Third Time is My Charm

 There are places I've been that are hard to revisit. My brother's grave, for example. I struggle to visit where he's buried. I have places I go where I leave my pain behind. Where I heal as I visit. Where the warmth of freedom fills my entire soul with flames of wholeness. It engulfs me completely. I would go visit regularly to feel the burning sensation of the refiner's fire changing, molding, and healing me. I took a long hard break from this healing place of mine. Somewhere along the way, I convinced myself that there were too many people taking up space. My little personal healing space.  I went through some old notes that I found of the times I'd visit it. I wrote "My faith lacks hope. My knowledge lacks belief. My doubt overrides truth. My brain lacks the memory of that time I once had hope in my faith, belief in my knowledge, and truth once trumped my doubts. I want to live like the river... It has no doubts, it is sure to get where it's going and d...

 I was sitting on my couch just thinking. That's what I do now. I think and I think and I think. Just as Winnie the Pooh would do while squinting his eyes and tapping the side of his head as if searching for an answer while saying "think, think, think". The concept of the pendulum popped into my mind. I have heard people say that "the pendulum swings to the other side", as if to describe what once was positive now became a negative or vice versa. I thought about that and it just didn't sit right with me. I googled "what makes the pendulum swing?" There are 6 forms of energy, but I want to write about the 2 forms that are used in a pendulum. There is an energy that is called "potential energy" and there is another energy called "kinetic energy". These two forms of energy make the pendulum swing. Now, if you think about potential and what we define that as... it is the idea of becoming better than what is. So, we all have this ...

 I have been working with our family dog, V. I've had a lot of free time at night to do this. I have had some interesting and life changing perspectives as I have worked with her. I had a lot of frustration with her in the beginning. She wasn't a breed that I had done any research on and I thought that I would like a velcro dog that just wants to be with me all of the time. Like, a little shadow buddy. It was too much too fast. I wanted to figure out why I thought this dog would be good for me and our home.  "UGH- V! You're so damn needy for attention and it bothers me that you get mega offended when you don't get what you want!"  When I said that out loud to her she just looked me straight in the eyes. I quickly apologized to her and that was the beginning of our relationship. Yes, her eyes told me that she is just a reflection of my worst behavior. I started to study her and stopped trying to get her to bend to me. What a life changing experiment and it'...

Two days ago I sat in my bedroom on a perfectly flat yoga mat with 4 small candles lit in the distance and behind me. I listened to a stranger talk to me while describing a white light above my head and choosing to let it in to fill my entire body. Down and through every limb and joint. With every inhale it sank deeper and eventually penetrated every vein in my body until it was a light that was traveling and circulating with my blood. To the tips of my fingers to the tips of my toes. I was in a place of breathing in oxygen that was colorful and labeled with purpose. I labeled the complete opposite of light to what I was breathing out. The amount of inhaled oxygen is 21% compared to 16% on the exhale. I held on to that 5% that I labeled and allowed it to find rest in my body. This all sounds a little coo coo. Just typing it out makes me feel like I need to check myself into a mental hospital. I laughed at it all before too. This breathing is to show me that although my subconscious min...

 Last night we had a family meeting. I have struggled since my divorce with my children's dad and defining what my family looked like. He remarried 3 months after our divorce. I have a lot of frustrated and bitter feelings when I go back to that time in my thoughts. At some point, I will need to address that within me. Perhaps, it still has control over me because I haven't let it go. I was pretty hurt by how my family handled things during that time and defining loyalty within family bounds was undefined. Broken. That's not what this post is about though.  My family is defined as "V". Our family mascot is a Doberman with the name "V". She wasn't initially named V for the number 5, but that doesn't matter. It is beginning to feel right to feel like I have a family of 5. I never questioned the type of mother I was pre divorce. I don't have one regret of being that mom. I regret the mom I became with alcohol and dysfunctional relationships. It...

 You know what hurts my feelings? When someone says "that's not you." As if people want to wear goggles that will morph my reality to appease their perception. It is me. All of it. Who would I be if I didn't have the ugly? How would I know?  Spencer W. Kimball said in his talk "God will Forgive" that he gave in March 1982- "Another error into which some transgressors fall, because of the availability of God's forgiveness, is the illusion that they are somehow stronger for having committed sin and then lived through the period of repentance.... How satisfying it is to be cleansed from filthiness, but how much better it is never to have committed the sin!" I don't remember when I first heard that, but I haven't forgotten it. It defies what the atonement is for. The only one that never committed sin is Jesus so I guess if we can't be perfect then we should measure up next to each other. To those who have worse sins than the other. ...

 After reading John 4, I came across a Baptist Pastor who talked of this same event. My tears fell as his conviction of Jesus penetrated my soul. His sermon and John 4 is about the woman at the well. That one woman. The one that had to have been completely dry inside, unlike the well she was fetching water from.  Jesus was weary. Tired. Exhausted. It was around noon when he sat at the well. The Samaritan woman arrived with her pale to draw up the water. After the Savior asked for water and while she was working through her shock of this Jew talking to her, a Samaritan "Jesus saith unto her, Go, call thy husband, and come hither."  It struck my heart to read "I have no husband." This woman had five past husbands and a current man in her life who she was not married to. Whew! I don't know the details of what happened there or how she managed to go through five husbands. This woman was thirsty. Perhaps, in my way of relating to her- absolutely exhausted. Tired. Alo...

I love the practice of Buddhism. Their definition of attachment is "the inability to practice or embrace detachment, and is viewed as the main obstacle towards a serene and fulfilled life." Buddha said "The root of suffering is attachment." Ali ibn abi Talib, who was an Islamic leader said "Detachment is not that you should own nothing. But that nothing should own you."  I believe this is what many therapists relate to as the baggage of emotional garbage people are carrying around. We all carry these "attachments". Unless we have figured out how to get rid of them. What is the secret to getting rid of these attachments? I don't know. I'm asking you. That's why I'm here asking that question.  I do know that when I went back in my thoughts and memories as I'm venting on this blog that it was almost as if the feeling of those events reattached to me. I felt as if I was there again. I had to think about them. Read them. Cry over t...

 I was going through some notes I have on my phone and thought I'd dump them here.  Holding the threads as I watch them shed. Words thrown at my face as I sit in disgrace. Flooded with confusion as it feels there's no diffusion The thumping of my elevated heart rate is calmed by the future I will create. Waterfall.  Some gush with full conversion. Others trickle with much hesitation Like individual snowflakes do we fall, But melt into a plan much greater than us all

After my divorce to the father of my children I started dating. It was so fun! I had a girl friend that had just gotten a divorce too and we would share all of our stories of the good, weird, fun, crazy, and whatever guys we would date. I dated someone new every night that I didn't have my kids. I had my eyes on one particular person, but he had a lot of shit going on. I must be attracted to drama because the moment I saw all of his shit, I jumped right into his sewer. Like, emerged myself in it. It then became my shit.  I remember when I was going to therapy with my first husband. It was a long and extensive program and I felt like every time we'd go, another story or painful thing would unfold. I felt like I was getting battered down with all of the secrets that were withheld from me in our marriage. What?! How could I have not seen all of this? Do I live in relationships with my eyes closed? The program that we were in had a women's group therapy while the men had their ...