Tag Archives: SoCs

Life manuals

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Don’t you wish life came with manuals? I mean, your car, your refrigerator and your television come with one. Why don’t life challenges have them?

I think when we are 12, we should be handed one about how to survive middle school. Those years can be pretty tough. Wouldn’t it have been helpful to read the section about how to handle being bullied? Or even more importantly, for the BULLY to read about how to not be a jerk. I would have benefited from both. Or, at the very least, “how to eat at the lunch table alone without feeling like a total loser”.

When we apply for a marriage license, they shouldn’t issue it without having us read the manual on communication, respect, sharing household chores, dealing with a snoring spouse, how to discuss finances, equally sharing child rearing duties…I bet some of us might decide against tying the knot if we really knew what we were in for.

There should be a manual for aging. No one ever tells you what to really expect once you get old. I suppose if they did fill you in on congestive heart failure, dementia and diabetic foot wounds, you’d spend the prime years of your life worrying about what’s ahead. How can you enjoy your youth when you know you won’t be able to afford home health care and will likely need to live in a facility? Maybe ignorance is bliss, sometimes.

I met a man this summer dealing with the shock of his teenage daughter’s sexual assault. I spent an evening helping him navigate through the roller coaster of emotions which is the result of this kind of trauma. He shared a conversation he had with her, where he was raising his voice, asking why she hadn’t fought back, or yelled or did something to stop it. He reminded her how he told her she shouldn’t be hanging around with older boys. In the same breath, he told me how he couldn’t understand why she now thinks he doesn’t want her living with him. I shook my head. “Your daughter is already beating herself up for these same exact things. Having her dad tell her she’s right is only adding to her shame”. I went on to tell him my own, very similar story, and the ramifications of having family members just not know how to respond. He looked at me, deflated, and said “I feel awful. I just didn’t know”. I responded, “Of course you didn’t know. Why would you? There’s no manual on this subject”. We sat in silence for a bit, just sort of absorbing the gravity of it all. I remember sitting in the passenger seat of his truck, looking at him as he gripped that steering wheel so tightly. I was the adult version of his daughter, and he was the younger version of my dad. God, I wonder how differently things might have turned out for me if this conversation took place in my own life. I thought to myself, “There should be a manual”.

There should be a manual.

Stay tuned…

 

 

This post was written in response to Linda G Hill’s Stream of Social Consciousness Saturday

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Dec. 1/18

 

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I am

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I read a blog post last week, a little list about the roles we play in life, and it’s been stuck in my mind ever since. It’s caused me to repeatedly ask myself, “Who am I?”. It’s quite a list…some easier to digest than others. Am I brave enough to write ALL of them?

Inspired by Linda G. Hill…

I am a mother.

I am a nurse.

I am a healer.

I am a writer.

I am a woman.

I am a mother. A single mother. A mother who grew up believing she would never be blessed with children, simply because it wasn’t her lot in life…almost like she knew she didn’t deserve them. A mother who would do anything in the world to not have her children feel like she did growing up, determined for them to not ever feel a lack of love.  A mother who almost messed all of it up by not figuring out where she was broken and where she needed to heal. Don’t worry, she figured it out. And they feel loved. So very loved.

I am a nurse. A nurse who has her codependency needs satisfied by having people need her. A nurse who prefers caring for the marginalized and least tempting patients. A nurse who believes everyone is worthy…everyone. A nurse who almost seems to be working out her penance in life by servicing others, as if she just might redeem herself through these acts. Maybe she will.

I am a healer, yet I am broken. I believe those who are broken never truly heal to the perfect version of what they would have been, they heal enough to become who they are now supposed to be. Like that story of the ancient Japanese custom to add gold to the glue when fixing broken dishes. Seeing the gold along the cracks celebrates the beauty of the brokenness. Perfectly flawed. Healing never ends. I am healing myself every day. Some days I can’t see it at all, like I’m sliding backwards and there’s not enough strength to get back to where I was. Then I wonder if I really ever made any progress at all.  But then, I learn that sliding backwards is part of the learning process, and if I’m lucky enough, I notice this and it works. If I’m not, I keep climbing then sliding then climbing then sliding, as many times as it takes me to notice why it’s happening. Then I stop sliding. I am a healer because I share my brokenness with the world. I share my climb. I share the sliding. Every once in a while, someone connects with my struggles, and they use it as a helping hand to start their own climb. Every once in a while.

I am a writer. Fiction is impossible. Authenticity is my niche. I uncovered the story which was buried in my soul and I release it by using the written word. Sharing my story is how the climb is possible, and I will not ever stop.

I am a woman. I am a child and a crone.  A daughter, a sister, an aunt, a mother, a cousin, a friend. A woman who carries her inner child along with the burdens which come with her.  A woman who has been violated, unloved, abandoned, abused, scapegoated, outcast…shunned. A woman who can feel alone while surrounded by a hundred friends. A woman who can feel unloved while immersed in it. A woman who cries, often. A woman who craves intimacy yet never quite allows it in. A woman who still feels broken, in places. I am also a woman who has started to heal her inner child. A woman who has turned into a warrior, overcoming the shadows of her past, shedding the heavy weight of shame and insecurity, and replacing them with vulnerability and authenticity. A woman who has slowly learned that she is outcast and shunned because of the brokenness of others, not hers. A woman who has gratitude for so many authentic friends who choose her. They choose her. A woman who rejoices in her tears, as she knows emotions were meant to be felt, experienced… and then released. Not stuffed. Life is sad, and being violated, unloved, abandoned, abused, scapegoated, outcast and shunned are cry-worthy things. There is no shame in feeling sad about these things. A woman who is slowly understanding why she craves intimacy, and how no man will ever fill that void until she fills it herself. How abandonment issues run into every facet of her life, and no one can make her feel worthy, except for herself. I am a woman who has realized that love should never be painful, or have to be earned or worked for. There should not be conditions or one-sided sacrifices. I am a woman who is so very slowly learning to not take it personally when people don’t love her. Some climbs take longer than others.

I am vulnerable, authentic, full of love and light.  I am a woman who is strong in the broken places. I am perfectly flawed. My cracks are filled with gold.

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 24/18

 

 

 

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Scapegoat role

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I was 44 when I first identified the role I’d been playing my entire life. Or, that I even realized I was playing a role. We all are. You know this, right? The role you are assigned depends on so many variables outside of your control. The country you live in, the schools you attend, the religion you practice, your gender, the television you watch…all contribute to determining what your role is.  Right down to the family you are born in to… it all conditions you to play the role you are assigned. It starts from day one, so you don’t even realize it’s not your decision. It just is.

I think my role was mostly determined by the family I was raised in. And my gender. The role was of a quiet, submissive, obedient “seen and not heard” good girl. It’s a pretty easy role to play. All I had to do was keep my mouth shut for most of my days and I was all set. No questioning anything, no arguing…just keep quiet, don’t make waves and all will be well.  If someone tells you to do something, you do it. Simple. That’s all I knew. Not to brag, but I was pretty damn good at it. I mean, even through abandonment, emotional neglect, abuse…I stuck to that role, dammit! I wasn’t happy, I struggled, and I certainly didn’t feel like a “good girl”…but I played that role. I think the struggle was because all of those things happened to me, and made me realize I was actually a bad girl. Playing the role became even more important. Maybe it would keep people from finding out just how bad I really was.

I became an adult, moved out and continued to struggle. BUT, when you can play the role like I can, no one really sees it. Not even me. I repeated cycles of bad relationships, tolerating bad behavior, never believing in myself, because hey…what else was there? Nothing I had ever known. When my husband eventually found out, he told me I should win the Academy Award. I’m THAT good!!!

At least I was good at something.

Fast forward to age 44: I went to therapy. Hallelujah! I peeled off a few layers and realized I had been typecast in a very bad, bad role. I kept playing the same shitty character in the same shitty movie, over and over and over again. The movie was so shitty, no one ever watched it. It went straight to Blue Ray. The plot was kind of like Cinderella…minus her getting to go to the ball. Can you imagine Cinderella ending with her just staying at home, being bullied and unloved? Who wants to watch a movie with a horrible plot that never ends? Not me. Not any longer, at least. I couldn’t even remember my lines anymore.

Brene Brown says vulnerability is the birthplace of courage.  She didn’t study shame and vulnerability for 20 years for nothing, you know. So, here’s what I did: I dove into the vulnerability swamp, which was full of my shame, of all that “badness”, and I became brave for the very first time in my life. That’s right…I stepped out of that role.

I just…stepped…out.

The thing about stepping out of character in a movie is, the directors get PISSED. It throws off the entire equilibrium of the set. No one knows what to do when the actor ad libs. It becomes awkward and uncomfortable and all the directors want to do is get the actor back in that role so no one can see they aren’t in control of their film. Except it’s not their film. It’s life. And they can’t control my life any more than I can control theirs. And seriously, no one gives a SHIT about this shitty movie…no one is even WATCHING!

I’ll give you one guess as to what happened next. Yep. I got kicked off the set. Was told I’d never work in town again. My new role was an exaggerated version of my childhood role… scapegoat. All of the production problems were now being blamed on me. Even the ones that had nothing to do with me. I guess it’s just easier that way. Kinda stinks, because I loved that crew. It was like the Truman show…been with some of them since day one. Don’t get me wrong, there’s not enough fame or money in the world to get me to play that sad character again. It makes me sad that they won’t let me play a different role, one that’s more suited for me. I don’t need to play a princess that gets to go to the ball and meet her Prince Charming. I’d settle for them just letting me be the authentic me, and loving me anyway.  Not sure they know what that means, though.

(This updated scapegoat role sucks. If you’re not careful, it might drive you crazy. Or literally crack your heart into pieces)

Anyway, life is not a fairy tale. So I’m moving on, trying to manage my own production company. It’s not too complicated. There’s only one actor to manage. And no script. However, the entire world is my audience…

 

This post was written in response to Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Social Consciousness Saturday

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 17/18

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Cosmically Aware

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The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Nov. 3/18

Linda’s prompt this week is “point”, except we aren’t using the word “point”…we are opening a random book and randomly pointing a finger on a random word, and then writing randomly about the random word. So random.

Anyhoo, I’m doing this live…so hold on a sec while I go pick out a book…

OK, I’m back. I chose Marianne Williamson’s “A Return to Love”. My finger randomly landed on the word “cosmically”. Well, that’s a tough one, I think. Let me put the entire sentence out here for context. “When we outgrow our immature preoccupation with the small self, we transcend our selfishness and become cosmically mature”. Oh, that’s better. This is actually an interesting sentence for me to randomly land upon, although I am quite aware that nothing on this Earth occurs at random. Let me tell you why…

I did not have a lot of friends growing up. We all know the story, and if you don’t, then feel free to browse my posts and catch up. Anyway, I have since evolved, matured and stopped my “preoccupation with the small self”. Through the power of Facebook, I have since become acquainted with some former classmates I never had the joy of knowing back then. None of it is random at all. I just sent one of these pure energy souls a lovely little Jeff Brown snippet to a few days ago.

“The soul has a no-return policy. Once we cross a certain point in our expansion, we can’t go back. As we honor our calling, we grant it more space inside of us. Light begets light–at a certain point, there is no way to escape the inner beacon. Our calling begins to soak every aspect of our lives, whatever the cost or inconvenience. We can not live without our call because our call has become us”. 

Marianne goes on to describe “childishness” as “when we’re so preoccupied with things that ultimately don’t matter, that we lose our essential connection with things that do”.  Yes, Marianne…yes. I find myself shedding my childishness, over and over and over again. Just when I think I’ve matured, I find yet another thing I’ve worried about that really just does not matter. I’m working hard at focusing on what’s important, letting go of expectations and control, and letting things simply “be”.  Am I successful? Sometimes.

 

 

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Actually, I can

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You can’t go back thirty years and look at that awful stuff. It will be too painful for you.

Actually, I can.

OK then, if you do, you won’t be able to handle it. It will be painful.

Actually, I will… and it is.

Then you can’t tell anyone. It will be too embarrassing for you.

Actually, I can, and it is.

Well, if you do tell someone, just tell your close friends. No one wants to hear that kind of stuff.

Actually, I can, and you’re right…they don’t.

OK, well… you definitely can’t tell your family. It will be too embarrassing for them. They won’t be able to handle it.

Actually, I can, and you’re right. It was, and they can’t.

But, you might lose them. You need them.

Actually, I did. Turns out, I don’t.       But, I miss them…

 

 

This post was written in response to Linda G. Hill’s Stream of Social Consciousness Saturday

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Oct. 20/18

 

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All the more precious

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I write about love a lot on here. Not so much love stories, or being in love…more like the struggle of love. Which is ironic, because real love should not be a struggle at all.  It is for me, though. Not as much, lately, but something I’ll probably be working on for the rest of my life…and likely during the next life, too.

Last year, I wrote a blog post about a really difficult, yet amazing time in my life. These difficult, amazing times make for the best writing from me, if I do say so myself. I often go back and read this particular story about the deer, it’s that amazing. You can read it here.

The reason I’m sharing this post from last year is not to promote it, or get out of writing something worthy tonight. I received a decent amount of comments on that post, considering I’m not well-known in the blogging world. One comment in particular has stuck with me all this time. I reference a phrase from it almost weekly, at times…in my mind. I’ve never said it out loud or written it down. It just plays in my mind, like someone softly speaking it to me when I least expect it. I don’t really know why it’s stuck with me. Must be part of God’s plan. That’s what I tend to say when I can’t figure something out, “It must be God’s plan for me to fall in love with emotionally unavailable men”. It’s a great way to deflect responsibility. But sometimes, I think it’s true. Sometimes, you just gotta give it to God, or you’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure it out.

Anyway, I’ve been repeating this phrase from that one comment a lot lately. Dealing with love, or more accurately, the loss of love. More like the loss of the idea of love…my expectations of love. God, there was a period of time during the past few years where I didn’t think I was capable of even feeling love, let alone worthy of receiving love. I’ve grown past those feelings, a bit. Not by experiencing love, per say…but by facing the loss of my expectations, I’ve been able to grieve the love I thought I should have had. Well, I’m still grieving, to be honest. Does grief ever truly end? I’m not sure it does. I think you just learn to live around it. Or through it. You spend your life fluidly dancing around it then diving right in and sinking a bit. I never even knew you could grieve a feeling or emotion, did you? I also didn’t realize you could grieve a person when he was still alive. Trust me, you can.

Anyway, back to this comment I was talking about. It was from Finding A Sober Miracle on WordPress. We didn’t know each other at all when she wrote this. Since then, we’ve developed a connection. Another part of God’s plan I haven’t quite figured out just yet. So, she reads my post about the deer and my fears and trauma and confusion and she just opens up her heart and speaks to me….

“Please know that nothing could ever change y our worth in the slightest. If anything, you are all the more precious for being the lost lamb.”

Why do I keep repeating “you are all the more precious for being the lost lamb”? Over and over and over…for a good year and a half now.

I suppose I really am a lost lamb. I’ve had the people I love most in this world walk away from me this year. I know it’s them, and not me. I get it all. I understand their capabilities. I realize my value is not lessened because other’s can’t see it.  But I’m still the lost lamb. Understanding someone’s behavior doesn’t make the tears go away. Knowing why you can’t be in a family any longer doesn’t make you feel any less lost. Overcoming a life of trauma does not mean you won’t be traumatized as an adult, and overcoming abandonment issues is challenging when you are currently being abandoned. Does this make me more precious to God? I hope so. I hope there’s some divine reason for it…

I’m giving it to God.

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Oct. 13/18

 

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I cried writing this card

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Today my oldest son turned 18. We are looking at colleges and I’m preparing for my little bird to fly the nest. It’s bittersweet times around here.

Our family has been through a lot these past three years. My husband moved out two years ago, after a year of me having a therapeutic revolution of my own #metoo movement. My boys are well aware of it all, and have weathered the storm like warriors. God, I have been blessed.

I cried writing this card…

 

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Oct. 6/18

 

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Take me home

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Today’s Stream of Social Consciousness word prompt by my friend Linda G. Hill is “Earworm“. At first glance, I turned my nose up at it. I was thinking “earwig” and thought, “how the hell am I going to write about a creepy bug?”  I then spent the next 10 minutes or so wondering why I always called it “earwig” when it appears the correct name is “earworm”.  Anyway, I finally googled it and realized she was not referring to the creepy bug, (which most definitely is named “earwig“). “Earworm” refers to a song that gets stuck in your head. Oh yes, I thought. I can write about this…

When I was about five years old or so, my family drove from Massachusetts to Disney World. We took my dad’s blue truck. The back pickup bed had a cab on it and we slept in there on blankets and pillows, goofing off and playing games to stave off the boredom. God, it’s amazing any kids at all survived back then…how did people think popping kids in the back of a truck with nothing to secure them was a good idea? Anyway, on one particular stretch of the journey, I was riding shotgun with my dad. My brother and sister were in the back cab, while my mom was napping in the back seat. This was in the mid 70s, so no CDs or cassettes for music. I’m sure we probably could have had an 8 track player in there, but Dad didn’t roll like that. He was old-school. We were in an isolated area of endless highway with no radio reception, so he ended up just turning it off. I’m not sure if it was the last song on the radio, or maybe it was the only popular song I knew, but I started singing “Country Roads” by John Denver. The problem was, I only knew the chorus. “Country roads, take me home….to the place…I belonggggggg…..West Virginia…mountain momma….take me home…country roads….”. I must have sung that chorus for a good 3 or 4 hours. After about the 50th round, my dad looks over at me, sitting there in my pigtails, crooning to him and says, “Don’t you know any other words to that song? Or any OTHER songs?” I giggled and said, “nope!” and kept on serenading him, until we finally reached an area of reception and my anthem was replaced by something else…probably Crystal Gayle or Gordon Lightfoot or someone like that.

Throughout the years, my dad and I would reminisce about that day, and one of us would sing the chorus and we both would end up with wide smiles as we returned to that blue pickup truck. It unofficially became “our song”.

I’m 46 now. My dad is 77. Life has it’s funny way of not working out the way you plan, you know?  Families sometimes become fractured and before you realize what’s happening, relationships are just gone. I don’t really get to talk to my dad anymore, and it’s kind of weird how that song seems to be popping up everywhere lately. Except I don’t find myself with that wide smile any longer…instead, I end up with kind of a tight throat and a tear or two rolling down my cheek….like right now. Maybe life will figure out a way to turn things back around again.  God, I miss him.

Take me home… to the place I belong…

 

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS Sept. 8/18

 

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Bodily functions…it’s not fair

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How interesting are our bodies? I mean, seriously… all these organs and systems performing bodily functions without us ever having to put much thought into it at all. Other than knowing we need to  eat, drink, use the bathroom, exercise, brush our teeth and such, we can pretty much live our day-to-day lives without worrying about our body parts functioning they way they are supposed to. Pretty easy to take this sort of thing for granted. That is, until you realize your body isn’t functioning correctly anymore.

I have two rare disorders. Well, I don’t think they are so much “rare”  as “rarely diagnosed”. I spent my entire life with symptoms no specialist could explain. After having a rheumatologist coldly ask me, “why are you here?” and telling me, “You’re looking for a unifying diagnosis for all of your symptoms and you aren’t going to find one”…and having another doctor tell me that I should consider going on an antidepressant, I just stopped complaining. I knew whatever I had wouldn’t kill me, as I’ve made it this far. So, I stopped reporting any symptoms at my visits and resigned myself to a life of chronic pain, allergic reactions, worsening eyesight, severe digestive issues, pre-glaucoma, two heart arrhythmias, insomnia, frequent joint dislocations, chemical sensitivities, dizziness, shortness of breath, light-headedness, weakness, fatigue, dental problems, metabolic syndrome…I’m sure I could elaborate more, but I’m sure you get the picture. The thing is, even though I resigned myself, in my early 40’s,  to living this life, I just KNEW there was a diagnosis somewhere. It’s just not normal for someone that young to have so many medical problems that are not explained.

So, I researched. And I researched. And I researched. It seemed hopeless, but there was nothing else to do, so I kept plugging away, losing hope day by day. Until one day…

I came across an article written by a doctor describing my EXACT journey! I cried reading it. He was describing me. I wrote to him, telling him just that, along with describing my symptoms and years of being told there was nothing wrong with me. This amazing man actually wrote back to me, stating it did indeed sound like I had Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. I took his letter, along with some other research I’d found and brought it as a presentation to my allergist, who then referred me to the Mast Cell Clinic at Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston, where I finally received the diagnosis and am on a medication regime which has greatly improved my quality of life.

However, not all my symptoms were due to this new diagnosis. Mast Cells have nothing to do with dislocated joints, severe pain and a few other weird things about me.. So, I did a little more research. OK…I did a LOT more research.  I kept going until I found another article, describing a disorder that is commonly diagnosed with Mast Cell Activation Syndrome…Ehler’s-Danlos Syndrome. It’s a connective tissue disorder which results in faulty collagen. I took myself to a geneticist in Boston who upon meeting me stated, “You obviously have some type of connective tissue disorder”. I laughed. “Obviously! Let’s tell that to the 25 doctors I’ve seen before you who told me I was crazy!” I tell ya, even though there is no cure for these two disorders, the validation of a diagnosis is kind of healing in itself.

Unfortunately, my two sons were just diagnosed with connective tissue disorders a few weeks ago. And even more unfortunately, theirs looks to be affecting their vascular system, putting them at risk for ruptured aneurysms. We are still in the diagnosing stage, in regards to determining which type they have. It’s one thing for me to have this crap, but for my boys…that’s a whole other story. It’s not fair. I’m scared. I hate that I gave this to them. I hate that they had to have echo cardiograms last week and will have to have them frequently for the rest of their lives. I hated watching my oldest son’s face as the cardiologist described his enlarged aortic root. I hated watching my youngest son’s face as the geneticist pointed out the physical characteristics of Marfans’s Syndrome…of which he has many. I hated listening to my son nervously whispering, “I hope I don’t have to have surgery on my heart”.  I hate taking my kids to the chiropractor every few weeks to push in a dislocated joint.  I hate that my son had to quit playing high school basketball because his shoulder won’t stay in place and his body won’t function the way he wants it to. I hate him being in pain…much more than I hate myself being in pain.  I’d take all of his pain and add it to mine in  a heartbeat to keep him safe. That’s how moms roll…

Wow, that was sort of a venting session there. Sorry. I don’t hate much in this world, but watching my children suffer…yeah, I do hate that. However…

…life goes on….

 

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS August 11/18

 

 

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Calling for a miracle

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I haven’t written on here in a while. I suppose in some ways, that’s a good thing. I really started this whole writing thing as a way to process the difficult things in my life. Almost like writing was a calling…I would feel an overwhelming urge to write about certain things and then somehow felt better afterwards. I haven’t felt that way most of this year, hence my absence on here.  I sort of found a place of contentment and I’ve been doing my thing elsewhere.

So…I’m back. You just never know when you’re gonna get that calling, you know?

I felt the urge to write the other day. I spewed it out on my Facebook page before going to bed, after a few weeks of feeling discontent. I’ve got hundreds of people I actually know on Facebook. Putting my shit out on the line there is a lot more risky than putting it on here. It’s vulnerability at it’s finest.

My inner demons, who had been so well tamed this year, kind of crept back up on me. Almost out of nowhere, yet almost like they were there the whole time. I know, that sounds confusing. That’s because it is. I’m in the middle of an endless struggle to accept the loss of some people I love, all because I have told my story. Not everyone can handle this kind of shit, so instead…they let me go. And I’ve been pondering ways to get them back.

These past few weeks, I was feeling angst. Turmoil. Insecure. Unlovable. These are my inner demons, and when they rise in me, it usually signals I’m on the verge of a change in my life. I never do know what that change is going to be…

This is what I wrote:

Facebook reality check:
I post some pretty amazing photos of some pretty amazing experiences, don’t I? I just scrolled through my page and it looks FANTASTIC! I tell you what, I most definitely am GRATEFUL for the blessings I have in my life. But if I’m going to keep it real here…it’s not all sandbars and sunflower fields. I have to work really hard at having these amazing experiences, because life doesn’t just happen that way naturally. Life shits on me a lot… as I’m sure it shits on you, too. It’s like a checks and balances system. You gotta go through the bad in order to appreciate the good. And sometimes, it seems as though I create the messes in my life myself, just as a byproduct of the other messes I’ve lived through. Like I can’t get out of my own way…out of my own thoughts, sometimes. We all have our inner demons, don’t we? I know I’m not the only one who struggles with negative feelings regarding the self. We surely all have them, at one point or another, some more frequently than others, some not. All caused by different experiences, though the details don’t matter, as the feelings are the same. The difference is in how we deal with these feelings. My “Plan A” for dealing is the tremendous amount of time I spend on self-care. You know, all these “amazing” experiences you see on here, and my meditation and my faith and my writing and my reflecting and my service. And it works…for the most part. But not always.There’s always an underlying struggle in my soul. Because, you know…life keeps shitting on you. Or something happens to remind you of the old shit. Or maybe YOU decide to uncover the old shit, just because you’re human. Maybe that old shit never really does go away, you just have to learn how to live around it. Or maybe it’s new shit. Whatever. I’m sure I’ll never figure it out. All I know is, today I was not feeling like the amazing, empowered, enlightened Jami. My inner demons have been creeping up this week…feelings of insecurity, difficulty with acceptance, awareness of broken places…put whatever demon you choose in there, it will fit. This is the underlying struggle. And when I feel like that, I feel like a fraud. I look at what I put out to the world and I feel like I’m trying to pull a fast one over on everyone, which is funny, because I honestly do not care what anyone thinks of me. Maybe what that feeling really is, is that I’m trying to pull a fast one on ME. So, what do I do then? I write it all out. I put it ALL out there, for whoever is bored enough to read this much on a Facebook post. This is my “Plan B” for dealing with life…being honest and vulnerable. Somehow, stripping myself to the raw core of who I am…exposing all my flaws, my insecurities…my brokenness…somehow, it cleanses me. Almost like being baptized. I spent my entire life stuffing things down, hiding the real me from everyone, including myself…for fear of no one accepting me, or not feeling loved, or whatever the struggle is. Maybe it was really more a fear of me not loving myself. Fear keeps you from being brave. When you strip it all down and show the world the not so amazing parts of you, there’s really nothing left to be afraid of. It’s uncomfortable to do this, yet at the same time…freeing. This is how I am brave.

Hey, you have your methods, I have mine…but, I’m willing to bet a piece or two of this sounds familiar to a few of you.

It works. I haven’t even hit “post” yet, and already I’m feeling a little absolved. The struggle has softened. I think I might do something amazing tomorrow…

It’s funny how listening to the call and writing it out changes my perspective almost immediately. I’ve read that miracles are really just a change in perception. I purged that angst and now I’m back (hopefully) on the path to contentment, with a few changes. An old friend read my post and felt called to offer me a Harmonyum treatment (similar to Reiki, but not…you’ll have to look it up). I felt lighter walking out of there. I visited a friend I’d been meaning to see but hadn’t gotten around to lately. I said “yes” to a few dates I’d been saying “no” to. I got caught up on a few things I’d been avoiding in my life. I started meditating more. And I made a conscious decision to try to stop getting people back into my life who don’t want to be here, no matter how much I love them. Again. Will it stick? Who knows? All I can do is make the intention for today, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings. In the meantime, I’m enjoying the change in perception.

 

 

 

The Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS August 4/18

 

 

 

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