“Many people say that you have to love yourself first before you can love others, but really, if you learn to love others, you will learn to love yourself.”
There really is no place like home.
I have roots, who knew. The Mountain is You speaks to uprooting and it resonates greatly to how I lived my life so many years.
Have I mentioned that I hate flying ?
And I love seeing and experiencing new things. So there’s a lot to manage there. I am adventurous but also nearly crippled by the level of anxiety signals and the ease with which they become activated.
For example I cannot make my mind settle for statistics on the safety of flying when my body knows I’m sailing above the clouds in a sophisticated tin can thousands of feet in the air. My entire body is tense until landing and despite how I distract or medicate myself, the body knows imminent death is at hand.
It takes days to recover from even a tame venture that involves flying. I may be a feet on the ground kind of gal. And is that alright !!? Now I want to listen to that song.
And I shall.
Connecticut has become home.
The air is home. I feel something upon returning. My feelings often take me by surprise. Mostly that I can feel them at all in real time. It’s startling and sometimes unsettling, even the good, especially the good.
The only thing we need to do with feelings is feel them. Who knew this? I thought a feeling means you must take an immediate action. I’m a good little soldier after all. 🙁
I want you to look right in my eyes, to tell me you love me, to be by my side….
Want to see your face as I fall with grace at the moment I die…..
My mission to go to a book store on any trip I take and then inscribe the front page with date, time, and thoughts about my travel almost did not come to fruition. Florida doesn’t believe in books apparently. But I was determined so I ended up with The Invisible Life of Addie Larue by V.E. Schwab. This book is interesting to say the least. It’s a little tough to follow in the beginning, but I’m confident the threads will come together.
My hope is to leave a library of my experiences and thoughts for my children and their children. I hope to pass down my love for books and hope that electronics don’t ever swallow them, as they have so many other beautiful things. Like the ability to think and be bored.
I finished most of East of Eden in 2 days which was a breathless experience. Lost inside her pages. I am home there too. Weaving my own story in my mind as I experience another’s creativity. It awakens mine.
Speaking of that I’ll be at Victoria Erickson’s writing workshop at Kripalu this weekend. A last minute choice. So absolutely necessary. I also have Elizabeth Gilbert and Rob Bell in June. What life is this?!
I went down to my office this morning and I experienced such overwhelming comfort. My sacred healing space. So many intimate moments held there. Realizations. Tears. So many painful memories left in my keeping, entrusted to me. It’s a healing space. A powerful one.
I had so many more things to talk about, but session time has crept up on me as it usually does. So I guess it’s just my fear of flying and love for reading, and ability to do both much more successfully than I have in the past.
Because to take away a man’s freedom of choice, even his freedom to make the wrong choice, is to manipulate him as though he were a puppet and not a person. Madeline L’Engle
It’s so interesting I’m reading East of Eden right now. Nothing is an accident ever.
Years of generational trauma are coming to a head in my little family. We are all facing our stuff.
I had a dream ……
I think of the beginning of Mama Mia, how many times I watched that movie thinking I just liked Abba. Ha. It took years to click that a movie about a girl who has three father’s that show up all wanting her, was obviously going to tickle my fantasy.
I remember my own father (during a short reconnecting I initiated, it was not a warm reception) mocked me for liking such a corny production. Oh the irony there. He was a smart man from the little I knew him, but severely lacking in emotional intelligence and empathy. Or maybe that’s just because he never continued his connection with me. I most likely will never know. It matters less in this present time. Not as much of a gaping wound.
Mama Mia is an intelligent play with a brilliant cast. You’ll never make me think differently.
I also dreamed of being a good mother, a dream that often felt out of reach. People would try to encourage me, and I would make sure they knew they just didn’t know what lurked inside of me well enough.
But as it turns out if you’re courageous and you don’t give up, you can absolutely attain what you desire.
As a generational curse breaker it was never going to be easy. I couldn’t have imagined it would be this hard, or this worth it.
I stand with the misunderstood and the misunderstanding in their pain, and now I also stand with myself.
My children are strong and beautiful and all heart, at times to their detriment, but that’s normal.
They are kind to others.
My children are kind to others, not perfect. They are kind.
They too are learning to turn their pain into power.
We have been in family therapy for going on three years now. We have all wanted to give up I’d imagine. We have been through therapist’s, and harmed by them at times. Others have helped.
We show up.
It’s often a slow hard slog through painful sludge. At times it’s excruciatingly like being burned alive.
Most of the time I’ve doubted it’s the right thing, as it’s not the popular way. Just let them be kids leave them alone, and do it in a more acceptable way. Make things look better don’t introspect it’s dangerous. I feel the opposite, it’s dangerous to people when you don’t/can’t/ won’t.
Most of my life I’ve doubted the good in me. I’ve spent it separated from myself. That is excruciating. It is torture.
Then I became tortured.
I didn’t want to breathe anymore I was so lost. All of the truths I thought I knew shattered and an even worse view of myself to climb out of.
I stayed the course.
I still have plenty of healing to do. We still have plenty of healing to do. But the heaviness is lifting, and in this new freedom we all attempt to connect naturally as best we can, with no force involved.
No having to constantly control my own emotions or attempting to control anyone else’s so I can have an illusion of safety.
Just a free fall into the clouds. This blissful peace that warms my sore bones.
I feel at times like I’ve been hypnotized or am in an alternate universe. That’s how far away good has felt for me. If something is good it feels like it’s in a dream, foggy ethereal, surreal.
And certainly not mine…..
I remember driving to my office in Fairfield and just asking over and over if this was really my life. I actually was aware how dissociative I was, but I stayed right near me until it was safe enough to embody my body.
As it turns out that can be the most painful “surgery” you may ever endure. Once inside you feel everything via the body.
Well I don’t believe in wasted time, but I understand his meaning…..
Good morning! Here I am because habits are easier to follow through with. I’m still toying with my daily routine, and probably always will be due to my belief that routine can be the death of creativity. It can also be the vehicle in some ways so once again….
Balance is essential.
I’d say for me balance is a larger obstacle than anyone with a lesser degree of trauma. My executive lobe probably looks like Swiss cheese or whatever a damaged executive lobe looks like on MRI. Can you just request an MRI to see the degree trauma has affected your brain ? I need to look into this more.
I walked one mile this morning. I have an 8:15 this morning and then back to backs until 6:30. When I say back to backs now I mean with 15-25 minutes in between if I end on time. I don’t know what I did or how I scheduled them with no time in between. Now I do my note and use the bathroom or whatever. And this keeps me much more satisfied overall. Who knew.
I’m about to change my schedule so that my weekends are always mine. I’ll likely work m-t and Fridays I’m in love, aka my therapy and writing, maybe a book by the shore or a coffee shop, and then two more real estate days Saturday and Sunday.
What will life be like?
I’m scared and excited to often be less scared and excited from actual fear. It’s training. A whole lot of training. And a whole lot of grieving.
Grieving all the things that never were, that I’d hoped and dreamed for and allowing myself to do that while also moving forward. It does not need to look or be some perfect way. This is not the time or the place for good ol’ right and wrong. Those concepts have stolen enough of my life thank you very much.
So my walk this morning. Exhilarating. The season helps of course. Begin the day with endorphins and energy. At least one mile, when I have more time between two and three and I’m thinking of ending the day with a lap as well, a lap is a mile. When I am able to, some days are packed. I am grateful for the packed days as well.
This morning I ended season one of the CoDependent Mind with Brian and Stephanie. I’ll copy my notes from it, the standouts that I’d like to elaborate on at a later time here. These are all things the author said.
I’d have to try to process it later because the fear and the shame were too overwhelming.
My attention was often consumed with emotional avoidance techniques.
Compartmentalization to avoid cognitive dissonance as well as a feeling of helplessness imparted by the trauma.
Compartmentalization was one of the first causes of Not being able to feel and respond to emotions in real time.
This is a thought I had as a result: all unfinished for now. There will be layers at a later time I’d imagine. There’s name calling as a tactic and name calling as an emotional reaction when overwhelmed. Both are unproductive. Both can be transmuted into a healthier choice.
It’s interesting the musical foreshadowing of my story of my very own life. I’ve always loved the Cure Friday I’m in Love. And now it’s a day for me to kick off the weekend… sacred. My own. All those delicious hours to create with.
So my routines and focus working toward healthy eating, exercise, reading, writing, thinking daily. These are my days.
I don’t like being altered. I’ll have an occasional glass of Chardonnay with oysters, a summer fave, this just began. I’ll have a cold Bad Seed to unwind after a long hot day or if the mood strikes, and or a dirty martini out to dinner. Once in awhile I get adventurous and go for the craft cocktail, but more often than not I find them headache inducing and cloyingly sweet.
I no longer drink beer basically at all. I like the idea of it, but not it itself. Boy isn’t that a metaphor.
Learning how to say no and to know what I want when I want it and what I don’t want, has been a steep learning curve. As the podcast suggest it’s much safer to agree and assimilate and nearly lose oneself entirely.
My bathtime is beginning to dwindle and I need to finish my pages and I’d like to read one chapter of East of Eden before my day begins.
I’d like to incorporate one hour of reading time daily ideally and at least one of play and connecting in whatever form that takes.
These are my priorities.
I’m entering such a different phase of my life right now and it’s a bit terrifying if I’m being honest. It’s also liberating.
So for the rest of the morning I’ll ponder why liberation brings such great fear…. I could give you a fast intellectual answer. But I’m more interested in what my heart wants to speak now.
This will be at the center of all good things in my life. Always has been.
How Do You Block the Sound of a Voice You’d Know Anywhere….
Lisa Loeb Wishing Heart and Jan Arden Insensitive are taking me back today….
I have a bad sinus cold. I woke up this morning with my head pounding, sensitive to light and sound and essentially everything. I debated strongly what course of action to take, ie migraine pill because it feels like that, but I know it’s sinus pressure.
I opted for severe sinus med and it definitely lightened the suffering though it’s there behind the pill. I don’t want to take an antibiotic if I don’t have to. It wipes out any good gut bacteria I manage to have and causes whole other issues. So there’s that.
I’m seriously reflective right now. Very within. Integrating the changes from these past years. The holidays brought forth lots of grief. All of the lost dreams. It’s not as doom and gloom as it sounds, well it is and isn’t.
It isn’t because I am faithful these days to a belief that all of these are threads in a tapestry of my life and all are sacred, even the more coarse fibers.
I am understanding my self better, which helps me to understand others better. I’m doing this in all areas and in past and present relationships.
It’s a softening.
Will I be thawing forever?
The answer in so many ways is a resounding yes. What’s different is the resentment. I no long resent this as much, that is becoming a holding it sacred as part of my path. Who even am I?! Oh hey heyoka. If that’s the name for a deep spiritual being that can hardly believe that’s a real thing and not some grandiose fantasy. It sounds ridiculous and self aggrandizing. We only believe what we can see and touch, because anything else never showed up.
I’m not behaving as if I’m living in a fantasy. My feet are firmly planted and I’m addressing myself and my needs and learning to communicate. I am learning. It’s not easy for me. Yep it’s not the other person, it’s me, just as much. Humble pie. I own my things, and own them specifically and follow through with change however and I was always capable of that. That was always possible under the right conditions and I am not responsible for the right conditions. I made my hard decisions.
I can trust that because when push comes to shove afraid or not I act with integrity. Scared or not. That is trustworthy. So when am I going to start valuing myself in that way?! Love HER Christina, choose her. She deserves and is worthy of your love. Stop fearing her, she has always meant well and tried hard and course corrected when it has been necessary without relying on manipulation.
I never relied on manipulation. When I recognized that’s what I was doing I owned it and changed and had empathy for those hurt.
Empathy without boundaries is self destruction. Yes it is. Never again. Boundaries are king and everything will be as it should because those are water tight. Crystal clear boundaries she said, a therapist from another life. Able to protect even when that was a difficult balance. Crystal clear boundaries Christina.
I remember every single thing that is important to know. Not protected by a narrative, but cloaked in taking the time I need to make the decisions that are best for me and learning how to be more than a coping strategy.
Meeting myself. Falling in love, or at least like. Sometimes love can be very overwhelming.
I am observing myself in absolute shut downs and freezes and then watching what brings me back and what shuts me down further.
I have slowed down enough that I am able to be seen, only because I am seeing myself, not only in that terrible polarity of good or bad, right or wrong. But in all of the richness and complexity I deserve. Did you hear that?! Wow.
I did. And my eyes are wet.
They thaw over and over as my heart does as well.
My head is exploding I’m going to freak out! No I’m not. My adult self will take myself to the walk in later and get on some antibiotics and trust the rest. I’ve had this pain for three days. I rearranged my day to only have a 12, and 1 and moved the rest. So I can just crawl in bed and relax. I think it’s time to also take the migraine pill. I think it’s both 🙁
It’s so painful these realizations of the way I’ve seen things so backwards and tangled with my kids and how misunderstood I’ve felt, and not being able to clear those up. I can’t believe how I’ve lived like this all this time. So separate from myself and those I love and just as a harsh executioner. Reactive, ready to jump on any sign of dissension.
I was reacting to my children all the time, when I didn’t feel in control. And shocker I’m not in control of anything, but myself now. Jesus it was about time. In the immortal words of Elizabeth Gilbert. You never really had control anyway, all you had was anxiety. Yes Liz. Thank you for being a beacon when I am lost.
How I have needed to be in control for safety. I am the things I’ve accused of and I see so much more softly now. Of myself and others and the glaciers just thaw and thaw.
What will emerge ? As I no longer reside in a story or rely on the same coping mechanisms.
It’s absolutely terrifying being in a transformation. Dying over and over. Things are so clear at least and that is a relief. and there is also so much to sit with. To make friends with.
I’m fighting to trust myself. That is my biggest area of work right now. My perception, my own ability to feel my feelings in real time, rather than a year later. That the things I say and do will not hurt me let alone another. I’m juggling so many plates in the air all the time and working at being entirely different when overwhelmed.
The tool I’m employing most often is empathy and having been so far removed from my own for myself for so long I’m wondering how the new fresh oxygen will integrate: was I without it for too long? Is the damage too great?
I’m only just beginning to peel back the layers. To not use usual coping strategies and patterns. To know what is and what is not that.
My heart is opening and softening, but I’m still an anemone. At the slightest sign of danger I close up tightly and it’s frustrating feeling so emotionally handicapped. Stunted, frozen, cold.
I am going through those things, but I am not those things. This is quite possibly one of the biggest changes inside to date.
I’ve misunderstood myself so catastrophically for so long, that finding understanding now is almost unbearable. It’s unbearably different than what I am used to.
To stop misunderstanding others, my children. My SELF.
The one safe space I understand well contained into an hour long appointment with my acute and honed ability focused and objectivity at my disposal I cling tightly to my gift to keep me steady, and it does.
Then I adjust my narrative not to pathologize that somehow, and then I do that in every other area of my life.
I am naked right now.
And I’ve never been like this before. My eyes are wet again.
The breaking and building.
My bones are powder….
At least I am not a powder keg anymore.
My heart is an ocean
One of those lovely ones that are clear blue and contain no sharks. A safe ocean.
It used to be safe for others, but not for me….
That is different now. I am different now. I am soft and scared and sacred and new and old at the same time.
My head hurts so bad…..
I just want to snuggle into my covers and cry and listen to the last two hours of Evelyn Hugo. But first a bath, a rally and showtime for two hours.
My sessions deepen as I do, and as my understanding of myself does, and my forgiveness of myself….
Onward
Ps one moment of truly being seen to the core, I have found, can thaw the thickest ice. The person opens right back up and becomes present in that safety. The person so often lately doing that, is me.
I am told I am that for so many others, but I wasn’t doing that for myself. I’m so surprised when someone sees me and so used to living without it.
You gave me oxygen then removed it, over and over until I begged for an end. In the end I made it myself.
That was just the beginning, as often is with transformations. Now the integration and not knowing whether the organ will be accepted or rejected.
I’ve got approximately two and a half hours left of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I’ve been savoring it. I’ll feel incomplete for a short while in its absence. I’ve been all or nothing so long, it’s nice to read it bit bit and then process and listen to music. I have a nice groove going on.
I walked to Natural Kitchen and got a bowl today. I think the tuna from there makes me a little allergic, probably some preservative they use. A major goal in the new year is to begin working with a nutritionist and allergist and really attend to my health.
Another goal is to spend very little and see if I can pay off my student loans. I’m coming up with a strategy with my financial advisor. I want to leave my children with a good financial situation and also make sure in case anything happens to me with my Crohns that I have wiggle room. So they and we are safe and don’t have additional stress.
*don’t worry I’m not leaving anytime soon, I just think that far ahead. It’s a part of me.
When did I suddenly become such an adult ?! Who knows!?
I was able to do quite a bit for those I love this year for Christmas and it’s all done. I’m usually panicking the night before. It’s pinch me unreal the things I’m able to do.
I’ve been that way most of my life though, pinching myself at things I just never could even have seen for myself. How rich my experiences have been. No corner of my life unturned and I shall continue living this way.
I wore my only human sweats today and grey under armor sweater with beanie and just felt cool ha. Feels silly to say but I did. I felt cool despite having my winter weight on, some breaking out on my face. I just don’t torture myself anymore and that feels very nice.
To not nitpick myself apart about perfection. Now if I could just continue to do that with writing.
Go easy on me baby….. appropriate.
Henri is asleep at my feet. The cat dog that she is. The little prince is cleaning up after his ugly Christmas / cookie extravaganza last night. Thankful those are few and far between, and also grateful to be able to be that house and have such a good group of kids.
I feel like Diane Lane in the end of Under the Tuscan Sun, something I want to read by the way. I’ve only seen the movie. She had felt so low at one point, like she was never going to have what she wanted and then realizes she did even though it’s completely different than she thought.
Yep my face is definitely flushing from this food. I get much less anxious about these things anymore. I go with I’ll be fine, and if I’m not I’ll know and be able to get the care I need. Not going to eat this bowl again. But I will for sure walk to places to get my food and even shopping. I love walking when I can instead of driving.
Maybe next I’ll bike everywhere and keep costs down. Anything can be an adventure. I could be happy the rest of my life walking back and forth to the library and eating a picnic lunch out in the sun with a book.
The simple things…
I just want to make sure my loved ones are safe and cared for and myself and we have experiences. That’s what I’m focused on lately, and that I make choices that are congruent with that. Yes a therapist word for sure. Shocking 😉
Writing a book lately feels like more of a when, than an if. That feels so nice. I could cry just to say it, but most important that I feel it. A sense of security and that it’s solid. If my circumstances change I still am solid. That’s taking root.
It’s my birthday tomorrow. It feels different this year somehow. I’m acknowledging it and not saying it doesn’t matter and I don’t need anything. It feels calm and safe.
In fact I need to see a show, A Strange Loop on Broadway and the tree and have a nice dinner in the city with my loved ones. I’m not anxious. Well maybe a little. About not finding a bathroom or anything that can happen, but the excitement outweighs. Mmmm.
I have more than I need. I can begin thinking about what I can do to give to my community and to my field and all of it.
I have so much more to write maybe today will be a twofer or tomorrow morning I’ll take some time for me to contemplate the brink of my forty second trip around the Sun.
I was going to talk about Evelyn’s sixth husband because that’s where I am. And how I feel for people so beautiful they get trapped in the upkeep of it all, it’s one thing to enjoy taking care of yourself, pressure however is quite another.
Ok so I wrote this a couple of days ago and didn’t post. It’s more an update than passion ridden prose. A theme I suppose. I have therapy now on Christmas Eve eve. Then walking and family time. I anticipate a lot of writing as I am present and coming to the end of Evelyn’s story.
And still well at the beginning of mine 💜
Ps and in true Christina fashion I didn’t talk about the title subject much at all. Stay tuned it will come along somewhere…. Soon. I think. Maybe
I always need to have an exit strategy which includes an exit narrative and I’m working out the difference between that and a balanced look at things. It’s not easy work.
It’s dark out and gloomy, but I don’t feel that way. My storms are calm. For now.
“But I’d follow you to the great unknown. Off to a world we’d call our own.” I want to watch this movie. It’s been awhile. That and the movie UP are on my mind. This blog is my attempt to not lose myself in the fray.
I am lost, I am found. I’m a walking contradiction that’s hard to be around.
No.
So many changes around me and the seasons are the least of it. “So I’d risk it all just to be with you.” Yeah did that. Not anymore. I wouldn’t risk the stability of my kids and I for anything again. I have to work daily at self forgiveness. It becomes a way of life, not some singular moment.
Forgiveness and compassion for self. It starts there, and I learned very little of it. I have to start from scratch.
Yes.
Left right left right. One foot in front of another. The most simple part of my day. Me with me. Walking.
Gentle walking. Tears falling. Tension releasing. Surrender walking. White flag walking. Calm talking. Rhythmic rocking. No tik tokking. Lol. Have to play a little. A little lighter.
The rain begins to fall. I don’t know it all.
When I don’t I’m not safe. You try it the way I’ve had it and see how you do.
Coming to grips blow by blow continuously seeking flow.
Here comes the rain. Don’t know how hard it will be. Will I drown?!
One mile is pretty good for a migraine day. One migraine for a holiday month is pretty good. My stats are going pretty well. Maybe I’ll make it two, you never know.
But I do.
It’s only rainy not raining, not pouring. The difference is important. Nuance is important. Understanding is important. Black and white is dangerous.
Just breathe Christina. Breathe. The only thing you need to do is be yourself, who you truly are, and be honest about that, and what you want and need.
Why is that so fucking hard.
You know why.
You’re seeing my chat with my higher self in real time. It’s ok to have an exit strategy, but decide what the criteria is for using it or not. You get to decide. You don’t have to decide: you get to. It’s a privilege, not your sole responsibility. It never was.
What I Have. Kelsea Ballerini. Cuz I got a roof over my head, I’m doing alright right where I’m at with what I have.
The simple things like making a stir fry on a rainy day. Simplify. When all your mind does is complicate, simple is bliss.
One more loop. One more mile. One more tear slips down my face. One more epiphany. One more day of life at least. It’s not a burden it’s a gift. You’re not bad Christina. Not emotionally uncaring or shut down or cold. Unclench.
It’ll be ok. How do you want me to believe that when it never was. Let alone want me to say that to you. I don’t know how. Help me.
Have you ever actually been unsafe?!
You don’t have to be to feel that way I’m learning. The mind can play cruel tricks, but it can also heal.
A beautiful mind and a wounded heart are a difficult combination.
Gifted but only in the right places. Threatening in others.
I’m not bad. It wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t yours either.
Misunderstandings are a prison. Don’t let your mind be.
Plant a garden. You plant so many flowers. All of my plants die. Argue argue argue.
Minds a mess. A mind at rest.
Lay with me….
B12 injection in Fairfield. So many memories there. My first office. It took so long to feel real. Like that was my life and not a fantasy.
Surreal every day. Until the truth finally sets in. It takes so long for that to happen.
It takes all the consistency there never was, and follow through on the build.
Don’t abandon this project, she’s going to be great. She always was.
The world may, you may, but I never will. I’m right here.
These days I’m working on my relationship with myself. It requires a lot of healing and many optimal conditions for that.
My heart requires it.
So if you want a place at this table inquire within if you can be congruent without.
I’m having a rainy morning walk. I love it. I feel alive.
Found The Little Prince’s Rose this morning
I had a scary episode last night. I’ve had very little focus on any health anxiety and very few symptoms. But last night in a therapy session I was talking about my mom, and my trauma. My heart started to feel like it was stopping and flipping over, but for much longer than just one beat.
So I looked at my heart rate, it was 114 bpm. I took a few deep breaths and it immediately went to 70. My usual is a fib or palpitations but this was different. I consulted “the google” I like to call it this because it makes me feel my actual age and not my chronological one, which is around 90 years or so.
The Google says it was an SVT, maybe of course as neither of us have a PhD. I’m so grateful for no longer going down rabbit holes, but I also want to find the line of not ignoring something serious either. Sigh.
What’s indisputable is how trauma has ravaged my body. I’m angry. I’m angry!
Anger can be restorative. It restores our boundaries. It’s not to be dismissed as merely a negative emotion. A good lesson from The Language of Emotions and this past couple of years.
So I’m thinking about that girl that was plagued with terror and health symptoms. About how I understand now that’s what my body thought it had to do to get any needs met. Until it didn’t make any sense and I became discredited in my health anxiety, and had to figure out how to internalize less and ground more. Find new ways to meet my need, that didn’t require me to be sick.
This morning I was talking about how once upon a time I loved a little girl with my whole heart. That happening so naturally changed something in me. It was the beginning of some important lessons in love.
Children really are our greatest teachers.
Listening to my guy Teddy, sing about find something you can hold on to, find someone who will be there for you, because that’s all that really matters in the end. It’s hard to tell the truth when you lie to yourself, always give too much of yourself to someone else…..
Yes Teddy! That’s all that really matters in the end….
I feel alive and awake. Something that used to be a rare moment that often led me to dark places when I didn’t understand the full picture.
Now I take the time to do that. You take and make time, you don’t find it.
In my head my memoir is taking shape, as I read more, I hear more hints and glimmers of what my story will look like on the page. And why it’s important that I tell it. Made a difference to that one.
And mostly for my children because my story is also their story. A Life Itself reference.
Should I do another lap? I want to it feels so good, but it’s wet and cold, which isn’t bothering me, but I don’t need to increase my odds of getting sick. They are already high.
I need breakfast. I don’t want to interrupt this flow. Story of my life, except now I don’t drown in fear it won’t all be there when I need it.
My shattered and scattered mind. I see it more and more clearly every day. S. King would have suggested one less more there. Oh I also need to finish his book too.
I’m standing on my porch remembering. Remembering the pain all the times I tried to yell to be seen. All the days I sat here and cried and felt deeply. All the friends who were here to soothe. All the visits with my stand in father bringing groceries and unconditional consistency. I doubt he will ever know the depths of what he has meant to my story.
The difference between life and soul death is a fine line. I’ve walked it many years.
Love never goes anywhere…. It always exists as do all the moments. That’s what I’ve learned. You keep them, download them. It can be bitter sweet you aren’t able to make more, but we are all responsible for our choices.
I’m listening to the Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and I am captured. My full attention. And let’s be honest we all know how rare that is. I’m laughing heartily on my front porch. We are friends now.
I remember an old post about can you fall in love with a house. And the answer is yes, but that girl at that time knew very little about real love. Only an idea of love. Trapped in a coping mechanism that required creating fantasies and then attempting to occupy them.
Over and over I rode that haunted roller coaster.
Now I just sit here and observe, and I DECIDE what I absorb and what I don’t let it.
I was looking in an old journal of mine, I had written those letters large DECIDE. I learned about the power of our choices and Senja Foster taught my to have crystal clear boundaries and only participate as a whole person, with another person who had done that work themselves.
I show up and I always will, and I promise myself to never believe those rotten stories about her again. It makes me sad and sick to think of my relationship with me, it was the most abusive.
I made amends to myself when I walk and it’s changing me.
And I am fucking grateful! For every single moment, even the hard and bad ones, because I can walk back through them in my mind, and because I can now see where my boundaries are.
I was borderless. My phone tried to change that to borderline how funny. That’s how that type of crazy feels. It’s not a good feeling.
I choose peace now, and I live in it, and no one can take that, and I made it out of nothing.
Fierce and loving ….
I won’t settle for anything less…. Melissa Etheridge sings. That’s the energy I was writing the last few minutes in, her song Fearless Love.
This mornings walk started with Dear Depression by NF and second song is Unsteady by X Ambassadors. If you love me don’t let go. Hold on….
Which makes me think of Me Before You, which makes me think of Love Rosie, which I watched last night. Which makes me think of which movies I enjoy so much and why.
Probably if I were to guess they were friends when I had none, and they at times inspire hope. I like movies that make me feel the way I want to around the people I have close. I could disappear into the feeling of that story. T
hat’s likely the most important thing here. I could have a family, a best friend, a lover, for that 90 minutes I didn’t feel the kind of alone that was unforgiving and unforgivable during childhood. I will have no amends there. Not a death bed whisper. Only an endless chill.
Deep emotion. Human stories. Inspiration.
I like these things.
How I like the piano and string instruments and vocalists that have been through the ringer emotionally. Mary Lambert, Teddy Swims, Pink, Taylor Swift, k Clarkson, so many more…
Like I like my authors…. Brene, Liz, Martha, S King. So many more.
Our vibe attracts our tribe they say. I have to believe it’s true when I pay attention to what I like.
I don’t like horror. I don’t need to experience anymore terror. All set thanks. I feel the things the character is experiencing in my body and heart and will think about still shots of the movies days and even years after.
I have an interesting encoding system in my brain. It’s kind of magical really. Genuinely.
NF Perception, Remember This. This guy has had some trauma too huh! So find people that challenge what you think….. gorgeous.
So back to my brain and amends.
What I’m realizing lately is that most of my life I’ve misunderstood myself so painfully.
Each time I shut down and moved overly quickly that was a reflex, that had nothing to do with my true self. She was so far buried in those moments.
This last time I tried to say that, but I was already in the action of my choice. It’s impossible to regret it because of where I am now. If you asked me last year though.
Not very dependable someone who changes that easily right?! The story, the T, the gossip. Hate it. Because it never understands. It’s fast and realization is slow.
The kind we need to breathe life back into a world gone cold and hard.
Empathy
I had it for others, but none for myself.
Anytime she did something that wasn’t in compliance I’d leave her out in the cold. Punishment. No understanding.
Here comes the amends. This is how I was with my kids. And a lot of it was because I was fighting to feel supported by their father, someone still lost in bitter hurt. This is my version of course and that’s all I can write.
If I told the bad story it would look something like this, of course he would want to be away because of the flip outs I did, just like my mother.
Just like my father wanted to be away from my mother. I understood why. BUT there’s so much I didn’t understand. Everything that came before me. What he did to her. A little girl with a grown man.
No perpetrator and no victim. We all have a part in our choices and I’m more interested in who I will become because of them, than to cast judgment.
Judgment is boring and nearsighted and hollow.
Nothing comes full circle there. You just chase your tail and go on a haunted carnival ride of your own emotions.
My ego fought an invisible battle with him to feel supported, because I felt I had none.
And the punishment fell to my kids. They didn’t have my warm wise presence at some of the times they needed it the most.
And now I sit in the pain of knowing this and let it soften the borders of my heart so I can course correct.
Twin b tried to scream at me your punishments don’t work and I doubled down. I wasn’t fighting her. She just wanted to be heard, and I shut down.
My shut down switch is so frustrating in my life. How do I forgive it, because it saved me before, and left me for dead later. The thing meant to protect me also kept me shut off from the love.
They were out in the cold with me. That’s a bitter pill to swallow. I want to explain to cry for understanding. But that forgoes the accountability I need to make amends.
They need to feel I can respond to their emotions.
How can you ask that of me my trauma cries. Don’t you understand how terrifying someone else’s emotions became for me. If you knew.
But they don’t and they didn’t ask …. They were at our mercy as parents. Now that I can connect with.
I only hope they will someday come to their own conclusion that I did my best in all the ways I could.
I didn’t do it all wrong, but I have the strength now to know that one of the most important ingredients was missing. That soft love. I hope that their fathers family supplied it enough. Holidays and unconditional love. Things I didn’t have.
I hope they don’t suffer in the ways I have. Those words are true. It would only be judged as dramatic or anything else for someone who doesn’t know, connect with these losses of self they never consented to.
No one told me about trauma.
When the first person (therapist) suggested it’s shocking I’m alive, it was like a scene in a movie. He couldn’t be talking about me. I wasn’t even in my body.
I had kids with a grand idea of creating a family I didn’t have and I was going to do it perfect of course in my idea.
Then life takes hold and tells you ha you thought that was going to work. Silly goose.
Being gay and not realizing became another school yard bully, and I almost lost that battle.
I would have done anything to protect my kids from divorce and him. I wanted to. I agonized.
I just kept hitting wall after wall with it. It was not possible and even the voice now says I could have done it and waited if it meant…. NO.
I’d do anything for love but I won’t do that. Not be myself how I was made. Not an option.
Divorce. The first area that requires amends. Creating a life for everyone (all my responsibility of course), when I wasn’t aware of myself.
My enthusiasm for living often preceded my better senses.
Can you ever forgive me?!
My mind is mostly fragments and so scattered and living steadily requires the gathering of all these things each morning just to function.
Please forgive me….
*I’m still trying to figure out this writing thing. This excavation. The where, when, how of it all. So bear with me as I find these fossils and thoughts. My psyche is so often a steel trap. It goes into lockdown with a hairline trigger. When I listen to music the rhythm style and emotion of my writing is immediately influenced. So if you’re here on my journey. Thank you for helping me be less alone in the world. It’s special to me beyond words…..
A lesson of late, there are many, is that brute force and iron will are not the best way.
I won’t say they don’t work, they have served me well in certain ways, and we will honor the necessity that forged them in me.
I’m wanting something softer and wiser these days. The written word. Reading the words. Humility. Learning.
The pen really is mightier than the sword. I’d take everything I felt I could get and figure out the rest later. A main strategy.
Gather. Hunt. Grind. Grit. Sweat. Choke back the tears. She turns her head away in that office, so you won’t see her cry. Willing the tears not to come. They never helped her before.
Yes I remember. I remember every single moment, and I don’t will myself to forget. I don’t work that way anymore.
Would you even recognize me? Or does the completion of a soul contract change everything? I don’t know.
“Be careful with that one love, he will do whatever he needs to do to survive. You built me palaces out of paragraphs.”
Scraps for my memoir written in the bath this am as I read Stephen King On Writing, which I’ll finally finish after five years of trying. It’s time she whispers. It’s time she roars.
“I used to just carry a book around, with very little hope that I’d ever fully read it. Let alone write one of my own.
I lived on crumbs you see.
And I gave everything I had to everyone else every day, in the hopes of someday giving and receiving love the way it always seems other people do.
I gave to anyone else with very little discernment.
My trauma reduced me to focusing only on what was in front of my face if at all.
I could barely keep a train of thought, hell a car of thought.
I barely had any ability to focus at all.
Scraps.
Starved
Becoming”
Let it burn. Anything that isn’t yours naturally. Anything that betrays your personal values in the process. Things will be offered. They will cross your path.
Twin B has wisdom tooth surgery in a few days, far away, never someone else’s baby, but won’t be her caretaker right now. Letting go of our babies is hard. I think of her getting to learn more than I could teach at that time, and experiencing herself in a positive light, something I wasn’t offering at that time. These things bring me joy and peace. The former not the latter of course.
I can’t go down rabbit holes anymore. It doesn’t work. I just good my head up and keep going. Get up and try again.
So anyway back to my story. Did I say I had one? I already can’t remember. That thought is ten years ago within two seconds. Time is irrelevant when we are doing soul work. A minute can last hours and hours can be over in a second.
My fortieth birthday. I was going through what some call a dark night of the soul. Hell. Purgatory. When we are face to face with our shadow Lisa Romano might say, probably has said many times.
I was in scarcity in so many areas. I ordered my own birthday cake. I did this as an act of self love at that time. I was learning how to not wait and hope for the things I wanted to arrive. So I was thinking I was self loving. But really I had zero faith that anyone would show up. It’s not surprising given my choices at that time.
I made my bed.
But my mistakes could not have been so bad I wouldn’t be thought of on my birthday. I have all those memories. Not all bad. Not even.
Anyway my twin B asked me or more commented that “you bought yourself your own cake.” It hadn’t even occurred to me this was a “bad” thing Or however she meant it. Maybe an unusual thing. Those things usually don’t occur to me I’ve lived a backwards sort of life. Hey Heyoka.
What do I make of this now? With the lessons I’m laying down. Was I really self loving or did I not trust anyone would show up for me?
Spoiler alert: It’s usually both, not either or.
Maybe I was trying to model for myself, because I’ve often felt that alone, whether I was or wasn’t.
The clear lesson now however is trust, and a firm balance of it to self and others.
Let go Christina ….. let go.
Taylor Swift Sober comes on….. the tears fall. When I was drowning, that’s when I could finally breathe.
Getting clean from all the painful ideas I’ve held about myself. The what ifs that should have happened because of what happened to me. But I discounted my effort. It’s invisible and therefore so will be that of others.
I poked my own eyes out and cut off my own legs in search for a savior. When all I needed in the first place were my senses and my emotions.
Luckily (divinely) we are permitted multiple do overs and re-takes. The universe is a generous teacher. And don’t we all deserve one of those.
I hope to continue to be one…..
As long as I live.
And a safe place to land.
These tall orders require radical boundaries if this is to be maintained.
It’s a good thing I am energized by both.
All my love,
C
Ps I started a new journal today. It was time. The last was to not waste my piano book and had some ju ju. This is a fresh page. We get one each day. Hell a fresh book. New eyes. New legs to walk around with.
A relevant example from mr Kings book. They bought their son a saxophone because he showed interest. Very soon the King couple discussed if their young charge should continue. They said no. Why!$ because Stephen said he only practiced during the set times. It never took flight or set fire…..
If it does you’ll know. You’ll want to do that thing and move heaven and earth.
May I vow to myself I’ll accept nothing else for the rest of my life.
“When my depression works the graveyard shift all of the people I’ve ghosted stand there in the room.I should not be left to my own devices they come with vices and prices……”
The mental gymnastics I have to do to keep my heart open would shock you. It takes many forces and lots of therapy and energy healing hours to pry the iron door on that sucker open. I need to be with that, that needs to be ok.
Several weeks of events have culminated into another glacier melting that is after the world is thrown into chaos.
Once it breaks it breaks though. Pain is released and it’s also scary because you know you’ll go forward without that level of being guarded and for a survivor that’s a big ask.
It’s me I’m the problem it’s me….
Except it’s not.
It’s everything passed down to me, inherited, that I had to grapple with.
What I’m beginning to see is what a privilege it is. I mean that now. I’m not preaching it, disconnected from it. It’s a privilege. Because what I’m afforded is post traumatic growth and wisdom to the degree that I’ve been able to build a successful vocation from it.
I am privileged because of my trauma. And I have to hold tight to that reality for all of the times that feels very different. When I’m being sucked under the intense waves of emotions of my grief and pain.
This is the life raft.
I love differently because of my trauma. It’s more, not less. That would be a lie of the mind’s programming.
We don’t love like the humans do, with us it’s forever. From the movie I am number four. And this resonated out of this silly movie because in that moment I recognized something in me, which is what movies and music does right ?! I recognized how loving I am and how deeply I love…
When I am safe, more importantly, when I feel safe.
And what did I say at the beginning of this post about what it takes for me to feel safe ?! Yeah.
I’ve been working on opening my heart, despite all of the events in my life, some out of my control, and some in it, that have left deep chasms of suffering that make me want to close it.
I will cut my self off from any source that is unhealed to the point that, I cannot be safe in their presence, because they cannot.
It’s no one’s fault.
And the worst thing that could be done is to blame because the kind of suffering that leads to a person closing themselves off from love, is soul murder. And unfortunately soul murder likes to persist. The cycle is stubborn.
Guess what!!? I am more stubborn. My stubborn may have been born out of necessity, but I’ll be damned if I don’t honor it for the valiant warrior it is.
My stubborn was hard earned. I don’t think it would have been my natural disposition. I believe it was forged from suffering. It was forced.
Being forced leads to resentment, forcing ourselves leads to resentment. Will is a part of it, but heart has to have a seat at that table and cannot be closed, if you want to understand so you can be understood, and vice versa.
Trauma survivors so often feel misunderstood. That’s my primary trigger. Not being understood.
I work my way through this daily. It’s a daily job, one that I’m determined to view as a privilege and not a burden.
If we get the privilege to feel life altering connections that lead us further into ourselves, know that many don’t. They literally fumble and stumble and many don’t make it out alive.
Their disconnection turns against themselves. Purgatory of their own making, but not their fault. It breaks my heart.
Which is good because as long as it can continue to break without losing it, it can heal.
I am here trying to heal my heart, and my soul. And enjoying being with others who are as committed to that as I am, and yet each in their own way, at their own pace.I
I am here and I am letting go of controlling myself, and gaining control of myself.
I am fierce about protecting my peace, and also open to learning where battles at times become created by my traumatized mind.
I want to be mindful of the power of my choices, and to speak gently with my higher self in making them.
No more abusive relationship with me. That was the ultimate enemy. My trauma and my own mind, but it was never a reason to not trust myself. It happened to me, not because of me.
And I am empowered these days in healing it, and that is also a privilege.
