Category Archives: Essential Journey

Life is in the art of making it real

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“Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life.” — Oscar Wilde

In the studio, I find neither life nor art imitating the other. Instead, I find life makes more sense through art-making.

Life-making and art-making are one and the same to me. Every life is a work of art that is a reflection of its creator.

Like life, art-making becomes fuller, richer, more satisfying, when I get brave and don’t fear the steps I’m taking but instead, commit to taking them wholeheartedly, trusting I have the capacity, and the heart, to deal with whatever comes my way lovingly, compassionately, honestly and bravely.

Last night in the studio, I didn’t have a clear idea of what I wanted to create. I simply wanted to create.

I prepared a page in my art journal and while flipping through a bunch of pages I’d collected for collage, found an ink mono print I’d done a couple of years ago of my face.

Cool! I thought. I’ll collage my face into my page and go from there.

It had been awhile since I’d tried to collage one of the ink mono prints into a piece I’m working on and didn’t think back to my last experience.

It could have been a big mistake!

To collage the mono print into my piece, I use a liquid medium. Liquid medium makes ink run. I’d learned this important fact the last time I’d tried to do this — and forgotten it.

Last time, I scrapped the piece.

This time, I chose to keep working through it and make my ‘mistake’ part of my process.

I didn’t worry about the ink running. I made it part of the creation.

And, because I have experiencing working with art products and processes, I knew how to stabilize the mono print once I’d gotten it to where I wanted it to be so that I could keep working on the piece without the ink continuing to run.

And that’s when it struck me. What I was doing was very much like living life.

We all have our ‘histories’. The past things we’ve done and experienced and learned that inform our life today. Like dissecting frogs in Biology Class there are some lessons I’ve learned that do not apply to my life today. For others, dissecting frogs may have led to studying medicine or becoming biology teachers. We are each unique in how we use what we’ve learned and experienced to enrich the journey of our lives.

We carry our learnings and experience through our journey, like beautiful threads in our tapestry of life. Some threads are longer. Some create a pattern we find pleasing. Some we tie-off and weave in another colour or pattern. No matter what we do with the thread, it is always there, ready to add value to the vibrancy and stability of our world today.

Since trying to collage in that first mono print a couple of years ago, I’ve spent a lot more time in the studio. In the process, I’ve gotten more confident and free in my creative journey.

Whereas last time the ink ran I scrapped the project, this time I chose to keep pushing through it. To trust in the process and use what I knew about art-making to enhance my journey. I chose to use my ‘mistake’ as a gift to help create and enrich the outcome.

Here’s the thing though. There was a part of the process last night that did apply to Biology Class long ago.

In Grade 13 I did not want to dissect frogs and convinced my teacher that he didn’t want me doing it either. Instead, I put together an independent study program where I spent the year outside the Biology classroom and in the Grade 3 & 4 classrooms in the elementary school next door. There, I taught children the art of living life compassionately, cooperatively, creatively.

Last night I used some of the lessons I learned from putting together that independent study project when I was in my teens.

Believe in yourself.

Trust in the process.

There are no mistakes, just opportunities to create.

Every life is a work of art. We all have the talent and capacity to create beautiful lives through bravely taking each step of our journey believing in ourselves, borrowing from our pasts when necessary and giving ourselves the grace of trusting in the process of life unfolding in all its beautiful colours running wildly across the page we are creating in this moment right now.

 

 

 

 

Now is the best time to celebrate the moment.

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To get approval, stop seeking it; to take care of yourself, take care of others. — Dr. Rick Hanson

I am practicing acquiring an attitude of gratitude in all things.

Throughout my day, no matter where I am or what I’m doing, I stop and give a little thanks. My goal is to link one moment to the next, to feel gratitude stirring in all things, calling me to celebrate the preciousness of each moment. And the best way I know to do that is to give thanks. To stop and say a little ‘thank-you’ to the universe as I take in all the good around me.

Moments for thanks appear everywhere, all the time.

Like, in the moment of pushing the button for the elevator and the doors open like magic! Give a little thanks.

Sometimes, the same moment may  not feel or look quite so much like an opportunity to give thanks. But it is.

Imagine, you push the button for the elevator and it takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r for it to arrive. Rather than grow impatient, pressing the button again and again like that will make a difference, stop, take a breath and give a little thanks for that precious moment where you get to stand in the quiet, waiting outside the closed doors and have a chance to breathe.

Some of the moments where I stopped to give a little thanks yesterday included:

  • The five minute wait the electronic news board told me I had before the next train. The morning air was fresh and cool against my skin. Beyond the station, traffic hummed along the roadway. Above, the sky was stretched thin and grey as dawn awakened. I looked around at the people lined up along the platform. I looked up and breathed and gave a little thanks for the precious moment of reprieve to simply get present in my day.
  • Sharing a hilarious moment with a couple of co-workers in the coffee room. We laughed at what one person said that riffed into another until we had exhausted a rather bizarre and silly conversation about why women don’t need ‘balls’. Truly, we don’t.
  • A co-worker giving me an apple — I’d forgotten my lunch and his apple ‘saved me’ from eating what wasn’t good for me. That small act lead to another moment of giving thanks when I couldn’t find my office keys, only to locate them later in the kitchen. In the fridge. That incident caused more laughter and what is better than laughter to lift your spirits?
  • Finding a little box of Valentine’s Smarties at the bottom of my bag. Ok. That was before I ate the apple but it sure was a thrill to find those pink and red Smarties!
  • Pressing SEND on a document I’d been working on for two days. Whew! And getting to laugh with the recipient of the document because it’s now off my desk and onto hers. She said thank you. I’m not quite sure she meant it, (she now has to complete her part of it) but I’m taking her at her word.
  • Taking a break and going outside mid-day to walk around the block. What a gift to be able to just get up from my desk and step outside for a brief interlude. Did I mention this winter has been inordinately warm? Bonus! I only needed a light coat and no gloves or boots!
  • The warm welcome and wishes of the woman at the drugstore when I dropped in to buy a lip balm. Her “I hope you’re having a terrific day,” felt so sincere. She made me smile and remember, I was having a terrific day.

My goal is to fill my day with so many moments of thanks that moments of dullness or emptiness, or simply ‘the blahs’ don’t have time to rise up and fill in the spaces between my being present in gratitude, and not being present in gratitude.

Psychologist, speaker, and author of Buddha’s Brain and many other books on gratitude, happiness and well-being, Rick Hanson, calls it, taking in the good. It’s not about just acknowledging the moment, it’s about taking it in, soaking up the feelings of wellbeing that come with noticing the goodness all around and letting the pure gold of the experience fill you up.

He explains it well in the short video below.

Hope you get a chance to watch it!  And even if you don’t, I hope your day is filled with moments where all that’s on your mind is how grateful you are for what is appearing before you in the moment, right now.

Remember, this moment right now is the only one you’ve got. Why not fill it with thanks?

Rick Hanson

Rick Hanson, Ph.D., is a psychologist, Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and New York

 

If I could punch a hole in the darkness of depression.

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You are not alone copyI had something else planned for today’s post.

Expect the unexpected and you will not be disappointed.

A woman sent me a tweet with a link to a video she created to raise awareness of eating disorders and to inspire people in their recovery journey of breaking free from ED.

Lilac Sheer uses song, animation and her own story of recovery from ED to drive home an important message — There is another path. There is help. You are not alone.

And in her note I was reminded. I am not alone.

There are no coincidences. I needed to hear Lilac’s words. I needed to see through the darkness of my fear to the light of hope always present in our human connection.

Yesterday I had a conversation with someone trapped in the darkness of depression’s cloying mass. I wanted to cry. To scream. To punch out the darkness so the light could get through to them. I wanted to run after them and pull on their arms and force them to turn around. I wanted to shout at them so they could hear me. Don’t go so deep. Don’t take that path. Look. Come this way. Here is the light. Here is love waiting to embrace you.

But I am not that powerful. I cannot punch holes into the darkness consuming another’s mind and being. I cannot make someone hear my words when darkness is blocking out all sound of Love, hope, and joy.

I can only hold space in the light of my heart so that where our space connects, it is only Love they feel between us even when it is love they most fear.

I can listen with a loving heart. Hear with loving ears. Speak with loving words.

I cannot change another’s path. I can illuminate my path to shine fiercely, brightly, lovingly. I can shine my light into the darkness so that they do not feel so all alone, so scared and small.

And I can let them know, as Lilac Sheer did for me, you are not alone in the darkness. I will stand with you. I will hold space for you. I will be with you. Fierce. Loving. Radiating with the light of hope that beyond the darkness you will feel and see and know the light entering on your next breath and the next. So that no matter how deep the darkness feels you know deeper within you, deeper than the darkness — Love is always present. Love is always with you.

I may not be able to punch holes into the darkness, but I can hold space for the light to shine through. Always.

Please take the time to watch Lilac Sheer’s amazing video animated by the very talented Natalie Biegaj.

Punch a hole into the darkness — Like it. Share it. Let those trapped in depression’s cloak of darkness or struggling to free themselves from ED’s killing embrace know, they are not alone. None of us are.

 

The Apology. How to let go of being right and be in relationship.

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IMG_20140210_0003My father was not a man to say “I’m sorry.” Apologies were for the weak. Strong men never backed down.

To apologize is to be willing to admit you made a mistake. Hurt someone. Caused harm. Apologies are a way of acknowledging the other person matters to you. That you see that what you did does not sit well with them. And, it’s a way to acknowledge your own humanness.

The challenge of being unable to apologize is, it makes the need to be perfect stronger.

When you are driven by the need to ‘be perfect’, it is impossible to accept you might have made a mistake or hurt someone.

The drive for perfection is a killer of intimacy. No one can get through this life without causing someone else harm. We are human. Humans make mistakes. Though our intention may be not to hurt someone, we cannot control, nor know, how someone else will receive our truth. And sometimes, in emotionally charged moments, we do not deliver our truth with grace and ease. We serve it up fully loaded, expecting the other to be able to swallow it in one easy bite. Instead, all it does is cause them indigestion.

Apologies have impact. They are a way of telling someone you unintentionally, or intentionally, hurt that they matter to you. That you see by their reaction to whatever you did, that you caused them pain. And in your apology you are telling them that. “I see you and you matter to me more than standing my ground matters to me.”

You are telling them that they are more important than the momentary thrill of revenge, or getting even or whatever you received from your actions, gave you.

Apology is easy, once you get over yourself.

Next time you do something you can see caused someone harm, let go of your desire to be right and try this instead:

  1. Take a breath. Now, ask yourself. “What’s the story I’m telling myself about this situation? Am I justifying my ‘rightness’? Am I building a case against them so I don’t have to look at me?”
  2. Take another breath. Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen if I acknowledge where I was at in this situation was not as altruistic or ‘right’ as I make it out to be? What if I let go of being right and moved instead into being in relationship? What would I do differently?
  3. Take another breath. Ask yourself, “Am I willing to let go of my position to make room for both our positions in this conversation? Am I willing to see that my being right makes them wrong — And that is a lose/lose.”
  4. Keep breathing. Now, ask yourself, “What am I willing to do to create relationship? What can I do to allow both of us to cross from separate sides to common ground?
  5. Big, deep slow breath. Now, ask yourself, “Am I the problem here? Is my reluctance to admit what I did to create this situation, the reason the situation is continuing to fester? Am I willing to think with my heart and give my ego a break? Am I willing to acknowledge, I am human.”

If the answers to Question 5 are anything other than ‘yes’, begin at the beginning again. If you did answer ‘yes’, then an apology is the shortest distance between two hearts. Apologies given from a place of acknowledging your role in creating the situation, create space for forgiveness, and relationship, to blossom.

And let’s be careful here. An apology is not about saying, “I’m sorry I made you feel _________________.” That’s like saying, “I was right to do what I did. It’s your bad you’re feeling that way. So sorry.”

An apology is about acknowledging that what you did caused someone else harm and you honestly want to fix it. As in, “I see that what I did by_________________ hurt you. I apologize. I do not want to hurt you. I value you and want to be in relationship with you. I want to cross this bridge so we can be together on the same side. Is there something I can do to help fix this?”

Yesterday, C.C. my beloved did something that irritated me. He did not do it intentionally. In fact, what he did was not all that critical and was easily fixed. Me. I wanted to make it a federal case. I wanted to rub salt into the wound of what I judged to be his thoughtlessness. (I was tired okay?)

Here’s the thing. My being tired does not give me the right to be rude or inconsiderate or to sit in judgement.

C.C. is a wise man. He let my bad behaviour go and asked me for a hug.

It takes a lot of work to carry a judgement or grudge across a bridge when the one you love is holding you safely in their embrace.

Apologies build bridges. They create connection. They ease tension and, as my eldest daughter explained it once, apologies replace pain with Love. In the aftermath of a relationship with a man who hurt all of us badly, when I apologized for what I did in that relationship to cause them pain and fear, the river of pain separating us kept getting replaced with love. Eventually, the pain flowed away and all that was left was love.

I like a world where no matter what happens, all that is present is Love.

 

 

 

Love? What does it really cost?

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photo (43)Love. A many splendored thing. A many confusing mystery.

Love. We want it. Need it. Fight for it. Fight against it. We resist. We retreat. We hide from it.

Love. We don’t believe in it. We don’t understand it. We don’t feel it.

Love.

A verb? A noun? An adjective? An any ‘thing’?

Love is all around. It is in everything. It is always the answer.

When we surrender to Love, we give up naming it, blaming it, hating it.

When we give into Love, we give into the essence of our humanity, the core of our humanness.

Love is.

We are.

Love.

Love is ever-present, ever abiding and always in the air.

All we have to do to know love, to be love, to have and to give love is to stop resisting, stop justifying, stop fighting our universal need to know and believe in Love.

Yesterday, was the annual day of love. Hearts and flowers, mushy quotes and pithy sayings abounded all over the universe. I Love You’s rolled off tongues and strut their stuff across the screens of hand-held devices and computer monitors.

In our collective frenzy to declare our Love for everyone and everything, we force-fed message streams and twitter feeds with assertions of undying, never-ending, always enduring Love.

So what’s the big deal? Why do we go love crazy on one day of the year when Love is all around every day of the year?

Like Christians long ago confessing their sins to buy their assured seat in Heaven before traipsing off to the Crusades, perhaps we confess our love on this one day of the year to atone for our lack of loving actions throughout the year.

Colour me jaded, but Valentine’s Day feels like a bit of a hoax. In its hyped up, gimme-gimme cravings for attention, Valentine’s Day has become a retailer’s delight of super-sized proportions. Love doesn’t cost a dime, yet, encouraging the consumer to buy, buy, buy has overridden the true cost of giving and receiving Love.

Love is free.

On the wall at the far end of our bedroom, just below the ceiling, there is a wooden plaque with the words, “Always kiss me goodnight,” written on it.

Lying in bed, it is the last thing I read before turning out the light, and the first thing I read in the morning.

Its placement is intentional.

No matter the temperature of our relationship, that sign is a reminder to always give way to Love. To not go to sleep angry. To not awaken with yesterday’s disagreements clouding our hearts.

Love is the answer.

In anger. Fear. Confusion. Hatred. Sorrow. Love is the answer.

Because no matter what else you may be feeling, no matter what other emotion may be clogging your heart’s ability to pump freely, Love is always present.

And it doesn’t need you to dig into your pocketbook on one day of the year to remind someone you love of its presence.

Perhaps though, it is our human fear that makes us want to spend our way into protesting our love everywhere. Perhaps it is that because we do so many things that are not loving, that are not a reflection of the core of our humanness, we need this day to remind us that we can put down our arms of war to reach out with arms filled with nothing but love for one another.

In doing it one day of the year, perhaps we remind ourselves that it is possible to make peace not war. To live in community not separation. To choose Love not fear.

Perhaps, the purpose for Valentine’s Day is to remind us all to stop, take a breath and remember, Love is all around.

I hope so. Because given the retailer’s need for boosting up in our sagging economy, I’m sure they appreciated all the Love this year.

 

How to fall in love with yourself.

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cardHow does one fall in love with oneself?

In my years of coaching, working with street teens, working in the homeless sector, learning what it means to live as ‘an artist’ of my own heart, running art programs, teaching story-telling and delving into the power of Love and writing about it, there is a common thread that runs through our psyches, no matter where we’ve been, what we’ve done, how we’ve gotten to where ever we are at.

Shame.

We are burdened with shame and gratitude depleted.

Brené Brown writes about shame. She studies it, researches it and expresses its debilitating effects with great clarity in her may books on the subject.

She writes:

“Shame works like the zoom lens on a camera. When we are feeling shame, the camera is zoomed in tight and all we see is our flawed selves, alone and struggling.”

“Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.”

“Perfectionism is a self-destructive and addictive belief system that fuels this primary thought: If I look perfect, and do everything perfectly, I can avoid or minimize the painful feelings of shame, judgment, and blame.”

“Faith is a place of mystery, where we find the courage to believe in what we cannot see and the strength to let go of our fear of uncertainty.”

― Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are

We can be shame driven or heart full.

We can be shame full or heart driven.

Or,

We can be heart driven and heart full and in the fullness of living from our heart-centered wholeness, we can set ourselves free.

It’s all in where we put our attention. Whatever we put our attention on becomes stronger in our life.

When I focus on avoiding shame, my avoidance grows stronger giving shame little chance to flow free.

When I put my attention on how unworthy I am of love, how undeserving of grace or kindness or tender loving care, my story becomes all about how unworthy, undeserving I am. It also gives me an excuse not to change, not to face my fears and step through the threshold of my shame.

It is easier to hate myself when I’m constantly telling myself how much I hate myself, my life and the world around me. The story of why I have the right to feel this way, to tell myself this is true, is a powerful story. Staying connected to the story I’m telling myself, even when it hurts, is safer than letting it go.

Change your story. Change your life.

How do you fall in love with yourself?  Stop hating yourself.

Here’s an exercise.

  1. Go stand in front of a mirror and look into your eyes. (It’s okay. You can keep your clothes on. You’re looking into your eyes, not at your body – and it’s not about judging what you see. It’s about being open to looking in). Look deeply, yes deeply, into your eyes and repeat OUT LOUD 10x (slowly, breathing between each repetition) “I love you.” (repeat 10x) Remember — Keep your eyes open and look deeply within them, not at them.
  2. Breathe. Yes. Breathe. It’s okay. Telling yourself you love yourself is a good thing to do. It’s a place to start. Sure, you may feel silly, stupid, uncomfortable. You might even tell yourself ‘well, that’s a lie’. But, think about it. Is the statement “I love me” any different than “I hate me”?  You are your thoughts. If your thoughts are all about hating yourself, that will become what you believe to be the truth. So, start gently, lovingly, even if you’re afraid, by changing the message you tell yourself.
  3. Repeat many times, every day, until it comes as naturally as breathing. Eventually, dispense with the mirror. Just keep telling yourself, I Love You. I Love Me.

Think of the alternative. Do you want to tell yourself 10x in the mirror, “I hate you.”?  What if you chose instead to just love yourself, even within hating yourself?

Do you want to keep repeating out loud how small, useless, unworthy, undeserving you are?

Even if that feels like the truth, it’s not. It’s just your attention has been on hating yourself for so long, there’s been no room to allow the truth of Love to appear in your eyes.

And yes, I have most definitely simplified the process of falling in love with yourself. It is a journey, an adventure, a grand expedition to choose to fall in love with yourself, even when your mind is telling you ‘Well that’s dangerous. Don’t go there. You’ll get hurt. Let down. Betrayed. Destroyed….”

You have to begin somewhere. Why not here?

Loving yourself is not for sissies.

It’s for everyone. Each of us. All of us.

Loving yourself takes courage. Passion. Fortitude. Hope.

Loving yourself takes heart.

Namaste.

 

Self-love or self-hatred? Which will you choose?

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A commenter writes, “Self-love is no simple task.”

It’s true. It is not always easy to love oneself. To be in love with oneself. To hold oneself in loving thoughts and tender mercies.

There was a time when loving myself was the last thing I wanted to do. Challenge is, I didn’t want to face the fact I was actively engaged in avoiding loving myself so I pretended I did love myself, well sort of, almost, some parts.

In my ‘I love myself but….’ I did a lot of things that hurt me. That hurt people I love.

I knew what it meant to love another — well sort of, at least as long as I didn’t have to face the fact I didn’t really love myself.

In my “I love you but not me” pretense, I could pretend everything was okay when actually, I was not living my truth. Not standing true to my beliefs. Yet, in fact, I wasn’t really lying — I didn’t want to admit I didn’t love myself so pretended I did, but because I didn’t, the things I did that hurt me, that put me in situations that were not self-loving or filled with dignity, self-respect, kindness — they were true to my feelings about myself.

Ahh, the webs we weave when we attempt to deceive ourselves about the truth of our human condition.

 

It is fascinating to me that for many of us, we think about not loving ourselves, but we hesitate to ask the next question. If I am not loving myself, what am I doing?

Am I hating myself? Am I doing things that express my self-loathing? Am I drowning my self-loathing beneath the false pretense of over-confidence? Lack of self-confidence. Humour. Anger. Acting out. Drugs. Alcohol. Am I playing down to my worst instincts to avoid having to acknowledge I am afraid to love myself. Afraid to see this flawed, fragile and frightened being is me — and I’m not loving myself enough to see that what I am doing is hurting me.

Is avoidance of self-love my game?

Long before I fell into the arms of a man who almost killed me with his abuse, I was in therapy. I wanted to understand why I did not love myself.

I knew it was true — that I didn’t love myself. What I didn’t know, what I didn’t see or what no one ever asked me was — Which hurts more? Loving yourself or hating yourself?

 

Recently, I did an EQ (Emotional Intelligence) In-Action Profile with my brilliant friend Ian Munro at Leading Essentially.

It was very telling and informative for me to see where my automatic default goes when I am under duress/stress.

I am ‘optimally fit’ in my Positive/Negative orientation, and ‘optimally fit’ in my balanced reliance on thoughts, wants and feelings.

In my ‘Self-Other Orientation’, well, according to the results it, ‘Needs a Work-Out’.

It’s all about trust. Boundaries and loving myself enough to set healthy ones.

Dang. Wouldn’t you know it.

In this quadrant the good news is, ‘I don’t let relationship ruptures fester or run on too long. The bad news is, I may find myself taking more responsibility than is actually mine to take.’

Taking excessive responsibility is the Achilles’ heel of those who are more self-oriented, the Profile tells me.

No kidding.

Starving children in Africa?

War in Afghanistan?

It’s either my fault or I can fix it. There is no in-between.

Just kidding. I know that’s not true, but somewhere deep within me is a wish, a desire to fix it. To bring peace to the world – all of it, not just the parts over which I have domain or impact. It is not succumbing to that place where I believe everything is all my fault, that is vital to my well-being. Of not giving into the feeling that if I could just grab a magic wand and sprinkle fairy dust over everyone so they could just ‘get along’ and quit making such a mess of relationships and our world, I will have done my job.

It’s all about boundaries.

About knowing what is mine and what is yours. What I am responsible for and what I’m not and then…

Yup. That self-love thing again — loving myself enough to give myself the grace of setting boundaries that honour me, and trusting others to be responsible for their journey along the way.

As I mentioned to a friend awhile ago, “I am getting so tired of people crossing the boundaries I refuse to set.”

Boundaries are great. But first, you gotta set some!

Here’s to setting healthy, loving and effective boundaries that get me to optimal fitness in my world.

What about you?

Feeling any need to love yourself a little more today? Go for it. There’s nothing to lose, because really, is self-love any more difficult than self-loathing?

*********************

For those of you interested in the EQ In-Action Profile, Ian is an amazing coach. Do check out his website. Leading Essentially

Thank you KW for your inspiring comment.

There’s no ‘getting over’ a Psyhcopath

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A woman I have never met writes me an email to tell me how she has just seen the documentary that was created about the journey I took through hell with a man whose lies and deceit almost killed me. It still occasionally appears on Discovery Channel and OWN and I always know when it’s been on. Someone will write to tell me they saw it. That they too have a story like mine.

Often, they will write of their misadventure and ask me, “How did you heal? How did you get over that?”

They will also, as this woman has, thank me for having had the courage to tell the story. To share it. “I don’t feel so alone,” she writes. “I am not crazy.”

It is one of the reasons I did the documentary. So that people know they are not alone. Not crazy. That there is hope, and life, after an encounter with a psychopath, or as I used to call it in the early days of my healing, a P-encounter.

Sometimes, the woman will tell me she is still in the relationship, or trying to break it off. Sometimes, it is a mother writing for her daughter’s sake, or a sister, pleading for understanding. Asking me to help them make sense of what is happening. Why won’t she leave? How do I save her?, they ask.

You must cut off all contact with the “P”. You cannot save anyone as long as the “P” is calling the shots. You are not powerful enough to combat the poison he feeds you, or the person you want to help, with every breath he takes and every word he speaks.

We must first stop the poison from entering before we can heal its effects.

There is no sense in encounters of the “P” kind. They are designed to drive the victim and those around them crazy.

“P” encounters are never about Love. They are always about Abuse.

P-encounters rob you of joy. Of your sense of worth, your self-esteem, your belief in yourself. They destroy hope. They tear apart lives, rip apart families and decimate relationships.

The damage is terminal if you stay  in the relationship. Your heart will wither within your body. It will become capable of pumping only enough blood to keep you alive. But moments of joy. Moments of bliss, of seeing the sunshine and feeling the warmth on your face, of feeling alive and free, those will be transitory, fleeting, brief.

When in a relationship with a “P” you will always be connected to the umbilical cord of his lies and deceit feeding you the poison that is cutting off your blood flow, your free-thinking, your heart. He needs to keep you connected in order for him to stay alive. He will do anything to not let you go.

Fear, manipulation, terror, deceit. These are all tools of the trade for a “P”. They have spent their lives perfecting their art. They are subject matter experts in human manipulation. (and yes, women can be P’s too).

And we, their prey, whether a man, woman or child, are simply a means of keeping their art alive.

How did I heal?

By naming what happened for what it is. Abuse. By stopping all contact, even in my mind, with the ‘memories’ of a lost love. It was never real. It was only the creation of his desire to catch me in the web of his lies.

How did I heal?

By taking one step after another, every single day, and reminding myself as each step took me away from those dark and violent days, that I was not healing from a love story gone wrong. I was healing from abuse.

How did I get over it?

I didn’t.

It was not something to get over. I wasn’t trying to climb over a fence dividing ‘those days’ from these days now. I was healing from the loss of joy, the ripping apart of all my relationships, the destruction of my dreams, my heart, my belief in my worth, my belief in magic and wonder and awe.

To heal from the loss, I had to reclaim what I had lost. And I couldn’t do it by getting ‘over him’. I had to do it by letting go of the idea of loving him and believing he was my soul mate, my perfect lover, the man of my dreams, my Prince Charming.

I had to stop all thoughts of loving him and the lies I told myself about how I had lost a beautiful love so that I could see myself without the poison of his lies holding me enthralled in the make-believe he’d created when that relationship first began.

I had to become fierce and tenacious and willing to feel the pain of the loss of myself so that I could fall in love with me. All of me. Beauty and the Beast. The abused woman. The woman who deserted her children. Who let go of her life to take that journey to happily ever after and became lost on the road to hell.

I had to fall in love with me, the woman who is caring, kind, sometimes funny (Ask my daughters. They will tell you being funny is not one of my strengths 🙂 ) Who believes in angels and sees fairies dancing on sunlit water and hears the wind whispering stories of far off places in seed pods dancing on the branches of a tree in springtime.

Who believes we are powerful beyond our wildest imaginings because, she knows with all her heart, we are magnificent human beings capable of creating a world of wonder where harmony, joy, peace and Love abounds.

That is the woman I have fallen in love with. And that is how I ‘got over’ the P-encounter.

Namaste.

 

Don’t Look Back.

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I used to spend a lot of time in the mountains, climbing and skiing and revelling in the views from mountain tops. My daughters’ father is an avid mountaineer. The best weekend for him was to spend it laden down with climbing ropes and axes, scrambling up scree slopes and carefully choosing your path up the side of a mountain to reach some far off summit you can’t see from the bottom, but know is there high above you, waiting for your ascent.

Climbers take their time. They are thoughtful, precise and prepared.

Before they ever head out, they have researched the route, mapped their ascent and at the same time, are prepared for the unexpected.

Anything can happen when climbing a mountain, no matter which direction you’re going. Up or down.

Once, while climbing Cathedral Mountain, we got lost in the woods leading to the beginning of the ascent route. We had to bushwhack through dense forest and being that I was at least a foot shorter than my two climbing companions, I did more rolling over deadfall than stepping. I did not look very dignified nor graceful.

Just below where the climb began I got bit in the calf by a spider. My leg swelled up to three times its size and there was no way I could proceed. I didn’t have a book (any excess weight is not welcome on a climb) so I spent the day sunning and resting on a huge boulder while the two men continued the climb.

It was an unexpected lesson in mindfulness. My mind wanted me to believe the approach of a grizzly bear was imminent. That I was in mortal danger sitting on that rock.

I spent the first couple of hours alone trying to swivel my head in every direction, until eventually I grew tired of being constantly on-guard against some unseen adversary. I had to get present. To become one with my environment. By the time my climbing companions returned, even though my leg was red hot and swollen, I felt grounded. Refreshed. Calm. I’d had a beautiful time being present with the world around me.

When climbing, no matter which way you’re going, looking back is not a good idea. Looking back means you’ve taken your focus off where you’re at. What’s happening in the here and now. When climbing, you must stay present to every step you take, because every step is important to your well-being. And to your climbing partner’s well-being too.

And while each step is filled with anticipation of reaching the summit drawing you ever higher, you can’t let your mind stray to the view at the top. You  must keep it on where you’re at, what you’re doing right now.

I never tired of the view from the top but I never particularly liked the climb. It scared me to be exposed. To be dependent upon a rope, another human being, a foothold on the side of a mountain-face that was supposed to hold, but dare I trust it?

I wasn’t all that keen on the descent either.

Coming down has its perils. You are tired, there is the natural let-down of having reached your goal, of having breathed the rarified air at the top and swooned at the sight of a feast of mountains spread out as far as the eye can see.

There’s not much time to linger on a mountain top. The sun is arcing towards the earth in the distance, storm clouds are building on the far horizon, ice falls, rock falls and other natural hazards litter the slopes below. Your body is fatiguing and now, having devoured the view, you must set your sights on the descent. The valley below is calling. The ‘real world’ awaits.

 

No matter whether climbing up, or down, or simply walking on the path to your ascent, looking back can be dangerous.

Like life, to reach your goal you must have confidence that each step will lead you to the next and the next. Knowing where you’re going keeps you stepping safely. It keeps you aware of pitfalls on your path, of hazards on your route of opportunities and possibilities for new and better paths to your destination.

Looking back will only keep you from seeing what lays on the path ahead.

Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.

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With gratitude to Lou at Zen Flash for the title and inspiration for this post.

In the age of forgetting

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say a little prayer copy

When I was a little girl, Sunday mornings were reserved for church. It was a ritual. We would get all dressed up in our Sunday best, pile into my dad’s car and arrive as one big family of 6 at the church with lots of time to spare. My dad didn’t like being late.

Inevitably, between home and entering the portals of the church, something in my apparel would have come askew. My mother would straighten my skirt. Tuck in my blouse and lick her finger to wipe away some spot of dirt that had managed to find its way to my cheek.

Inside, on the hard wooden pew, my sister and I would sit side by side, our feet not quite touching the floor, swinging our legs and subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, pushing and prodding at each other. My father would grumble about our behaviour and my mother would caution us to Shush.

They didn’t have Sunday School during Catholic mass so we would squirm and wiggle our way through the hour and half mass, kneeling and standing and bowing our heads in tandem with the rest of the congregation, repeating the well worn phrases of the mass, even when the words were in Latin.

Fifty years later, though I seldom attend mass now, I still know when to stand and when to kneel. When to bow my head and when to touch my breast three times with clenched fist and whisper Holy. Holy. Holy.

Cellular memory runs deep.

What is forgotten over the intervening decades is my connection to the holiness of everything. My connection to the greatness of nature. The oneness of life.

We live in an age of lost intimacy with the oneness that runs through life touching us all. Human. Animal. Plant.

We live in an age of acquiring information while forgetting to dig into the roots of our deep and abiding knowledge of life’s divine presence in each of us.

On those Sunday’s when I was a child, there was no question in my mind that God was not present in the church. I saw him in the bowed heads of the congregation. I felt him in the hushed silence, the flickering candles, the incense burning, the light streaming in through a stained glass window.

God. The Divine. Yaweh. Spirit. Whatever word you use to describe the sacred nature of life was there, in each of us as we stood together to listen to the priest, to hear the holy words, to share the wine and bread.  Just as he was there in countless other churches and services and temples and mosques around the globe where humankind gathered together to praise the holy nature of life on earth.

Places of worship bring us together. They remind us of our holy nature, our divine essence. Our Oneness. They connect us to the goodness in each of us, the wonder of our world, the sacredness of our time on earth.

It is outside the walls of worship, beyond the portal doors that I struggle to stay connected, to remember my essence, like your essence, is sacred by nature. That we are all one. All together on this one planet spinning through space held to the earth by the invisible strands of gravity’s grace and the miraculous nature of life.

Take time today to stop and breathe deeply and remember, You are Divine. Just the way you were born. It is your nature. It is all our nature. We are all the divine expression of amazing grace and light. Magnificent and perfect in all our human imperfections.