Tag: #vulnerability

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What’s next ….. what’s now?! Love

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same

Hello dear readers, I wish to be intimate with you today ….. I miss this (writing), this you, so much in its absence.

Sometimes the silent spaces in between are the most important, and you don’t see until much later.

Life is a great mystery and if you’re brave, a great story of your own making unfolds.

As it turns out when you’re not reacting to life all the time there’s a lot less to say.

That’s the quiet that’s been deeply reverberating right now.

These lines have been sitting here awhile. I keep missing the boat on waves of inspiration that hit. But this is ok because I no longer feel a sense of panicky desperation.

I’ve been learning a lot about what love is and about what it isn’t. A researcher of love above all things.

What makes it safe and trustworthy?

I do. By being responsible for cultivating that in myself.

I’ve been navigating the letting go process of deep bottom of the heart, grief, for the last four years. For my whole life really, but this new awareness has the last four years more standing out.

Now that my head is so much clearer, now what?!

Reading, relaxing, counseling, hanging out. Being.

You don’t get high on it, but you don’t crash either. A new kind of magic unfolds.

There’s a trust in the unfolding now. A deep breath and a sigh. A meandering walk among the halls of my heart, lined with many many shelves, and many stories.

I walk among them.

Deep wisdom settles under my skin, and I can draw from it as needed. Not running from myself, chasing someone else.

In this stillness the universe whispers and we become fast friends.

I am watching myself step into my gifts and twirl around in the mirror admiring them without self recrimination or admonishment.

The way my body reacts I had understood as anxiety, and it sent me into a panic. What that really was, is the depth in which I’m able to feel things.

It’s what empathy feels like in the body. The most powerful force on earth. Misunderstood I thought my body was trying to sabotage me. Not have a simple conversation and guide me.

Who knew ?!

So much opens up now.

Everything becomes a possibility. Everything always was, but now it’s known and felt.

I have long loved Wicked. We saw the movie the other day and I thought I might crack right open with feelings that movie evoked. As someone who saw herself as wicked for being the truth teller, and reacting to the many mistreatments.

As someone who has worried she was bad in some way.

During the dance scene at the oz dust ball I about cracked in half with emotion. Shaking with it. It was the first time I recognized my anxiety as “powers”. It clicked.

Suddenly I can see all the love around me I’ve created.

As the patriarchy falls and a new revolution takes place.

How love is the furthest thing from control. How control suffocates love out of the equation.

Years and years of attempting to control myself through manipulation and will, as a means of surviving those who would have tried to control me.

It was a lonely and dark path out of my own hell.

Now that I am shining the light ….

What’s next?!

Never mind that doesn’t matter.

What’s now?

Love

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This is a post about Divine sensitivity

💜🙏🏼💪🏼

The misunderstandings of it. The trouble. The gift all of it.

I was driving home yesterday from a trip to Salem with my twins, plus friend and boyfriend.

I do not recommend Salem by the way, not in this season anyway. Disneyland is easier to navigate. We ended up eating Indian food of all things because we couldn’t get into any of the adorable shops or eateries, due to massive crowds and lines.

No thank you. Not even for witchy shit.

One of my twins was saying about how she never knows how to rate her pain when going to a medical professional. I can relate. Which is so interesting because you rate your pain by being able to express how you’re feeling.

So what about for those of us with wounds of expression?

It’s in this stage of life I can see how my traumas have passed to my children. I can see mine even through them. It’s jarring to say the least. It requires a healthy ability to be able to handle the truth, to hold space, to heal. Rather than going into a spiral of guilt, fear, despair.

I would say the most influential work helping me to achieve this is understanding consciousness and the energy it vibrates at. How courage moves us into a new level and more able to eventually achieve actualization.

Letting Go by David R. Hawkins and his maps of consciousness.

So during this conversation they were commenting only from what they have been taught about a time their brother as a young child went to the emergency room for acute stomach pain. He was in ultimate distress. So much so that they called a surgical team assuming his appendix had perhaps burst and gave him morphine right away.

It ended up he had some very bad gas. Which by the way can also cause acute pain. And most importantly none of us knew what was happening. It is natural to seek help and support for pain like that.

No labels of dramatic necessary.

We are healing wounds of being critical in our family at this time.

I am finding the words to share to soothe. The salve.

My hyper vigilance and trauma led me constantly to scanning my environment for threat. It also led me into relationships where I was mistreated and I mistreated right back.

Things I am not proud of. There are plenty.

The only thing that helps is to heal. To make amends. And this is the journey I’ve been on for several years now. Figuring out what supports this work, and what doesn’t.

Getting into my own channel. Channeling.

Ultimate healing.

Anyway I wrote my daughter this morning owning and sharing about what healing I want for us. To be less critical of self and other, without losing an ounce of heart discernment which is very important.

The sensitivity is not the problem.

Pain is the problem. The problem is the problem.

Sensitive is strong and beautiful.

Boundaries are a different matter. The more secure those are the easier the healing journey will be. No more all or nothing.

Heart opening is the work I’m continually doing. Telling others what to do less, listening more. Listen this is absolutely a work in progress. I’m in recovery. I’m not perfect.

But my god I love the journey. Even with its tough moments.

At some point you crest a hill and get a glimpse of the water, when you’ve been walking in the desert.

More and more glimpses of what is possible.

You are possible. I am possible.

On an earthly note I need to walk before doing my writing immersion.

This next couple of weeks will be a series of timing vaccines and pills in safety prep for Bali departure.

I can’t believe I’ll be where my spirit mother first journeyed and later again on her healing journey.

❤️🫶🏼 all my love,

C

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Love heals hurt hurts : “Now that you don’t have to be perfect you can be good.”

One of the greatest agents of change in my healing work has been David Hawkins work. Letting Go. How to put the guard down.

Love is what woke me up.

Misunderstanding leveled me, ground me to powder.

I yelled I shouted

I wasn’t understanding you either

My understanding was off line

My most egregious of

Sins have been

Misunderstanding of the self

Now don’t get me wrong I understood more than either of us gave me credit for. But I could not hold space under conditions like that.

That’s too much to ask of anyone

Figuring that out includes me acknowledging what was too much that was asked of me as a child.

Things no child should ever see or know

How does one let go of that

I don’t know

but I am

I am here

I am tireless in my pursuit and sometimes that turns me insensitive in ways I never would be

Under different conditions

Rest

A gentle embrace

Be it if you want it

So now my heart can practice opening

Less anemone

Less turtle

More jaguar

More lion

Less sharp teeth

Only a sharp mind

Less sharp tongue

More silence

More softness

Meet me here

I had the right idea that one day

On the beach

Problem was so many things

Out of my control

I am in it now and I like it here

In the land of stability

Not always

Nothing is perfect

Especially me

But as he said

“Now that you don’t have to be perfect

You can be good”

I want to be good

Grounded practice

And learning a love

I wasn’t given

I call this the almost impossible

Because it almost is

This makes me love

Almost’s rather than

Hating them

We almost had it all

We do

I do

Self

Survival

Turned

Soul

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Shamans and Healers and Walks …..

Here I am alone between the heaven and the embers ….

Just walking and writing this morning. A new favorite is Matthew Hussey. A video by him Matthew Hussey

Also reading Marcela Lobos about awakening our true purpose and her story.

After one client and my own therapy tomorrow morning I am going to Kripalu. I love it there. And to see my dear Elizabeth Gilbert.

The drive is probably my most favorite part of the trip. I can just waft through any thought that has the tenacity to arise. There’s just something about the open road.

Last time I saw Marcela Lobos and Alberto Villodo, shamans. 💜

Last night I saw and early showing of Beetlejuice. I had fun! That’s fun for me. This couple was there and they were dressed up and I think that’s so fun. Camaraderie. The movie was a little dumb at first but did not disappoint in its wild depictions of the afterlife and with original cast members. Catherine O’Hara also never disappoints ha.

It’s a new era. My kids sort of out of the house, sort of in. Always home base but each exploring their edges and identities.

I am reflective of a time when I was so stressed all the time something would go terribly wrong. And at times it does, but no more than in a “normal” human life.

I’ve made significant changes over the past year again. Again and again. I imagine I often will. But this time at the same time I’m putting down deep roots of confidence and steadiness. I’m so damn proud of me.

So much less all or nothing. And what’s left is maybe there for a reason I’m not yet clear on or privy to. Who am I to argue with a force like destiny or soul contracts.

That didn’t stop me before ha. My spice derived from the pain of not being heard or seen. Argued everything. So happy to not live like that anymore.

What’s next if there is a next : I don’t know. I don’t need to. Is this faith? That has taken shape when I didn’t even realize what I was building with all my thoughtfully placed yes’s and no’s.

Not too precious to make edits.

All my love,

C

Ps a short one for now, a shower and admin calls. Hope to write more this weekend. The little prince turns 23 on the 17th. Love that kid! Heart for days on that one. The world needs his heart and yours. Don’t forget it! 💜

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Music and Movies and Musings on an Overcast Saturday

The Guernsey Literary and potato peel pie society….

And so it goes……

It’s a Saturday. Overcast. The mosquitoes are biting. I just got nailed four times while chatting with my neighbor. Who may be moving soon 🙁 which is a whole other thing. Sigh.

I have many choices for the day, coffee shop…. But now I don’t want to go anywhere because at the moment I have the house to myself.

I put “the blend” on lol and Tears for Fears Shout is kicking things off. I was listening to Tina Turner last night. A random ear worm that needed satisfying.

It’s the Milford Oyster Fest today, the 50th in fact. I have zero interest in that. Typically too hot and the possibility of seeing lots of clients. I’ve been exploring with going towns away for that very reason. And because I like exploring.

I watched a movie, The Guernsey last night. I got emotional right away at the beginning, when she is passionate about being a writer of course. It was the perfect movie for me to watch. That Glen Powell he’s everywhere right now. He kind of reminds me of a much taller and larger version of my first love, sorry Mike 😉 it’s something in the eyes etc. I like him.

I have been thinking a lot about how lucky I got with my first love. How pure and real, and that we still have such deep affection for the other. Can still appreciate all our memories and songs and send one another things about it.

That makes me think about seven hours of music about Love. The longest playlist of the bunch. Having to look for meaning in crumbs is its own answer. It’s its own answer Christina.

I have learned that love shows up, and I have learned it the long hard way. You don’t have to go so seeking, hoping, looking for it everywhere because if it’s yours you won’t have to look far from where you’re sitting or standing.

I looked so much for so long. Years really. Long enough to realize what love isn’t. It isn’t lies and it isn’t manipulation. It isn’t abandonment, confusion, obfuscation. It isn’t fear, stolen, or on borrowed time.

It’s right there. The air touching you, the sun, the trees, the ground under your feet. It’s words and water and poetry and it’s in everything, especially you.

I’m sitting at my breakfast bar looking at a card that a fellow teacher wrote about my daughter, nothing I didn’t know, but it still makes me tear up.

I’ve softened so much it pains me even to kill a bug, even when we are supposed to with those lantern flies. It’s such a strange sensation to have changed so much, and yet still be the same. We all have a core. Core memories (very few). Core traits (very dicey lol). A core self. (empathic/ wounded).

My core self feels things very deeply, feels music throughout my body. Saw Lindsey Stirling recently that was phenomenal. If you have the chance do that, amazing for younger kids as well, anyone.

I feel music and movies and people and energy at such a high frequency. The more I remove my self will and skepticism, the more magic there is.

So that’s where I’m at. This am I listening to Mel Robbins and Matthew Hussey episode on relationships. Lovely.

I’m hoping to write and read and catch up on podcasts and finish Dune book 4 today. Those are my plans. Maybe get in the hot tub since the water is fresh and won’t skeeve me out.

I’ve recently re started another round of morning pages and I’m on day 20, so tomorrow is 3 weeks. I went back through a companion workbook and instead of feeling like I’m not accomplishing what I mean to, which is the usual feeling, I’m noticing how on track I am. Week two is about recovering a sense of identity, and defining boundaries etc, and I’ve been cleaning house lately.

No when it’s no, yes when it’s yes. Getting clear, and as I do that and stay the course with reading and writing more opens up. The path keeps opening up before me, and in turn I keep walking it.

For a little bit there I allowed myself to become critical and judgmental again and to doubt and it’s like all the lights get shut off. The realization is I always have the switch. As soon as I’m back in my intuition and grounded, everything is illuminated again.

It’s truly that simple and complex all at once.

I had a massage last night, and my friend / massage therapist worked on my jaw muscles, who knew that was a thing. They are so sore.

It’s a full time job healing. I will never take that for granted or that it is an honor to be awake and aware. Not some horrible prison as the story can make it, when one is feeling particularly lost.

Writing fall immersion begins soon, Tuesday 6-9 and Sunday 12-3 in a wonderful container of people.

Just like the a song with saxophone (80’s nonetheless) comes on to serenade my sentiments as I unearth my sediments and find the rhythm of my soul.

“Hold me now, touch me now, I don’t want to live without you. Nothings gonna change my love for you….. “ Glen Medeiros

Love is everything and also it isn’t. There’s knowledge and self development and adventure, but what will any of that mean if there isn’t love. If something is out of alignment.

Crossed wires are the burden of the survivor. Having to decode and re-program the mind so it can fit. Square pegs and round holes. That phrase has come up so often lately along with Leaps of faith.

Soon that will all make more sense than it does now, right now they are only fragments.

For now I will bask in the glow of my own growth and cultivate my gratitude and presence.

As I slowly move from every manner of destructive mind hazes, change phases, hear my words not just the phrases. Roll them over and over in your mind. Tumble them like stones until they shine.

These are some of the thoughts pulled from a once turbulent, now peaceful mind.

Happy Saturday and travels folks ….

Ps I need / want to do my artists date and walk but what about the darn bugs ?! Sigh. Nothings gonna stop me :p

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Co-Dependently Recoveringly Yours, Mine …..With Love

Just landed in sunny Florida….. “I’m in a hurry to get things done I try and try … all I really have to do is live and die, I’m in a hurry and don’t know why…..”

As I sit here on a plane, halfway through Ross Rosenberg’s new book The CoDependency Revolution. I was just slammed with a memory of that single counseling session in a cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia.

I recall bristling and reeling at the therapists suggestion I maybe consider looking into some resources on co-dependency. That tumbled and rolled me down a whole hill. I wanted to resist, deny, unhear, but I could not. It’s not in my nature.

It’s a testament to the profession that the counselor was as straightforward and honest in a very early on couples session. Would I have been so brave, so bold? So not co-dependent.

Now on this airplane a few tears shed at watching father’s with their baby girls, being part of a team with the mother, being affectionate and cutesy with their daughters. In other words I’m having a moment.

As far as the rest I’m on a plane with no anxiety, did not take a Xanax, and am on my 4th week of intermittent fasting. The eating is greatly helping me iron out more securely my boundaries with food, which is a beginning step towards my fit by 50 goal. As you can see I’ve given myself plenty of time.

I have learned to do this over the past several years. To hold my sensitivity and nervous system needs sacred and holy, and fully allow myself to seek and share my needs.

Getting better each day one step at a time.

Speaking of that I rarely take Xanax anymore. It gives me a slight headache and unclear feeling that I detest. Which makes it very clear to me that it works for a panic attack when it needs to, but in the absence of that acute level of anxiety, no thanks !

I’m 333 days sober today. I’m not sure what’s in store for me with balance around this. I may remain a non-drinker for health reasons, and for solidarity for all of those harmed by its presence. I may not. I may choose to have a drink on an occasion and indulge in wine pairing with a fine meal.

I don’t know yet…..

I finished Stray (also an old running title for my memoir, now it’s Starved) by Stephanie Danler, in two days. It’s raw and gritty and everything I hope to be as a writer. Albeit with my own voice, which is becoming clearer each day.

Ever since 2020 this has been a tough time a year for me. Reminders of events I am not a part of, and many other things. However there’s a reason the rear view mirror is smaller than the windshield and I will not live the rest of my life in a form of sabotage. In one tomb or another from all the lives that weren’t.

I am most interested most of the time in the life that is. Though my old selves, and those they loved, and wanted to be loved by are now wholly part of the package.

On an errand to help out twin B. My solid as a rock not so tiny any more bundle of love, joy, possibility, and so many things. Following a car accident she has been having post concussion issues which include difficulty driving. So we have moved her home to convalesce and are now collecting her vehicle and her things from Florida.

Upon examining my flying anxiety I realize it to be a product of the combination between my writer’s imagination and my cptsi (complex post traumatic stress injury) symptoms, mainly intrusive thoughts. A helpful dose of CBT, steady frequent reminders that a thought is not reality without at the very least a choice, and voila a much better experience.

I choose to believe when it’s my time it will be my time and nothing I could have done differently would have changed that. This of course assumes a relatively healthy and balanced lifestyle. I allow this to comfort me now. When previously I believe that I subconsciously felt relief by being in a nearly constant state of terror of some kind or the other, because then nothing could catch me off guard.

I feel my memoir / whatever book I will write taking shape. It comes to me in the early hours of waking, in the shower, on the road. I hear powerful lines from it, and when I’m lucky enough I capture them, like butterflies in my childhood net.

Nature at least provided some solace that people did not. See there’s one now 😉

So between the reading I’m doing and seeing these men be fathers on this plane a post emerged. I hope the rest of my trip is so fruitful with the writing….

I am excited !

C

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No More Nightmares on Mother’s Days

I believe this will be my first Mother’s Day I am not haunted. If you could ….

I will not lose my life force in being haunted by the things that have hurt. I will rise above them and sit peacefully sharing the knowledge that has been hard earned.

I finished Dune book one this morning. So much in there. I think of the foreshadowing of Ulay, how I became the bomb, and 90 days and everything in between.

I think of how next week I’ll sit at my daughter’s graduation and instead of wanting to crawl out of my skin w sensory overload I will own my seat. I will bask in the glow of our accomplishment having the difficult bloodline we have. Very little support, and also so much, just from a different form, a harder one to recognize or acknowledge for it requires belief.

I will be able to feel why I am there, what we are celebrating, rather than a desperately disconnected seeking numbness that pervaded everything and mirrored back such awkward desolation.

New lands…..

Belief is a powerful thing. May I always examine mine carefully to make sure it is from love and not fear, for the rest of my days.

I must not live haunted because if I do I cannot learn. I need all my focus and all my heart open to the world, so I can receive also.

To make you feel my love. My love will be felt. Not just my fear. The heroes journey.

To have alchemized scarcity and hardship into peace and abundance.

I had never planned so far that I’d make it out alive, because it never felt that way.

Awake is all I can ask for. Not existing inside a story or the bonds only of fear and trauma. A lineage I refuse to pass down.

And now I rest….

I got a b12 injection yesterday for the first time since November. Sometimes I forget I was ever so sick at all. Those people treat me like the best thing since sliced bread and I chuckle to myself of all the time I spent in a dark cloud of feeling unloved.

Love was all around. Love is….

There are turning points. New chapters. New books to be read and to be written.

For nearly 43 years holidays (so many of them) have been a nightmare. The nightmares held me captive even when some were good but inside all that roiled and rose up like bile. being told I should appreciate with little understanding, and worse treating myself that way.

A good little soldier

I will not allow it to persist into 44.

Another turning point.

A million lives within a life….

And I have every part of my story inside me and I won’t cut off a single thing.

A whole

Shattered segments gathered and made whole with gold….

Happy Mother’s Day to all the loyal curse breakers just doing their best with impossible tasks everyday.

I love you all more than you can imagine

And to the lost ones….. my people also

My heart is with you

There is light

With great courage there is light and your path is your own.

Trust yourself always

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Sunday Wanderings Letting my Pen Streak Across the Page

Not for the faint of heart….. because you loved me……

It’s blog post Sunday. I am in immersion now. Where three hours go by in the blink of an eye. I’m writing from a place inside I’ve never even met. I just sit back and watch the words emerge onto the page.

I started experimenting with typing the last two sessions. Before being an old soul and grass roots kind of gal had me put pen to the page. However I can’t deny how quickly my brain goes, and how it outruns the pen on the page. I had to see what I could do with a different tool, come what may.

And in doing so I’ve found a whole new self staring at me from beyond the page.

It’s been a year …. Yesterday was a palindrome. I’ve known at least one of those before. If Taylor can do it so can I.

I find myself between the pages of many a beautiful story. I just want to read all the time. To branch out. To read fantasy, and mystery, sci fi, and everything else. To stray away from being out of balance, from too heady and too much self help.

I want to read to embrace the healing I’ve been able to accomplish. The fact my nervous system now allows it is not trivial.

Leave the cares about punctuation behind, or being witty and charming. I only need to be myself.

I’m in writing immersion communing with she that is I, a wealth of knowledge inside the girl who was always looking to be fulfilled from out.

These Annie’s Tropical Bunny Fruit Snacks are delicious. Late July tortilla chips in Cedar’s Tzatziki. I always spell that word wrong.

I have about thirty books I’m reading. It’s like a divining rod which one to choose.

I’m so light I could fly away. Perhaps I’ll go fly a kite with a boy I haven’t met yet. Could be a character who knows. I haven’t met him yet, but I will. I’m sure of it.

“It was in front of her all along” is the next writing. Ten minutes to be all up in it. The first hit of energy is the purpose of the prompt.

I no longer argue with them anymore. Full Surrender. I’ll never stop.

I need to be on the beach soon. Reading. Languishing for hours. Not overthinking what my next move is. Just being. Belly to the earth doing my shamanic healing. Fire ceremony and release.

In another window I have letters from Love Substack, by Liz Gilbert talking about her jaunty hat. Love it.

“We Make it Up As We Go Along” 

We think too much 

Just paint the picture

Write the song 

Choreography is for 

Suckers 

Just start moving 

Bang the gong 

The earth 

Will guide you 

You’ll 

Find 

You never have 

To wait for too long

We are more 

Alike than we are 

Different 

And everyone 

Else 

Is making it up 

As they go along 

Too 

I figured I’d share a small piece from my day. It’s nearly three and time to go back to reading Dune. I hope everyone is having a beautiful Sunday.

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Sensitive is The New Strong, Dying to be Me.

“And you’ve come from a good place with a happy family, the only bad thing you’ve ever done was to see the good in me. Find someone who plants flowers in the darkest parts of you.”ZB

As I sit here this morning, in my favorite window of me time in the morning. I am reveling in the notion that if you travel deeply, you keep returning to the same things again and again.

For example this morning I’m reading Anita Mooriani’s Sensitive is the new strong. It was around 2013, while working amidst the produce at Trader Joe’s in the wee hours of the morning I was listening to Dying to Be Me. It was with the first generation of Apple headphones and the iPhone with the button in the center, or earlier if I recall.

I resonated deeply with that book, though it was very hard to believe at the time, and my mind still tends towards skepticism, even as I am a believer.

I also listened to Paulo Coehlo books then, the Valkries, the Pilgrimage, etc.

A line: “you can’t unknow what you know” stands out to me, about any experience we have really.

I sit and think why didn’t I stand up for myself in so many ways, for so many things?!

When someone is actually telling you the truth to you, without being direct. I think of all I would have said. But I don’t think long on it now because there’s life to be lived and joy to be had, and of course because this is me, work to be done.

So I’m revisiting my birthright of sensitivity and the many resources needed to keep me in a good place with it. Very helpful. Also the highly sensitive person in love, by Dr Elaine Aron.

My traumatized mind grasping always to control its external environment, when the internal is so disorganized. Now I do the opposite.

I am building a home inside myself. A palace really.

Yesterday was the culmination of watching This is Us. It’s my new favorite written show. So much in there that makes you think, triggers and epiphanies alike. Of course because it’s tv if you let it, it could make you feel terrible about your life. All those warm and wise conversations about the important things between parents and children. I’m not naive to the knowledge without a written script many of us didn’t get that, or dole it out.

But it’s never too late to start.

Knowing who you want to be is as necessary as knowing who you are. I enjoy the journey of both. I am enjoying them.

I’m a UConn Husky Mom now! That’s exciting! I move a child into college for time number two in August. One more birdy out of the nest, and another migrating home for a few months before her next venture.

I will blink and the kids will have their own nests and flock home less, but still hopefully often. I have a wide open array of possibilities in life, still, always. I’m hopeful to rise to that occasion, even if that means allowing myself to sit and read a novel in an afternoon, without feeling I’ve missed a thing.

I don’t need to be in a hurry to capture everything. I just took a deep satisfying breath.

My window of time with the morning is closing soon. Everyone is buzzing about the eclipse. It’ll be time to walk the dogs, give Henri her medicine, carry her up and down the stairs, feed them. Take a walk and a shower. The shower is such a great part. All the thoughts gently cascading, all the recharge from the water….

And then to enter the day.

Taking twin A for blood work for her first time. She’s nervous. I know what that feels like, and usually I’m the last to say you’ll be fine, and to be reassuring. I’m more likely to be awkward and say something scary. My mind can be a delightful playground of deeply imprinted survival mechanics.

I’m just trying to take off the suit.

This is an homage to a dear friend. His is much cuter than mine of course. Mine is probably more like a Spartan, he the Pink Ranger.

Another day trying to connect with the humans and not be too sensitive to saying the wrong thing, as I often do in my real life, contrasted by often having exactly what someone needs in my professional one.

As I heal and create new comfort zones outside the walls of my original ones. As I build. I look forward to bridging those gaps. Filling the bullet holes inside myself with new skin, bone, flesh, and blood.

Less a project and more, perfection from birth that I wasn’t able to see.

With new mirrors and lenses I invite the day.

Hello world give me what you have for me, and I vow to show up with integrity, honor, and to be of service.

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Have I Really Gone my Whole Life Without Knowing How to Breathe….

Just breathe they said ….

I had so much pain I never dealt with. I’m only just coming to terms with how compartmentalized I was and the whys and the how’s of it.

I went swimming yesterday. Floundering awkward. More tuned to everyone else at first hyper vigilant non breathing. As it turns out rhythm and breathing is essential to swimming and well every other aspect of life.

I used to experience such shame for being so out of sync and step with those that were given acceptance and love.

I could feel it radiating through me as if I myself were a neon (because I was born in the 80’s it’s neon lol) beacon of different.

I am trying to wear that proudly now and to teach as I go. To advocate for myself and others to not be silent or more accepting. To not cut off parts of our stories or ourselves in favor of making other people more comfortable. I won’t.

In fact I am doing the opposite I’m excavating my story and working at believing it myself, getting it down, getting it out, writing it.

This is not easy. I have a thousand suitcases (white oleander reference), and it’s so overwhelming to even try. It makes me short of breath to even try.

So that’s where I am. I won’t be ashamed or change trajectory for anything. This is me.

I’m doing all body therapies currently and stretching only to my edge moderately until the muscle gives a little. Gentle yoga. Regular kills me still. Being in the water. Taking too much in, feeling headachy from being stiff and awkward and scared.

Just breathing …. Acknowledging…. Being with….

I took this season of writing immersion off to better balance some other things that need attending to and I’m scared shitless to lose the flow I found. But I often share in sessions we can’t lose “the work” it’s integrated and part of us. Accessible anytime, think Dorothy and her Ruby slippers.

I am reading It’s Not You by Dr. Ramani, I read it in like a day. That’s what happens when material makes you feel seen, you know it’s for you. I am reading Fight Right, which helps me hone my relational skills. I am reading Lessons in Chemistry. I am reading the list goes on!

I am watching This is Us. I’m shocked I missed the bus on this emotion porn, but also grateful because any sooner and I think it would have just made me feel worse about myself.

To speak to that I read something in Dr Ramani book, about permanent grief. Is that what I’ve been in?! That would make sense why I didn’t even know or couldn’t even feel other ones at times.

I became a doing. There was no being. And what has brought this so boldly into my attention is how my children felt in relation to me. As if their only value is when they are doing. Oh the heartbreak and regret.

So I’m working at becoming an open hearted and loving human being literally one minute at a time. The guards are many and they are intense. I have body guards upon body guards that I never asked for. Constantly telling me what I can and cannot do.

So much control. Lose control. No control. All control. Organize around others. Perform.

No breathing. No living.

So now I’m figuring out what this living thing is all about. Making friends with my emotions and my body. Introducing myself to them. We are pioneering uncharted waters here. So I guess it’s way finding then.

That makes sense !

Anyway that’s it for now but there may be more posts as I spend time with me this weekend.

First it’s a long walk for the dog and then gentle yoga and then massage.

First we learn to breathe, then we try to live.

Love,

C