I feel a little piece of myself in everyone I know, everyone I meet. We are all a mixture of light n dark. A fine recipe of delicious complexity. I am joyful and depressed, I’m hateful, I am optimistic, I’m a killer, I’m jealous, I’m content and curious, wild, responsible, disengaged, entitled, invisible, enraged, tired, discouraged, complacent, magnificent. Big breath in….. real, lost, embarrassed, hopeful, dreamy, open, humiliated, passive, judgmental, honest weird, eccentric, lonely, pissed, accepting, blank, spiteful, alive, proud, blessed, dismissive and aggressive.
If we’re honest, several of these are living within us. Sure the positive traits/experiences are easy to embrace and recognize. The darker, shameful, maybe even shocking tendencies we def try to conceal, deny, excise. They need love and compassion too. They’re looking for recognition and expression. To be lovingly surrounded with safety, protection and containment.
There’s more than a lot of crazy, unhinged energy out there lately. Never a better time to slow down. Breathe. And remind yourself that you are whole, safe and doing the best you can. At this moment. Breath is the ticket. Free. Always with you. Notice it. Return home with it. Home to yourself. When all is swirling. Let it swirl the shit out of itself. Watch. Or don’t watch. Society spin out of control. Your choice. I choose myself. I choose my breath.
I close this day today giving a voice to those nasty little flea bitten thoughts, buzzing around crazily, irritatingly, making me want to hide under cover. “You don’t know anything” they chant. Sometimes so loud I wonder if others hear them.
Kept at bay only when feeling content, successful or helpful. But one sideways glance delivered by a perfect stranger – holds more weight than it should – wrecking ball heavy. Tearing down all the goodness —- “I have great ideas”, “things are always working out for me”, “I have the right to my feelings and ideas”, “I am not responsible for how someone feels about my truth”, “I am a quick learner” and “I feel my opinion is valued”—— I have accumulated all morning.
My basket of good feelings loosely wound, unraveling, allowing all the good shit to tumble out the self doubt gate…..all I’m left with is, “Why did I think that was a good idea?”, “Maybe he/she is right”, “By voicing my truth, someone else will feel bad/uncomfortable”, “How dare I?”, “I’m so selfish” “I am so mean”… All the voices I was obedient to as a little person. Oh, it was so important to be obedient to my Mother’s idea of what I should feel and who I should be. Meant to keep me compliant, controlled and away from myself. My truth.
Again, I relinquish my grip on confidence. Yielding to a fear-filled joy stealer. That in your face joy stealer – external now but so eloquently and stealthily triggers my OWN inner thief. The place I know so well. Swooping in all crow-ish, to steal my eggs of wisdom in their infancy. More like, I surrender, serve them wisdom bits up on a platter. You’re welcome. I’m left with the cracked, runt eggs and my prize is run off with. Anything I could be proud of, swiped. Empty nest again.
LI give my excitement up to those who cast their panic shadows on my truth, my clarity and boundaries. How do I allow this to happen? How do I surrender my good feelings without a fight? In a split second I concede. In a split second. Because it’s an old, well worn path. That’s how.
A path someone else created FOR me and I perfected it. Surrendering my joy, on some level, is without thought or struggle. I could not stay in it for long, maybe a minute or two. And down came the curtain, the cloak of darkness. I did not exist, especially my joy, I was not the owner of it. I rented it for a couple of minutes, privately. Before someone took it and left me flat, deflated, resentful, questioning my original motives and goal. Questioning if I had the right to my own life.
Only now can I reframe this, “This is my truth, I will not allow his/her fear to steal my excitement, confidence, giddiness, aliveness, my center or drive”. It takes a conscious effort to shine some light on the possibility that my joy might be surrendered and prepare. Sit with it quietly, in celebration, without any outside interference. Fortress-like this little inside party of aliveness. And when it is time to express (that which I used to be killed for) I am choosing a supportive listener. Someone who is not threatened by my joy, wisdom, balls, or clarity.
Just try and steal my joy. No longer taking that hell and running with it.
You fought, you pleaded with me to shut up. Oh I wouldn’t shut it. Not for a hot second. You created this mess. All of you. Perpetuated it by keeping the lid on, simmering, bubbling. Me poised to explode. Abuse years, haunting memories, flashbacks and dirty tricks making their way to the surface. Into the now. My mouth too small of a space for this hot garbage baggage to escape. It came through my pores, my guts, out of my eyes. Violently it breached the walls I had erected to keep the silence with you. For you. About you.
I wanted to save you. All 5 of my sisters. I would physically carry you if I could. Come with, I begged. I tried to wake you, slap that cool-aide pitcher out of your hand. Jesus Christ. You were abused too, I saw them, I saw you. How dare you deny this? It wasn’t your fault. It was just the way it was. Generational. My best efforts to save others were received like “attacks, attempts to ruin the family or make problems”.
Even in my dreams, I was unsuccessful. You were frozen. I would escape, door left open, and no-one followed. You stayed. I pleaded. I escaped. You dug in harder. How I wanted to remove the dark cloth from your eyes. Rip and tear and claw until you saw. Scream like the wounded animal that I was…until you connected – with something. With reality.
Torturous to want something sooo out of my control. Yet, I kept on. Pain and anguish were frequent dinner guests. A plate and seat were saved. I wanted someone to board the reality bus. Empty bus then, empty now. Oh, how delicious it would have been to have someone stand beside me. To honor OUR truth, OUR breaking up with dysfunction, OUR naming the insidious virus. Divorcing the dead from our life.
As children, our leader wanted us distracted. Our perfect saccharine sweet smiles. Pretty pin curls and dresses. Manners and obedience and black paten leather. Exceptional family. Got us so much outside attention. Stroked her gross ego. Believable. The world believed the picture. We were not allowed to question. blindly pleasing, serving. Resistance just a dream. Beautiful little liars, all of us.
Remembering all of this. Remembering all of the ways we had to leave ourselves. All of what we were forced to give up in order to belong, to have somewhere to live, food and some semblance of safety….
I walked away. Cutting the frayed cords, split ends. I was tired of hemorrhaging on those who drank my blood out of both sides of their mouth. I decided my life was worth saving, worth better. Donned with the ole oxygen mask, I stepped new steps out into the world. Lonely, edgy steps. Only taking small sips of life at first, barely looking back at the owned, the victims, perpetrators, the voiceless.
I actually did you a favor. Free from the reminders that my face brings. Free from the sting of my authenticity. Free to believe the beautifully creative fairytale you tell of your past. The fabricated loveliness of the overcrowded vacant house we were raised in.
I am no longer the one who ruined this amazing family unit. I am no longer the lost sheep. I am no longer cause of chaos and making poor, defenseless mother sad. Gag. I am no longer trying to pry you from your completely functional, well adjusted existence. I have no desire to wake you. You are completely correct, my energy, my desire to transform and re-parent, and evolve, and open my heart, and see and hear and feel – that is all for ME. I won’t waste any of that on you. My bad.
As a courtesy, I will leave you alone. You all function way better in a slumber. No matter how delicious, I will not remind you of the atrocities. We can leave them where you’ve buried them. How dare I devote any portion of my life and love to those who think I’m trying to ruin theirs? I will even tuck you in with soft, fuzzy blankets. Sleep well. Sleep well.
I’m in love with forehead kisses. Planted on prime real estate of the third eye space. Physically between the eyes. Spiritually, when this energy center is unblocked, we are capable of enhanced “vision”. To me this area is very sacred and allows me to connect spiritually with others for the collective good.
Forehead kisses, a gentle, confirming reminder of my significance. Of my “being seen”. A private honoring and offer of reverence for my existence. The spontaneous act usually coming to me without warning, without introduction, without permission.
My eyes close to savor the gesture. Allowing the feeling in and around, landing wherever needed. Warmth and connection spreading across my eyes, midbrain and encircling my head. Nothing to do about it, but allow. No destination, no motive, nothing more needs to happen. Seated deeply in a spiritual exchange of respect.
A profound understanding. Clarity around divine connection and mutual respect. The most tender of human expressions. Received. Received without words. Given. Given without expectation of return. The sweetest of gifts. The ultimate compliment. To me.
I trust that I will reap the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. Then trust must be hope but with a little force applied. A self-assuredness. A smugness. A belief? I think _____, therefore, It probably, most likely, sure-thing, will happen?! Maybe trust, with a sprinkle of tentativeness, or doubt?
Trust – a surrender of sorts, laying down arms with a goal in mind. Even a soft goal, a cushy, mushy wanting, served with a side of lazer beam attainment. This. This must be trust.
Or we can think of how we trust in other humans. Well, which humans? The ones I knew, certainly trust-me-nots. Then there’s trust in known humans vs. strangers? Is there a difference? I trust not.
I wanted to trust. To believe in the words as they dripped out of your mouth. Tumbling like meaningless wilted petals, landing just short of reality. They were so pretty though, those words. I was a machine, trying to digest them. An initial smoothness followed by poison. I was a hopeful little blossom, full of wish and happy. Like a dog at the junkyard, nameless, I waded in garbage looking for scraps to nourish my wanting soul. Only your version of truth. Crafty fabrications that slipped past my ineffective, weakened little girl defences.
With crooked, bony, witch fingers your stories poked, prodded and pried your way into my fabric. Shredding, tearing any semblance of sanity from my life bubble. Quietly, relentlessly grooming me to trust your insanity. I clearly remember the conflict and internal frustration. Homeless frustration. She cared about me, she loved me, she believed me, she protected me, right? Right? What I knew and felt, my truth had to be forfeited, stuffed deeply inside or (the worst) denied by me. Truth choked out then molded and transformed into something “a little more pleasant” or “that looked more appropriate” or “wasn’t so angry”…..aka a foreign substance. Just for being truth. Then she served it up as a “suitable” side dish on a pretty, delicate lunch plate with edible borage and nasturtiums. Here, dear, this non-reality entree is more digestible now.
Like it was my job, I turned my back on myself, to honor you dear Mother. To honor that which held me down. I stopped trying to correct the denial of truth. I stopped trusting my gut as my thinking was flawed and only brought misery (vomit). I joined forces with the sleeping, the walking dead. The carbon copy siblings. The smiling, performing idiots. She seemed to be pleased with them. Fuck it. Congagulations to me! You won Mother. I swallowed the glass and hid all the bloody evidence. Just to honor you. Just to have a Mother. I played the fucking game. Of survival. You crafted me into a beautifully obedient servant. Hand delivered to my abusers. Circle of thrust. Excellent job. I no longer tried to be understood, I no longer shared my opinion, I no longer challenged or tried, or fought, or lived.
At 12 years old, the years had steamrolled me to a 70 lb flat stanley frame. Starved for truth, integrity. I was. Everything that was real, stuffed, crammed. Every thought, body sensation, feeling… I stuffed it, crammed it down sideways. Crushed, jammed, damned. Fuck my intuition. It was pure trickery, you were right. I had no rights to my own wisdom, it was flawed, extreme, exaggerated, outrageous, too this or that. And it’s got to be true, my Mother told me so. I was living as if I was alive. I had learned how to pretend and was pretty fucking good at it. I wasn’t worthy of my own wisdom. My own life. The beast within was growing tired, restless. Fantasies arriving. Hope. Something I could hold onto that was real. Maybe I could be someone. Someone outside of your knowing. Someone free with no surrendering or merging to your drum beat. Maybe I wouldn’t have to give myself up so I could have a Mother. Maybe I could hold onto my own diamond wisdom and not have it replaced by a cubic zirconia, then told it was still a diamond.
Trust was about to be redefined. The beginning of the end. Trusting my inner wisdom…
I’m in love with loud purring. Body shaking and telling of fondness for life. A soft, rhythmic blanket of furry love. Unscheduled pleasure. Rising and falling, sleeping and waking. Our eyes closed tightly, savoring the tune. Your whispers of fuzzy somethings at the foot of the bed.
The 3am motor, my favorite engine sound. Sheets ripple, erupt with fluttering plaid flannel. Sleepy pats offered. Met with nudges, of the predictable kind, to carry-on. Purring the kind of purr that becomes more audible with a rub.
This is where sensory joy lives. Comfortably. Amidst the pitter-patter of sounds from this warm furry throat. No troubles in this moment. Or this one. Or this one. I lay my heavy head on your fat, warm belly. Your kitty pillow accepts my forehead. Riding with the gift.
My ear bathed, absorbing the peaceful concert. Feeding my needy inner child soul with fizzy sound waves. Soothing even the most silent of frazzles. Within.
May we walk unfazed through life’s invisible fence. You know the fence. The fence of – you should know better. The fence of – playing small. The get it right the first time – fence. And lest we forget, the fence of… I don’t belong. The cage that minds our business. The trap that has us playing small, dimming our own light, asking for approval and chasing validation under someone’s spell.
Head up, passing through. Anyway. Follow me if you wish but I cannot hear you. My ears dammed and scarred from absorbing your lies. Your fence reaching beyond our visual fields. Innervating even at the corners of my psyche. Interference, blocking everything grand, conceptualized or spoken. You penned it, dammed it. Kept it contained. All my free, wild and imaginative snuffed before coming to fruition.
Only now can I freely roam, untethered, cord severed. Free to discover in my own head space. None of my freedom sacrificed to your cause. My original medicine, realized. My -who I came here to be, paying no mind to your disgust, contempt, salivation or wanting to devour me. My body expanding, unfurling. Without you.
Never serving you again. This is what revenge looks like. I have exsized you from my loins. My energy system. My property. No longer free to take from me. No more toying with my power or grooming me to serve you. Where there was ownership there is disconnect. I unplugged you from my energy. You can no longer charge your system by draining my life force battery.
I am a true warrior, I sincerely thank you for this. My Spirit drove me to be more, separate from you, don’t look back and put myself first. Everything you never wanted for me. Well, you’ve got 7 others. You won’t miss me much as you continue to decimate their lives with your disgusting, hungry energy.
Continue to search for me if you wish. I’m not hiding. I’m boldly dismantling fences.
My legs. They know. They No. They ache, whine, and protest for days after heavy exercise – biking, kickboxing, hours of garden. I awaken the beast with stimulation. Reaching into the container of stifled protest, the well hidden events of a traumatic past. Weighed down by old held trauma. Wanting to run away. To fight off unwanted advances. Secretly wishing my legs would have defied my abusers and be unmovable, thwarting someone’s plan. All that protest energy still taking up residence. A protest that wasn’t allowed. A fuck-you condensed by sad-mess. Yes, old grief, that hopeless bastard. Bringing me to my aching knees. Festering, swirling – wishing relief.
The pain is constant. I don’t know where to put my legs so they won’t ache, won’t wake me. Muscular pain that is tired of waiting for the green light to release. Tired of holding. Aching at 2,3,4 a.m. Restless toss and burn. Heavy burdened walking sticks. Demanding attention for what was ignored before. This body does not forget. Tissues pregnant with issues. A high-risk pregnancy that must be watched, monitored. Until the delivery of release.
The threat of physical harm a long-ago-reality. All of my unconscious, protective holding is no longer needed – but my legs never got the memo. A loving gesture of exercise to keep my body fit and healthy has some underlying “gifts”. This physical pain I feel delivers me to the doorway of my emotional pain. Pain rents space, usually safe, undisturbed – until I call it out. Then pain has a voice. When my legs speak, they sound desperate. With ex-hurt-sion they plead with me. Their quiet whispers they tell me they’re exhausted. To please do the work. We’re sad, broken and depressed, needing deep-rest.
My relationship with my body is tight. Tight as the terror still residing in my legs, hips and pelvis. I talk with her. Sending love to my tender, lovely, strung-out legs. They need love. I purposefully bring the darkness forward, into consciousness. Visualizing the eviction of fear, disgust, shame, etc.. calling in Spirit Animals or Angels or Spirit Guides. Sitting with strong emotions. Standing with the reality of it all outside the cage of existence I used to know.
As my legs begin to thaw from their frozen “normal”, it hurts. I’ve disturbed a whole latta dark. The darkness wants out and that’s always painful. Painful going in, painful coming out. The trapped is wrapped in an old worn out container. My container is falling apart. As it should. As I relax, letting my guard down physically, the expression of what WAS is free to flow. These muscles and bones have known no safe place. No downtime.
I have a choice. We all do. I can do nothing. And invite in fibro-your-algia…cause NO, it will never be MINE. Never. I can wallow in vic-dumb-hood or I can stand on my own two legs and fight for my best life. I choose to evict the darkness. The thick, strangled webs of dysfunctional energy. They ooze sadness. A sadness so great I am compelled to ask them what they need. To actually have a conversation with my legs. The held trauma, wishing to take away my mobility, my health, my drive and flexibility. No thank-you.
I don’t blame my legs for the pain. Instead, I treat them like old friends. Dry brushing them to direct the fluid and energy to my lymphnodes for proper drainage. I Reiki them. I give them baths with Epsom salts for detox and relaxation of the strained muscles. I wrap them in warmth and allow emotion to flow unabstructed. I cry for the return of painless.
In a miraculous body way, a brilliant way, it handled it. By shutting down. By tensing up in protection. By stuffing all the ugly into my tissues and muscles because it was too much for a little girl to handle. The body never forgets.
The purging hurt so good. The expir-yay-tion of an antiquated pattern, I shed my dumb-suit. My beauty radiating blissfully in all directions North, South, East and Best. Camouflage now turned reflective. Reflecting on how different I am today. It hit me hard. Like my heart was cracking open to love – a long aweighted love for myself. Heavy Go-Found-Me realization. I am here. Voicing this. The badasst thing I’ve ever claimed.
Yes, out loud “I am very intelligent, my brain is astute, clear and perceptive. I have so much to offer. I deeply feel that I’ve always been this way but shrunk into my-cell-f to “fit”. To go unnoticed and be less trouble in my fam-ill-y. Fully realizing how I continued to play small. This really Hertz, renting out my Cadillac potential while I settled for the Hyundai.
Who damm-pens my light, my potenchill? I do! I willingly took the torch and waaa with it. Murdering myself once again. We do it to ourselves. When we’re ready to take responsibility for our own lives, we stop blaming others for screwing them up. An inside job folks. So in-crud-ibly painful, the journey, like peering through a thousand panes of shattered ass. My own. Pain is so often the back asswards crack through which profound personal growth enters us.
Ignore the crack, walk towards the crack and pretend we didn’t see it. Feel the crack with our fingers, wondering all thorts of sings. Flatten our eyeball against the crack in curiosity. Does crack kill? Curiosity killed the cat, the cat’s eyeball and the crack. The blind cat leading the cracked eyeball. Or something like that. All kinds of excuses and distractions conjure up rather than to just aloe pain and truth and light to illuminate our womb-dead parts. You know, those parts that never had the chance to freedom their way from the Geico.
An absolute vodka miracle, with all these choices, that any of us choose to – not only walk through the doorway of pain – but go back uh-gain and again because we know this is the only way to true healing. Despite the pain, despite our suffering, we strive for better lives, a better egg-sistence. The born-again -open up your pocketbooks-, best possible, newest version of ourselves.
Now, a new confine-dents is mine. If ya try an lock my shit up ya might get lumped up. I own that shit. Not borrowed, rented or stolen. Permanent, home, comfort. A new normal. Clearer lens. A calmer presentation of me. No arming or bracing or caring what you think of me.
No apologeez. Your opinion of me filtered through your dysfucktion anyway. Love me. Hate me. None of my business. My emerging self doesn’t give a frog’s fat ass what you think you NO. If my bovine-size self-love makes you uncomfortable that is understandable. My bulls-y-ness has made me squirm for quite some time, too. Looks like I’ve made peace with that. When pain knocks, will you answer? Everytime.
Surrounded, cloaked in decaying matter. Fresh smells of moist, decomposing life. The split center of a giant hickory. The trunk, cracked wide open in invitation, welcoming me home once again. Allowing. Allowing me in, like a generous neighbor, availing it’s wisdom. Without an entrance fee. Because I exist. I enter. Stepping out of my muted, insignificant existence, into this earthly goodness. The slow, methodical, rhythmic heartbeat of the earth echoes in the fresh rot. My exhales slowing to meet the offering.
Mother, I am home. I remove my coat and hang it on the rack. At the base of this Hickory, soft green Cedar fronds, border the huge Hickory in a semi-circle – concealing this sacred world from outsiders. Surely a magical thing. I shine brightly here in this dimly lit ins-tree-tution. I shine brighter. My secret safe palace, holding me sacred. I play. Alone, at peace. At once. Secluded from the jagged edges of life and dreaded doom. Stuffing myself into it’s humid warmth. All is lost in the wind circling, swirling.
Oh the cleansing wind. Blowing fantasy fulfillment. Take away everything, everybody. Dispose of them, I won’t mind. Discharging my death-wish fantasies into the open palms of these two grounded lovelies. Into these trees. Make it happen – I whisper. The howling winds, snow, rain, hail – experienced only as sound and sights. Destruction cannot touch me. I am only an observer. For once. I hunker into the safety of this energetic earth shield.
Hickory and Cedar, the finest bouncers, guard the entry like a rabid wolverine. I am grateful, if just for a moment. I am filled with wonder. What small creatures have also found solace here? I can’t be the only one… Under the watchful eye of Wise Woman. Mother Earth oversees this changing landscape, recording my fears, wonder, cries, rants, whispers. She never tells. She, for sure, can be trusted to hold and transmute all that ails. Offering me anonymity as I unload my bags. A long held fantasy, sleeping in here, energetically bathed in her light and love, protected, invincible. I will never leave.
I emerge so much more. Grown under the watchful eye of the elders.
When I’m angry, my words flood in scritch. Like scribing stone. So they may never disappear. So they may never leave. Writing gets less peak and vallyish and more jagged, bouncing above and below the lines. Words connecting in disconnection. Sorting through hot angry choices – ideas flow like lava into tiny cramped villages. Hear the screams? See the blood? Flowing blood of 14 murdered run-on sentences, double negatives. Just desperate to be heard, stealing your breath – all the while you barely notice you’re in a strange paragraph.
Anger speeds to keep the spotlight, arriving sideways on two wheels, smoking suffocating fumes. Pull up a chair – make room at the table of litter-al disgust, humiliation or just plain carnage. No napkins, no condiments, no apologies. This is straight up bite me. And it usually does. No questions or permission required, Anger spews and spills anyways. Anyways.
Yelling in caps, bold and underline. All or nothing. Live or die. My anger oblivious to pourameters. Taste the personal power, one syllable calorie at a time. The rage growler is full, no worries, just keep pouring. Anger grumbles…”pour yourself a glass of get the fuck to work. My milky words have come in, express me and fortify your inner child baby”. Anger laughs. Cause anger always laughs louder and longer. Longer and louder.
Tumbling out, a force of a thousand word winds. Rushing, gushing, flushing my pink skin once again. Words that stab at the page, armed with darkness to teach the light page a lesson. But Silence, Stuck, and Blank, the Ex-wives of anger arrive to block his best efforts. My writing calms, grounded saccharine sweetness once again ensues. My full power snuffed until the fault lines shift. Unseen, but still the lyrical fire smolders under the so pretty, dry compost. Soon to ignite in a risky rage, on an ink less page. Implode or willingly purge, it builds. Gather the poops, on the shit deck.
Once again Anger is victorious. I reach in and grab it, dirtying my hands with its wretched filth. Words arrive blunt, raw, real. No brakes, no wheels. Better write quick, before the richness fades. Shit, the good ones fade quickest – like breath on a mirror. Evaporation. The best worst thing that’s ever happened. Clearer energy, yet a cluster at the same time. This time it consumes my mind. Shit show. My only weapon, my keyboard.
Uppercase, lowercase, special characters squeezing out between wrinkled fingers. Letters morph into dripping hot metal, keyboard slippery, steaming. Begging, pleading to be used, fondled, tapped and fingered. Keys popping, huddled into one corner, safety in letters. Line the fuck up. Backspace, you too. Fingers purposely pouncing on keys, aching. A desire to rip something open, expose the beautiful guarded truth.
The killing, a channeled energy of precision. I slaughter, shred and shape syntax taking prisoners. It all sucks, it’s all brilliant. Anger doesn’t give a fuck if it doesn’t have a voice. Rage abides by no rules. Needs no direction. Bring it inward or vomit it onto others. Anger is never homeless. The seat of simmering lives in the golden land of swirling belly current. Solar Plexus real estate.
Writing, just a vehicle for my seethe. My ugly. Words dancing on hot coal paper. Jumbled, scratchy and ashy. Fuck punctuation. Use.them.all. Use-them-none. Hyphen-loving head case. I’ll keep writing till there’s none left. Fuck all your rules. Ju,s!t t)r.y and fi?gu!re this Sh(i’t O;u”t. Not listening to your linguistic lalala. Yer haphazzard hipee hooplah.
My angry words burn the coating off a smile. Wicked words, siracha sentences, putrid paragraphs. A remedy in the making. My darling Anger, have I represented your likeness a-cure-late-ly?
Compassion is having the capacity to hold, and the wisdom to allow, deep love to flow from your mature heart space as an energetic offering, to a recipient/situation.
Compassion is not subject to permission, boundaries or reception. It’s a private, organic offering/agreement between your higher self and ancient, wise mother heart.
I see compassion as two chambers of the same heart. One holding and honoring what WAS and the other holding and honoring what IS. Right and wrong, good and bad don’t exist, there is space and acceptance for all of it.
Compassion is having room for the entirety of an experience and seeing the inherent beauty, anyways.
Compassion is when you realize that caring deeply about others does not mean you have to surrender or negate some part of yourself.
Compassion is our loving acceptance of shades of gray in the human condition.
Compassion is a process by which you gaze, with eyes of softness, on those who could use holding, through their pain and struggle, especially when they can’t/won’t help themselves – regardless of their “deserving it”.
Compassion is standing onshore, looking into the eyes of pain in another, and remaining separate (without jumping in after them/merging with them in their pain) and loving them from dry land.
Compassion is realized, offered and received when the path to heart wisdom has been significantly cleared of the debris of trauma.
Everywhere we go, what we see on social media, TV, magazines, pod casts, seminars, etc – is like a billboard showcasing how we are flawed. They are talking to us, right? Or just me? Ugh. At least this is how it feels…How we are doing it all wrong. What we should be doing. What could we be doing better, faster, cheaper, more efficiently, with less effort…How we are not doing enough. How we don’t know enough. That we’re not buying the right products. Not doing, trying, learning, relaxing, or efforting enough to make our lives “right”.
No shortage of messages. They might as well add, “ What the fuck are you doing with your life? You dumb ass. You are ___ years old and look at you, you’re doing it all wrong. You haven’t figured anything out. Where have you fucking been? Here, listen to me and I will FIX you.” Well, at least that’s what I hear.
So what do we do? We buy the supplements, the gadgets, the memberships, the subscriptions – just to terrorize ourselves more. To drive home how idiotic we feel. Perpetuating how ignorant, oblivious, unaware, unconscious, unenlightened, uninformed, unwitting and in-the-dark our existence is. Thanks a bunch. Thanks a fucking bunch. Love you, thank you for helping me to move further away from my true self, into an external, more aesthetically pleasing version of my existence.
Ever stop and think about the billions of dollars we flush down the “I suck at life” toilet? This nonsense has to stop. Such a brilliant business tho. Aren’t we all programmed to get on the self improvement bus? From a very young age 99% of us are told we do not measure up. We’re not someone else’s idea of perfection. Hearing this message loud and clear…Projected onto us by very unhappy adults, older siblings, well meaning aunts, uncles, grandparents, neighbors, coaches, teachers and even religious groups.
All this buy-in to self doubt was never ours to begin with. It was never part of our early fabric. I’ve never met a toddler who said, I’m not going to wear this cause it makes my arms look too fat or dance this way cause it’s weird or draw this picture cause it won’t come out perfectly and someone might laugh at me. Nope.
Before we got the message that we are flawed beyond fucking repair – we were happy-go-lucky beings, living by trial and error, as the wind blows, trying life out, discovering what makes us happy and healthy. We Experimented, made mistakes and got feedback that we JUST MIGHT fit in in our tribes. All without the crushing self judgement, without the feeling of “lack” or self blame if we got ill or came upon some troubles.
Do we really need repair? Or do we just need to fall in love with all our imperfections? All our FU’s? All the ways in which we give up, phone it in? Leave too soon? Stay too long? Take too much? Don’t take any? Don’t try? Try too much? Start many things? Finish nothing? We are the managers of our own programs.
There is nothing wrong with you. Never was. Tell those naysayer head voices to go F themselves. Their time in your life has expired. Feel good about recognizing their lies. All day long. Call them out. You are a beautiful mess. Allow yourself to know this.
It snowed last night. Surprise! After two weeks of solid Spring 50’s and 60’s. I immediately made the connection.
Remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy, Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion and the Tin Man run through the field of Poppies on the way to the Castle of the Great Wizard? And in and around the poppies, the Wicked Witch of the West casts a spell (Covid19) which slows them all down from their goal/life…. But Glinda, the Good Witch/Fairy Godmother, makes it SNOW, covering the poppies and reversing the spell/Covid19. They are all well and set out once again on their journey with renewed faith in an excellent outcome.
Hoping for this for all of us🤞we need a Fairy Godmother right about now.
As unfortunate things happen to us – and they will – it’s easy to forget all the good in our lives and sit in self pity. Trust that there is often a plan, people you wouldn’t have met, places you wouldn’t have gone inside yourself, feelings you might not have expressed – if the “unfortunate” thing never happened. Shitty things will happen and many times, we will close down from the weight of it all. Pain and tragedy are catalysts for growth too. We can do this! The human condition.
Today I will be open to all possibilities. 
As unfortunate things happen to us – and they will – it’s easy to forget all the good in our lives and sit in self pity. Trust that there is often a plan, people you wouldn’t have met, places you wouldn’t have gone inside yourself, feelings you might not have expressed – if the “unfortunate” thing never happened. Shitty things will happen and many times, we will close down from the weight of it all. Pain and tragedy are catalysts for growth too. We can do this! The human condition.
A Fish Named Karen 