Tag: #sortingthroughemotions

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Magnolias and Scripts

Love my smoothies by the water and the magnolia trees in bloom right now. Simple pleasures when life is so complicated.

My boundaries suck. I fancy myself to be someone who strives to be impeccable with my word and yet my trauma threatens to undermine me in this area all the time. I resent my codependency. Do I really deserve to suffer like this the rest of my life? Like a trap I can’t get out of. See the codependent victim right there.

Telling everyone else what they should do with their life, when I’m not getting paid for it 😉 No Christina. Here’s what I’m responsible for my boundaries, how I feel, and sharing that clearly and concisely after I have sorted it, and the most important part following through and sticking too. That’s my fucking job right now.

The stakes on my recovery are too important so I shall continue to be transparent about my struggles and leave other people to theirs, unless I’m getting paid for it.

How much can I actually modify about this rabid out of bounds “fixing”. That’s frustrating. Lately when I’m quiet it’s because I don’t trust what will come out of my mouth. That I won’t go on and on in my process until I stick my foot in my mouth, or burden others with responsibility for my emotions by sheer panic of it all. 🙁 ugh! Charlie Brown! I’m a block head.

Say what you mean and mean what you say and take time to think about it before you say it are words I’m living by right now. And follow through. I can preach it but I find when I’m most frustrated it is because I’m not in fact practicing it. Humbling.

A comfort I can find right now is I’ve finally become strong enough to sit in these realizations without excusing them, etc. if I stay in them, stay acknowledging, then shifts are being made. Shifts are being made and it’s exciting. But it requires me to keep leaving behind things I once loved because it doesn’t work. And previously I would have just tried harder and fought and now I’m forced to let go if we don’t meet up naturally with where we are in our work.

That sucks !

I’m grumpy today. This overly heavy period with an impending medical procedure to remedy it, doesn’t help. I’m anxious that at any second I’ll be in a very uncomfortable situation, and I’m exhausted as a result.

I’ve been doing administrative work today and that never puts me in a good mood. It’s that itself that may shift me in a different direction career wise at least with how I structure my operation. I do not want to be beholden to anyone and I want to create my own way of doing what I do. I’m not sure yet whether this will require RE branding or what I will need to do to figure it out. But the winds of change are blowing.

I already have my own way of doing what I do but I don’t have any structure into explaining what that is. I don’t know if I need to, but it’s probably delicately intertwined with my writing and the next direction of my life.

I’m worried about my health insurance, worried about all the up in the airs right now. I have literally no idea about a lot of these things and I have lots of steps to take for right now. Financial advising, because there are lots of answers I don’t have with regard to what I have and where I need to put it to be secure. What I can allocate to where. I’d say this is a good problem to have considering the scarcity I’ve been in most of my life made that not even something to worry about because there weren’t those choices or options.

The paradox of choice… the more we have the more overwhelmed we are. And overwhelmed and I are not good bed fellows. No one likes it but for me being overwhelmed on an already overtaxed nervous system puts me over the edge so easy. I resent that. More grouchy.

Recently in my own therapy a topic is how to share with my kids some of what my life was like in a constructive way. My therapist has suggested I rehearse the following until I can say it without becoming emotional. I resent being asked not to become emotional about such things, but she knows I don’t want to dump my emotions all over my children so they feel they have to carry them.

So I am to recite the details clearly and concisely like this. My mother was mentally ill, my father was a little in and out until he wasn’t (with no explanation just a lot of speculation), I was Dcf involved and removed, I was put into the care of my grandparents who didn’t want to be raising anymore children, and was frequently reminded of this fact. I spent the rest of my life trying to find somewhere I could belong and be safe and that process was not easy.

As a mother I’m still trying to figure this out and my role. What I have done and been committed to is providing for you as best as I could while figuring this out and having only good people around you. Those were my primary focuses while I’m trying to find out where I belong and who I am in all of this.

Well when you put it like that.

Say that without feeling any emotions or going into the details to try and recover my feelings. Sure. Easy peasy. I’ll get right on that Rose.

Well if my mood was going to be helped it would not be from that, but I’ll keep reciting it and doing the work and looking for glimmers. The little things that shine through that show the work is working.

Work work work work….

Trying to not feel shamed or a victim for the things I chose to focus on to survive.

It’s not easy…..

Nothing good ever is….

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Running on Empty

Some dreams you take down, and some dreams come together unexpectedly. I’m hopeful for the latter.

In this period of utter groundlessness I’m sifting through mine.

I had a dream a little over a year ago to become a foster parent. If you have ever seen me pursue a dream you might chuckle, but for those who haven’t I’ll describe it. It’s a sprint. My mind is quite effective when focused so within a few months of the idea we had a crib set up in our room, bunk beds in another one of the rooms, and the mounds of paperwork were being cruised through.

I set the scene swiftly and effectively. There’s a gift and a curse in this way of doing things.

For me it takes much longer to dismantle a dream (particularly if I’m not ready to let go of it) than it does to try and create the conditions for it to exist. Perhaps I heard the Wendy’s commercial of Dave whispering “if you build it they will come” one too many times in childhood. Once again my entire life shaped by the television.

Anyway my family and I took cpr classes and we attended the foster classes and that’s when I realized so much of me was still the child rather than someone capable of steadfast patience in the face of a child that can’t regulate. I saw myself in the videos and vignettes of children experiencing abuse, and I wanted to look away, but I didn’t.

I remember avoiding the call and exit interview of the class teachers who thought we were the perfect candidates. I could not face that down at the time. I couldn’t face a lot of things.

Being honest with myself about that was one of the hardest moments of my life and everything that came after… the stuff of nightmares.

Lost identity, lost security, lost dreams, lost self, illness, terror…. I cannot even go in further into that.

My 100 yard dash came to a screeching halt and I set out to see myself and the relationships with my own children more clearly. This very difficult task continues. I am humbled daily. I am ill equipped to parent teenagers and the struggle for self love during this time is immense.

Anyone who heard me say ill equipped would laugh I suspect, anyone but my ex husband and a few scorned critics out there. In the traditional sense I’m not, but most often weathering the. “You’re ruining my life phase” and the bite back from rules is extra difficult for me because of my ten thousand triggers. Some newly acquired unfortunately, and many old.

I’m a piss poor punching bag who is simultaneously acutely aware of the need of teens to practice their independence with their parent and the parent still loving them. My off switch is immense. The love is never off but the response is and that breaks my heart. I’m working on it 🙁

Boundaries are hard. I’ve had to create the whole system from scratch. I’m getting emotional as I write this. I wonder if anyone in their whole life has ever tried so hard to become a mother while underneath the weight of their burgeoning painful mind filled with trapped and inaccessible memories that would run their life subconsciously. Now that I wrote that I’m sure many. That makes me sad.

I’m sad most days, which is better than irritable, scattered, panicky etc. Sad is ok apparently, according to my therapist. I don’t want to waste a second of life, but I’d imagine acknowledging and connecting to my own emotions is anything but a waste.

I woke up sad today. There’s many things behind that, many reasons. So I’ll just hang out in the bath where my tears can trickle freely and it’s warm and quiet and safe.

I can barely figure out what I feel like eating lately, and whatever the mood is for does not go well with my stomach. This loss of love in enjoying the art of it all is disappointing, nay, soul crushing. My soul feels crushed by an emotion like sadness and I want for that to have some balance.

On the flip side when I am able to come up for air, everything is new and beautiful. The pink blossoms are blooming on the trees in the backyard, and that alone is a comfort beyond all comforts. It helps me ignore the rotting wood of the deck that needs replacing, and the current state of the pool. And all the other things in my life that are falling apart that are teaching me it’s ok for one thing to come together at a time.

Deciding which thing to focus on always felt like the problem. Little did I know the extent of that. I will abide in a state of surrender and let the problems wear themselves out rather than me wearing myself out.

Surrender. Boundaries. Time.

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If I had it to do over

If I had it to do over… an open letter about the effects of my trauma on my children.

Lately so many things are clear and it’s left a lot of truth that’s difficult to sit in. College planning meetings for my Junior twin daughters is illuminating certain things.

I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for my whole life and lately I’ve been letting it out, cautiously.

I never realized how much anxiety I had and how much of my life was governed by trauma. I thought I was the boss of me. I was but as it turns out not such a nice one. When you are your own parent, for me I made a harsh one to keep me out of what I came from. That’s the best I could do.

My own parent and then their parent has me exhausted in ways that someone never should be, and all of that has impacted them. For better and for worse.

I wake up and realize my children all took honors classes and did well. They have all earned the ability to go to college and the privilege of spending some years just discovering who they are. My heart hurts at my own pain of this line, and also the pain I’ve caused.

I am humbled and I’ve been forced to stop shaming myself because ultimately it’s not productive and not the only way to get myself into action.

The song From Now On from the Greatest Showman, has been my go to lately. One right step in front of the other. Full presence with myself and my children, and the rest will figure itself out.

I cry a lot lately. There’s a lot of grief in here.

The piano tuner, a friend of my teacher, will be here at 9 am. I’m excited about that. Maybe it will get me to practice. And I’m going to have lunch with my son.

What has emerged once I finally stopped scrambling wildly in panic is someone who does want to be present and focused on her kids. I always did. Just the best I could do at the time was supporting them in all the other ways, emotionally I wasn’t available to myself. So afraid of being a refrigerator mother or doing something awful like mine I stayed frozen, away from their love too and joy even.

Over the years I’ve been thawing. If you pull someone too quickly from the ice they brought down through they will die. You have to let them adjust slowly.

My thaw has been excruciating. I’ve been living in this pain all of this time and still functioning and I’ve hurt people along the way, especially myself. And I’ve done a lot of good too. My heart is always in the right place but my god I make mistakes.

And right on cue Andy Grammer comes on singing I will fight for you. Watching Five Feet Apart resonates lately because I too have been fighting for my life, to get my spirit and soul back and connected to my body. To feel safe. But it wasn’t visible. So painful.

So I can really take in how beautiful my children are and this life is. What even is that to be privileged to see life this way? To think calmly. My eyes well up as I write this.

All I can do is show up. That’s what I’m doing right now. Not talking about it doing it, because it’s the right thing for me, because I feel it. I had to show up for me first, not the act of selfishness it can appear. It was something else. Something hard to explain or understand but real nevertheless.

Showing up, one interaction at a time with presence, support, warmth, attachment, encouragement. This is what the reduction in panic has given way to.

I am here and I’ll love you fiercely. I had to claim me first and I had to figure out how to do that.

I will be here the rest of your lives cheering you on and watching you.

I am your biggest fan…..

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Respectfully, Abby

My bath feels life giving this morning. I need rest. My wheels finally have stopped spinning and I just want to read novels and breathe.

This morning two primary topics are on my mind. Angels on the earth (my friend family), and societal expectations/ our expectations of mothers.

It’s no secret to anyone by now I have been going through a difficult time for about, well in total we will say three years, but that also had many healing moments and ups as well as downs. But it culminated last December and hasn’t stopped. I was always able to get it to stop before, but how I remedied things became part of my own prison I didn’t even know I was in.

I had the key the whole time, but didn’t know it.

So after a particularly difficult few days, therapy with my daughters, and feeling beat up in only the way tiny mirrors of your own design can reflect; I hit another breaking point.

The best thing that ever came out of my entire masters degree is my friend Abby. Abby is the very definition of loyal when it comes to a friend and she has stuck by my crazy butt even after I didn’t always respect her well. I hurt her once (or twice even) and I’ll never forget. Over the years she always reaches out occasionally. I haven’t responded much, completely caught up in the whirlwinds of my own insanity.

My favorite memories of Abby include: our laughter during classes. She was impeccably organized and I was a Tasmanian devil who couldn’t keep a straight thought. She was (and apparently still is) my compass. Quite literally I’d ask her every single day where our class was. Abby’s dog Princeton who was a rag doll of a baby and made the kids laugh. Our favorite movie was Bridesmaids and we watched it several times and quoted it more times than I can count. She held my hand all throughout grad school.

Abby is brave in that soft and gentle way, but also not afraid to kick a little ass. She texted me yesterday morning that she had a dream about me in which a lot of people we coming in and out of my house (a party) perhaps and that she beat someone up to protect me. That’s the very short version.

I couldn’t help but get emotional, I was already raw, at this concept of being protected. I got upset a few weeks ago at my therapist, it was the peak of something that had been brewing for not protecting me, and a lot of the pain I’m in right now with figuring out boundaries and myself is the result of a lack of any protection in childhood.

The night before last I had a rough therapy session with my daughters and the morning after even worse. And there she was. I felt too vulnerable and almost cancelled our scheduled meeting time just before I was crying and having a breakdown.

I took the call anyway. I am so grateful I did. It was what I needed and so many things I needed to be reminded of, and this person, this gift in my life. How does she see me all these years later? I made that lasting of an impression.!? I never see myself like that which is the entire core of the things I’ve been struggling with.

All these years later and hardly any contact and this woman, who in many ways shares similar wounds, saved my life. It’s not dramatic. She did. She chose to see me and stay connected to me enough to have a dream that matched things happening in my life, to reach out, and spend her time reminding me what I need to see and hear.

If that doesn’t show you we are all connected and have a purpose in one another’s lives that is so vital to our path. I don’t know what does. At the exact moment I needed to feel less alone in my struggle and hear exactly those things, there she was. I cannot hold onto a story of suffering more than the gratitude at what I am given. It’s not possible.

She shared with me her mother had similar struggles with a situation and that she regrets to this day how she treated her, and reminded me that with the passage of time things will become more clear to anyone who is judging or criticizing, and that the things I’m doing are building blocks and I just can’t feel better right now, but that doesn’t mean that anything is as terrible as the feelings associated from these growing pains.

Oh my god the pain is searing. And I always think I can’t take anymore, but then the light comes. Et Lux in tenebris lucet. The light always comes.

This of course does the actual situation little justice for the relief. I napped after our talk, a dead dead rest and reset and was able to complete my five evening sessions when I didn’t think I would be able to.

Abby always signs her correspondence “respectfully” and when she does you can see and read the sincerity. Someone who makes you feel safe, which is typically the product of that person dwelling in a lack of safety for a very long time. In my experience. And one of the very best parts about her is her sense of humor. She told me there are very few things that can’t be fixed by doing funny squats throughout the living room while expressing whatever it is you need. Her kids are very lucky to have a mom like her.

I’m working on finding my humor outside anyone else. To be able to make light of the dark, rather than just try to find a glimmer of it anywhere. Which is where grief leaves us. I’m not sure mine will include squats my trainer can attest to my lack of agility in this department lol! Maybe shoulder openers :p

Also I shall submit for your amusement something she sent me last week that I cannot watch without laughing. Especially if you’re a therapist or anyone really.

Stop It!

I sent it to some of my clients that it was appropriate for and told them this was my new approach. They laughed. I guess I use more humor than once again I’m able to view myself as. Dark and serious.

My god I need the light right now, and in my life it always shows up. Just not always in the ways I’m looking for.

So I guess societies expectations of mothers will have to wait because this became a longer post than I imagined. What I will say about that for now as I’ve gone through hell and been lost to myself is for a good period of time my kids expressed their missing me as why am I not doing my “motherly” duties. It’s been a parent should, a parent should, a parent should, as I’ve been fighting for my life in every imaginable way. And I finally broke and the essence of that is mother’s are not super human beings we need help during certain times in our lives as well, and Should not be shamed for it.

I will not be shamed for the things that I’ve needed to heal in myself. I love my children fiercely but if I can’t pick myself up off the floor to make dinner, there’s probably a serious problem and it needs addressing. I’m full of wounds right now. And I’m going to need to heal. My only expectations is that you cultivate a certain amount of understanding and gratitude for all I am and have done rather than constantly throwing at me how I’m not meeting the mark.

This a product of whence I came. The martyrdom of the unhealthy mother who then resents her children. Well guys I won’t resent you, so instead you’ll get me standing up for what I need, and you’ll get the opportunity to be resilient as well. I recently revisited my roots on Little Women, the new version. I could never understand the character Jo before. I was always Amy, desiring only to love and be loved, nothing more.

I now understand our (women) history so much better and identify more with Jo. Many lives within one life. Also the sisterhood between women caring for one another when things are hard brings me back to my dear friend. Which makes me warm.

I watch the Greatest Showman lately as well when I’m lonely. It reminds me both of how I have risen and also why to remain humble. The best of both worlds.

Respectfully,

Christina

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Gentle and Fierce

My mind is fierce yet I am determined to keep my heart gentle. My experiences were fierce and I’ve been determined my whole life to stay soft. It’s a constant battle.

My grief is not gentle, it is fierce.

I become fierce in groundlessness.

Fiercely overwhelmed.

Everything is overwhelming right now, and I wasn’t supposed to be doing any of this alone.

I’m allowed to not want to be and I was allowed to try for love in all the ways I did with all the needs I had.

My life and myself evolving too quickly to keep up. Many disjointed parts out of alignment. Sometimes I feel like a bag of broken glass. My second to last energy healing she spoke about seeing shards of glass and beautiful light and something about them coming together and a friend recently spoke about a kaleidoscope and mosaics have been coming up for me.

When I look out over even this past year I have an extraordinary life.

I always set out for that and I have one.

I have deep and enduring friendships that mean the world to me. Some new and some old, but all of them incredibly meaningful. I look at all the pictures of my tears, roads I have walked, my smiles, excursions, moments with my kids, this home. It’s a full life surrounded by love.

From within and without.

Perspective is a soothing balm to the open wounds all throughout me right now. Attachment fractures that feel like fault lines that can erupt at any moment. It feels terrible to be so acutely aware of this. The pain is unbearable at times. Almost all the time right now with glimpses of peace.

I just went through an intense period of “seeing red” I call it, threat everywhere, the intrusive thoughts get so loud I can’t hear any security. This will all be taken from you in a thousand horrible ways, bad things will happen, you are the bad thing, you had no business being born, you tarnished the family reputation, fix your mother, go soothe her, be quieter good little girls play with their paper dolls in the corner, children are meant to be seen and not heard. Why are you so….., let’s play the quiet game, all of ways you are inadequate. These weren’t complexes these were my actual beginnings. So much threat.

I work hard to calm these thoughts, and I fill my life with the opposite as one means of doing so. Pursuits that are worthwhile, but when there is no relaxation of the kind I need, those struggle too.

I am adjusting slowly but surely. It’s hard to collect my thoughts right now. That’s the worst thing. My nervous system is in overdrive all the time and I’m looking to connect to the things that used to calm it, and unfortunately these days that makes it worse.

Alone is a trigger for me I am finding.

I am capable of being alone. I’ve been very alone in so many ways. I’m allowed to not be I cry out. But I made this choice and here I am.

I don’t want to be figuring out the reorganization of my home alone. I never wanted that. That was not the plan. But these are the consequences of my choices. So I’ll take the hits, they feel like they just keep coming. I can’t breathe.

My grief is not calm and gentle it is fierce.

Being back at this place again. It’s like the ground hog day from hell. That movie is kind of appropriate actually. He’s an asshole until he gets it. His day repeats over and over until he becomes a different person and appreciates everything differently, and then the cycle is finally over. Intelligent writer there.

Something broke open last week, I hit a wall of awareness, or rather it hit me in the face during a therapy session with my daughters. I don’t want to be this snarling and snapping thing, it’s not natural for me, and nothing, and I mean nothing is worth losing yourself.

I have felt unworthy most of my life to connect with my children, so scared I would harm them, that I busied myself doing everything I could do well to keep them safe in so many ways. I didn’t even want them to see I didn’t know how to connect.

And as I wade daily through the stories of others the struggle became normalized. I recognized my own humanity in everyone else’s and reattached to myself in a slow painful process.

I remember my first energy healing. I could hardly be touched. I laid on that table struggling to be vulnerable and just breathe when so much rose up in my body. It was so defended. I remember her saying she couldn’t go anywhere near my heart, that it was too guarded and my mind was swarming like a hive. It’s so painful. If you had any idea what the moments of calm and gentle mean.

So that’s exactly what I’m attempting to become, with myself, and with my children. I hold on for dear life. Hold my breath and clench everything to survive. Then I spend all my time trying to undo that, to deal with the effects. The migraines, the pain, and the only thing soothing is safe adult presence preferably in the form of nurturing and attentive partnering with a good balance of give and take. I’ve long known this is the secret to a happy life. We are meant to be connected, and it certainly is for me. It feels a cruel joke the vulnerabilities that lie within in me with regard to that. The ones I’ve had to painfully uncover layer by layer, so I could be known to myself.

And now I’m supposed to like what I see and believe anyone else could ? The tasks asked of me seem impossible most days.

Am I a samurai sword ? Being beaten into submission so I can be what?! A weapon of truth? I’d rather be a beacon of light, peace, and warmth. How can one so fierce also be that ?

It’s all too much sometimes.

A screenshot from long ago stands out in my mind, it was our relationship can be unnecessarily intense at times. This coming from a person who held all the cards and the control and had me dangling on a wire. And you have the nerve to assess or speak about my behavior in the midst of deception and manipulation. How dare you make me the problem when I showed up and you didn’t. When I show up without excuses no matter the pain and cost to me.

Also that she would ask what I was doing, anxious about my whereabouts more than how I was doing. Yuck.

I’ve been shamed for the impact of my trauma in a variety of ways my entire life, and most people truly didn’t know what they were doing. They saw behavior as behavior and couldn’t or wouldn’t look deep. Looking deeper has become my life’s work.

Will anyone ever look deeper into me and stay ?

And will I stop trying to do that in the wrong situations and choose the healthy ones?

Stay tuned

Ps my last energy healing my heart was open and she put her hand over it awhile.

My heart was open.

My heart is open. That’s why it’s so painful.

It’s happening in my therapy sessions and I’m reconnecting with my kids and friends and appreciating differently. Don’t let the intense emotional moments shared fool you, it is happening. My first energy healing she had put her hands under my back and I recoiled and tensed but she didn’t stop, I thought she would, I worried about her having to feel all that pain. I didn’t want her to. My body screamed don’t hold me, but she stayed, and I softened, and my grief poured out of me, down the sides of that table, and back into the earth to be recycled. That day was a beginning in many ways. I sobbed and I thought she would say it was too intense or let’s stop, that I would be shamed again, that it would be too much, that I was too much.

What is too much is what I have endured in my life the danger and the loneliness and what legacy that has left me with to clean up.

It’s still extraordinary…..

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Loyalty and acts of God

Someone once told me if you have my loyalty it would take an act of God to break it. 

I’m thinking about those words today. 

I am thinking about how I fancied myself to be the same, and about how once certain circumstances collided that did not stand up. 

We all want to see ourselves a certain way. Having integrity, who we want to be, and then we all have circumstances, or maybe I will call it our own personal story, that often has aspects we are blind to. These can lead us to behave as we never thought we could or head down roads we never expected before. 

Most of us don’t like to admit this, but if we don’t it can’t get any oxygen. What isn’t acknowledged cannot be healed. That will always be the case.

That’s why I am always trying to talk things out, if I can’t hear myself say them, or I can’t read them on the page, I’ll continue to operate with these templates that are often outdated, and end up causing a lot of suffering.

Lately I’m having a really difficult time sorting out between who I am, who I want to be and what my path is. Maybe that could just be chalked up to a lack of trust in myself. And that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I require a trusting relationship with myself above all things. I desperately want to place the responsibility for this in somebody else’s hands, for someone to come along and save me from myself. Paradoxically this is bizarre because I’ve always saved myself, I guess that’s why I’m so tired. But it’s not really saving we want, it’s faith in who we are. How do you ever get that when survival has been the primary concern, but you’re so good it doesn’t even look that way. 

Oh the disconnect of how things look on the outside to how they are on the inside. I always aspire for those to be in alignment, but then still get dazzled by seeing what appears to be for others, that never seems to be for me.

I have been thinking a lot lately about this idea of being legitimate and what constructs we need for things to feel that way. Are all the customized paraphernalia from major life events, rings, vows…. are those enough?! What do they mean even. But if you never have any sense of these things, whether they be traditions or events, then how do you define security. 

Oh elusive security. Scrambling for it outside and inside all at once is quite the chaos. Trust me, I know a little about this. Then you have The Little Prince and his fox and existential philosophy and Pink Floyd who says all you’ll touch and all you’ll see is all your life will ever be. Moments of impact as Channing Tatum says in the Vow. And so much noise about what it means to love anr be loved and what that is supposed to look like. 

If you have the courage to create your own you’ll never know whether you’re doing it right or not, but you can be sure others will put in their two cents whether they have been inside your whole story or not. This can cause a lot of suffering. What if we dared to love people anyway, for their whole story, not just the chapter you arrived on. 

Who am I loyal to? Am I loyal to myself? Do we ask that question enough. I think what does required an act of God, or God as you know him as they say, is breaking through the various shames imparted on us by a society that doesn’t even know our story. 

Personal stories are so important to understand. That is always the goal for me and I am always interested in a persons story. Always. It’s a huge part of my identity. And right now I am trying to piece mine together in a way that makes sense and is an accurate representation of the truth, with barely any of my own memory. 

There’s that lack of trust again, a worthy opponent. I won’t be giving up anytime soon. 

Stay tuned….

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More than Our Scars

My own little zen garden…. building a fortress for my heart :p

So I’m at the beach

Listening to the sounds of children playing in the water, an older couple who always occupies the same spot, the gentle lapping of the water against the shore, the gulls, the wind, and my own heart.

It’s a roller coaster of emotions lately. Some days it’s anger, some it’s sadness, all days it’s grief. How can it be possible to grieve so much at once ?

Some moments I don’t think I’ll survive this.

“At least if… This would’ve all been worthwhile” What is the point of it all if not for…” How do I have so many words in my head, that are not even my own? How did this happen? So many others grief in my arms too by the particular blessing and curse that is the way that I love.

Were we just a distraction from the real stuff ? Is that what all this is about ? What will be true on the other side of this pain? Will I ever be on the other side of it?

And tears, and rage, and blood, sweat, and teeth biting hard into my soul. They bite down hard. It used to be a pleasant sensation, pleasure and pain mixing perfectly.

Now it’s just teeth sunk into my heart, blood running down its chin, the enemy. Whatever it is. People’s opinions, shame, guilt, fear. “Comfort the enemy of progress”, the progress used to be my comfort.

There is none now. Everything is blank. A blank page used to excite, now it’s empty, what is a blank page without a pen and ink. I am a few tools short right now, of the things that make me sing and dance.

Memories mix with reality and the entire picture becomes a blur. It comes into focus for brief moments, before going under again. Out of view. Everything goes black.

Unconscious. Subconscious. What’s the difference anyway. Is there one?

Acceptance I am finding is a dish served cold. And not the good kind, like tuna tartar or sushi.

Fuck

There just isn’t a better description than that.

What is on the other side of all of this?

If nothing else this has shown me how much of my life I lived in pure naïveté. And I want it back damnit. I was impervious. I thought I could just make my mind up and make it happen. As it turns out that doesn’t work so well in baby making and in love. I was duped into a false sense of security with my first go around with those things. I got them too easily maybe ? I don’t know.

It was all so “easy”, it came so easy to me, but maintaining it, that’s when it gets difficult. Even then though with the right ingredients I thought I could make it work, make something out of it.

Instead what I’m learning is there really are a lot of forces beyond my control. I don’t think I believed in destiny because I had such a will forged I believed I could create anything. Because that belief is all I had.

Now that I’m stripped down to the bare bones, who will I become…. that’s the scariest thing.

Who will I become?

Mary Lambert, Sum of Our Parts….

“I want to know who ever broke you

I want to know how you can grow bigger

And don’t go lookin for some kind of rescue

You are the only one who can save you

We are we are more than our scars

We are we are more than the sum

Of our parts…..

I didn’t know I was a phoenix
Till I learned how to speak
Even with ashes in my mouth
I was still born to breath
I wonder are you like me
Were you left in the fire
Are you raising yourself
Above your father’s empire”

There’s a sun shower right now And it’s the oddest sensation. Droplets of water started to hit me when it’s bright and shiny out and no sign of rain. I thought I was sweating considering I just wrapped up errands at BJ’s.

Is there a cosmic meaning ? Who knows :p

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Decluttering my Mind

The ultimate task.

The disorganization of thoughts, the rapid fire scrambling to find a safe narrative to land on is one of the most harrowing journeys.

Lately I am working on holding space for myself, so I may at some future point be able to do so for others in the correct capacity of the roles we hold.

Role confusion may be the most monumental task of my life. Not assuming a helper role, but rather showing up as my full authentic self and believing I’ll still be loved, and more importantly safe.

The lines between creativity and chaos are so often blurred for me. It reminds me of a favorite sentence by Sylvia Plath. “Oh how my mind ricochets between certainty and doubt.” I think I have taken for granted how exhausting it is to learn when to be slow and when to be fast, and what role to assume in what situation.

This is one of the reasons counseling has been such a healthy and productive career for me. The clearly defined boundaries, and learning how to model that also holds me accountable.

Too rigid and it’s unhealthy, too loose and also unhealthy. A spectrum of varying degrees. A constant pursuit to balance, to be the fulcrum.

We are meant to learn from each other. And to have healthy periods of “going under/within/inside” to recover the lost parts of ourselves.

Thinking about all of the tasks I am facing personally as well as practically (namely taming this home), is daunting if all I do is run all the scenarios. So what I am trying is to choose one task, and make one step, and make sure I’m present to feel the satisfaction of a days hard work, and acknowledge the small victories, rather than being in flight mode and already onto the next disaster etc.

I’m trying to read a whole book cover to cover and give it the time it deserves. Surrounding myself with the things does not in fact osmotically imbue me with what is needed right now.

I needed permission to know what I needed, and then the stillness to allow it.

Who knew I couldn’t achieve everything with the frenzied escape pace I adopted early on. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks and on the brink of 40 I have earned that title.

This was my word of the day:

From anxious to dauntless, to establishing some kind of a baseline. Decluttering my burning brain and soothing it is quite the process. It’s even more difficult without external comforts that I’ve come to rely on so much. Over-reliance, under reliance again finding/being the fulcrum.

Some resources for decluttering your mind.

https://zenhabits.net/15-cant-miss-ways-to-declutter-your-mind/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.forbes.com/sites/nomanazish/2017/11/19/how-to-declutter-your-mind-10-practical-tips-youll-actually-want-to-try/amp/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/ideas.ted.com/how-to-declutter-your-mind/amp/

Avoid multi-tasking! I think I may have already fried my mother board from this. I have maintained the frenzied pace from how I earned my worth (and my financial freedom), and my self-esteem. I find I’m still holding desperately to the then, and it doesn’t allow as much room for the now.

I can sit and read a book calmly now, but my nervous system is not up with that program. It’s out of date and so much of my operating systems are habitual. That’s where the mindfulness I preach but rarely practice come in.

So I’m going to be working on it….

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The Problem is Me

When you realize the problem is you.

I’ve been eating a lot of humble pie lately. Wounded healers they call us.

I’m trying to find a middle ground for the narrative. Not black and white, but just acknowledging the reality of the way I have lived my life and why. What decisions have been made as a result.

My statistics. Maybe I am just a statistic. I don’t know why that keeps playing in my head. Like anyone needs more to shame themselves for. I’m trying to battle it, but the water is up over my nose and I’m drowning.

I’m no different than you.

How to not be or live as a defense mechanism. Is this an appropriate google search?

Is it possible I’m really this insufferable creature that can’t see anyone else very well because she’s invisible to herself? Can that truly be a thing? That can’t make room or honor anyone else’s feelings because of her own particular brand of island.

I’m an asshole. An arrogant insufferable asshole who doesn’t make any room for the feelings of people around her. Am I only heaven or hell? Is there no in between. I am certainly both.

Then my mind goes immediately to how and why could someone love me if that’s true. Yep that’s fun. That’s what’s really in here. Behind this carefully crafted machine of a human being that’s designed to please and accommodate.

It was suggested to me I might have a touch of Co-dependence (ya think). It feels like I’ve run a marathon only to be plucked up right before the finish line, and put right back to the start. Over and over again and the Universe is watching me punch the air and be mad at the world, shaking its head at why I must make everything harder on myself.

I didn’t like that suggestion at all. In light of the circumstances it feels completely invalidating. I’ve worked hard toward healthy relationship. That does not mean I’ve arrived. And worse I sit and point out everyone else’s soft spots when I couldn’t even take what i dished out.

Let it burn Christina ……

Did I even stand a chance to be more than that without all this work?

When can I be done ?

The insufferable is suffering with looking in the mirror right now. It burns.

I don’t have it all figured out. I might not even have anything figured out. Yuck.

If I was such an expert at any of it this wouldn’t keep happening in my life with one justification or another. Always a justification. That’s me, not anyone else.

Will this ever heal?

Will a more gentle human emerge?

Am I really banished to a life of over-functioning or under-functioning with nothing stable in between. Back and forth between extremes in a panicked frenzy. Yuck again.

I think I’ll revisit the book, Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, a therapist realizing what she needed to do after an immense blow. She realized it was her who didn’t want to pay attention to reality, she made her own in her mind. As we all do.

What am I meant to write anyway?

Perhaps an instruction manual on how to become a human being.

I want to crawl out of my skin with irritation. Everything is angering me.

I’m back at the starting line and incredibly out of shape….

Again….

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Music, lyrics, water, ice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I make people uncomfortable, just before they find themselves.

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

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