Once on a short weekend retreat we were given a candle and asked to identify something we would like to extinguish. I think maybe we actually wrote it on a piece of paper and burned it also.

I wrote down fear.

When I blew out the candle I was blowing out my fear.

A few weeks later, I went on my own personal sort of retreat. I took that candle and would light it and blow it out over and over again. But I would laugh in this great big cackle of a laugh every time. It was great fun.

It’s been a messy fucking ride to get here, and I have thrived on the darkness to grow me like a mushroom but now it’s time to dance in the sun for a few days, the clouds will return, they always do.

Because I am a capable and intelligent human being who can and will embrace my imperfections around such societal implications that this can’t be done on one’s own, that it has to be hard, that it has to look like the same TV melodrama bullshit sob story.

I had love. I know I did.

It WAS fucking real.

Don’t you dare tell me it wasn’t.

I had love but I didn’t love my life.

My love was a sacrifice for the life I wanted.

Global Pandemic: A time of global crisis

Personal Pandemic: A time of personal crisis

In February I took a social media break. I intended it to be a month. I did not intend to stop writing. But here we are, mid April. No social media, no blogs. In 2020 shortly after the pandemic I quit facebook. It was a glorious time of self-reflection and I’ve never been back on facebook the same way.

Any pandemic; personal, global, or otherwise, should be a time to turn inward and reflect, to slow down, to listen to yourself.

I am in the midst of a personal pandemic, one in which I did not slow down soon enough to hear my own needs. It’s harder when the rest of the world is marching on I suppose.

I knew and understood how it all works and it’s nothing that can be clearly articulated because it is only something that can be experienced. It’s like a possession. I resisted writing much because I just wanted to be with it. I knew everything that I was experiencing would stay with me. My body would remember. I would take with me just what I needed from it. And I would carry into the world just what needed to be expressed into the world through me. I didn’t need to strive any further during this experience.

These past few years I have truly found my most authentic mindful self - She is real. And not everyone liked her, like I said - friends lost, but for the first time that was the realest me of me yet, I was good with it, until I nestled up in there, clung to the experience, and then faced threat, some literal life threatening level shit… also known as the natural cycles that are inevitable to living life as a human.

What I am trying to say is I'm going to try this shit again. Like I did in 2019 - theme up this new year with some strong “nope” energy. And focus on saying yes to just me, my children, and the thing that pays the bills from 7-3. I am going to do my best to be present with my most authentic needs and not worry so much if it makes you uncomfortable or it doesn’t meet your expectations. And then hope I can practice this out in the new world we live in post-pandemic.

Basically I am going to retreat into my own wisdom until I can hear my wisdom loud and clear and when she wants to do something that’s when we’ll do something.

Sit. pause. Listen. Do not act straight away.

Listen to nothing at first.

Feel your breath.

See what you see.

Hear what you hear.

Feel the discomfort in your body.

Feel the comfort in your body.

What is the next most compassionate thing you can do for yourself?

Then do that.

That’s your inner wisdom.

When your nervous system rears up your spinal cord and into your brain flooding it with thoughts of “do now”, sit your ass down and breathe. The doing will get done as long as you keep your integrity intact. And have compassion for when it needs to crumble a bit.

And then, when it’s time to do the dishes, get up and do the fucking dishes.

For the last 20 years I have micro-managed and delegated. I have had the privilege of disassociation, avoidance, and numbing out for the first 13 years, and a slow rise to self-care for the next 7. All the while I had a person to delegate certain things to so I could make room for a few luxuries. Sometimes I even had a partner.

It was emotional warfare. And I just sat there. Until I didn’t. Something happens to me, I am noticing, right within that moment of trying to walk away, I explode. Suddenly I was no different than when I threw the chair. Screaming in his face. “YOU were lied to?!?!”

I fucked up. We all fuck up. This was a big fuck up. Never have I ever thrown a whole chair before now. (Usually my need to throw things is done in private. Maybe I should throw things in private more often?) Annnddd.. my life is going through a wee bit of a giant unfolding right now. Not an excuse, but I also need to find some grace for myself to be able to get up in the morning.

Every moment of every step is brand new even when you think it’s not and especially when you know it is, no matter how much your practice and sit on your cushion - sometimes you’re going to fuck it up.

Hopefully not a whole chair throwing in front of your kid kind of fuck up, but i want to own it. I want to process it here in my space of cathartic writing, because I am not perfect.

Meditation doesn’t make you perfect.

I’ve learned in these last few months that when you are in survival mode… in an ongoing functioning trauma response, your boundaries will drop, you will forget who you are, old habits of protection will find their way back to you. Those neural brain pathways are deep motherfuckers. 

My old habits have come back with a vengeance these past few months and yet somehow awareness remains. It’s not the same numbed out reactions of denial. I know where and when I fuck up almost as soon as I do it. And I fuck up plenty. 

Coming out of the pandemic and into the 2020-2021 school year I maintained a calm and present way out in the real world. Well, at least in hindsight… it seems, lately, I am always looking back, trying to get back to this person I was, instead of allowing the person I am to be here. And also, I have no desire to actually go back to 2020. 2020 me got me to 2022 me, but 2022 me is a whole new bitch, and I’m not too upset with her. 2022 has been the hardest year of my life and I wouldn’t trade it for any moment of the past and it’s going to make for a very vibrant future. 

Small changes, many times. I wanted to make big change. And I did just that, but only through making teeny tiny itty bitty changes at a time. It also took a lot of personal coaching and what grew out of it was some serious self love. Because, you see, before, I didn’t believe in myself, I didn’t believe I was capable, I didn’t have faith in myself, but by making teeny tiny changes each day I began to change the landscape of my brain. Each day I showed up for myself I made stronger neural pathways that proved otherwise… that proved I could trust myself and that I was worthy. And the best part is I didn’t need to depend on anyone else for this process. The connection and friendship I have developed with myself through this process has been the most rewarding.

In the last 5 years or more I have made a lot of changes in my life. In the last 3 I have made massive changes, and in the last 9 months, my life has gone completely upside down, right side up, back and forth and now I just don’t know which way is up or if there even is an up. I’ve been journaling through all of this and it just isn’t hitting the way I need it to. Since I remembered about that whole creative outlet thing, I realized, I’ve got to get this shit out of me somehow.

So Ima blog (shrugs)

I’m scared. I’m scared no one will read it. I’m scared people will read it. I’m scared the people who do read it will judge me.

By taking an authentic journaling approach I plan to share how meditation looks different from day to day and how sometimes it can often appear not terribly transformative, and yet lead to wild new ways of looking at life and ultimately be the MOST transformative thing even when it doesn’t feel so. I’m also excited to take this opportunity to more deeply reflect on my own practice. Often I meditate and then I am done. I hope this will shed a bit more light onto my own practice while also encouraging and supporting others on their own meditation journey.