of all my mistakes and shortcomings. I would go home, cry and fall asleep and get up and try again.

You see I promised I would never supply myself with my children. That my need would be confined to an adult capacity and I would keep them kids. And when I look now I have been pretty successful at that. And they still have their experience with me as a mother and my shortcomings and wounds, but no longer are they distrustful of that.

They are able to get perspective and hear normalizing of the difficulty in the best of circumstances between parents and teens at this age, that it’s natural, and I have to hear that too, because for me…: the other shoe is always going to drop.

So here we are a year and a half of intensive two times a week therapy, including emdr, their individual therapy, and now our family therapy and there is some light. We are able to see the identity of our family with its own story rather than the constant comparisons that flay us raw. Make us feel less than.

We are our own story and it is a beautiful one. Our cast of characters is unmatchable. I wouldn’t change a fucking thing.

If I had gotten what I wanted when I wanted it all of my energy would have once again been abandoning myself and this family, and while the dream and heart had the right idea, in practice Everything happens for a reason and in its own time. I held on so hard to the dream and a story, and didn’t trust my own reality.

The gift is that I’ll never do that again. I have a relationship with me, and a relationship with them. And a new relationship with life itself where there is a semblance of trust. It will likely always have a tinge of something bad possibly happening at any moment. There’s a lot of that in me, and that’s ok because I will and have learned to support myself through this and to choose supportive fellow travelers.

My work has deepened, and my relationship with self and others.

My story is far from over, in many ways it’s just beginning. Another life within the millions. Today I played piano. It’s been a long time since I could sit down and focus. I have an idea I can or will but then I just stare frozen. I can’t will my body to try.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been tallying the losses I’ve had. I won’t go into explaining how I’m not doing this to be negative I won’t do this to me. I am honoring my experiences.

In the past two years I’ve lost a home I lived in for 8 years, my first secure space. I’ve lost many possible pregnancies and a couple of heartbeats, I lost a dream of having a baby with a woman I love in a healthy relationship. I lost a dream of being a foster parent and providing more of what I didn’t even have. Needed to have it first. I lost a father in-law and a family. I lost a wife and more importantly an unconditionally loving human being who adored me and held me and supported me.

I lost a beloved pet and now a new one because we weren’t ready.

And then I lost my self respect personally and professionally. I lost touch with myself. And then I lost reality nearly altogether. I nearly lost my mind, and I definitely lost some of the health I’ve worked so hard for by spending my life walking away from unhealthy and toward freedom. I could have lost my life quite a few times over the past year.

I lost a soul relationship with a new family, kids and all, and a lover who still haunts my bones. I’ll love them forever, all of them in their own way, because they were a before and an after moment of my life. I send them love every chance I get, even when I’m hurt and angry. It just exists. I remember every single moment.

And I wouldn’t be me if the losses didn’t make me naturally think of the gains… I don’t have to try. So let’s see. I gained friendships that I didn’t even know I had because I’ve been so numb and removed from myself. They were there but I couldn’t feel them like I do now. I gained appreciation for family and attachment for the people who held me this past two years.

I thought I was grateful before, it’s nothing like it is now. I gained humility, awareness, a greater capacity for healthy self sacrifice. I gained a new home that now feels friend versus foe. I gained many lessons as a clinician and lost many doubts in my abilities ironically.

I gained a relationship with sex and my body that feels fulfilling and embodied and whole. I gained believing in my capacity for exercise and endurance. I gained pieces of my identity I would never have uncovered. I gained faith in my tefloness. I gained earned security. I gained the ability to value myself as lovable and deserving. and that line brought the tears.

I gained being less scattered in my burning brain. It has a permanent layer of salve on it. It’s soothing…. cool. Healing.

I gained the ability to be present over being lost in my head. I gained piano and enriching my already immense relationship with music. The ability to delay gratification and to not justify things in the name of scarcity.

I gained integrity……. one I was already built with but didn’t know how easily I could lose. I gained an intimate relationship with grief, and the understanding of how it can affect choices and so much more.

There are so many more, but these are the ones I can think of now.

So what now ?

The rest of my life being able to be present and not jumping ahead or freezing, for more than a little before I lovingly catch myself in a bear hug and ground, …..

I don’t worry whether I’ll write a book or not or what kind. I enjoy thinking about it and creating space inside my head for the discipline and dedication to breathe life into it.

I’ll be here writing, reading, connecting, singing, dancing, playing, working, living, and loving…..

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We are all connected…..

90 days……. she’ll love you if you love her like that……now the day bleeds into night fall…..she’ll love you if you love her like that.

Music begins my days and the songs speak to me. I realized this morning I’m in love again. This time I’m in love with my whole life and myself. I get it now. What being still means because now I can see my whole life and all my connections and my ability to carry on and connect beautifully with others, the world, and myself.

I get it now.

I’m on my front porch and the other chair isn’t lonely or empty, it’s often filled by some of the strongest and most beautiful people. The kind I aspire to be and am lucky to love. My life is surrounded by those that get it.

For the last 5 years or so I’ve been rebirthing myself. Contained in the watery womb that is my bath. And now I’m outside. I’m outside with the world, standing in all that I am. The musicians and authors they are by my side. They are my ancestors. Loyal brave and true they surround me with the art they have had the fortitude to get out into the world. They are encouraging me.

“You gotta get up and try”

And I always do.

That’s beautiful

I cry on my front porch in the mornings. I cry for the pain in the world and for the beauty. Grief is beautiful it means we have tried for something, and when it doesn’t work out it doesn’t mean we aren’t enough. It means we had the courage to try for something we wanted. The courage to pursue our dreams.

This morning I thought deeply about my beautiful friend’s birthday. About how strong she’s had to be and how her light still shines through the personal darkness she navigates. We are kindreds. Both vibrating with anxiety to the point it consumes. Wounds we were left with. Bullet holes bleeding, and still we rise.

She posted a photo with her grandparents from her birthday dinner last night and I could see the little girl there. The one who just wanted to be celebrated and seen. The thing we all desire. And it broke me open to seeing everyone’s child, the child in everyone just wanting to know who they are and what to do with themselves in the world.

Who am I? What is my purpose? Will I be loved? Will I be safe?

This finally feels like home. My house isn’t not a home because I’m not sharing the experience with a partner. My house is a home because I belong here. I am home. My home.

I can finally see the beauty in the flowers, in everything, in my own life, not just others, desperately wanting them to see too, so that can be a shared experience.

My whole life I was so driven and focused on obtaining this one main thing I thought would make me safe and happy, but discounting me and everything I am. Unless I was healing I didn’t know where I fit in the equation. Unless I was useful.

Now all my connections are important, no tunnel vision, not just one at a time. I can finally appreciate me for the way that I connect to others, and now to myself too.

My son didn’t do the dishes last night though he was reminded and asked and this morning I thought on the porch of how many times I’ve harshly pushed, asked him why he didn’t do them, not if he’s ok. Not a hug. Not warmth. Because that was my relationship with myself, because that was the relationship I was given from the cards I was dealt. It’s taken my whole life to get it. To understand the power of are you ok? How are you doing ? How was your day? Are you connected? Do you need something? The dishes can wait. They are not the most important thing. But that is what I knew how to do. My model my template. It’s as far as I could get.

Until now……

From now on…..

I literally couldn’t get myself to open warmly and hug and ask those things. Inside I’m screaming to do that, but I get stuck inside myself. In Pinks documentary she said a line, about how she wishes she could reach inside herself and give that little girl a hug. This is why the rebirth was needed.

Over the past year and a half I’ve been on a mission to reclaim that little girl. I didn’t know that was my mission. I thought it was something else. So often life is like that. We misunderstand. So my kid can connect with my kids. So I could replace harsh drive with enthusiasm for living. Warmth. Everything I accuse are only things I couldn’t find in myself.

Always disconnected with me, always begging for connection with someone else. Thinking that would crack the code and it never did. How many times do I need to crack open I thought? How much more breaking.

Breaking let’s the light in. You can hear all the quotes and read all the memes but in my experience you can’t embody the experience until you’ve walked the path yourself.

So this morning I’m outside, not locked inside myself. I’m in the light. I am the light. I’m in the world and I love everything. In love with myself (I was typing my life and it changed it to that and I left it).

I’m not afraid my existence is a burden any longer. I won’t live that way anymore. I am here and I have a voice and a right to exist. I won’t hide for hours in the bathtub trying to figure out how to fix what is broken. I don’t need to anymore. We aren’t there anymore.

Once you grow you can’t go back. One could say why would you want to, but of course it’s tempting because being new and open and ready can sometimes feel an overwhelming responsibility. I was overwhelmingly responsible for everything during my childhood. I get it now.

Now I am responsible to myself to allow myself to exist in all the light I have to offer and to enjoy that.

My heart is bursting with love and I don’t need to aim the arrow at anyone to feel safe and wanted. I can be love. And I already have love and I already am love.

I get it now. And this morning my heart felt so much love for everyone that has ever dared to love, and for everyone who has ever grieved anything, because grieving isn’t easy. It hurts to be human.

The people we connect with makes the hurt worthwhile.

It’s not the stuff, the milestones, the achievements. It’s always about connections. We try to make meaning and know what that is, we try to control. We beg to be enough, belong, to be seen. And those things are our natural birthright.

We have to claim that.

If we have shared a journey I love you. For your strength, your pain, your resilience, your harder moments. I love it all.

I have always loved life itself, and life is the unreliable narrator, but never again will I tell a story or believe one that hurts me. Not for long anyway because after all

I am human….

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All I Know So Far

It’s sacred Sunday, and this one is somehow a little more special because I am learning more about why I have always been drawn to Pink. She leads with the strength of her example, when it comes to her family and her people. I love her energy and her voice is felt in my bones, behind my sternum. “Lead by example, hustle, have a high bar for yourself, and work hard.”

She defies gravity by not limiting her beliefs to shoulds when it comes to motherhood. She believes she can both give her family an experience and have her passion, and I love that about her. She commented that she wants the show to be special for every single person who bought a ticket. And that type of devotion shows. She has never lost her passion for realizing the sacred exchange of her energy.

I’m thinking a lot lately about that exchange. Which ones take and which give, and how to recognize the difference.

I was good to myself today. I woke up and my household is happy and buzzing with energy. The light at the end of the dark night is peeking through. I had a life changing massage. My therapist is a warrior when she tackles the heavy armoring my body is sieged by. After we got to hang a little. It’s her birthday tomorrow. I celebrate this.

I was craving Italian and so what if I don’t have the family dinners around the table with the warm grandmother making pasta. I can order it at Fratellis and watch Pink. And what is better than that?

I drove Rian to work, got a smoothie, and cruised my favorite place.

But above all of these what I am most grateful for is the quiet in my mind as of late. The sheer surrender and acceptance of what is and what is not, without a battle. The wind is whispering through the leaves of the trees and they seem to reaffirm my answer.

I got to catch up with an old and dear friend last night and see my piano teacher at a truly unique venue. That was unexpectedly adventurous.

I also have decided to commit to finally enjoying the pleasure of reading City of Girls up til this point I wasn’t in a place to be present with the side of myself that can enjoy. And now I’m ready. I also shudder in fear at the thought of finishing this book before there is something new by my love to read. I’d rather have it to hold than to finish. You think I struggle with attachment.?

If I never read it, it can’t be gone. And I’ll RE-frame with I struggle with being careful about who I attach to and why. My attachment works just fine thank you. I’m hard on myself, to a fault.

There is a warm breeze coming through the door. Warm but not unbearable. The trees are talking to me again. They are saying “it’s time”, and I reply, but I’m scared. So scared. “It’s time Christina, to emerge in the ways you always deserved to invest in yourself and your art. You’ve worked so hard. There’s nothing hard about this, though you wouldn’t know it. Just lean in.

All you have to do is lean in.

This documentary is making me incredibly emotional. I want to be like her, like Elizabeth, like my heroes. As a woman and a mother.

And the trees say, “Christina you already are”, more of a whisper than a roar, and I’m listening now. I wouldn’t even entertain such talk before.

If it weren’t for all of this I could be consumed. It’s a sting and no longer an ache and why for the life of me would anyone be careless with the emotions of someone they love I cannot fathom. Not when there is so much at stake and so many other choices. But acceptance is the only thing I have room for in my life these days because I have an imprint to leave on the lives of others and it’s sacred to me that I leave them better than I found them.

I don’t yet know what my brand will be, or my branding. Which thing. They seem all taken, but that’s not possible. How do I choose just one? Do I have to?! Ironically I think it might be a guide about helping parents and children understand the dynamics happening between them through the lens of trauma recovery. The stuff I’m currently doing of course.

But that may still be too close to home to have a clear view. Something will present itself. For now I just need to recommit to morning pages and myself and see where that strong and vibrant relationship brings me. To enjoy all that life has to offer with enthusiasm, in the meantime, and to never take a single second for granted. Ever…..

Stay tuned

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Ocean tears

Where is she ?

The second I drive up over the hill the smell of salt and sea climbs inside my veins and breathes life back into me. Like coming home. Today a flag is whipping in the wind, the wind that’s tousling my hair. It’s 80 degrees and sunny and I have Pink radio on Pandora.

This morning the overwhelm roiled up inside me to a frenzy and texting a friend brought the tears. One of those good shower cries. Loud. Inconsolable. Here I am a whole summer later and have to refuse another like the last in any way shape or form. I am a new self and that’s scary and lonely. And if you add health issues on top down right depressing.

I’m being strong in so many ways. New ways and old ways. When I hit my limits I break down and then build back up, rather than acting in a trauma response. Life is much calmer this way. I connect more easily and peacefully with myself and my children. My mind isn’t wild like it was. I am free to focus and enjoy things if I wasn’t so fucking sad right now.

I was looking up things to find out why I’ve been such an emotional wreck since my uterine ablation, two weeks ago today. Is it that ? I feel bloated and just entirely unsexy and that sucks. It feels icky. I feel old. I feel not where I want to be. I feel ashamed. I feel sad. It all just bubbles up to the surface for release.

I don’t have the answers to lean on anymore. I am humbled. The only thing I can do is be grateful I can feel this deep and have packed so much into one life already. I don’t have regrets, just really big feelings.

I want things to look forward to again that feel exciting and give me hope and joy, but I can’t force them to be now. I have to be where I am. To be in this. But haven’t I been here long enough my soul cries. How long ? At this point it’s beyond being impatient. If this is hell, I should have prayed more, because I can’t take it anymore.

The bag from my surgery still sits next to my bed. I haven’t even unpacked it, books are piled all around it, I need to put away laundry. I can’t move. I am frozen and that’s a terrifying feeling. I can’t play the piano. I know it will feel good. I know it makes me happy, but I can’t move. It’s hard to imagine at this point ever feeling better again.

Recently someone was talking about wanting normalcy again after a large and painful life transition. And it made me think of Leslie Charles and her “there is a before and an after” when it comes to grief. A new normal must be created. And not knowing what that looks like is a hard place to be in. Focusing on what I want my life to look like, what I want, versus who. For me it was always going to be about love. All these concepts jumble together.

Be still

There are ways I like where I am right now. Irreplaceable lessons, and ways I most assuredly do not like where I am. And just like magic Unsteady comes on. Of course it does.

My day was cut short today. I am seeing 5 clients and that is a relief when it happens like that. I think I’ll go home and rest until them. I’ve been so tired since surgery. I don’t know what the hell it did to me or if it’s the sheer lack of a loving and warm attachment that I’ve always abided by. Probably that or both.

People are living all around me. I’m watching them right now. I feel like the walking dead and this is just a moment. I know me. That I’ll keep venturing and learning and being me, but right now I just want to sleep. And I don’t want to want to sleep because it’s gorgeous out and there’s life to be lived.

This state I am in right now is in such conflict with who I am. A suck the marrow out of life girl stuck in a black and white world.

One minute at a time…..

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Wake Me up Inside

Have I mentioned that I love Sundays? Although I am sleepy today. I am sitting and marveling at how much more energized I become when I have good communication in my life and something to look forward to. Good company and good communication is life changing for me. It doesn’t need to be some all or nothing attachment, just safe and reciprocal and well balanced and paced, and viola I am ALIVE.

What even is this where I am free from the mental masturbation and prison respectively of telling stories that were unkind and untrue about who I am as a person. Over-thinking, under-thinking, potato potato, let’s just call the whole thing off. I am tired of being tired and sad and whatever else. So like a real adult human who is allowed I am going to move on with my life and be enjoying living, rather than stuck in a story or in the past or the future for that matter.

I just had my car detailed and it’s one of the best feelings, especially this time as it was covered in slobber and all manner of ick. It feels like a million bucks and makes me relaxed and happy. Perhaps I have a little OCD in me somewhere. I mean I get why, it sure feels nice, but if I pressured myself to maintain that level of clean I’d go crazy. I shall enjoy it for the moment for what it is and also let real life take hold and not let it bother me too much when this time of enjoying it perfect passes.

We made a hard decision as a family this past week. We re-homed Sophie our beautiful and beloved German Shorthair Pointer. It was not good timing for our family the space we were in to be training and fully devoted to a puppy. We planned a pretty picnic, but couldn’t predict the weather. This was such a hard decision and we had been agonizing over it for almost 2 months in family therapy. We couldn’t come to any good answer because the emotions tripped us up from making a hard decision. The truth is what’s best for Sophie and for us at this time was to let her be with a family who she is their focus for the time being. This was a tough tough pill to swallow as one more attachment fracture was the last thing this family needed.

I wanted to make her my focus and had a vision of that, but I wasn’t following through and it wasn’t fair to anyone. It’s hard to admit defeat/failure, and for a couple of days I felt that familiar relationship with myself rise up where I tried to make me wrong for it. I know how judgmental people can be with such matters. She is a family member. And I tried to do no man left behind, but at the end of the day our mental health came first, and acknowledging the struggles our family is having at the moment with responsibilities, structure, and emotions. That was really the key. My therapist helped me re-frame the hard on myself default I often have, and it happened much more quickly this time.

There were some events and changes I did not anticipate and some things in her training or no training. I am not perfect. I had blind spots and I made the right decision going forward. While it was very hard at first, and still is, we are relieved because one of the kids friends took her. She has a fenced yard, a family who loves her very much, and once she is adjusted we can still see her and be a nice blended family. She lives two streets away. This decision once made and followed through with took a tremendous burden of stress and guilt off of my shoulders and I feel like a different human. I was shouldering so many burdens. A large area of work for me right now.

I have some freedom and peace of mind for the moment. My quiet writing time is my own again, and some tension lifted almost immediately between the kids and I, though with three young adults there’s always a new one to replace it. I’m starting to learn what’s normal about that and not devolve immediately into fight or flight every time someone has a feeling. I said every time, I still do most of the time. That is my biggest area of work right now. Learning what is normal teen behavior and not immediately throwing a template over it filled with abuse triggers and trauma responses that are reflexive and automatic. It’s taking everything I am, and everything I have to change these things, but I am doing it. Little by little.

I have come to the end of the road, like that lovely Boys II Men song from back in the day with a journal that I had. I have a couple that I could begin but none are attracting me at the moment so I think I’ll go to Barnes and Nobles later and pick out one that calls me. Hopefully it’s large pages like this one, the size and lines are perfect. We shall see.

My mind is so quiet these days it’s bizarre utterly. What to do with this new me. It feels so odd sometimes how much someone can change if they truly put in the work consistently. I didn’t even know this much was possible, as I for sure didn’t know my survival instincts and coping mechanisms were as pervasive and present in all things in my life. It’s a whole new world. And most of the time I’m not quite sure what to do with myself, but I’m excited to figure it out.

I am healing from my procedure and can finally take a bath again beginning this next Tuesday. I thought I might lose my mind without that comfort and routine. You don’t realize how much you miss something or how integral to your being it is until it’s gone. It has seemed like a lifetime since I last indulged and it is time to be re-united. Speaking of comforting routines Chip will be by in awhile, his grocery shop trip later in the day this time. I never know what I want to eat lately my appetite has been so weird since surgery. I just haven’t felt right and very bloated and nothing seems to settle, and my mood with eating is all over the place. This is soul crushing because I’m a foodie. Just not feeling myself in a variety of ways in that department. I’m looking forward to getting back into shape, moving my body, and getting some of this sedentary surgery weight off and feeling energized and better. It’s past time to get back and see Jen (my trainer), but she switched from mornings. I have to do something though.

It’s time to bring sexy back. I am tired of feeling uncomfortable and down in that department. I don’t worry very much about it these days though, because these days I don’t stay in any bad habit for very long without quickly re-evaluating. If it makes me feel like shit, no matter how great in the moment it could feel, I’m not into it. I’m excited to get back into the swing of reading and writing and just all of it. I’m excited to get back to living again. The song that is playing in my head right now for this idea is Evanescence Wake Me up Inside and Lay Your Love on Me from Mamma Mia. I’m obsessed lol. Kicking it old school. Typical.

The best part about a dark night is that when the light comes out everything looks and feels brand new. Life becomes illuminated differently, because everything is coated in a gratitude just to feel better. Like that first day you finally aren’t in pain or discomfort after having been sick awhile.

Relief. Peace. Joy. Still infinitely sad, but with all these things in the view upcoming. Also From Now On…… from The Greatest Showman. I am so grateful for the way movies like this make me feel things, and for my childlike enthusiasm that I have kept through all of this.