Tag: #vulnerability

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Keeping a Promise to Myself. Fifty Two Posts this Year.

Hafiz

Happy New Year my loves!

I just took a second to straighten my posture and take a few deep breaths. I am sitting at my office desk. It’s cozy down here. At times I dream of an office that looks like it was taken straight out of Edward Cullen’s bedroom from Twilight. And also there’s something magical down here in the coziness of this space.

One of mine (our) mantra’s of the year is “I have everything I need”.

So for this time in this life, my office is perfect. My desk is surrounded by pictures of my loved ones, positive messages from others, and myself, as well as “a few of my favorite things”. This sentence is an example of how our lives become everything and everyone we have ever experienced. My grandmother was just in that one. Her favorite movie was The Sound of Music.

What an interesting foreshadowing to my life. I began my day with a bath and an old playlist. I only got a couple of songs in but the words are still so interesting. I can recognize now how little I truly slowed down to process and sit with them.

Sit with it…. Another mission statement for 2026.

I was arranging a few of my books as I consider my queue (I confess I never ever know how to spell this word, and spelling is one of my innate gifts) and came across C.S. Lewis ( the other who brought us The Chronicles of Narnia among others), a book with a Year of readings based on his works. Let’s see what January first has in store for us today.

It’s called “Supposing We Really Found Him?” From him at age 12, he appears to be contemplating the existence and form of God. Something that has in the past made me squeamish, and as the wound heals, and the scars turns from pink to brown. I find I only need contemplate if I so choose. I wonder what he was feeling at the time? What he needed, as the Buddhists would ask. As I would ask and wonder.

I started the day with a reading from Tara Brach’s Radical Acceptance. Most often I begin with a text that helps inspire some Kaizen in me. That is the continual improvement of processes internal and external I would say. I learned this word at Trader Joe’s as well as Integrity as a value. It was a great place for me to begin to learn those things, along with self-discipline, perseverance, and a few others. A first look at what it means to “cut off one’s nose to spite one’s face. A turning point from an attitude that may push others and opportunities away, instead of attract them to me.

My poor physical body at that time. My poor mind. It was on fire with self-doubt, contempt, and pains stacked and stacked. I tear up recalling how anxious I was, how scared, and how many physical manifestations of my pain. What is repressed, will be expressed by the body. I have lived out that truth, and gotten the lesson full circle. I am grateful for each healthy day I have now, that is filled with vitality.

I have thought a lot about what this blog is anymore, as I have changed so much. Who I am writing to and why. My relationship with writing remains that the act of doing it is sacred and special and important for me. Tossing aside any attachment to any outcome of what it is to do in this world.

I don’t know where this will take me…..

Isn’t this how so many great adventures begin?

I was cleaning out my closet the other night, and found my twin girls little 0-3 months pink Old Navy Hats, and their bracelets and birth beanies, still with ribbons on them. They are now on the brink of twenty two years old, and new chapters in their own lives. Ms. Marvel was reflective this morning about saying goodbye to a child she has helped nurture and watched grow this past year of their lives. She made a post about her 2025, and it revealed how rich and full of adventure her life was this past year. This inspires me.

So off on my own adventure I go….

This year it began with a bath, something that is much more rare now, as I’m more likely to take a walk or go somewhere. Today is a reminder for a balance of both. Still battling all or nothing, and black and white thinking. This past year has shown many improvements in that, and I know this next will be no exception to the continued growth.

Tonight is an interesting full circle moment, the finale of Stranger Things. I believe around the time I turned my life upside down, with a little help from the Universe, we are never operating solely without a contract. I had watched some or a little of the first season. With all going on it didn’t really stick.

Somehow I jumped on the binge train with my daughter just in time.

I am reflecting on the Upside Down often, and how I experienced it. As well as everything I have come away with that has helped me become a more compassionate person, to myself and others. I know more about how I love, and have a stronger relationship to my own self, identity etc. Something I did not have much of prior. I will be grateful for that and so much more until the day that I die.

The baby in my life just came to join me. He is warm on my lap. It is cold down here and Ms. Marvel stole my space heater for hanging with friends last night. Nothing is sacred in such a big life. Nothing except everything. Anyway the new edition of the year is a French Bulldog Puppy, Bodhi. His name came together just perfectly. And in my spiritual world it means “Awakening” or Enlightenment. The horse whisperer, aka twin A would laugh at this as she often jokes about him having, a head full of rocks. Frenchie’s are not bread to be smart or do tasks, they are companion animals. For example currently he has his little chin rested just on the edge of my desk. Right in front of him my fingers clack clack clack away on this keyboard. This is my heaven. He is loyal, loving, affectionate, and just wants to snuggle. What’s better than that. Also he represents a level of forgiving myself that was always going to be necessary for me to move forward into the next chapters of my life.

Hello to my forty fifth trip around the sun. Goodbye to shame, criticism, contempt, unrealistic expectations of self and others, and so many things. Hello to joy, peace, nurturing, being of service to others. Hello to my voice, my true self, and the rest of my life.

Oh one more important edition to my life that occurred this year is my relationship to sourdough bread. So much more than a fad for me. I think it’s the first thing I’ve ever made that didn’t feel forced and like some awkward relationship I didn’t know how to do. I have a complicated relationship with food. And it happened naturally all by itself. It was introduced to me by my beloved Jenkins, it was never even spoken about if I wanted to do it, or taught really until it was. I just ended up bringing home starter from my trip to Washington State in July this year. Where I also met my father’s sister and was introduced to a side of the family I never knew my whole life. Aunt D will forever be in my heart, and I will cherish all the time we have knowing one another. She has filled in many gaps and holes in my knowing for me, and that has been a salve to my heart.

I once recall my therapist M, saying to me “you’re all in Christina” this was with regard to me being surprised she would refer to me, because I felt so screwed up at the time. I was judging myself harshly, as I am prone to do. I think about what she said often as I experience myself this way.

I am all in and I am loyal to my love forever, given that there are realistic expectations and parameters, and I needed to have a relationship with myself. I didn’t know how much I needed to, and how much I didn’t, until I did…..

I look forward to what’s next for me….

Until then Stay Tuned, and all my love on this first day of this new chapter.

Gratefully,

C

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Sourdough and Life Lessons

*so I wrote this this morning, after a lovely walk to the local farmer’s market with daughter and dog. The perfect amount of vitamin D and then back indoors so I am not ravaged.

I cannot wait to see what Esther Perel has to say about the Coldplay thing. That’s what I’m looking forward to an educated and empathic response. 

I hurt for the people hurting. 🙁 

I am trying to learn to be a person who is concerned with all kinds of hurts not just who is right and wrong. Though I’m very far from perfect at that. It’s a striving not a Destination. 

I want to be someone who has something intelligent and helpful to say about things, rather than divisive, judgmental or unkind. 

To slow down and better understand my own needs and honor them so I am present…. 

What I have learned very hard over the last five years is life does not unfold in binaries, black and white, right and wrong. It’s a Series of choices with outcomes both of which is complex and filled with light and dark aspects. 

I’m learning how to be more of a humanist than I have been in the past. Which means to me holding space for the complexities of a human journey. 

I have learned a lot of times it’s pain that teaches you the most. About how to be kind and less judgmental in general. Pain has taught me a great deal. 

And to not be the cause of someone else’s to the best of my ability I need to know myself. My light and my dark, my story and my history, all of it. I spend a great deal of time doing that now.

The poet Andrea Gibson with a heart larger than the ocean, and a beautiful mind, died this past week. That is on my mind often and heavy in my heart. 

When one is a poet / writer, we mourn our allies who are no longer with us. Our kindreds. My heart is sad that I won’t get to read anything new by her. I was only barely getting to know her. But I can through the legacy she left in the lives of others. I hope to do the same 🫶🏼

That’s what I wrote:

I’m reading The Dry Season by Melissa Febos and Grief is for the people, and mating in captivity, and how we live is how we die by Pema Chodron. See unedited this is how I write. Sometimes I capitalize sometimes I don’t…

Sourdough requires consistency, to slow down and feel what you’re doing and make tiny adjustments.

I came home with starter from the Jenkins. Learned how to bake it, quite accidentally. I didn’t overthink or under think. I just slowly did, one thing at a time.

I think I’ll prefer life like that as much as I can muster, from now on.

From now on immediately made me think of the greatest showman…. Sigh

Anyhow it’s a beautiful Saturday. I’ll spend some time alone and some with both of my daughters, and some with my partner later when she gets home from helping a friend.

Slow. I am doing everything slow. With mindfulness. With Intention. With play. With rest. With a calm mind.

This is all I have ever wanted really. Oh and like a million other things, that may all feel better now because I am no longer a walking talking coping mechanism with self long ago frozen on ice somewhere deep inside.

All my love,

C

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Spanaway Washington and Sequim. Who could have dreamt it….

Mount Rainier

So here I am from the bath…. At the Jenkins. I smell lemon and of it, lightly scented.

My crystals surrounding me in the bath tub. my only gripe is the whiter than white lights and a supreme lack of veggies and healthy food in my life, which I will remedy today. As well as movement. Travel can really mess that up, as well as quality sleep. But it doesn’t have to. I must learn to pack individual smoothie portions.

I started reading In Love with The World by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. A man born into meditation royalty sets out to make himself uncomfortable so he can better get to know his mind and essence.

I’m about half way through The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong. It’s wonderful so far. I also brought Old Souls for reading as well.

Yesterday was loud to say the least. It was also beautiful in so many ways. I began the day with tears of gratitude for the love the Jenkins family has always bestowed upon me oh so naturally. I never had to do anything for it. The way love is meant to be. I am truly blessed to have them.

Not ironic at all I should think that I am celebrating my independence with them 😉

I need to get out of this bath because I’m having some nausea. Some fresh air and fresh fruit etc will do me good. No sugar today ick! Gotta get off the stuff and not do the “it’s vacation thing” bah. When will I learn.

The comfort is just so comforting which makes you want to eat and do as the others do, when my body says don’t !

It’s a work in progress still, the getting a clear transmission about what my body needs.

Anyway here I am where the air is cleaner, the trees bushier and greener, the sky is bluer and all the colors are more vivid. The people are kinder and simpler perhaps I would say. Which has its light and dark aspects.

I don’t want to other them or me. I seek to challenge my judgements and assumptions and just continue to become an overall more attuned soul. To the needs of myself, others, but still healthfully boundaried.

That’s not too much to ask right ?! 💜🫶🏼

From the bubblegum pink skylines to how water tastes here I am enamored and grateful.

I will write more soon I’m just stretching the muscle, testing the trust, shaking the cobwebs out of my head as I embark on this trip in this lifetime.

In a couple of days I will meet my Aunt D, my father’s sister. I could have never imagined that… so many emotions.

Making friends with them, allowing the natural ebb and flow. Ok I gotta get moving.

All my love,

C

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Coffee, Books, and Confections Pouring over the Mystery of Connection….

Coffee is a gateway drug to pastries and confections of many varieties.

I have always had a sweet tooth.

And I’m still thinking about the cinnamon scone from Ru Julia yesterday. How not dry it was, how tasty.

It’s a sacred Sunday.

I had a very busy week so this weekend and especially the today of it, is purely for leisurely pursuits. Sigh.

I’m reading Bury our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab. Finally getting with the times and getting around to a book when it actually comes out.

I began today with How We Live is How We Die by Pema Chodron. Lovely resonance there.

One of my oldest and dearest friends and I met up for dinner before attending Julie Montinieri’s summer solstice gathering sound bath etc. The whole thing was great!

Last week a concert with my beautiful girls !

And yesterday our lobster roll tradition and shops in Madison.

There are moments when I have pure art swirling through my mind, and those seem to be only when the space to write is not very accessible, for one reason or another.

It’s just beyond the five year mark of my dark night of the soul. When I became, again, so I utterly lost I barely recognized myself….

But then beautiful work emerged from it…

Which is the point.

I couldn’t see it then, only darkness.

Now little by little I am dedicated to become light. A light worker. My powers grow. Intuitions becoming honed. Doubts stripped down to their naked vulnerability, where there’s nothing left to hide.

I recall such a primal connection as that. I hold on tight to the truth of the existence of such things, even now amidst the more mundane, which too has its purpose.

The circle becoming full. My soul re-emerging whole.

I recently finished the ACOTAR series and found myself presently surprised at the enjoyment within, and actually deep wisdom about war and bonds, and human hearts.

A rekindled love for fantasy.

A piece of my forgotten self.

Yesterday when we arrived home in the driveway, twin B stayed in the car a bit longer because she liked the song on the radio. That’s my kind of girl. It gave me inspiration for a writing piece on ode to the girl who lingers in the car for a really good song.

I told her so… and that maybe I would write it.

Maybe I will ….

The tensions inside of me and those around me are so much more settled as of late. Enjoyment and development occurs at a more frequent rate.

I am surrendered to the full reality at any given moment. To the present as all we have.

Dare I say relaxing even.

I am more understanding to and of myself and others these days.

There’s more room for humanity in my process.

https://youtu.be/NneuKKwaM2s?si=OX95Dp0M8i9vbodU

This video was a morning listen. As well as Lisa Romano and still Dr. Ramani for company these days rather than a desperately driven seeking.

I don’t miss the desperation.

I crave only peace and a deep knowing that continuously blossoms deep inside my chest.

Back to my book for now …..

All my love,

C

Ps : I’ll be visiting Washington state soon! The Jenkins for the first time in 12 or so years at least and meeting my father’s sister for the first time. What an adventure that will be!

PPS twin B is supergirl for comicon and she couldn’t be any cuter !

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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