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Over the last few years, a lot of my therapeutic work has been somatic. A friend suggested I read How to Stay Human in a Fucked Up World by Tim Desmond. On page 139, Desmond says a friend asked him, “When is the first time you can remember feeling exactly like this?”

This is some mind blowing work. If you could go back in time and locate a reaction to an event(s) where you were scared, sad, frustrated, lonely, disappointed and could follow the line to your present situation with the very same emotion – albeit, maybe even an overreaction to your current situation – you could also speak to yourself back in time and support and love yourself now.

It is next level transformation to attend to the needs of all of your ages. Through the help of a good therapist, it is some of the most soul satisfying work you’ll ever do.

Then you get to go out into the world, amongst the people, with your footing so sure you marvel at who you’ve become.

This is alignment – with yourself. With your needs. With your desires. You could call it enlightenment but I’ll save that for those who sit on mountaintops.

For us down here, feet on the ground, who have spent most of our lives reacting from needs unmet, coming into alignment with your purpose, your needs, your desires, is the grooviest of groovy gifts you could give to yourself.

I highly recommend it.

And here is one of my favorite poems, from one of my favorite poets, Jane Hirshfield. I was lucky enough to hear read her poetry in San Francisco and she speaks as she writes, soulfully.

Today marks two years since I decided to stop drinking. My mom was an alcoholic and people in my family have died or continue to live under its influence.

I have married alcoholics. I have fallen for alcoholics. I have been attracted to alcoholics.

I was fond of saying I am not an alcoholic, though I could be a lush.

It wasn’t until I faced the truth of my son’s needs that I was able to articulate the way I want to be present for him all the time.

And then it became a desire to be present for me.

And after me, it has become a desire to be present to others.

And now here I am two years later, and I have a wish that I could go back in my life and live most of it wide-eyed, sober, and present. I wish those moments when I made a bad decision because I was drinking that I could unwind and reconsider who was going to be hurt by my actions. I wish I hadn’t relied so much on alcohol to help me traverse difficult moments, people, emotions, desires and decisions …

Two years sober I can tell you that I still dance, I still am a wild child at heart, I’m high on life most of the time. Not much has changed about me except that I am soberly aware and present.

I don’t miss drinking – not one day – not one minute – and I wish for all my loved ones who struggle with alcohol that they too will come to know the serenity the comes from choosing not to dull your senses, but instead to go deep into each one and live all of them. Your experiences will set you free.

I am free.

You arrive at a certain age and think you know the handbook, cover to cover, play by play, and yet you don’t. The reason you don’t is because you’ve changed and since what you do comes from what you know when you are entering something new – all you have is what you have experienced before to guide you.

What if everything has changed?

You wake up one day and so much time has passed since you were in a similar situation and now here is the situation at your doorstep, but you’ve changed, the circumstances have changed, the cause and effect have changed and honestly, the choices are no longer free fall or run.

I’m experiencing this metamorphosis right now in my life, a manifestation of what I opened my heart to, and of course, it’s messy, it’s fascinating, but it’s also interesting to step back out of myself and check how I am doing.

Pretty damn good, I must admit.

I love myself.

It has taken me so very long to fall in love with me, and I get to watch my own love in full bloom. I am in a situation I have been in so many times before, but I’ve changed so radically that vulnerability feels safe. This is rad, y’all! I’m loving it.

Forget Everything And Run

Face Everything And Rise

A woman mentioned this the other day in my ACA meeting. I love delving into my fear – now that I know how to recognize it. I try to cut through my mental and physical chaos to get to what I’m feeling – especially when I am nervous, excited, overstimulated, fearful and believe a person is causing these feelings. I try to sink back into individuation – one of Adam (my therapist) favorite modes to point out to me. I’ve not been good at this since I come from a very enmeshed family system. So now I’m trying to be more accurate in reading – this person is not causing me to feel this way, I am pulling from something deep within me. From the past me. From the wreckage of me.

When I feel overwhelmed around someone, it registers as if they are overpowering me. And it’s here I have to face this fear and rise up with awareness or boundaries, my sense of my self, and my need to calm down. I have decades and years of reactivity – of trying to jump into the rhythm of the other, to react to someone else’s fear and emotion – really forgoing my own need to calm my own ass down.

I have felt this way around my own son. He will energetically overwhelm me, and I feel instantly at sea, unable to find any footing, and it has taken a lot of therapy to breathe, focus, and stand in my own power. This is – and I don’t want to use the ubiquitous trope of trauma – but it is a learned response to chaos, overwhelm and feeling out of control from my childhood among those people who coulda, shoulda, woulda made the younger me feel safe if only they knew how.

So I’m trying to reach my edges and not feel like I’m free falling. This requires a lot of attention and intention of my part. You can’t overwhelm me. I am grounded. I could breathe. I could pay attention to what is happening in my body and respond with my need. I could say I need a break. I could face you and rise for me.

A person who you feel nervous and excited around is both attractive and more than likely triggering your insecurity. If we were going to make a list of my insecurities, there are so many that I didn’t know I had until I became a parent. My son arouses these feelings of insecurity in me: am I a good enough parent, will I know how to respond to what I need, he needs, we need in this moment? Will I fuck this up? A romantic interest arouses nervous excitement – all the triggers of do I want you, do you want me, will you hurt me, will I hurt you?

I credit therapy with learning what I need. It has been a long journey to me. Today, when i say I need x – there is no equivocation in my mind. I know it. I know me. I need love and self actualization. I need to belong.

I met a man whose beliefs are different from mine.

It made me stumble.

I walk on firm footing of who is right and who is wrong.

And he stands in the wrong lane.

Which made me reel back and re-evaluate whether I dislike those who are wrong as much as I thought I do.

If they are wrong, and he is wrong, then why are we still talking?

I want to be with the right people.

I love to hear my rightness echoed back to me.

I listen for confirmation of how right I am.

He does not confirm my beliefs.

I suddenly feel wrong for saying mean things about them.

Because I am saying mean things about him.

Babeeee, I have gone and done it.

I have met the Other.

He is wrong.

I am right.

And we are still talking.

Freedom. I want to be free of all of the heaviness of my past, all of the anxiety of my future, and all of the constraints I have learned to wrap myself in like a funeral shroud. I believe in avenues that will help me grow and become freer. And yet. I struggle with imaginary chains too much. 

I believe growth will come from following my bliss into my own adventure. I just bought the Vintage, ‘67 Shasta Compact camper for this reason. It was delivered yesterday. The adventure is not going to happen on its own. I am making myself fully available to do this alone,

with a friend, 
with a companion, 
– it doesn’t matter – 
I am doing this for me
and my own expansion.

I know spiritual growth mostly happens through partnership. Unless you are a monastic monk high on a Tibetan mountain peak, the likelihood of having solo enlightenment is slim to none. Can you hear one hand clapping? I didn’t think so. All signs point to an “other” who could trigger, push, upset, delight and force you up the spiral to your next level of growth. And freedom. 

The candle is lit for the road open where my adventure awaits and the love I am opens to its fullest expression. So mote it be.

I was speaking to someone late into the night, exchanging war stories about our lives and then I found my friend going down a rabbit hole. The intent was clear, and my friend even said “I guess I wanted to know if you’re as bad as I am.” I said my escapades were mistakes of the heart not otherwise.

I’d rather be whole than good. ~Carl Jung

I heard this quote the next day on a parent support call where we were exploring Jung’s quotes and how they resonate with us. I have wanted to be good my whole life, but I have done some not so good deeds, and I would say 99% of the time my wrong doings were done with the intent to find love.

This love thing is so tricky especially as I grow older. Everything I thought about having butterflies is now dispelled under a sobriety lens that I have tuned into because of my son. Butterflies signify hyperarousal, which could be telling me to run as much as telling me to pounce. I used to believe butterflies were love at first sight. Now I have to discern which is it? For overthinkers, this is akin to second guessing myself.

Second guessing butterflies leaves me vulnerable AF. A place, y’all know, I don’t like to be, until this year when I decided to make vulnerable my journey onto the next wrung.

So how to sift through the data that is coming into my brain – this is good, this is not good, this is bad, summary judgment? The jury is still out. As I sit back on my heels assessing the whole, I come back to more will be revealed, but how much more do I need revealed? FFS!

With all things that are too complex for me to understand, I try to use my vulnerability wings to let go of the knowing. Another quote I heard that morning was, “Coincidence is a miracle in which God chose to remain anonymous.” Psychologists, scientists, mystics and astrologers will debate coincidence as nothing more than meaningless all the way to it is the harbinger of a mysterious destiny. Or that a coincidence is personal. Or meant to be. Meant for me. I can’t shake a coincidence, I find the ones I encounter to be meaningful.

I find butterflies to be energy – this person has stirred up energy in my system. In an emotional mature state, I have to suss out if the energy is because they pull at the familiar or if it means I need to investigate further. Is the energy here to point me in a direction? In my earlier days, butterflies might have meant jump in bed or marry the fool. Ah, age what have you done to me?

I came into this life, this version of it, seeking all of the experiences I could have in one lifetime. It has meant that most of these experiences have not lasted a lifetime, but instead have had a season and a reason. I would like to harness the wisdom the years have given me, but alas I’m trying to manifest my own destiny while learning to let go and trust that everything’s gonna to be okay. My experiences, big and small, have helped me hold these two forces simultaneously. They have also shut me down too many times and turned my heart into a impenetrable stone.

My goal is to open and be free. So today, I focus on my wings, on freedom, and let all the data inform this way of being.

As long ago as October of 2007, I was in Istanbul and my friend’s neighbor read my fortune from a teacup. We sat in the living room, on the ground floor of an apartment building that faced the Bosporous Sea, and this woman clucked her tongue in Turkish, your heart has no roads in, it is blocked solid.

I will attest to the fact that it remained this way for too long a time.

It is said that it takes half the time of a relationship to mourn, grieve, and resolve its dissolution in your heart. I had been married for 16 years, and in 2006 divorced, which means at the earliest it would have been 2014 before my heart would soften. 

Alas, it did not in 2014, or any of the years that followed.

I found it much easier to keep my heart guarded, blocked, than to open to the possibility of messy love. Now, I had dalliances, even something that looked like something, but no commitments. I had hurts, slights, and rejections, but I hadn’t gone all the way in, so I felt it easier to get out, exit stage left, than to stick around for the inevitability of leaving when it was harder to go.

Last year, at some point in a therapy session with Adam, I said I was thinking of sticking my neck out and trying again. I was almost embarrassed to say this to my therapist because he is a man, he is younger than me, and I just didn’t fully know if I could trust him with this vulnerability. This isn’t about him, it’s my own reluctance to embrace his acceptance of me just the way I am.

Adam told me to write a bio of who I envisioned. I tried. I tried. I tried. Inevitably, I came back to Adam and said how could I know what I want when I only know what I know? And I don’t want that. He said to think of the qualities I am drawn to now. So I did.

Kindness.

Creativity.

Mindfulness.

Spirituality.

There are many other qualities on my list, but these four resonate most. Oh, and I do have imperfect perfections I seek like no baggage, no drama, and no attachments. Yeah right. Those requirements are quite impossible considering life brings all three to you no matter who or what.

Last fall, I walked into the print shop where I get all the Hall posters and there was a man, his back to me, and a mysterious energy surged inside me, and then this man entered a portal into my life. 

He’s a man, he’s just a man, and I’ve had so many men before,
in very many ways, he’s just one more.

Nevertheless, the man piqued my interest, and so began a warming of the impenetrable glacier that replaced my warm and trusting heart from so long ago.

And if you are interested in what comes next, well, I didn’t act on the energy, I walked away from him, then he appeared again, and the energy surfaced again, then it halted, then it ignited, then it derailed, and well, energy begets energy and more will be revealed is all I’ve got for you today. But let’s give this man credit – he is the rare manifestation of what my heart could see after nearly two decades.

A common phrase used in the spiritual community about the journey back to your heart from your brain is, “The longest journey is the 18 inches from your head to your heart.” Thank you, Adam for the exercise in conjuring a vision in my head. Thank you, man for embodying the imperfect perfection my heart desires.

Today, I woke and made bad coffee. So then I made another pot.

I went to the San Pedro Riparian Habitat and missed the turn, but a guy working on a street project said to go back and to the east and then look for the cottonwoods. East? Thankfully that was indicated on the GPS. Cottonwoods – I know and they were lovely to behold as they came into view – stretching north and south.

As I walked along the riverbank and marveled at the colors of gold, sage, and brown and looked for the elusive Green Kingfisher, I happened upon a fellow hiker. An older woman (maybe my age – because hey, it is what it is), and she asked me if I saw the pond. I said I passed by it but didn’t see any water. She said, “Well I know more than you do, so I’m going back that way.”

la di da

She might have ruffled a different me but instead her desire to find that kingfisher too made me look up in the trees for it, and instead I saw giant nests with cormorants and wished I could see the chicks I heard squawking. I also walked more mindfully, thinking about how I want to be present, I want to understand my needs, I want to open up to the possibility I have a nervous system that is hardwired for chaos and disappointment, and that neither are happening right now.

I breathed in the dry air and looked in the distance at the Huachuca Mountains, which look like cardboard cutouts. I did a complete turn around and still could not find the pond, but the river was flowing a little stronger and the view through the cottonwoods was magical. I want to hold these moments where I feel grounded, centered, full of the breath of life.

On my way out of the trail, I saw the older woman sitting on a bench. I noticed the layers of clothing she was wearing – a jacket around the waist, another long sleeved shirt on a tee shirt, hat and water bottle and fanny pack and I felt lighter just whistling as I cruised by her.

The last week at the onset seemed an uphill climb. At the Hall, there was a retirement party, our Lava Lounge, then Reggae Fest, two TV spots at the buttcrack of dawn (my Russian friend likes to call it this), then a wedding, where I would be presiding, and that was just at the Hall. In my private life there was a disappointment to overcome.

It started with the disappointment and as is my tendency, at first, I blew it off. Meh, this happened, it wasn’t what I wanted, but meh I told myself. But I stopped that usual script and instead thought: I’m disappointed. Sad too. I went ahead and claimed all my feelings – a little put out by someone else’s lack of mindfulness, and then appreciative I had not invested myself more than I had. It was good to close and punctuate what had been a promise and had evaporated.

All of these other public things on my to do list were handled as well, but it’s the wedding where I’ll take my victory lap. The couple – Doug & Erin – have held a special place in my heart since I met them. They both arrived on the scene in Bay Saint Louis and immediately jumped in 200% giving their love and energy to making our community a better place. Ahem, I’d like to think I know them. Maybe I am them. When they said they wanted to get married at the Hall, I said, fantastic. When they said they wanted me to officiate, I said woo hoo! When I asked them if they wanted me to say anything in particular, they said, we trust that what you say will be perfect.

And (ahem) I think it was.

The words wrote themselves. Drummer gal meets DJ guy and they get hitched at a music hall. I am not a huge fan of weddings, even though I’ve had three myself – the tendency to follow the same playbook, to bore people out of their minds, to create an illusion of fantasy that doesn’t exist and the wedding party always skittish and needy and nervous. But on Saturday, I had the honor to wed Doug & Erin, and it was a beautiful thing.