As I wake up incredibly slowly, despite already having been out in the world for an appointment, here’s what I need from this rainy Friday:
An afternoon nap
Some good news
To stay out of the way
Some reading time
An extra dose of faith
Productivity
Patience
Slow emotional steps forward
Warm tea
My journal
An open heart
A pile up on the sofa with a kid friendly movie
Transcendence by Susan Seddon Boulet
A baby fell six stories from out of a window, bounced off a restaurant awning and was caught by a doctor who just happened to be walking by. This is a true story. Check it out here.
That’s some kind of crazy luck. That’s the kind of luck that I’m calling Paris Luck. I believe that Paris holds some kind of magic, because of my own experience in that fair city – an experience that launched this here blog.
Paris Hope is another great thing I discovered in the City of Lights. I’m clinging hard to that now. When I arrived in Paris my life was in total chaos, and over brimming with uncertainty, yet I had the strangest sense that everything would work out somehow.
That’s just what life does. It works out. You get disappointed, your heart breaks and then you get that new job or new opportunity and you meet someone new to love. That’s my life experience, anyway. Doors open and doors close.
This doesn’t diminish the pain in those transitional moments. I can clearly remember sleeping on air mattresses and sofas, wondering what would happen to me, and wondering where I would find myself once all of the debris had been shoveled away. I’d lie awake at night wondering what was going to happen to me.
At the tender age of 34 I am starting to understand that I have no control over the bigger picture, but I will always have a pretty great sense of what the next day is going to look like, and if I can look at each day one at a time, nothing feels as scary as it once did.
I’ve also learned exactly what I need to build trust, both in myself and in the love I have. I started to worry that I would never find this thing, but in an entirely revealing moment I realized that trust begins with me. When I began to learn to trust my own ability to handle difficult moments, I learned that nobody could shatter me.
This week I learned some very important things:
There is a big difference between being utterly helpless and simply not yet having the tools to deal with conflict, crisis, and distress.
The opinions of people who love me when expressed in a carefully composed, very loving email are received like precious gifts instead of harsh judgments. Thank you for being brave enough to reach out like that. When you emphasize the love you are speaking from it makes all the difference to my ears.
I have made good choices about where to put my heart, even if the big picture has changed.
I am afraid of what will happen next in my life. Though honesty remains the very best policy, it can often come with immense pain. I was and continue to be committed to the love with which I have expressed myself. When you have to deliver difficult news, always do it with all of the love you can muster.
My emotional welfare professionals are incredible, compassionate teachers who I feel have blessed my life. Any one of us deserves to search for a great therapist and open our hearts to the experience of having their support and guidance. You are never too old or too broke to enjoy this.
My body isn’t working the way I want it to. I wait to see if science has a solution, but realize that I have so much that even if science doesn’t have the answers, I am full.
Love is a powerful, magical force that we can only really feel the benefits of if our hearts are as open as they can be. I feel the most strength and safety from love when I allow it to burst forth and wash away my fears.
My work is the baby of my soul. It feeds me as I feed it and fills me with inspiration and purpose. It is my rock in times of pain and confusion. I work every day towards the freedom to always only do the work that is meaningful to me. I will never do a job I hate again.
I am a mother. Wholly and completely with all of my soul. Anything ever said to tarnish the relationship between step-parents and their step-children is a lie. Those girls are as much in my heart as they would be if I had birthed them.
I never knew love could be so deep, so safe, and so inspiring.
You know, perhaps November isn’t really so bad? Perhaps it’s all of the change and transformation that can feel dismal if you forget that spring is around the corner, and will always be right there, no matter how many leaves fall.
But when hasn’t it?
In Schnooville, life on the relationship front was cloudy with a chance of natural disaster up until about two weeks ago. Now it’s foggy, but it’s the kind of deep, peaceful fog that makes me feel like wrapping myself in cashmere and tramping through the heath with a wolfhound by my side.
What happened? First, a HUGE breakthrough in therapy. I had a bit of a collapse in our therapist’s office, and a series of guided tapping motions, combined with deep breathing led to me coming unhinged. Imagine a rusty farmstead fence being pried loose by a tornado and tossed like a sack of kittens into the nearest alfalfa field. That was my soul. What happened next is that the raging bull who lived in the pen raced out into the world, free at last, and now lounges beneath an apple tree sniffing blossoms.
In my life, when something I love becomes impossibly hard and deeply hurtful, I’ve shackled that gate and completely cut myself off, out, and away. I’ve left great jobs and even greater relationships in this state, and I think that I have come to really accept this in myself and embrace this as one of the big life projects that I have to tackle.
For a long time I’ve felt that other people cannot be trusted. That if you allow them to, they will mess with your head and hurt you. I now understand that these things that feel hurtful, deceitful and manipulative are often the bi-products of someone else working on their own big life projects. The negative behavior is the result of one of you being further down the road than the other.
Developing trust isn’t about putting absolute faith in other people. It is about putting absolute faith in your own ability to understand, and honor your own needs and wants in a clear, loving way, especially in the face of upset and hurt. People can’t hurt me when I clearly understand that they cannot give me what they need because of their own limitations.
It is striving to come to that place of acceptance and understanding that will save us all. (Dear readers, I don’t believe this ever applies to abusive situations. Those instances are when you hold your raging bull close and let him guide you straight to safety, where you can hold yourself tight and understand how you happened to get to that dangerous place at all.)
I know I cannot control the needs, wants, realizations, decisions, clarity, and communication style of anyone else around me, but I have complete control over these things in myself. That is where my focus lies now. I’m not running, I’m not afraid, I feel completely open. I have a greater understanding of the love I am being given, and meditating on that love is so much better than agonizing over complexities that I cannot understand.
Last night, I went to a parenting session that focuses on the work of the amazing Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D. He captured my absolute need from a partner or a loved one perfectly when he said “being known and expressing what lies within is the ultimate expression of individuality and intimacy.” It’s an entirely reciprocal sentiment too, I think – a vital exchange of the contents of one’s head and heart that I require to bond with someone and really develop a loving relationship. In the session, Dr. Neufeld also presented his model of the ideal signs of total maturation. This inspired me completely, and these are the things I wish to strive towards in myself:
Interested & Curious
Eager to try new things
Thinks for oneself
Fills solitude with creative endeavors
Values originality and creativity
Self-directed in learning
Assumes responsibility for actions and impact
Sees the options and choices in life
Values uniqueness and differences
Rarely bored
Full of vitality
Seeks autonomy & independence
Seeks to be own person
Regards the separateness & boundaries of others
I wish you knew how much I love you all.
I wish you knew I want to be a family. Even if it’s changing and growing.
I wish you knew that I need you.
I wish I could be less afraid.
I wish we could all find clarity.
I wish I could watch you grow old and grey.
I wish I could write books and make us all rich.
I wish I could be at your side as you realize your dreams.
I wish I could be all things to everyone. I can’t.
I wish I could hike through a rainy park with Arthur, feeling my cheeks get rosy and my heart fill with hope.
I wish we could each have something wonderful right now. I still think we do.
I wish you weren’t feeling so much pressure from every side and every angle.
I wish for understanding.
I wish for faith.
I wish for patience.
I wish for unconditional love and support from my parents.
I wish for more communication with my father.
I wish for strength.
I wish for a stack of books and a cup of tea.
A broken heart’s manifesto…
I could not bring myself to participate in the revelry of Nuit Blanche because I am exhausted on a level I have never before touched on. My bones are tired. My hair is tired. I’m getting a cold, and I just want to stay in lycra and sweaters and fuzzy socks and not move.
Since this is just not possible, I will instead pull together my most fashionable lycra outfit, cover the black circles under my eyes with concealer, take a thermos of tea about with me, and try to get through my day.
I feel as though somebody turned my skin inside out and forgot to switch me back to normal.
Actually, as I consider this, I realize that my normal for the last several years has been afraid and anxious. The time spent in the Fortress had just reached a place of peace, but I didn’t linger there long enough. Now I have to find that again. If I sit alone with my own thoughts, I can hear that constant voice that has always told me “you will be okay”. I’m always grateful for this, but I wish that I wasn’t straining to hear it again on the tails of heartbreak and upheaval.
I will be okay.
I know this must be true because this is the first time in my life that I have listened to my gut and moved forward, exclusively taking cues from my heart and my intuition which seem to be working in some kind of harmony that I have never before realized.
I am sorry that this new pairing of heart and intuition prevents me from being who and what I am desired to be,what I once desired myself to be, but I believe that if everyone pairs their heart and intuition and allows them to speak louder than fear, they will understand, and perhaps even realize for themselves that this course of action is the only true, honest path. That any love that springs from denial, from a lack of self-awareness, from trying to will away the skeletons in the closet cannot blossom. That we cannot be the best lovers we can be unless we are truly honoring ourselves, and are honest with ourselves, and honest about our limitations.
I hope that the love I am able to give will be accepted. Anything beyond this acceptance is a rejection of my heart’s truest offering. I have spent all of my life desperately wanting to be accepted and loved as I am, and now more than ever do I understand who I am, and what I need from love. Maybe the Universe didn’t bring me to this most recent love for the reasons we originally thought.
I am a whole, good, vibrant, passionate, vulnerable, creative, loving person. Everything I have done in my life has been borne of a desire to feel love, and give love, and though I have “failed” at this countless times, with each failure came a greater understanding of what I want love to be. Each of these “failures” has taught me to be more of my actual self.
I want a love that is safe, and borne of truth, emotional honesty, and deep communication.
I want to be wanted 100%, and have that love demonstrated in ways that I clearly understand.
I want to be inspired by my love, and clear and proud of my role within the context of that love.
I want to feel proud of what I am giving, knowing that I am giving my beloved 100% of the love they seek from me.
I want my love to be something that fuels my forward motion in this life. To encourage my work, my passions, my drive. I do not want to be stunted in my ambition or aspirations by fear, instability, or emotional turmoil.
I want my lover to be self-aware, honest, inspired, driven, open, sensual, noble, faithful, and present in the world.
With a kiss, I’ll send that to the Universe and continue to hope for the best.
A very special thank you to Natalie who pointed me in the direction of a costume rental place that was selling off bag fulls of old inventory for $35 per garbage bag. That was some of the sweetest retail therapy I’ve ever experienced.