My daughter Alexis wrote a beautiful tribute to Ellie.

http://howisurvivedmyself.com/2014/06/26/june-26-thank-you/

I cried last night.

Finally.

It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t all gentle flowing, doleful eyes a la Audrey Hepburn, I’m so beautiful when tears run down my cheeks, kinda crying.

These were gut wrenching, oh look my face is all screwed up and mascara is running down my cheeks in ugly black rivulets, kind of tears. These were seriously from the bottom of my toes, ripped out of my heart kind of olfactory run wild kind of waterworks.

Poor C.C.

He’s not particularly good with crying women. Like many a man. He wants to fix it. Make it stop. Make it work again kind of a guy. What do you do with an irrational, highly emotional, crying from the gut kind of a situation?

Fortunately, he chose to stay present. To stay put in the face of the deluge and simply let it pass.

It was not all pretty. But we got through it.

Which is why I’ve realized I need to make some adjustments to my time here.

I need to give myself some self-compassion, some self-care.

I need to take a break from outward expression to inward exploration, inner healing.

Eleven years ago, when I first began the journey away from abuse, I went online to find answers to what had happened to me. One of the very first places I happened upon was a site/forum for women and men who had had experiences with psychopaths. Suddenly, in reading the stories and comments people posted I discovered, OMG! It wasn’t all me. I wasn’t crazy. I had been in a crazy making situation, but I wasn’t crazy.

After a couple of weeks of exploring the site and its sister site, The Narcissistic Personality Disorder Forum, I decided to write a post, to make myself visible online. The first question I was asked was to tell them who I was.

I remember laughing when I read the question, “Who are you?”

Who am I? I didn’t know. I was so broken, so scared, so lost, I honestly couldn’t answer the question without breaking down into tears. Then I read the question more carefully. They weren’t asking me to tell them who I was actually, what they wanted was for me to tell them my screen name. They wanted my online identity, alias, moniker, pseudonym.

Oh.

A nickname.

Something that was my unique identifier in the group — but also something that would keep me safe from being easily identified should the psychopath try to find me.

At the time, Ellie was lying by my feet. It was her favourite place to be and my favourite place to have her. I looked down at her and saw this amazing creature who had stood by me, no matter what. and, as she had done in real life, she became my alter-ego online.

To this day, I am still known as Ellie to many of those courageous women and men I met in that forum.

To this day, Ellie remains my inner guide and my protector.

Yesterday, I with a very dear friend who is also my spiritual/healing guide to talk about Ellie’s loss and what I need to do to keep myself safe and well on this journey. She calls it ‘The Green Zone’, that place where self-compassion and self-care override my natural desire/escape mechanism of throwing myself into work and taking care of other people/fix the world kinda response to trauma.

“What can you do for Louise that is self-soothing?” my dear friend asked.

I need to take a break from writing outwardly every day, I said without hesitation. I need to move into my own journey without thinking first about how I present it to the world.

Which means, I’m taking a break from being here everyday so that I can take care of me, myself and I with loving compassion.

The wounds from the past have long since turned to wisdom, but, the trauma is still there. I think it is something I have come to know as truth — we can heal the wounds, we can grow resilience and strength and patch up the cracks. and we can move through the pain and horror. We can heal.

The trauma of the past, however, can still be triggered in moments of deep pain and sorrow and loss.

To ensure the present doesn’t connect to the trauma, self-care is vital. It is essential.

And sometimes, to give ourselves the gift of healing, we must move away from centre-stage into the wings so that our arms can rest as we lovingly move through the broken places.

“I feel so broken, yet I know I’m not broken,” I told my friend yesterday.

Can you live in that tension knowing the truth is that you are not broken? she asked.

Yes. I replied.

And that’s what I have decided to do.

To live in that tension. Explore the edges of the broken to find the gold that fills the cracks.

Or, as Peter Mayer sings in his beautiful poem, The Japanese Bowl

I’m like one of those Japanese bowls
That were made long ago
I have some cracks in me
They have been filled with gold

That’s what they used back then
When they had a bowl to mend
It did not hide the cracks
It made them shine instead

So now every old scar shows
from every time I broke
And anyone’s eyes can see
I’m not what I used to be

But in a collector’s mind
All of these jagged lines
Make me more beautiful
And worth a higher price

I’m like one of those Japanese bowls
I was made long ago
I have some cracks you can see
See how they shine of gold.
-Peter Mayer

You will be seeing less of me in the weeks ahead. I will occasionally post, but not regularly, and not often.

I will be taking care of me.

Thank you my friends for your love and support. Thank you for being here with me. I love and appreciate you all.

Namaste.

I am at the top of the stairs leading down to the C-train platform.  I put my ticket into the machine for verification just as the train comes to a stop along the platform below.

I am halfway down the stairs as the doors close.

I don’t bother to run. It’s rush hour. There will be another train in a few minutes.

The doors close and I expect the train to move out. But it stays in place. Its engines humming.

I look at the driver through the windows at the front of the train. She smiles at me as we do every morning if I am standing on the platform when the train arrives.

I realize the driver is holding the train for me. I run down the stairs, smile at her through the glass window and mouth ‘Thank you!’  She opens the front set of doors, just for me.

An act of small significance that I carry with me throughout my day.

Later that day, I have to go to the United Way offices to videotape my speech. I am a United Way Impact Speaker and throughout the Campaign season, I talk to groups about giving and supporting the United Way and its agencies. This year, they’ve asked the Impact Speakers to videotape their talks so they can use them for training, and those instances where there’s no speaker available for a meeting.

I use the C-train incident as an example of how small things can make a difference. It’s the best way I can think of to share the impact of how that small act has rippled out into my day – share it with others.

We all have the capacity to share small acts of significance throughout our day.

Holding a door for someone. Smiling at a stranger. Buying a coffee for the next person in line at the drive-through. Picking up a piece of garbage on the sidewalk and throwing it out. Offering to do a chore at home, even when it’s not yours to do because your child or partner is swamped at school or work. Leaving a love note in your child’s lunch for them to find as a surprise, or under your partner’s pillow for them to sleep on all night. Calling someone you haven’t spoken to in a long time just to say hello. Telling a police officer or a teller at the bank, or the cashier at the grocery store how much you appreciate their service…

These are small things that make a difference.

And there are others.

…Not swearing at that driver or honking your horn because they cut you off and instead, letting them in with grace and a whispered, “Bless you. Forgive me.” (I always add the ‘Forgive me’ part because, even if just for a moment, my mind tends to first leap to criticize, condemn and complain about them, even when I don’t want it to!)

…Not spreading the latest gossip you heard about a co-worker’s abysmal performance at a task and instead choosing to offer them support, ask how they’re doing, finding out about what’s going on for them. And when others leap into the fray of condemnation, inviting them to move to compassion, understanding, support.

…Not jumping to conclusions and telling everyone who will listen about the stupid decisions management made because you find out you didn’t get the project you were looking for, or the raise, or the job, or office or anything else that in your opinion is wrong, stupid, ill-formed… — and instead, choosing to support the organization rather than tear it down.

…Not joining ‘The League of Let’s Complain’ and instead, inviting the League  to shift their perceptions, step back and see the situation through different glasses, or simply not join in the conversation.

We all have the capacity to make small significances that will ripple throughout our day creating waves of harmony all around us.

Sitting in condemnation of others simply puts us in that precarious place of judgment where, one wrong move could teeter us off our pedestal into the seas of ‘It could have been me. Wait! It is me’.

When we send anger, disgust, complaints and criticisms out into our world, we are creating ripples that reflect the negative spaces we’ve created.

Yes. There is much in this world that is not going right, that dismays me, that causes my heart to ache.

Sitting in condemnation. Arguing the limitations of nothing’s going to change, changes nothing.

Speaking up for possibility. Holding space for miracles. Seeing grace in every moment changes how I see the world, and in its ripple, creates the possibility for others to see the world differently too. And when we all see the world through eyes of possibility, when we all see each other through eyes of compassion, when we all hold space for miracles to happen, miracles happen.

For today, choose to not criticize, condemn and complain.

For today, ask yourself, “What’s my ripple?” and consciously choose to send out ripples of possibility that create a sea of change all around.

Let the change in your perspective begin with you. Be a ripple of Hope. Compassion and Possibility.

It’s a big day today. A celebration! A fest! A joyful occasion!

Today is my eldest daughter’s 28th birthday.

Imagine. Twenty-eight years ago today the world did not know of the incredible, the amazing, the supercalifragilicious Alexis.

Twenty-eight years later, she is a shining light of love and compassion in the world.

I remember the day she was born. It was sunny and bright. I was 19 days past my due date.

My doctor had been on holidays and I was not about to put myself in the care of anyone else. I also think Alexis knew it was the last time in her life she would have absolute, total control of anything and wasn’t about to let that go!

We didn’t know her gender but I didn’t want to carry her unnamed through those developmental, and vital months, so we named her Balthazar while in the womb. Balthazar was one of the 3 Kings and it seemed apropos to me for such an amazing gift of life.

I was in awe of carrying this precious life within me. To mold my body to its growing form, always leaving room for life to continue to expand, develop, grow.

As I moved. So too did she.

As I ate, so too did she.

As I breathed, so too did she.

It was a sacred journey; to bring life into form; to carry life within me; to be united in science and mystery. It is a bond that has never been broken for I am her mother; even in our darkest moments together, the love that connects us, has never, can never, be broken. For she is Love in human form. She is a gift of Love. She is of my body and though I shall never own her, she will always own part of me. She will always have my heart.

It is a celebration today. The 28th year of the wonder and awe that is my daughter Alexis.

I am blessed.

I am grateful.

I am her mother.

When I was in my early teens I read everything I could get my hands on by Ayn Rand. She was my idol. My heroine. My voice I could not find. I wanted to be Dagny Taggart, the heroine of her novel, Atlas Shrugged. I wanted to be tall, angular, blonde. I wanted Dagny’s piercing blue eyes. Her strong voice. Her passionate pursuit of her dreams and goals. Dagny was a no-nonsense, focused, driven, altruistic, independent business woman who believed the state had no business running her business. I wanted to be Dagny.

Lofty dreams for a short, dark-haired, brown-eyed and rounded girl. Challenging.

In the journey from teenhood to adulthood, I gave up trying to change my look. Wasn’t going to happen. Once I reached the limits of my 5’3″ height, I accepted my fate of being ‘vertically challenged’ and settled into letting go of trying to scale the highest peaks. I was never going to make it to the top, I told myself, and held myself back from even trying. As to being tall, blue-eyed and blonde, well, that too was relegated to childhood fiction. Wasn’t going to happen. I hadn’t much enjoyed math-induced angular explorations anyway and finding angles on my not so angular body was an even more difficult proposition.

In Richard Wagamese’s novel, “Dream Wheels“, Joe Willie Wolfchild, a rodeo cowboy, loses his dream to an encounter with a bull. He doesn’t know who he is without his dream and falls into a stormy silence back on the ranch his parents and their parents before them had settled into when their dreams had been stomped dead in the harsh reality of the rodeo ring. For his parents, their Native traditions sustained them. For Joe Willie, his anger fueled him. It corroded him from the inside out like the rust on the truck he’s restoring that his parents once used to take them from rodeo to rodeo when they too shared in the dream of being Champion Bull Riders. He doesn’t know what to do with his anger, but a bear walks into his vision and gives him permission to growl through his pain so that he can get through grieving the past into living the life of his dreams renewed.

Towards the denouement of the novel, Joe Willie tells Claire, a battered woman who has come to the ranch looking for her son, “In rodeo you always have to qualify for the big round. To prove your worth. She [the bear] meant that life isn’t rodeo. That I qualify. That I’m a part of things regardless. Guess I forgot that. Or never learned it in the first place.”

No matter our position on the rungs of success, how lost we are on the road of diminished possibilities, or where we land in the rodeo ring, we are a part of it. A part of the life around us. The life of our families, our communities, our world. Our past has brought us here. Our future lies untold. Our present is the moment in which we shine. In which we can choose to step into life, or away from living.

And it is our dreams that carry us through, the darkness and the light. It is our dreams that shine, even when our eyes are closed.

We can choose to step towards making our dreams come true or we can growl our way through each agonizing moment into the darkness of giving up on believing in ourselves, in our dreams, in our possibilities.

Sometimes, our dreams are built on fantasy, like me wanting to look like Dagny Taggart. Regardless of our height, our size, our wealth, or a thousand other equations, the thing is, we gotta have a dream to make a dream come true.

We don’t have to qualify to have a dream, we simply have to believe we do, and  hold it in our hearts and paint it, live it, dream it. And should we choose to let it go, there is always space to dream again, unless we disqualify ourselves from riding bulls and following rainbows where ever they may lead… and that’s when the pain sets in.

The question is: What’s your dream? Are you treating yourself as a qualifier, claiming your rightful place at centre stage of your life unfolding around you? Or, are you letting your dreams fall by the wayside, using anger as a reason to avoid, to let go, to hang up on yourself?

Do you measure the world as unfair, unjust, so that you can walk away from your dreams? Or, do you measure yourself as a winner, the architect of your life, the person who can make it happen because you are worthy of your dreams come true?

We don’t have to qualify to live our dreams, but we do have to keep on dreaming and fearlessly taking the ride that will create reality out of our dreams.

I have been exploring. Creating. Playing.

Some time ago, I bought alcohol inks — a woman in a course I was taking had used the inks in one of the mandala’s she had created during the course and I was curious. I loved the vibrancy of the colours and the watercolour effect they evoked. The first time I tried using them, I didn’t like how they worked. They soaked into canvas without spreading and I didn’t want to work on the special surface they needed.

I put them aside.

A few weeks ago, I was experimenting and decided to give the inks another go. I was working on cards for my Choices trainees and needed something that would give me the kind of look and colours I needed for flowers.

I fell in love.

It wasn’t that the inks had changed. It was that I had changed the surface I was working on. Rather than applying the inks to straight water colour paper or a canvas, I had painted an undercoat with acrylic paint and then applied a thick coat of gloss medium.

On a whim, I decided to try the inks just to see what would happen — my motto being…. what’s the worst that could happen?

Suddenly, a happy surprise ensued. The coat of medium created a non-porous surface against which the inks can flow and bond. Rather than getting stuck on the surface and creating a blog of muddy, dead colour, they edged up against each other and glided across the surface — and, because they are alcohol based, they dried quickly so their colours remain vibrant the their flow isn’t too unpredictable.

Art mirrors life. We go searching for the new, don’t like what we find, put it away, throw it out, or because we don’t understand it, or are afraid of it, don’t dare pick it up before moving  on. Then, one day, we encounter something that reminds us of ‘that old thing’ we didn’t like before, and we decide to give it another try. Or, that old thing appears on our path again and we are forced to give it another go.

And suddenly, a happy surprise ensues.

Or not.

The thing is, neither is a mistake. Not using it or doing it, or using it and doing it. They are both the right path taken at different times.

What counts is the willingness to be open to experimenting, to be conscious of the possible.

I didn’t like how the inks worked when first I tried them — it wasn’t the inks — it was me using a surface they weren’t designed to be used upon.

In being open to experimenting, I accidentally discovered a surface they do work on — even though non of the literature about using the inks suggest doing it my way, that’s okay. It works for me.

Some things work for everyone. Some things work for some. This worked for me.

It is something I often forget. I think I need to do it ‘the right way’, the right way being the way I’ve been taught, or how I’ve read or heard it should be.

But it doesn’t always work for me. Sometimes, I have to be willing to go out on a limb and simply risk. In the risk, I discover my truth. My path. My experience.

And sometimes, I really like what happens.

Sometimes, I don’t and get to choose all over again.

I’ve been experimenting with happy surprises.

I’m kinda’ likin’ the exploration! 🙂

Robert Holden, in his book, Happiness Now, writes, “No amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.”  He went on to write,

Without self-acceptance, peace is impossible,
with self-acceptance, peace is yours.
Without self-acceptance, love has to wait,
with self-acceptance, peace is welcome.
Without self-acceptance, there is no happiness,
with self-acceptance, you know happiness.
Without self-acceptance, truth hurts,
with self-acceptance, truth heals.
Without self-acceptance, you can accept no one fully into your life,
with self-acceptance, you can.
Without self-acceptance, you are always hiding,
with self-acceptance you spirit is gliding.
Without self-acceptance, nothing is enough,
with self-acceptance, you are enough.
Without self-acceptance, you are not free to grow,
with self-acceptance, your potential is free to flow.
Without self-acceptance, there is no chance,
with self-acceptance, there is always a chance.

To live free I must let go of holding onto shame and set myself free to Love.

I can do all sorts of work to make myself kinder, happier, even more physically strong. But, if I don’t accept myself the way I am, if I carry any morsels of self-hatred, regret and shame, I will still be caught in the trap of believing the past is the present and I am my shame.

Yesterday, I had to give two TV interviews on the issue of the ‘homeless spikes’ that have been sprouting up in cities around the world. I am comfortable in front of a TV camera. I have given hundreds of interviews over the past years of working in the homeless sector, and am confident in what I have to say and how I come across.

Yesterday, in spite of my familiarity with the subject matter, and my passion for inspiring others to shift their perspective of homelessness to a more caring and collective understanding of our human condition, I didn’t want to do the interviews. I didn’t want to be on purpose.

Over the past few months, I have allowed some pounds to creep back onto my body. I think they may have snuck in while I was sleeping because I don’t remember inviting them but regardless of how they managed to take hold, I don’t like them. And rather than do anything about it, I’m doing my best ostrich imitation and avoiding the issue all together!

It isn’t that I’m saying mean things to myself, it is that I am avoiding everything about those extra pounds. While that includes listening to the self-chatter about what a loser I am to let those extra pounds creep in, it also means I am avoiding thinking about what I can do to reclaim my homeostasis. I am refusing to step into my power to take action — of any kind. And in my lack of taking action to create the more I want in my life, I am forcing myself to stay just below the level of true consciousness in the land of ‘if I pretend it’s not happening, it’s not happening.”

Ahhh, if only I could believe in make-believe I’d be able to make myself all perfect and shiny all the time!

I don’t need make believe to let go of shame. Regret. The Past.

All I need is a willingness to accept myself today, just the way I am, and know….  I am enough.

.

My father was an only child.

My mother one of ten.

Once, as a child, I met some of my father’s extended family. A step-sister and her children. I think possibly another step-sister too.

I’ve met many of my mother’s siblings, and some of their children too, but seldom, have I been able to entertain them at my house. They mostly live in France, though some still live in India where my mother was born.

Last night was special.

My Auntie Maud’s son, along with his wife and their youngest son are visiting their eldest who has recently moved to Toronto from Bangalore, India. They journeyed west for a couple of days just to visit my mother. Which meant, we got to meet too!

Last night, they came for dinner with my sister and her husband with whom they are staying. We laughed and chatted and shared conversation and sat around the dinner table as families do.

As I sat and listened and watched and took part, I thought about the strands of family ties that bind us around the world. From Bangalore to Paris, to the south of France to Canada and all around the globe. My mother was the only one of her siblings to move to Canada. Most of the others left in the 1950s shortly after India declared its independence. The city they lived in, Pondicherry, had been under French control for centuries. Suddenly, no longer a French protectorate, those with French passports were given an option. Stay and declare your allegiance to India, or leave.

My mother had already sailed away at the end of the second world war. Her siblings made the same difficult decision to leave their parents behind and most of them, never having lived, or even visited France, chose to adopt Viet Nam as their home. It was a difficult and short-lived decision. Colonial rule was on its way out and the French government handed over their power to the Americans. My mother’s family moved, en masse, to France where the majority continue to live today.

My Auntie Maud and her husband, along with my Auntie Marie-Therese, never left India. It is the land they love. It is their home.

Roots have always fascinated me. With neither of my parents born in Canada, and having spent most of my childhood and into my twenties living outside the country, I have often wondered about my roots, about what makes me Canadian.

Last night, as I looked around the table, I realized that it was there, all around me.

I don’t need to wave a flag, or tattoo a picture of our national animal on my shoulder.

My roots are not found between the blue cover of my passport or whether or not I can sing our national anthem in both official languages.

They are found right there, sitting around the table, sharing stories, sharing each other’s lives.

My family is my roots. My mother, my sisters, my nieces, aunts, uncles, cousins and my two daughters who are at the heart of what enriches my life and fills my soul with meaning, connection, depth. It doesn’t matter that many members have passed on, or that I haven’t met all my cousins and distant relatives, or where in the world we are. It is that we are connected through the invisible ties of family that bind us together all over the globe. And as I continue to add to the web of family ties, the strength of each strand grows more brilliant through the connections we make in tying strands from others lives into ours. C.C. and his son and daughter and his large extended family are all woven into the tapestry of my family, creating brilliant hues where ever we connect.

I am blessed.

I don’t need roots to know where I stand. I simply need to look around the table and know, this is where I belong.

Namaste.