Tools for survival - Finding solutions to emotional pain

Today is a milestone birthday for me which always gives me a lot to think about. I spent the day yesterday shopping with a friend and having a celebration meal. Today I am working in my studio and just thinking about where I have been and where I might like to go.

A year ago I started drawing again I love portrait drawing but I never really felt good enough. I have always wanted to focus on art but never got much courage along the way. A few years ago I was thinking of taking an out of town class as a birthday gift and I sent some of my work and the response was "at least you will be starting from scratch".

The world is a hard place and people are the same kids you knew in school in larger bodies. Insecure and wanting to make sure that no one gets ahead of them. To succeed means someone else must fail.

I have been a child most of my life not knowing the trauma of my childhood left me with survival tools that once past the initial trauma left me with a distorted since of life. 

I became super sensitive to everything around me reading the mood of the room and the players around me. I had been hurt and the child inside was trying to make sure I was prepared for the next blow. I was constantly on guard. This saved me as I became an adult. 

The problem for me is that I blamed myself for these things that happened to me. A child always thinks they are the center of the problem because they are children. Like I child I tried to be better more accommodating more attractive. I knew what you wanted before you even asked for it. I made other peoples lives run smoothly while staying invisible as much as possible. I did not want to be a target.

I have been drawing the people in my life that I feel like I need to forgive or at least see if I need to forgive. You can't stare a face and draw every inch of it over and over without finally letting go. 

I also draw myself on Sunday's because I need to forgive myself. I use a mirror because live practice is the best practice.  I am always surprised when I think I have gotten the likeness right and I come back later and it isn't right. Distortion this is what we do in this life.

We see things the way we have to see them to survive and then when we are ready the truth is revealed. Can we forgive ourselves for living in denial for so long? 

I have worked so hard to prevent pain and suffering from happening to me.  I thought if I could be good enough - spiritual enough - kind enough that I could prevent this. When more trauma happened I turned on myself and decided I was just unlovable and even repelled the people who were suppose to love me.

What I know now is that the survival skills that saved me in childhood kept me in a world of defense most of my life. I braced myself for every possible incoming pain and never just relaxed and enjoyed the life I had. I was trying to make sure my life stayed perfect and I stayed at arm length we people and picked people that did the same.

This year I have come to the end of my attachment to the past. The EMDR along with talking and drawing therapy his rid me of the rut of blaming others and blaming myself for what I have endured.

It has smoothed over the ruts created over the years. The places my mind wants to go when I am sad or lonely. Well worn stories of love lost and the painful feelings of abandonment. I was abandoned by my family when I needed them the most. I became a person that survived with the tools I found along the way.

I attached myself to people who were like me with their own tools  survival. Nothing healthy or lasting just sharing the pain together until it didn't work anymore. 

I want to be free to live and enjoy my life without trying to solve the puzzle of me. It has been a worthwhile pursuit and obviously I had to do it to get to where I am and I hope I have helped others along the way but now I just want to enjoy the day and live in acceptance of what is now. I am grateful for the journey. 

The Power of Now - Being Grateful

I picked up my old copy of The Power of Now just to see where I am on the spiritual spectrum.  This book helped save my life quite literally because he talked about the voice inside as the ego.  You have a listener and a talker up there whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

We stay so busy with listening to the talker we create a life in our head that isn't exactly the truth our personal version of the truth.  If that truth gets bad enough and you can't cope you  you have some sort of awakening. Also could be called a mental break of some kind. I think this happens when the version of life you had in your head doesn't match a hard punch of reality. 

Then the ego we created to run our lives is not use to being seen as helpless and just keeps pushing and trying to find a solution to the unsolvable problems until there is no place to go. For me it was a number of things mostly grief that I ignored - the loss of the life I thought I would have even if I wasn't happy there at least I thought knew where I was going.

I am awake now as in "the power of now" when I have too much time on my hands like I did over Thanksgiving I can drift into what I wish had happened instead of what happened.  This is great for my book but bobbing up and down in the cesspool of the past can leave me  rotten. I feel hungover and worse I feel dead inside.

When I went black before I was in this state everyday all day for what felt like years. I was a zombie just doing things that I knew I did before but not really sure why. When I feel this even for a day I panic and think it is back to stay but I wake up the next morning feeling normal or normal for me anyway. 

I didn't ask to have an awakening.  I did always want to be enlightened when I thought it meant peace a tranquility all the time. I didn't know without the burden a giant ego telling me all the time that I needed to being doing something better or I should be further along or happier that I would have so much time.  I still have that but only in small doses. 

Eckhart Tolle says that we would be better off without the idea of time. It would make us less anxious about everything.  I get that because we are always thinking about something other than what we are doing right now. I have decades I hardly remember because I was overbooked all the time. I felt like I was being chased and if I stopped it would be over and I was right.

I am happy most of the time unless I compare myself to other people's full lives and wonder what I did wrong. I talked to a guy at work yesterday and I told him I wasn't too busy and he said to enjoy it. He lost his wife last year and three sisters and a cousin so life is short and we should try to enjoy it. That made me stop feeling like I should be working harder and enjoy the freedom this season brings me. 

What I should want - Being normal

It is Thanksgiving and I have opted to be alone. This is some scary stuff inside the head because it messes with all those insecurities that our society gathers around holidays. In my mind it says "look what has become of you - your life is a failure - you have nobody".

In the program it has a saying " you mind is like a bad neighborhood never go there alone". If I step back and ask myself am I a failure? The answer is no I am happy to be on my own doing things that I love. My self worth is not tied to making sure I have people around me.

If you have been here before you know I have hosted literally hundreds of group invents over my life and a lot times I have felt alone and more like a caterer than someone participating in a something I was a part of. This is who I am and now that I don't feel like I have to live up to the picture in my head I can relax and appreciate being me.

I got two invitations at the last minute one that surprised me last night a coworker called and offered to let me join her family. The other an old friend that was a part of my life when I first found the 12 steps. I just can't do it anymore be somewhere just to prove to myself that I belong. I have seen her one on one a few times lately and this is what I prefer. A more intimate moment with good conversation.

It doesn't help that I am not food focused anymore.  I don't long for those special dishes that I use to make for other people. Is it wrong to not go because I don't want to be there? Does this make me anti social. Someone at work said they were staying home instead of making the five drive the usually make to be with her husband's family. She can be with her own family this year. Doing things because we have always done them is easy. Our brain loves "the same" it is harder to choose again because it feels awkward. 

I only feel bad about myself when I say "a normal person wouldn't want to be alone on a holiday".  The normal ship has sailed a long time ago. I have spent my whole life trying to figure out where I fit in creating a life the I thought looked like a normal life and being unhappy most of the time. I would tell myself "you should be happy - you have the life that other people would be envious of"  I didn't feel the joy I was suppose to have. 

I find on most days now I am singing out loud. I might not be excited about what is on my to do list but I don't feel trapped anymore. If I am unhappy it isn't because there is some magical place in the future that will eliminate this.  I can just decide what to do next or if I want I can choose to do nothing. 

I am working on my book once again. One day last week I got up and pulled it from a basket and read through it. I was inspired to add to it and work on organizing it. It is difficult because even though it will be fiction it is filled with my own memories. It makes it hard to continue without taking an emotional break.

I am thankful today for having all day to myself to be creative. I once heard a monk say they spent 6 months of the year alone. I could never do that I just want to spend time with people that have good energy.  I feel like I have spent too many holidays having the life drained out of me because I thought I had to because this is what normal people do. 

I think Covid has changed us all to want more meaning in this short life we have on this earth. It make sense to me that the younger generation doesn't want to work so hard. This will work itself out and a balance will be found work can give you joy.  It has taken me a lifetime to do what I want instead of what I think I should want.  Happy Thanksgiving.

Avoiding Suffering - Finding Joy

My mind is always trying to simplify things which is different than it use to be when complicated thinking kept me from living my life. I was always out there in the future or worse reliving the past over and over trying to gleam some knowledge that would help me avoid some future disaster.  Did this work?

This is a laughable question.  We think we can out think life and prepare for what could be coming but what happens is something that wasn't on the list at all. We think with self improvement we can spot our own flaws and avoid the same mistakes twice.  Does this work?

This another laughable question. I blame my analytical mind for wasting most of my life trying to solve the puzzle of  human existence. I thought if I tried hard enough I could avoid repeating the mistakes of others and repeating my own mistakes and avoid suffering. 

When something unexpected either something small like a bad day at work or something big like loss of someone you love it feels personal. In my own life I took it personally but even worse I felt responsible and didn't have the maturity to see that it wasn't something I had done. Thanks to my upbringing I thought when my mother died God was punishing me for not being a perfect. I was strong willed and I needed to be to change this seemed logical to me.

Then I got a new mother and she hated me and treated me with constant disdain. I tried to be good but nothing I did was good enough. I did everything as perfectly as I could but I was not lovable.  I didn't belong so I left.  I jumped into any relationship that made me feel secure even for a moment. I attracted those that wanted to possess me this made me feel loved and protected. Like me they all had the same problem of not being enough. 

I looked every where for  the part I thought I had missing. I never found a place where I fit. I couldn't accept the failings of my life and of my relationships. The Al-Anon program taught about acceptance and I accepted the shortcomings of other but not myself. I knew if I worked harder I could get the life that played out in my head. 

My failures intersected a decade ago when I  lost everything that I thought defined me. I had done everything to the best of my ability and it hadn't worked. I had no where to go and my mind could not grasp the situation and it broke. I had nothing left to begin again.  

After a lifetime the person I had been was gone. I fought hard at first to pretend I was still there but this made me feel worse.  Finally I heard "let go" and I did.  I thought at that moment I would die but it was quite the opposite I felt nothing. The whirling thoughts in my mind disappeared and it was quiet for the first time. It felt weird with nothing there but I got use to it and then I started to enjoy it.

I told myself "okay this is who you are now - it isn't so bad" I had no labels for myself that I had to live up to. At the time I didn't even imagine a future for myself. I just stayed where I was until I eventually moved on. First small things caught my attention while things that I use to love faded altogether. Without much effort mainly just in time I became a new person or who I was beneath all the along.

Today I am happy and I don't waste time scolding myself for my flaws. I also know that I will face what ever comes when it gets here. The future is unknown and only our ability to bounce back is important.  We can't live happy lives if we are always bracing ourselves for the worse.  We will miss the joy today has to offer us and see the people that may not be part of our lives in the future. 

This is something I do regret about my constant forward and future motion I missed the real moments life had to offer.  I spent my waking hours focused on the future and the pain I carried with me instead of just being there. Nothing stays the same as time marches on so love moments instead of planning a future that is only in your mind. The future is today. 

This is a time of year that we celebrate miracles and I consider myself a miracle. I did not believe that I could be happy again. I didn't know that I could start the day singing and not just surviving. I am grateful for my journey even though I lost a lot years.  I don't plan on losing another day on the future. 

I can control my mind - I am not a victim

I feel at peace today even if the sky is cloudy and I was wishing for the sun. It is cool here which is helpful since my air conditioning isn't work yet.  The second guy they sent wasn't too happy that the new part didn't work. He told me "this happens all the time - do you think I want to go up in your attic a third time?"  

Every job has parts that suck no matter how great the job is that is why they call it work.  He seemed pretty unhappy overall.  He shared with me that his roommate's new girlfriend stole 150 dollars out of his room. He caught her there and told his roommate who didn't believe him and told him to move out. Luckily his sister has a big house so he moved there this week.

I thought there is a story there at his age ending up with a roommate. Although I didn't prompt the discussion he said he didn't have a problem with alcohol even though when he was a child his Sicilian grandparents gave him wine every time he saw them. He said he had started smoking after he had stopped for four years and this is the only time he likes to drink.

He is probably coming back Monday with a replacement part. I am not sure why he brought all of this up maybe he knew I could here him cursing and screaming in the attic.  

The mind is hard to control I lived most of my life thinking life was happening to me. I was a victim of my circumstances and there was nothing I could do about it. I spent all my energy bracing myself for the next tragic thing to happen and I was never disappointed.  I talked about my woes to whoever would listen and repeated my victim-ship to myself over and over. The voice in my head keeping me constantly sad or outraged over my circumstances.

It wasn't until I realized that I was doing this to myself. The program helped m to see that it was my own story that repeated to myself over and over that kept me from having a different story.  The program says "no victims just volunteers".  This would make me so mad in the beginning. I felt comfortable not taking responsibility for my own situation and feeling sorry for myself.

It doesn't help that this is the way the brain works. We are wired to go towards negative first so we can prevent bad things from happening the next time.  It also likes repetition and goes down the most familiar and deepest path it is less work. When I am sad I think about _____________ and then it reminds me of when things we great and life didn't suck life it does now. Of course even our memories are hijacked by the brain smoothing out all those rough edges we don't want to acknowledge.

Looking through my life's pictures behind my own smiling face I could tell you some really awful stuff going on.  My mind prefers to make those times something they weren't. The difference in who I am now is that I know it was just life and hard times.  It is only when I believed it was just happening to me that I felt like it was my fault. This is mostly because I have an analytical mind that believes there is a solution for every problem. I can think my way out of this.

The solution to being a victim is to replace these thoughts with something else. For me I had to first acknowledge that the person inside my head was really negative and didn't seem to like me very much. I tried to reason with her but she just kept hurling insults at me no matter what. I finally had to consciously tell her to shut up. This was war for a long time until I was able to see that the child inside me was just scared that we weren't going to make it. 

I couldn't let on that she might be right so I assured her that we could do it. I started reading non stop to anything that gave me positive encouragement.  Mantras - slogans from the program - daily readers - spiritual books - even horoscopes - Anything that gave me encouragement to keep going. Over time all these things started to re-write my thinking. 

I became friends with myself and forgave the child in me for being stuck so long. I had to forgive myself for living life thinking that I caused these things to happen to me. That there was something about me that made me unlovable from the beginning. I had to take responsibility for loving and encouraging myself into happiness. No one outside of me could make feel secure.

Today I am on the maintenance plan.  First I guard my mind from anything negative as much as I can. I feed myself with healthy foods that make my mind clearer. Instead of heading for a carb comma like I use to and now I sleep a regular schedule so I can be my best. I take care of myself instead of waiting for other people to show that I am worthy of being taken care of. 

All great beliefs and spiritual practice use these same ideas woven through them. Believing and being with people are looking for something positive or comforting to share can promote peace. Taking care of your body and your mind realizing they are same thing is truly loving. Believing in a power greater than ourselves to give us the strength and discipline to take our lives back it really the only answer.  

  

Choosing happiness - Living with what is real

I am feeling a little down the past few days like I am caught in some sludge moving at a snails pace. I had some news yesterday that didn't help after having some trouble with my ac it turns out I need a new motor.  This wasn't expected since the unit isn't that old. I am not sure at this point whether it is in warranty period we are talking a couple of thousand. 

I also went to the dentist and they want to do some work there to which is evasive and costly. I feel a little deflated at this point but I am grateful that I have the means to do both of the these things. It will slow down my saving plan but that is what saving is for isn't it. A rainy day which is what a lot of people are experiencing right now. 

It doesn't help that I started a weight lifting routine this week and have felt like I was in a car accident. It shows me that I really need to get into shape. I am grateful that physically I don't have any real problems since I have changed my diet and I have committed to increasing my stamina with weights.

The limitations we put on ourselves are in our mind. Planted by the media both the good and the bad it has shaped us in ways we will never really know. It gives us the idea that if you are older you are limited in what you can do physically. There are a lot of women over 60 defying that notion - sculpting there bodies in ways that no one could image was possible. This good media. 

I was raised on TV with my mother sick no one monitored the hours I spent there. TV was what kept me busy when no on had time for me. It made me believe in a world of happiness and sunshine that never really existed. When I couldn't find it I blamed myself thinking I had done something wrong. I tried even harder and when things went right I thought I was doing something right but it never lasted and then I went back to blaming myself again.

I thought I controlled the happiness in my life even though I always felt like something bad was lurking in the shadows and I was right. What I didn't realize was that life consist of ups and downs all the time. Everyone has there sadness to bear and it is how you face those trials that makes the difference. 

I have found happiness not like those TV movies on Hallmark where everyone is happy with great jobs and the perfect mate but in enjoying the day that is before me. I can choose not to waste it. To pay attention to what is happening today and find peace and joy. 

There is a lot of good things in my life and for that I am grateful and luckily the weather is perfect and I don't need my ac this week while I am getting this sorted out. 

Love Letters - Forgiveness - Healing - Freedom

I am home today taking a short break in the middle of my work week.  I was cleaning and moving my art stuff from downstairs to move it to the upstairs.  I converted a closet to a art work space. Sometimes I think I will never actually get around to do the art but I am hopeful.  With work taking 100% of my creativity it is hard to muster up enough enthusiasm to paint.  I am pretending that " if you build it they will come" ot it in this case. 

While cleaning things out I found a few old photos of my past lives at different times. It started the wheels turning and I remembered having several boxes in the basement that I haven't looked at in a long time. I know I am healed from my past because these pictures no longer evoke strong emotional responses for me anymore. 

I look at the girl in the photos and think about how much I missed trying to keep bad things from happening. "You can always see it coming but you can never stop it" a line from a Cowboy Junkies song that is so true.  I have kept something from every relationship I have ever had. From my ex-husband I kept letters he wrote me after he split and left me for a co-worker.  They married and have grown kids now.

Two letters the first before therapy and the second after therapy. In the first he blamed me for everything that was wrong with his life and felt just starting fresh would cure everything. He didn't know what had happened to us or why he couldn't love me like before. We really never had closure or counseling he refused to talk about anything. A year after the divorce he called and wanted me to meet him at his counselors appointment so we could clear the air.  I agreed hoping this would help to heal me but it was ugly when he confessed that there had been a number of infidelities over the years.  

I always felt that it was my fault that bad things happening to me. I would rather take the blame than really believe that the people I loved and trusted were so horrible. I felt like it was my fault for not seeing just how things really were.  My denial of the truth of who they had become made it impossible to move on. I internalized the pain to the point that I didn't want to live. 

The second letter was an amends letter where he admits how mean he was to me and the lies he told and the constant manipulation of my emotions. This manipulation was the worse for me because for three years he courted me leaving notes on my car and gifts in my mailbox. While he was with someone else that in the beginning I didn't  know about. Telling me one week before he was getting married that he would never love anyone the way he loved me. 

In the second letter he said he could see how much pain and anger he had built up inside and only the drugs and alcohol could manage them until they stopped working. This letter was hard to read because he was becoming the person I knew he could be but I wasn't going to reap the benefits of this new found awakening. 

I loved him like I never have loved anyone else. We were two very broken people whose pain matched perfectly for almost a decade. I was not complete without him and when I felt I was losing him I froze and stopped living which made me really attractive.  You can hear that it was still my fault. I remember falling into depression with him coming home at midnight and avoiding me altogether.

I have felt all my life that no one ever really wanted me. I was a high strung ADD child and after my mother died all the grown ups deserted me to manage there own grief. From the time she got sick I knew I was on my own so I made the best of it. Only people with strong wills ever broke through. 

As an adult I attracted people who were crazy in love with me to a point in some cases stalking me. In my mind this was proof of true love. My husband would have done anything to protect me and he made me feel safe until that obsession moved to someone else. He made me feel safe even though in the end he hurt me more than anyone. 

I can read those letters today without pain and I can forgive myself for not being able to do anything about what was happening to me. My own pain was equal to his and I couldn't feel any joy without  looking over my shoulder waiting for the next crisis to strike. With alcoholism there is always the next crisis. 

It took a lot guts for him to write those letters and they did heal me a little bit every time I have read them over the years. It still makes me jealous that he got the life we always wanted with kids but I am sure it has been no bed of roses. The devil is in the details.

Looking at the pictures and reading the letters I can see over the years the progress I was making. I still never felt I was enough and was always striving to be a better me. It is a good goal but it is time for joy now and because I am alone I don't have to meet anyone's expectations but my own. I am loving myself and not looking at happiness as something in the future. I can be happy today I just have to decide to be,

I have always done my best even if it wasn't good enough for other people or even myself. I can forgive them and forgive myself.   

 

The story I am telling myself - starting over - freedom - a new life

I had a good week very stressful but not unbearable. I practiced my ten minute meditation every day this week although yesterday I had an early appointment so I practiced while my computer booted up. The clients canceled for the second time but I was okay with that. It gave me a chance to finish a big project which I have been putting off.

Recently I feel I have been in the flow more often than normal. What this means to me is that I just let things flow without trying to force solutions or make the universe move to my rhythm. When the appointment canceled I just moved on and looked at the positives. First I am not a morning person and it was the end of a long week so now I could relax and focus.

I know I can certainly get caught up in the business of life. Before peace was priority in my life the busier I was the more important that made me. I was like a machine fitting something in every minute and living off the high of just having so much to do.  This is how it is in the west we just want to fill every minute with something. With the few spare moments looking at our phones. 

Our mind can be our enemy always wanting more and more entertainment. The ego is always present no matter how hard we work at being whole and peaceful. I remember creating daily list of deadlines for myself and actually creating stress around those items. I did this to myself creating a crisis where there wasn't one. I liked the adrenaline rush it gave and I got use to it.

It took falling and crashing to the ground to see I had created this in my own life. I thought that this was who I was this busy hard working person that had a million things to do.  Everyone was counting on me to take care of them. I was so wrapped up in the idea of me that I couldn't stand still for a minute.

I was really running from the truth I believed about myself - that I was nothing without all this running. If I stopped whatever had been chasing me all those years would catch up to me and it would be over. I never dared to stop and turnaround and look at it. 

This was depression for me a deep belief that there was something about me that wasn't right and wasn't lovable. I was running hard to stay ahead of the this belief. I ran until I couldn't run any longer and collapsed  out of exhaustion. What happened next was unbelievable absolutely nothing. My ego disappeared and I was left with silence and it was terrifying.  The person I was before was gone.

I was in a state of nothing for what seemed like forever. I just stayed there because I couldn't move. None of the old ways of kicking myself back into gear worked. I went through the motions of life and did what had to be done each day. Thankfully I haven't returned to the person I was before.

I realized I had created the that person over the years. All the ideas I had taken on given to me by my family and other outside influences. Then who I believed I was and how I re-enforced those beliefs with my thoughts and actions even when they no longer served me. 

If I created that person I could create someone new. Since that person was gone I could start over if I was willing. If I was willing to let go of the story of myself. I had a choice - I could keep repeating the story mostly to myself or I could let go and just show up everyday and see what happened. The physical brain is geared to lay down well worn paths so it isn't easy to just choose something else. 

At this point I was a blank canvas and had detached from the painful person I had become. A warning here everyone around you will want you to come back just as you were because it makes them feel safe to keep things the same. You no longer fit into their story the way I use to and it makes everyone uncomfortable. 

This post has some pretty radical ideas and not for everyone. I didn't ask for this to happen to me but I wanted to be happy even if it meant starting over alone. I am so grateful and happy for the first time in my life. My story made me miserable and I thought I had to just accept this fact and do the best I could. It is just that a story in my own head told over and over until I believe it is who I am even if it makes me unhappy. Nothing is permanent and at any moment we can choose again. 

 you want to change you have to monitor your thoughts and see where you go when something unpleasant happens. Where do you run to? How do you justify your next behavior? If you feel guilty do you say "I am like this because ____"  enter whatever you usually say about why you do it.

 

What has been lost and what has been found

There has been a number of mile stones in my life that have changed the person that I am today.  They say the earlier the tragedy the longer it takes to overcome those life events. It is not impossible if you can believe that how you feel right now is not permanent. Your situation is not unique and out there somewhere someone has experienced and overcome the same thing. It is believing you are alone and permanently broken that keeps you in a box of your own making forever.

Right now a lot of people are feeling the same way and at least we all know it. I do think that finding a self help group or a community is the beginning of finding a better place emotionally as long as you are there to commiserate and be stuck with other people that are stuck.   ]In the 12 step program they say "take what you like and leave the  rest".  This is my life motto and the only reason I could stay. 

In my own life I have experienced some serious breaks of my spirit.  First the loss of my mother to cancer at eleven and then the subsequent breaking apart of what was left of my immediate family. I married an alcoholic that I thought I would spend the rest of my life with that left me alone after almost a decade. Then I met someone who I trusted again who left after 13 years.

If you have read my blog you know way too much about all of these things but my point here is that I thought my situation was unique and that I was alone with all the feelings I was having.  I am a strong person who because of these things I am changed forever and I know that I will make it no matter what but this wasn't always the case.

I have a picture in my closet of a party with a group of ten people that at the time were my friends.  I only see one them now and when I am feeling low my mind tells me "this is your fault. You are unlovable and you deserve to be alone." What a mean to say and I know it isn't true.

I have loved big and have been there for a long time for many people in my life and I don't regret any of those relationships.  They have shaped the person I am today. I also know that I am forever moving forward emotionally and spiritually and this is not how most people live.  People want you to stay the same and they want me to stay with them.

It is in our nature scientifically to find the most efficient path each day and stay with it. Our brains in an effort to survive want things to be predictable and as simple as possible. We love a routine but hate boredom this is why we inevitably take things for granted.  The job we hated suddenly isn't there anymore or annoying family member that gives us grief for not visiting we now can't visit.

We dreamed of getting away from work to be home with the family and now we dream of going back to get away from those same people. I spoke to a woman this week at work who is working part time at home with her two kids and she said they just won't listen and do there school work.

This time at home although very short for me personally is a time to evaluate what we are doing with our lives. Living mindlessly day to day like our brain wants we can miss the obvious things right in front of us and it takes real courage to be awake and really live each day. Actually seeing and hearing people instead of hurrying on to the next thing as quickly as possible.

I spent the first half of my life just trying to get over every trauma. Someone much older than me said once "stop wishing your life away".  I always wanted things to be easier and always thought "I must be doing something wrong".  This was my own immaturity having raised myself. I thought the things that were happening to me made me unique.  I missed the joy of each day and the people in my life planning for tomorrow.

I am mostly peaceful now and living through the traumas in my life has taught me well that ____ happens and you can either let it swallow you or you can wait and be patient and it will change. I will warn you that it isn't always for the better at first but it will work out.

I didn't always believe this when I was left for the third time I suffered a breakdown of sorts. After 13 years I was left alone this coupled with the recession, menopause and a thyroid condition I wanted my life to be over everyday. Most people ran from me or I ran from people because they wanted something from me. I could barely live each day and the one friend still in my life now didn't. They were content to just let me be instead wanting me to change back.

The person I was even last year doesn't exist anymore but I am okay with that because I have done my best and today I am safe and happy. I have no idea what tomorrow will look like but today looks pretty good. I want to know but it isn't in my power to know so why waste another minute on wishing my life away.

My final word in this post may sound crazy but living in the present or at least today requires looking at all the small stuff we are doing like the food we are eating. Our brain wants a constant feed of sugar or carbs and we may think "comfort like mom use to make" is the answer but this is as addictive as any drug out there. It does sedate you temporarily but then you want more and more.

I use to think I wanted that bowl of tortillas because I just like them but it wasn't true.  Once I was able to reduce the carbs in my life I never craved another thing. Even when I slipped and ate something it didn't really taste good and then I stayed hungry for the rest of the day. I wonder now that if I knew this when I was so depressed would it have lasted as long as it did. I really didn't know I could be this happy despite a pandemic. 

Being yourself - Happiness - Mom

I am still feeling free and happy.  Happy isn't a concept I have had a lot of experience with generally.  I am content and sometimes peaceful but happy has always been pretty elusive. My mind doesn't even want to analyze why I am happy right now except maybe here on these pages.  I feel as though I have been freed from myself. Life doesn't feel like a burden to me anymore just a moment to moment event.

I am busy with work and at home I have been just doing little projects that I have been thinking about a long time but could never get around to them.  This is a side effect of depression I think.  You are not necessarily sad but the things you do each day just to get through takes it all out of you. 

People don't understand that washing dishes can feel like the first steps of a marathon.  I have been cooking for the past few months on this diet.  Actually going to the store weekly and buying fresh food and cooking for just me.  I have never done that before. 

I have always been a survivor and a caretaker of other people. The times when I was recovering I didn't think I deserved the same effort I gave to the other people in my life.  Everyday was something you just made it through.

To care about yourself is to be selfish.  I got that from my mother I think.  She died February 15th 1974 after life had taken everything from her.  The past few weeks I have been organizing the old family photo and in every picture she has the same fake smile except one.  The picture was when she got some award in a high school business club for women.

She was an achiever from the beginning and the life of June Clever did not work for her.  She worked until I was five and we moved to a suburb that our preacher built. All the women were full time moms and she conformed and got sick three years later.

We make choices to be what other people want us to be without even know what it is doing to us. We want to fall in line even if everything in our heart go against that.  Sometimes people push us but I think it is more about our own view of what a nice or normal person looks like.  We hear people say "what kind of person would do something like that to their family?"  A desperately unhappy person is what I think. 

We get trapped by our own need to belong even if we never feel we do belong.  It is a risk to change our lives to better match who we really are and there is no guarantee that we will be happier or that everyone we love will be there with us in the end.  No one wants change but we need it to keep the flow going. 

My mother did a good job with the time she had with us.  From what I remember she ran the family like it was a business.  We had a lot of freedom and she taught us how to be self sufficient.  She held us to high standards based on the Bible and those never wavered.  Everything else was optional. 

I wish I had really known her as a person instead of the snippets of memories I hold on to.  I don't feel she was happy maybe she was mostly peaceful and content like I have been.  I love you mom! If you can hear me. 

When the dust settles - Not making plans

We are heading for the home stretch with the remodel.  Everything in my house is covered with a fine layer of drywall.  I have decided to just wait and not try to clean until literally the dust settles. My last remodel at my other house I was in my thirties and had specific ideas about how everything should be done and how long it should take.  I cleaned everyday only to find the dust there the next morning.  I was a perfectionist and this set me up for a lot of disappointments and drove the people around me nuts.

This time lets say I am "more seasoned".  Back then I had lost my corporate job and gone back to school.  In my mind I was being supported by someone else and was trying to find my identity while earning my keep.  This was pressure I was putting on myself to prove I was valuable for all that I brought to the table.

The thing I have learned is that even if you bring nothing to the table you are still valuable. You may not meet your own expectations or be popular with the people around you but you are still a human being and here on the planet and are valuable.

It is true that if you do more and be more you will have more friends and you will have a higher opinion of yourself but in the end this is just the ego getting fed. It sometimes leads us to look at other people as less valuable than ourselves or the groups that we belong to.  We are special and they are not we are right and they are wrong.

It is a real trap.  I think we do this so we feel safe and belong.  If we do the right things with the right people then we are somehow insulated from the bad things or people out there that can hurt us. Even the idea of the after life is a safety net in case we lose someone we love or something goes wrong we can know that it will all work out in the end.  I don't think we could survive without these ideas.

For myself I am focusing on today and the people that are a part of my life today this moment. The grand scheme in our heads is really just a distraction.  My mind loves this kind of entertainment.  The planning and scheming of my pretend future.  I will have a future but it probably won't match the one in my head exactly.  I have to ask myself "what am I missing today by making those plans?"

You can make plans but it is the actual act of making those plans that is enjoyable and not depending on the outcome to make you happy. Putting my happiness in the hands of a specific outcome can set me up for serious pain,  Life doesn't have a plan just us. Be happy today and don't look to some future day to be happy.

I knew this remodel would not make me happy.  Yes even when it is done I will love it but then my mind will be on to something else.  I have enjoyed the planning and meeting the different workers coming in the house but when the dust settles I will be left with myself and what is next.

Design - Decisions - Change

I and in the middle of the my home transformation and the internal transformation that goes with it.  I have always believed that your space reflects your emotional interior. 

When I moved here I rejected this house because I could not accept that my life would no longer be the same.  I had to do my bathroom because there was a leak and tiles were failing off the walls and it turned out nice but my heart wasn't in it.  The person who cared about design was gone by that point and I assumed would never return.  Some days the contractor would show up and I would still be in the bed.  They worked around me. I dark moment for sure.

I lost myself.  Everything that I thought of as "me" had vanished.  I had to function so I just did what I thought people expected me to do every day. When you are sad and lost just remember most people can't see that from the outside.  We are all too wrapped up in our own inner drama to notice another  person's suffering.  A few people close to me knew I was not the same and fled the scene.  I really didn't mind it gave me the opportunity to go deeper and darker without anyone interfering.

Over the past four years I have just really coasting not really having any goals or even wants. Just working and filling each day.  I have had little spurts of ambition for my house like painting over the great room with bright white.  I had selected beige when I moved in because it was what I had in the other house and reflected my mood. It was builders beige. The white represented endless possibilities. It did make me feel better.

Now I am on the move with redoing the floors. It was a very hard decision to do tile.  The foyer, half bath, kitchen, laundry and my bedroom are all on the same level.  My bedroom had painted brown concrete floors after a flood during the bathroom remodel.  My dog was old and sick at the time so I didn't want to re-carpet.  The foyer was black fake marble tiles from the 80's and the laundry and half bath was flesh color tile with 1/4 grout lines. The kitchen a gold beehive patterned vinyl.  The rest of main floor steps down to parkett wood so choosing wood could not work.  I knew tile would be the answer even though it is cold for the bedroom granted not much colder than concrete.

I knew this was going to be a big project moving everything off the floor. Also managing the timing with the kitchen.  I was going to leave the laundry but the tile person said no big deal to move the washer and dryer.  I picked a tile the color of light concrete (funny) with some sparkles in it.  My house is loft like and has dark trim.  I know the trend is white and gray all day every day but I like color so this is my compromise.  White walls in the great room and gray floors.  I have a midnight blue accent wall in the great room and teal and taupe in my bedroom.  The new tile looks great. 

They grouted my bedroom yesterday and will finish everything tomorrow except for the kitchen.
The installer wants to wait until the cabinets are out to tile that room so I have concrete floors there.  I I still haven't ordered the cabinets.  I am waffling about removing a small pantry and stealing closet from my office to make the kitchen more functional.  Do I care that much?  It is just me and it will add cost. Am I not willing to invest in myself to make it better.

My indecision is emotional at this time it isn't about time or money even though I am an extremely frugal person. I think it is more about whether I want invest in my future and believe that I am worth it. It is always easier to keep things the same because change is growth.  It is scary and takes energy to make a move forward.  With the kitchen it means I am moving on past this stage of my life. I feel secure enough to invest in my future and in a room that where I prepare my daily bread. So to speak.

I can sometimes have conflict from within about design in general.  You definitely have to find happiness from within first.  The industry I work in can feel very superficial with everyone saying your house must look like this to be happy.  Design can't fill the hole inside that is from feeling not good enough for yourself or the people in your life but it can make you feel better or worse on your journy to self acceptance and inner peace.

I wrote this post today to sort out my indecision about the changes in the kitchen and whether my fear of the future is keeping me from moving forward.  What is it that I really need verses what I want or what will add value to each day for me. I am going to take out those closets and get those cabinets ordered this week.  It is time to acknowledge that I really have already moved on and I want my space to reflect the new me. 

My first beer - The voice in my head - Finding happiness

I am off this weekend and working on various things that peak my interest.  On Monday I hired a friend from the program to trim the one huge tree I own that grows about six feet from my front door. He agreed to do the work on Friday and at one o'clock I hadn't heard from him. I text him and he said he would be there by 3:30 by that time I had to leave to meet a client at the office.

This use to make me nuts this kind of personality but now I just let things flow if his schedule works with mine then it will get done. I text back that as long as he did not need me then he was welcome to come whenever he wanted. We are both in recovery and have worked together before so I know to just let it go.

My theory about recovery, both sides of the table, is that we are all too smart. We have quick minds that work against us most of the time. Our minds constantly need a challenge something to solve something to entertain us.  If we don't have that our minds drift to the negative or create crisis. Once this happens we can focus on fixing the problem or if it can't be fixed we can spiral into asking why we did this and why we are so stupid.  Once this talk starts it can take over an paralyze the body a constant loop of self-hatred and we all look for a way out.

I imagine for the addicted that the substance of choice gave a moment of relief from that voice. Even though I am not addicted to alcohol I remember being 15 years old and having my first beer. As the liquid went down throat I could already feel a sense of relief.

The years between my mothers death and when I left home are still the worst years of my life. I was trapped in an emotional situation that was unbearable in so many ways.  I was too young and could not escape.  I had done everything I knew to make my dad and his wife happy but nothing was enough. I blamed myself because I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. When I drank that first beer all that stress melted away. It was only one beer but I got a taste of freedom from my own mind.

What that teenager didn't know was that it wasn't me it was two immature adults stuck in their own self absorbed world. I thought it was all about me, as most teenagers do, I was sure if only I changed my behavior I could fix the problem.  They would love me and we would all be happy. I had the power.

I took both of these beliefs into my adult world. First I have been immature myself in thinking that everything is about me  The second is that everything is my fault and I have the power to fix it. If something bad happens then it is a result of something I did. This has been the theme of my life. I have been a self-improvement junky because I believe if I change I can keep the next bad thing from happening. What a mind trap.

The 12 steps and every other spiritual quest I have been on helped me to first and foremost identify that I actually have a negative voice inside. The child's voice that still blames me for anything unpleasant that happens. It is that voice that becomes unhappy when I am bored or lonely and lashes out with words that only a child would use. "This is your fault".

I get it now. Oh how I wish I had gotten it sooner but better late than never. The program taught me to tame the voice - make friends with voice. It taught me to be more mature on the outside and take responsibility for my part in every sick situation. What was holding me back was that my core beliefs were a child's belief that everything is my fault. Your parents are unhappy then it is your fault.

This all came up because my tree trimmer is a brooding man. He told me he hasn't been to any meetings for awhile that he has been a recluse. I know he has had problems with depression the same as I have. I also know that him not arriving on time is his rebellious child in him. It doesn't bother me. I talked to him about our child's mind running the show. To not listen to the negative talk I hope it helped.

My own addiction has been trying to find out what is wrong with me so I can fix it. Today I am happy because the voice is quiet. We are free to play and do whatever we want to it is the weekend and we are getting stuff done.  We are all trapped with the child's voice and making peace with it is the only way to find happiness.

Peace - Cinderella - Finding happiness

I have the real weekend off and have slept in until almost 11 both days.  I haven't done that in a very long time.  I don't feel particularly tired but sleep is the best remedy for most things physical and mental.  The next few weeks will be busy and it is probably good to get it while I can.

We have a big wedding coming up the first of August my nephew is marrying into a pretty prominent family in his town.  There is an event every day for four days leading up to the wedding.  I have had to go out and buy the hopefully appropriate clothes.  My life has been more the life of a monk than a socialite so it is pretty stressful. The women at the first store kept saying "you can't wear that" finally settling on a top for the rehearsal dinner.

I spoke to my sister and she is stressed 10 fold.  We both are wishing we were thinner about now but not enough to jump on the diet path.  She will be in the official pictures and I will not.  She told me she has tried on 30 dresses and her final picks got the thumbs down from her son.

Pieces of my past will be at the table every night.  My step mother will be the honored grandmother. Hopefully it will be a big table and I will be at the other end.  She is the last person that can still stir something in me. If she had been kinder and more loving my life would have been different. I was an obstacle to her something between her and my father.

It was a true Cinderella story with the chores and all.  She didn't reserve her treatment for just me but even her own daughters.  She was an angry women who was left by her first husband the love of her life and she could never accept this rejection.  The "I am not enough story" manifesting it 'self just below the surface. I understand and have compassion for this story now but I don't necessarily want to sit next to her at the dinner table. 

If you believe in God then you have to accept that everything happens for a reason.  Life is laid out in a divine plan and we are exactly where we are suppose to be a nice story.  This thought can keep you going but I now believe that life is just life.  When bad things happen we just find a way to get through it the best we can and when good things happen we just try to enjoy the moment. 

I try my best everyday to just be kind and compassionate.  Realizing that everyone has their own story that they are living and that it has nothing really to do with me.  I can't change them just give them encouragement and if they reject me or love me it isn't something about me it is about them.

When I am at my best I choose to not take it personally.  Sometimes when I want someone to like me or do something I want them to do and they don't I slip away from peace and back to pain and frustration.  Luckily it doesn't last too long and I can return to peace.

When I head out to family central in the next few weeks I will have many opportunities to test my faith and use what I have learned. I am going with an open mind knowing I am healthier spiritually than I have ever been.  I am no longer Cinderella trapped in a bad situation I can't escape.  I escaped without the prince and the story wasn't the fairytale I wished for but I have found my own happily ever after.  

Peace - Better than I am today

I have written a couple of post that I lost interest in before I posted them.  I wonder sometimes whether writing here is really what I should be doing anymore.  Whether my words are of any interest to anyone since sometimes they don't even interest me.

I began writing here at a time in my life that was so low that I could barely function.  I had lost everything that I thought was important to me.  I had lost even my core self or so I thought.  It was a time when there was no one to lean on and all the fixes of the past didn't work.

There were times when I didn't think I could go on even one more day.  My mind and body were working against me and I was convinced that I would feel like I did forever. Eight years does seem like forever when you believe you will never feel happy again.

I believe now that the stress of being left again together with the recession and some symptoms of menopause over taxed my body and produced the perfect storm in my brain.  My judgment wasn't good and I faced the situation alone and didn't seek medical advice. I didn't know that the prolong state of crisis that I was in along with the lack of care for myself  was affecting my thinking.

I have spent my whole life thinking I was in control and that I could manage whatever came my way. I had to believe this to survive I learned early that you just have to push on no matter what. My first experience with this was the death of my mother. I taught myself how to deal with the unknown by staying busy doing something every minute to avoid the feelings.

This was my method and it worked pretty well until my husband left.  He was really the only person I let in my world even to this day. We had the same brokenness his mother had also died at eleven too and his father drank to avoid the pain. He had been alone too and we connected in a way that was not healthy but felt safe. When he moved on I withdrew back into my task mode and kept going.

I found Al-Anon and it changed my life.  It helped me first to simplify my thoughts and to focus on the moment.  The slogans "first things first" - "keep it simple" and 'one day at a time" kept me going. I went to meetings everyday and I found people like me.  People who thought too much and felt responsible for everything.

Until then it never occurred to me that my thoughts were hurting me or that my thinking was developed by my own child's mind. Every solution I found including the program was just and extension of my need to control what was happening to me.  It was more of the same feeling I was responsible for every right and wrong thing that happened to me.

Where this long emotional road has brought me is to a final resting place. A place of peace only after realizing their is no solution.  Once I was able to remove all the layers of thoughts the child in me had created to survive I was free. At first I was terrified because I felt so empty without the constant dreaming and scheming going on in my head.

I realized I had to stop searching for the secret to life and happiness.  The warm fussy blanket of protection that would keep bad things from happening to me.  The energy that I spent doing this wasting the actual time I had to be happy.  Nothing bad is happening in this moment and so I can just be happy.  My mind is totally bored with this idea because there is nothing for it to do.

The way I thought was a habit and a way to entertain myself when life was out of control. I had to let it all go to find what I really wanted which was peace. Peace that is available every moment if I choose to acknowledge it.

It has been a long journey to find myself and forgive myself.  I learned a lot and had to un-learn a lot too.  I feel gratefull today not to be trapped by the constant need to be better than I am today.

Commitments to myself - Entertainment

Here we are on the eve of another year filled with potential.  I am usually anti resolutions and try to not set myself up for failure and just promise to do my best. This year I have decided to write a few goals down.

Now that I am out of the danger zone emotionally and not worried that depression will return for a long term visit I feel more free to make plans.  With a healthier mental state my work doesn't seem so overwhelming and I can live with the constant uncertainty.  It is just work and luckily for me I enjoy what I do and I am good at it.

I am making a few resolutions this year or maybe I would rather call them commitments to myself. First the usual health I want to start eating less sugar and exercising more. I have gotten into the habit of eating something sweet every day and since sugar causes cravings for more sugar it has just gotten out of hand.  I also plan to watch less TV horizontally. I have a stationary bike so I am committing to riding it while watching.

The next commitment to myself is to promote my business.  I thought I would set up a face book page and put all my pictures out there.  Since I work for someone else I will just state designing for "____".  Also I am going to contact some of my old customers and let them know where I am.

The final commitment is to improving my house.  This I have already started in fact I just about finished my kitchen floor. It isn't the kitchen I would design for my customers but it will get me by until I am ready for the big redo.  I already have a guy coming to give me a bid on painting the house on the outside on Monday. I want my house to be ready to sell or just nice for me however that works out.

I really feel ready to run my life instead of my life running me. I think my on spiritual quest for peace confused me for a time.  I think realizing that the world and all our wants and needs are rather fleeting and there is no road that leads to permanent happinesness made me feel like putting more energy into to maintaining this illusion was real waste of time.  Over time I have come to terms with this and have realized I have to do something with my time.

I use to be mostly a doer getting lost in doing to avoid thinking too much about the underlying suffering that was going on. When life broke me I couldn't function in that place anymore I could no longer push the pain down. I stopped doing anything.  I drowned in sadness after fighting it for so long I let go and to my surprise I floated to the top a different person.  Mostly blank which really scared but I got use to it.

Today little pieces of me have returned including the desire to get things done.  I don't have the ego I use to have which included pain and insecurity. The desperate need for other people to validate my worth when I couldn't.  I have mostly let go of the past and of the imaginary future I thought I would have including bonding with my own family. I know now I can be whole without validation from outside myself. I can do for the sake of doing instead of doing as a means of escape from pain.

I am going to live this year open to what life brings me. I am mostly healed and ready to go back to being a doer and a little less of a thinker.  Thinking about the past or the future is really just my mind needing entrainment. It is a habit and works as long as it doesn't cause me pain.

I can plan and dream but I know that when I arrive at those destinations that I will be no happier than I can be if I want to in this very moment. Nothing out there will make me happy long term. It is all just something to fill our days and entertain us until our time is up. So I am committing to enjoy the moment and spend less time thinking about enjoying the moment.

I wish for you to find a way to accept that we have the power to heal ourselves by realizing the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves controls our happiness. Letting go of the truth that only exist in our mind is the ultimate path to freedom. We have power to create a better story for ourselves by letting go of the ones that have defined us our whole lives. We have that power to let go and be free. .

Happy New Year

Capturing Happiness - Obession with me

I spent the weekend taking care of some chores around the house. Saturday I painted a short piece of fence that was erected from the parts and pieces of the deck I had removed over the winter. On Sunday I decided that my car needed detailing, something I have never done before, it took three hours but my ten year old car looks brand new to me.

I am in a space of genuine happiness and taking care of the parts of my life that have been long neglected. This makes me feel happy, a word I don't throw around to lightly. Happiness has eluded me for most of my life and feeling it the first thing my mind wants to do is search for the source of this happiness and capture it.

I usually use a magnifying glass and look at each part of my life and see how I got here so I can recreate the whole experience down the road when I slip off the happiness path. This of course ruins the experience of being happy now but I have to do it anyway.

I am not so desperate today so I can do this without losing all that I have gained from my most recent awakening. I have awakened to realization that I have spent my life looking for the ever elusive truth and path to happiness both inside and outside myself and realizing that it has been the actual search that has kept me unhappy.

I thought it was my responsibility to keep looking. If I wasn't looking then I would be like everyone else and live an unconscious life. I wanted there to be more to life than what I saw and felt.  

For awhile now I have felt pretty empty and uninterested in any kind of spiritual pursuit. I wasn't sure what this meant but no matter what I did or read I wasn't really feeling it anymore. It felt like a big piece of who I thought I was was missing but to continue searching felt like just another false idol.

I don't want to just fill my time because I am afraid to feel the emptiness. I did feel guilty.

Then I stumbled upon another spiritual speaker that said " it is ok to stop searching" I felt a total since of relief immediately. I had been there for awhile but felt like I was betraying who I have been and losing something else that I knew as me. I actually had already let it go.

I want to just live now without the distraction of the searching and the figuring things out. There is nothing more to figure out. The subject of my obsession "me" isn't that satisfying anymore.

I want to see what it is like to live without the wanting for a change. I want to experience more of the outside world instead of the inside world. I hope that I will be able to share what I have learned on my journey but it won't be my goal. I not going to have any goals.

I know there will be ups and downs and my mind will continue to play games with me but now I know they are games and I can choose to participate if I want. I have gone too far to live that way 100% of the time anymore.

Today I am not trying to capture the happiness I feel and I am just going to enjoy it. I do realize that I do have a lot to be grateful for which while I was lost in myself I couldn't see. I also have some amends to make but that is for another day. Today I am going to just enjoy my happiness.

The Three of Me - Living life a new way

I have been a selfish person most of my life. This doesn't mean that I didn't do a lot of things for people or that I didn't make plenty of sacrifices of my time and energy but most of the time the pain in my mind got top billing. I lived despite the circumstances I carried around in my mind.

I have experienced a lot grace throughout the years and have be reborn emotionally many times. At the end different episodes of my painful life I would emerge happy and lighter but in time something else would happen and I would enter a new period of pain and again a rebirth.

The difference for me this time is that I feel like I see myself from outside myself. I can look at how lost I have been and see that this kind of pain and suffering is a selfish pursuit. It couldn't be helped  I was trapped with only my own mind to give me advice and that was a dead end proposition.

But I feel healed in a way I have never felt before. I can see that I have been my only friend and my only enemy all along. I have discovered grace once again and I am feeling extremely grateful today.

I believe we have three parts of us that live inside and we must find harmony within ourselves in order to find peace and happiness. We have our mind of course and then our emotional self and last but not least the spiritual self or our core self.

The mind is easy to explain. Your mind believes you can think yourself out of any problem. Your emotions show up when the mind can't solve the problem usually with a meltdown or a burst of anger. Both are just distractions and provide us with a temporary solutions and we can get caught in a loop that just fills our time.

The harder part to describe is the spiritual self or the real self. It is a part of you that knows what you really want at that moment. The part of you that says ugh when you agree to do something that doesn't truly feed you. It is the part of you that patiently waits until the other two are exhausted before saying just the right words that change your life. It isn't interested in a discussion or how you feel about things it just knows in that moment what you really want.

The trouble is that when life hurls rocks at you starting at an early age it seems our mind or our emotions take control and we spend our lives unbalanced feeling like we are just not right going back and forth between thinking and emotions.

My mind has always controlled me and my emotions played second only emerging in sadness and suffering. My thinking self knew sadness was the logical outcome in certain situations so it was acceptable to let my emotions take center stage for a certain period of time.

It never seemed like a war within. It all seemed normal just part of who I was. I was mostly unhappy and felt sadness even when some my dreams came true.

My awakening came when my mind and emotions were both exhausted and there was no one left to run the show. It was quiet there for a really long time and it was uncomfortable for a really long time. I didn't know what was happening. I had never lived in silence before but I didn't have a choice this time.

One day one moment I heard a voice. Not audible so don't lock me up but a small voice that said "you are doing this to yourself". My mind was so weak at that point it barely had an opinion. I didn't change a thing I was doing but I started to get better. I have always wanted to get better but this time my mind didn't have a plan. This getting better as you know took awhile but I had nothing but time.

My core self is managing my mind and emotions these day. I say managing because my mind isn't always willing to do what is best for me and demands top billing and my emotions don't honestly reflect the reality of the situation or the truth about why I feel the way I do.

My mind and emotions grew from my childhood experiences and it is taking time for them to grow up and see I am no longer a child. My spirit wasn't affected by those experiences because it only lives in the moment. It has been watching and waiting for its turn and that time has come.

With  this balance life feels more like a vacation than a war. I am looking forward to what life has to offer now instead of bracing myself for more of the same. I know there will be ups and downs but now I know I can face them without fear.

Happy New Year.