I’m seething with caffeine, homemade coconut yogurt, and a shot of coconut water because I thought I was losing it.  Turns out, I’m just hungry.  Still having trouble remembering to eat breakfast BEFORE coffee, but this morning at least I got up and stretched! 😉

I’m compelled to write right now because I feel as if I’ve turned a corner.  Since last I wrote, I have continued with my EMDR and Cognitive-Behavioral therapy, successfully to the point that at times I feel that I’m seeing the other side of the tunnel and understanding how I got on this hamster wheel to begin with, and (most importantly) how to get off.  (ha. ha..)

The lessons learned in the past 6 months are jarring, inspiring, gratifying, and surprising.  I have felt my way around in the dark, feeling kinda crazy for a long time, when, as it turns out, I had a head-lamp on the whole time and just didn’t know it.  I was searching for how to find the light from outside me, “Where’s the fucking light switch man?!” When, over the course of a few years, some heartache, loss, and real-true lessons, I have activated Something inside me that is beaming light from within.  I hear Cat Stevens in my head right now “Trouble…. oh trouble please be kind…” then Harold drives his car off a cliff, realizing, and we’re all surprised in the end, that he’s abandoned his death-hearse-Jaguar and turned to the soothing memory of an old woman and his newfound banjo of life.

Here I am – some days are harder than others, but my turnaround time now has lessened into manageable chunks vs. hours of agony and remorse for something that I had no control over and was trying my damnedest to control.  Here’s a quote I was given two Decembers ago, as I was headed down deep South to spend a couple weeks on a Christmas Tree Lot, “If you are willing to look at a another person’s behavior towards you as a reflection of the state of their relationship with themselves rather than a statement about your value as a person, then you will, over a period of time, cease to react at all.”  – Yogi Bhajan.   Yesterday, I reacted, I got all torn apart, but here’s the victory: I climbed up out of the well,  fingernails still intact, breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the top and sat there, swinging my feet on the sides, deciding what path to take from there.  Six months ago I would have jumped back down into that deep, dark well and wondered why I hadn’t figured out how to swim yet; yesterday I stood up and walked away with my banjo. *deafening applause*

This is what steps to victory feel like.  This is what all the steps will be, with intention from now on.  This is not to say that I will not backslide from time to time, but I seriously am beginning to trust that there is a larger, more powerful force reckoning on a scale I can barely comprehend, and on my behalf.  On your behalf.  I cannot control it, but I can pay attention.  I can love myself for the flawed, passionate, driven, and capable person I am; I can take the reigns and let my tiny-Self know that I am not going to abandon her or let anyone ever do that again, as long as I’m in charge.  I get to choose whether or not someone can hurt me.  I get to choose how I respond, not how I react.  With that right-now-intention.  Right now, I choose NOT to respond, and that is my path.

For all the vague as hell shit in here, just know that mostly this blog is for me and trust that it is exactly what I need to say right now.  xoxo  Still learning, my pain is my teacher and my strength.  My pain is my teacher and my strength.  My pain is my teacher and my strength. (Write that 70 times on the blackboard.)

(photo from Photo site – not related to my post but this picture literally looks exactly like a recurring dream I used to have except I was in a long white nightgown and about 7 years old. I was also running through a forest with a bunch of ravines, I was jumping, then sailing and flying over them running and running and running away. I love this picture.  Much more updated version of how I feel right now and goes swimmingly with my blackboard reference.)

 

Well, if you want to sing out, sing out
And if you want to be free, be free
‘Cause there’s a million things to be
You know that there are… – Cat Stevens