tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51059672284370103612024-03-14T06:10:23.866-07:00Bra BadgesAliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.comBlogger338125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-28080668894143142972018-04-23T14:58:00.000-07:002018-04-23T14:58:56.876-07:00Finally INFor some weird internety reason, I've been locked out of this blog for months!!!!<br />
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Today, I was let back in. <br />
<br />
So I'm here to simply say that a few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I'm going to be doing most of my writing on my <a href="http://storyladyblog.com/" target="_blank">family blog</a> if you're wanting to follow that.<br />
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ALSO: I do blog once-a-month-ish on <a href="https://salifeline.org/category/for-her/" target="_blank">SA Lifeline's Women's Discussion Board.</a> Those posts are recovery-centered. I've been wanting to link to them here but haven't been able to log in!<br />
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<a href="https://salifeline.org/gratitude-in-difficulties/" target="_blank">Here's</a> one I wrote about gratitude.<br />
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I don't know what the future of this blog will be, but I do know that I've come to know and love so very many of you! My life is richer, better, more full and infinitely more lovely because you've come into it.<br />
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It's time to earn a different kind of bra badge now.<br />
<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-72691611358240846022017-11-27T13:24:00.001-08:002017-11-27T13:24:27.889-08:00Snowsuit Safety<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I keep thinking about this quote -it has popped up a few times on my newsfeed for different reasons. An avid snowboarder posted it, taking it literally. But it's hitting me on a non-literal level. A few months ago, I listened to a podcast called The Life Beats Project. <a href="http://www.thelifebeatsproject.com/hugh/" target="_blank">They interviewed Hugh Vail</a>, and he said something really similar and I haven't really stopped thinking about it.<br />
He talked about the power of vulnerability, of being transparent with those we love intimately. He noted that we can weather any kind of weather, so long as we know what to dress for.<br />
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YES.<br />
And I think Betrayal Trauma feels a lot like wearing a blizzard in a bikini. The scorch is real.<br />
<br />
When my husband is open and honest -when he's transparent -I can dress for the weather. <br />
<br />
The weather, the weather, the weather.<br />
It's cold now, right? Is it cold where you are?<br />
<br />
It's two-blanket weather up here in northern AZ. It's currently overcasty with winds teasing my windows and leaves scraping the walls of my rental. We're moving out because we are buying our first house.<br />
It's a big friggin' deal. A big one for us.<br />
<br />
I don't know if we've ever talked about this, but I'm 32 and my husband is that plus 5. The chaos of addiction has kept us from something as simple as our own home... that's one way addiction has manifested in our lives. We've spent so much time stuck in scarcity thinking.<br />
Not enough money.<br />
Not enough time.<br />
Not enough worth.<br />
Not enough, period.<br />
<br />
I'm 7 years into actively seeking a better was of living, and it feels like some truths are starting to stick -like a really great snowstorm. <br />
For 9 years, we've been driving an old Jeep Grand Cherokee. Not all of the doors worked, and driving down the highway felt like a life-risk. No matter now many times we aligned her, she still shook like a maraca on Cinco de Mayo. The upside being I couldn't hear the children fighting in the backseat, directly behind me.<br />
Why? Why did we do that? Why did we stick with such an unsafe car for so long?<br />
It's just the chaos thinking that comes with addiction -the sort of STUCK inability to care properly for myself and my surroundings.<br />
<br />
We got a new car. We finally just did it. TWO DAYS LATER, the house across the street went up for sale. We put in an offer and handed it to God. He handed a house back.<br />
<br />
Life feels abundant right now, and I feel the reality of what's happening. <br />
Healing is happening.<br />
It isn't clean and tidy like I thought it would be. It's hard conversations and saying no to people I love. It's saying no to food my body doesn't want but my mind does. It's showing up for the dental appointments. It's ordering new underwear and glasses when I need them and not two years later (seriously). It's sticking to a budget. <br />
It's also abundant freedom from bondage... I'm able to show up and take care of myself in the midst of one of the worst bouts of anxiety I've had in 10 years. <br />
<br />
I've had anxiety since I was tiny. I don't remember a life when I wasn't afraid of the future, afraid of destruction. As a little girl, I lost sleep over the possibility of the house burning down and every night -religiously -I left my shoes next to my bed so I could flee the home when it burst into flames.<br />
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I still harbor those same fears. Still keep my metaphorical shoes by my metaphorical bed for when the metaphorical flames hit the fan, or something.<br />
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In the midst of this anxiety, I am finding stillness and hope. With my anxiety as high as it is, I find myself triggered more and more easily. <br />
I take deep breaths and repeat to myself, "I have everything I need. I have everything I need. There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothing."<br />
<br />
In order for me to "dress for the weather" as Hugh Vail and Alfred Wainwright encourage, I need to care for myself carefully. Rest, shower, food, fresh air... I need to take time for my ME things outside of my responsibilities as a wife and mom.<br />
This means choosing to write before I do the dishes sometimes.<br />
<br />
Ultimately, what I'm trying to do here is create a life I don't have to perpetually escape from in order to deal with it. <br />
I want to live pliably -to let my guard down and feel the sun in when it's there and bask in peace and safety.<br />
AND to put my snowsuit on and feel the snow fall when it's there and bask in peace and safety.<br />
<br />
Over the long weekend, I was in a situation I would have deemed "bad weather" in the past. But I went through it differently this time. I had my snowsuit, so to speak, and I learned something pretty gorgeous which is this:<br />
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I equate chaotic circumstances with trauma. When I sustained my deepest and truest trauma, I was in chaotic circumstances, and my body kept that score.<br />
Heaven and Hell are earthly accessible states of mind, and my Hell is scarcity living.<br />
Not enough money to fix broken things.<br />
Not enough time to do it ourselves.<br />
In a place where there is NOT ENOUGH OF ANYTHING, therein lies what I perceive to be impending and excruciating pain. <br />
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I feel so much fear in those circumstances, but with a snowsuit on, I was able to observe it... look it over, examine it, learn from it and then come home and REST while it sinks into my soul.<br />
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In the past, I'd come out of that kind of a chaotic situation and clean my house until my knuckles bled... just to PROVE to myself that I was SAFE. I don't need to do that today. I don't need to prove to anyone -including me-own self -that I'm safe.<br />
I know I am.<br />
Safe in God.<br />
Safe with God.<br />
Safe with tools that lead me to God within the confines of my sacred soul.<br />
<br />
This is how I head into the holidays.<br />
It's snowsuit time.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-32610191284521883742017-10-24T11:54:00.000-07:002017-10-24T11:54:36.116-07:00DarknessToday, my 4-year old reminded me that last December (her memory is a thing of miracles) I bought silly putty for another child -not her. And she was sad.<br />
And she's still sad.<br />
So shouldn't we go to the store NOW? And buy her some NOW?<br />
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Sadness must be chased away, right? It feels unnatural. And so it is, maybe, to us when we are brand new and heaven-fresh. But part of being mortal is feeling sad.<br />
What do we do with sadness?<br />
Chase it? Keep it?<br />
I chose Door #3: Have it in for a cuppa and observe it. Ask it stuff. Like why? Why are you here? And why are you so big right now? And do you have something to show me? Teach me?<br />
<br />
So I like books.<br />
And in one of the finest works of Literature to ever come out of the bravery of the Bronte minds is a line from Jane Eyre. Jane Eyre is teaching her pupil how to pencil sketch and simply says, "Remember, the shadows are as important as the light."<br />
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The line sticks like glue to my veins.<br />
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By nature, I am bubbly and light. My home décor is full of pops of bright color -so is my closet. I open windows always. We just bought a car with a sun roof and I feel like I was just born.<br />
Life can really begin now that sunlight can filter into my car, f'real.<br />
<br />
I used to chase sadness away with movies and food and gossip because in my light-hearted and sun-filled soul, sadness = wrongness.<br />
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But my light-hearted and sun-filled soul now realizes that the brilliance in the sun and light only comes BECAUSE of the darkness and sadness. They are equal partners. My bright colors wouldn't pop without darkness to contrast. Darkness deserves reverence. <br />
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So I like art.<br />
There's been a few pieces of Christian art that have punched through my feelings and left me with a deep sense of longing. I want them in my house sooner than later.<br />
But they are dark.<br />
DARK.<br />
That used to be a deal-breaker for me, but now? The darkness in these paintings is just as important as the light that emanates from the window over my kitchen sink.<br />
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The first one is "Worlds Without End" by Greg Olsen. The first time I saw this painting, I felt some deep resistance, but the more I sat with it, the more I felt a deep attraction to the stillness.<br />
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This second picture is also by Greg Olsen and something of a companion to "Worlds without End" and depicts a younger Jesus with his mother, Mary. It is titled, "For Just a Moment." <br />
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Third (and last) is this beautifully dark piece by Liz Lemon Swindle titled, "Against the Wind." I can't stop looking at Christ's hands, His wet robes, His strength, His surety.<br />
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The shadows are as important as the light.<br />
The sadness is as important as the happiness.<br />
The night is as important as the day.<br />
Each and all deserve equal reverence.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-88141060252251830812017-10-10T16:46:00.000-07:002017-10-10T16:46:21.020-07:00Freedom Currently listening to:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k4JeX8DVwlc" width="560"></iframe>
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As I've continued reading on in Desmond Tutu's, "Book of Forgiving," I've made a conscious effort to highlight the word "free" every time it pops up.<br />
Free, freedom, freeing -beautiful words. Words I want in my life.<br />
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About a year ago, I was aching over some family stuff -hurting over the choices a loved one was making. I love them so much, and I was watching them make some crazy choices... I think what hurt most of all was knowing that the choices they were making were pulling them farther from me. They'd already been pulling away, and I was missing them as it was.<br />
They were actively pulling away.<br />
One night, it was hitting me hard. The ache hit hard. I couldn't sleep, and I just started praying. Tears flowed. I can't say whether I cried or prayed myself to sleep.<br />
The next morning, I woke up and rolled out my yoga mat. I sat in silence, my eyes closed. I created some space in my mind, and as I did, I felt God speak.<br />
"That which we seek, we shall find."<br />
Yes.<br />
Simple.<br />
God always speaks to me like that.<br />
<br />
My loved one was finding the life he was seeking, and I have the power to seek my own truth and stand in it, even if I sometimes shake, even if I sometimes fall, even if I scare others.<br />
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Benjamin Franklin said he spent his life seeking truth, and I feel like most of us are out there doing the same thing.<br />
John Jaques penned what became the lyrics to "Oh Say, What Is Truth":<br />
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Oh say, what is truth? 'Tis the fairest gem <br /> That the riches of worlds can produce, <br /> And priceless the value of truth will be when <br /> The proud monarch's costliest diadem <br /> Is counted but dross and refuse. ...<br />
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Then say, what is truth? 'Tis the last and the first, <br /> For the limits of time it steps o'er. <br /> Though the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst, <br /> Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst, <br /> Eternal, unchanged, evermore. <br />
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Truth and freedom seem -to me -to be synonymous. Freedom is truth, Truth is freedom.<br />
Forgiveness pals around the same block.<br />
<br />
As I've delved deeper into Tutu's recommended meditations, journaling exercises and stone rituals, I've found forgiveness and some miraculous healing.<br />
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A dear friend of mine recently said she feels like having a relationship with Christ reminds her of the "kissing scene" in Hitch where Hitch tells his buddy, "you go 90%, let her go 10%."<br />
God goes 90%.<br />
The work I've been doing has been my 10% and over the weekend, God showed up 90%.<br />
It was breathtaking.<br />
<br />
I was able to release pain I didn't even know I was holding. Was it while I was journaling? Or meditating?<br />
No.<br />
Though I believe both practices are key healing tools.<br />
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It was because I was seeking.<br />
I was journaling, praying, meditating, seeking. And then I was living. Showing up for life, for my messy house and busy kids. Showing up for my health as best as I could.<br />
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And in the middle of the showing up, a miracle happened.<br />
An unplanned, unscheduled organic miracle.<br />
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And today, I feel the serenity of freedom.Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-50733459011728228352017-09-20T13:33:00.000-07:002017-09-20T13:33:27.536-07:00What Forgiveness is Not<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>I am angry this has been done to me. I am sad and I am lost. I may never forget what you have done to me, but I will forgive. I will do everything in my power not to let you harm me again, I will not retaliate against you or against myself. (Tutu "The Book of Forgiving" Chapter2).</i></blockquote>
Reading through Chapter 2 of "The Book of Forgiving" helped me break through some realizations of why I don't forgive. <br />
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In the journaling exercises at the end of the chapter, I was asked to list what I would have to let go of in order to forgive. What emerged surprised me. I've felt prompted to work through these exercises, but I'm being honest when I say that I have had very little expectations of healing. I've always believed that forgiveness just... wasn't for me. As I answered these questions, the truth that came out was hard to write and read.<br />
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From my Journal:<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u><br /></u></span></b>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><u>Things I need to let go of in order to let forgiveness in:</u></span></b><br />
<b><u><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></u></b>
Pride<br />
Ego<br />
Expectations of Offenders <br />
<ul>
<li>That there will be remorse </li>
<li>apology </li>
<li>changed behavior </li>
<li>and/or gratitude for my forgiveness</li>
</ul>
False Beliefs about Forgiveness <br />
<ul>
<li>That forgiveness is an inaccessible fantasy</li>
<li>the idea that my forgiveness is a gift to someone else </li>
<li>that to forgive means to forget, that by forgiving I am setting myself up for pain and not protecting myself </li>
<li>that I can forgive on my own</li>
</ul>
Entitlement <br />
<ul>
<li>of an apology </li>
<li>of acknowledgement/ownership of behavior from the offender</li>
</ul>
Shame <br />
<ul>
<li>that because I struggle to forgive, I'm not worthy of giving or receiving forgiveness.</li>
</ul>
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That last one just about took my breath away. So much shame. I struggle with believing that IF forgiveness is real -tangibly real -then I am not worthy of it in any form.</div>
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By simply writing that out, I can already feel the truth of it shifting deep within the confines of my scared soul.</div>
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In Chapter 2, Tutu continues:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Just as we take a leap of faith when we make a commitment to love someone and get married, we also take a leap of faith when we commit ourselves to a practice of forgiving. We do not forget or deny that we are always vulnerable to being hurt again, but we leap anyway.</blockquote>
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<i><br /></i>
<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-42308457669267707352017-09-18T15:06:00.000-07:002017-09-18T15:09:26.840-07:00Tutu and My Little Warrior WomanI watched Wonder Woman last Thursday and cried because of so many right reasons. Thursday was the 4th day of this new cleanse I'm doing.<br />
I've never done a cleanse before, and I think as part of working my Step 7 (humbly asking God to remove my character weaknesses), God has basically just targeted everything I used to scorn and mock and brought it front and center into my life.<br />
That means I'm gluten free too, folks, in case you're keeping track.<br />
<br />
As I began this cleanse, hoping to give my intestines space from irritants and give them a spa day to heal, I was terrified.<br />
I use food for comfort and fun and rewards.<br />
Today, I'm one full week in and the effects have been really hopeful. For the last two years, I've only felt let-down by my body, as if it had lost the ability to heal and was only trekking downhill toward knee replacements and pain-pill popping. But one solid week in, and my body is responding really well. My joint inflammation has been significantly reduced, and I've sluffed off some (what I think is water) weight. I feel light, in every sense of the word.<br />
Darkness and heaviness are exiting stage left.<br />
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Book-Forgiving-Fourfold-Healing-Ourselves-ebook/dp/B00DB32SR6/ref=as_li_ss_il?ie=UTF8&qid=1505771570&sr=8-1&keywords=book+of+forgiving&linkCode=li2&tag=stoladblo-20&linkId=68d69031c017bc99ca981dc45f999bbb" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B00DB32SR6&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=stoladblo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=stoladblo-20&l=li2&o=1&a=B00DB32SR6" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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A few days into my cleanse, God reminded me that last summer I read Desmond Tutu's, "The Book of Forgiving." <span style="font-size: x-small;">(affiliate link)</span> It comes with meditations and journaling exercises that I avoided last year, but this year, God said, "It's time."<br />
I've taken full advantage of this cleanse by exercising at least 20 minutes per day and making my <a href="http://brabadges.blogspot.com/2017/09/meditation.html" target="_blank">daily morning meditation practice</a> non-negotiable. <br />
God is calling on me to HEAL MORE. This is shoulder-to-the-wheel healing time. <br />
<br />
In order for me to heal fully, I need a safe space. I can create my own safety -something I didn't know 7 years ago. Right now, I've added some definite boundaries in my life because I can cleanse for weeks and forgive 70 x7, but if I'm not safe, I will never fully heal.<br />
Because My Little Warrior Woman comes out and won't sleep. I can't heal unless she's asleep.<br />
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When I'm not safe, she comes out. She fights. It looks and sounds like control when she comes out. I try to manage the level of pain that's inflicted on me and my kiddos. I fight, I shield, I protect.<br />
She's my mini-wonder woman.<br />
I love her.<br />
BUT<br />
I can't HEAL with her on the warpath. She only comes out when I'm in unsafe territory, and this means for me to walk the path of healing, I gotta get OFF the battlefield. Create my own safety instead of waiting for the enemy to stop firing, if you know what I mean.<br />
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So last night and this morning, I did. <a href="http://brabadges.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_1457.html" target="_blank">Boundaries</a> set, battlefield in the rearview. My Little Warrior Woman is sleeping now.<br />
<br />
<i>Healing can commence.</i><br />
<i></i><br />
As I've delved into Tutu's "Book of Forgiving" for the second time, I'm really just pleased all over again. <br />
I'm not good at forgiving. I'm really not.<br />
This book has given me a "HOW" behind the whole entire process without an ounce of shame. Nowhere in it's pages are the words, "You were raised with a Bible in your home and you don't GET THIS?! You must be an idiot."<br />
Over and over, Tutu affirms that forgiveness isn't easy, sharing his own experiences and those of his loved ones.<br />
A few stand out quotes I wanted to share from the first chapter. <br />
Speaking of Christ, he states:<br />
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He must also have been able to obliterate the signs of the torture and death he endured. But he chose not to erase that evidence. After the resurrection, he appeared to his disciples. In most instances, he showed them his wounds and his scars. This is what healing demands. Behavior that is hurtful, shameful, abusive or demeaning must be brought into the fierce light of truth. And truth can be brutal. In fact, truth may exacerbate the hurt; it might make things worse. But if we want real forgiveness and real healing, we must face the real injury.</blockquote>
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That quote struck something in me -I'd never, ever thought of Christ's scars in that way. He showed his wounds and scars. Healing demands that we show them, maybe not publicly but we must face them. We must speak them. That's how forgiveness starts... by simply looking at the truth of what happened to us and bringing it into<i><b> the fierce light of truth.</b></i><br />
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At the end of the chapter, there is a beautiful poem in which we find the words:<br />
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<i>"...I am bigger than the image you have of me. </i></div>
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<i>I am stronger. </i></div>
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<i>I am more beautiful. </i></div>
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<i>And I am infinitely more precious than you thought me. </i></div>
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<i>I will forgive you. </i></div>
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<i>My forgiveness is not a gift that I am giving to you. </i></div>
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<i>When I forgive you, </i></div>
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<i>My forgiveness will be a gift that gives itself to me."</i></div>
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I have ben practicing the recommended mediation in the chapter -it is helping me to visualize forgiveness in a way that I feel is helping me to spiritually create it, even though I haven't physically done it yet. <br />
Tutu also includes a "Stone Ritual" at the end of every chapter. He recommends selecting a stone to use while reading and working through his book. I chose to use a hunk of rose quartz because it's pink.<br />
And I like pink a lot. <br />
Pink and sparkles.<br />
I bought a sparkly journal just to go with my journey through this book. As Tutu says, it is my own "book of forgiving."<br />
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For the first "Stone Ritual," I held my rose quartz in my hand for 6 hours (it ended up being seven on account my sleeping through a few of those hours) in my non-dominant hand. I did that yesterday and then answered some questions about it today.</div>
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It was a really cleansing experience for me. The exercise also has you list people I would like to forgive and those I would like forgiveness from. I've been stuck on Steps 8/9 (making a list of all people we have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all and then go forward and make those amends) for over 2 years, and this book might just be the game-changer for me.</div>
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It just might.</div>
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God has led me to it.</div>
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I'm cleansing in so many more ways than one.</div>
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From my own book of forgiving:</div>
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<b>#5) In what ways was carrying the stone like carrying an unforgiven hurt?</b></div>
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Carrying the stone is like carrying an unforgiven hurt because it hinder and binds me. There is a certain freedom in forgiveness that I can't access right now. I'm learning from resentments and anger, but only that I am anchored to a cause I do not believe in at my true core. And holding the stone was literally stinky, just like holding resentment is figuratively stinky. I am capable of carrying the stone, just as I am capable of carrying resentments and anger and victimization. But carrying the stone hindered my routine health and well-being practices (like dishing up food, interrupting my sleep, making it hard to open my water bottle, and messing with my bathroom time), and carrying resentments, anger and victim-thinking also interrupts the natural flow of my health and well-being. I've never known life -can't remember a time -when I had access to the freedom forgiveness and grace offer. I have said that I fear losing my freedom -facing bondage of any kind -but I live in the bondage of "hinderment."</div>
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-38612854663542709322017-09-06T10:36:00.001-07:002017-09-06T10:36:47.140-07:00Meditation<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: xx-small;">{this post contains affiliate links}</span></b></div>
Five years ago, if you had told me that I'd be meditating everyday -that meditation would completely change my life, I would have laughed out loud.<br />
Because I thought meditation was for crazies.<br />
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Meditation has been my greatest recovery tool. Period.<br />
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Meditation is the grace's vehicle -bringing it to cracks in my broken heart and damaged brain. It is where I commune with God each morning and come back to live from the divinity within myself.<br />
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Last night, I was wondering to myself what my life would be like without betrayal trauma. What sort of person would I be? I think of the amazing people I've met, the truths that have sunk down deep into my soul. Maybe someday I would have found a meditation practice. I'm not saying betrayal trauma is the ONLY way I would have found meditation, but I am saying that it DID bring it... and it brought it rapidly. I really do feel like healing from betrayal trauma has put me on a fast track in many ways -a fast track to letting go of what I can't control (others, the past, the truth).<br />
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I am a pretty open person, so I talk openly about what I'm up to with others. As meditation comes up, people often will ask me, "How?"<br />
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I wanted to share some of my process today. I recently wrote about some discomfort I've got going on, and while I've been sitting with it and learning from it, meditation has been an anchor for me. <br />
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This video is a gem -it isn't even two minutes long: <iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nOJTbWC-ULc" width="560"></iframe>
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<br />
See?<br />
It's that simple. SIMPLE is the key to meditation.<br />
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I first found meditation by accident. In early recovery, I found a yoga video on Amazon, and at the very end, the instructor walked me through a body scan while I was lying down.<br />
She had me tense my arms, shoulders, and chest and then release.<br />
Then my leg muscles and release.<br />
She walked me through sending breath and release to my internal organs.<br />
At the end of the whole ordeal, I was completely relaxed -all tension was gone from my body and mind. I had never, NEVER felt anything like it. I returned to the video a few more times, but I soon found that I didn't actually want the physical work out... I just wanted that part at the end.<br />
I went to youtube for help and found a myriad of "body scan guided meditations." From there, I found guided morning meditations and guided meditations for anxiety.<br />
I wasn't consistent in these meditations, but I accessed them when I felt I needed them.<br />
Eventually, I returned to the practice of yoga. <br />
<br />
Taura -THE Taura I talk about when I talk about my yoga practice -gave me a book by Baron Baptiste:<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Days-Personal-Revolution-Breakthrough-Radically-ebook/dp/B004XVQPRY/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1504718228&sr=1-3&keywords=baron+baptiste&linkCode=li2&tag=stoladblo-20&linkId=eaea018885d717701ea9c485b334b9b6" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B004XVQPRY&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=stoladblo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=stoladblo-20&l=li2&o=1&a=B004XVQPRY" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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In this book, Baptiste guides the reader through 40 days of yoga and meditation. He gives diet advice (which I didn't follow on account of some chronic health issues) and tells inspiring personal stories. The book is filled with pictures to help the novice. A dear friend of mine is a yoga instructor and she and I worked the program together using the voxer app (she lives out of state).<br />
For the first week, Baron Baptiste has you meditate for 5 minutes.<br />
The next week, for 10 minutes.<br />
Then 15.<br />
Then 20.<br />
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That was really a game-shifter for me.<br />
<br />
I downloaded the "Insight Timer App" and began using their timer. They tracked my progress, awarding me stars when I reached certain milestones. I began guiding my own meditations, and though I still frequently use guided meditations, I found the freedom that comes from sitting in my own stillness -no noise, no voices. Just me.<br />
And soon, it was me and Christ.<br />
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My meditations are now filled with whatever affirmations or visualizations I feel I need. I use crystals given to me by my sweet geologist brother, and I sometimes smudge my space with some palo santo wood (also given to me by my brother who I don't get to see often enough).<br />
<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Purifying-Cleansing-Meditating-Sustainable-Harvested/dp/B019G1YO5A/ref=as_li_ss_il?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1504718606&sr=1-1-catcorr&keywords=palo+santo+wood&linkCode=li2&tag=stoladblo-20&linkId=5fd5f307995f7b4881fb69d1a88a5c9f" target="_blank"><img border="0" src="//ws-na.amazon-adsystem.com/widgets/q?_encoding=UTF8&ASIN=B019G1YO5A&Format=_SL160_&ID=AsinImage&MarketPlace=US&ServiceVersion=20070822&WS=1&tag=stoladblo-20" /></a><img alt="" border="0" height="1" src="https://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=stoladblo-20&l=li2&o=1&a=B019G1YO5A" style="border: none !important; margin: 0px !important;" width="1" />
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My meditation is constantly shifting and growing. It changes according to my needs at the time, but one thing remains constant: it is my greatest healing tool.<br />
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In the 12-steps, step 11 is not to be checked off quickly. It deserves a big space, a huge chunk of time, energy and devotion. <br />
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This morning as I finished my yoga and sat in my meditation spot on my couch, the words came to mind, "Not as a world giveth."<br />
The world is stock-FULL of stuff that can bring us some measure of peace -not all of which is bad. But nothing brings me the level of peace that Christ does, and meditation is the space where I access that otherworldly peace -it's the place I go when I'm homesick for heaven.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-64373978167593898472017-08-29T14:33:00.002-07:002017-08-29T14:33:41.667-07:00Discomfort<div style="text-align: center;">
On Sunday, I sat in one of THE best Sunday Schools lessons I've ever been in. The teacher was a question-asker, a truth-seeker. He spoke my language. </div>
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The lesson was on hard work, and there were a few insights that I can't stop thinking about. One is this -a quote mentioned by the teacher:</div>
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The thought has come back over and over and over.</div>
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I recently set some firm boundaries for my own health. I have crossed some lines lately. And by "lines" I mean "streets" and by that I simply mean that I'd left my side of the street and planted myself on my husband's sidewalk. I didn't even truly realize it until my soul resembled the Black Knight from Monty Python, and then I went, "Oh, yeah... this is my battle ground. His side of the street is littered with land mines and grenades and so so much tear gas."</div>
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I'm back on my side, but I'm hurt and I'm scared and I'm trying to just create safety and a solid space for healing. But also? I'm all bruised and bleeding -in short: I'M not healthy right now. I didn't realize just how unhealthy I was until I called my sponsor to surrender a few things -because when I've just come out of my war zone, I'm WAY more sensitive and prone to triggers -and she called me out on what was going on.</div>
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Jealousy, pride, judgement.</div>
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It felt like someone applying rubbing alcohol to my wounds.</div>
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OUCH.</div>
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It felt uncomfortable.</div>
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But it didn't feel untrue. My gut knew it, and my sponsor was brave enough to say it.</div>
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So I'm taking some time to just rest, and in a few days I'll revisit all the stuff out of my control. I'm so tired, honestly. I'm physically tired from travelling (more travel this weekend), and I'm mentally tired from some work stuff. I'm emotionally tired from my marriage stuff. And my spiritual canteen feels bone. dry.</div>
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So I'm off. To grow.</div>
<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-34966277995560029632017-08-22T11:17:00.000-07:002017-08-22T11:17:01.545-07:00FoundationsMy mom once fell off a horse and then fell into a coma for a few weeks. As she woke up, she only wanted to listen to a few select albums including The Oak Ridge Boys Christmas album. As I grew up, I found that Mom's penchant for listening to the same albums over and over and over was just... how she was.<br />
How she is, brain damage or not.<br />
There's still certain albums I won't touch with a ten-foot pole because it reminds me of that day in Elementary School where I took a bite of what was probably my 5,000th peanut butter and peach jam sandwich and had to run to the trash can because I almost puked.<br />
So. literally. sick. of. them.<br />
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One of her favorites was the LDS Church Primary Songs -not the musical tracks, but the tracks with little kids singing. There wasn't a single one I didn't come to have that sort of PB/Peach Reaction to.<br />
But I gotta say.<br />
Those lyrics, they do stick like peanut butter.<br />
This morning, I keep thinking about this one: Where Love Is, There God is Also.<br />
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I've been thinking about how you could easily switch it up a bit to, "Where Chaos Is, There Addiction is Also."<br />
I look at old family videos (from 2009) of my two oldest crawling around our floor in diapers and there is just stuff everywhere: old pizza boxes, piles of paper, clothes.<br />
Some of that is because, yes, I had TWO KIDS IN DIAPERS. But there's so much more to those videos. <br />
We talk a lot about the chaos and disconnect that occurs with addiction, but there's also a sort of lethal form of SCARCITY that no one really openly talks about.<br />
Our furniture was used and torn, but we were dead sure we couldn't afford anything else. Money was too scarce.<br />
We would talk about how we needed new clothes but couldn't afford them, yet our house was strewn with clothing we only kind of liked but couldn't seem to part with. <br />
We talked about how we didn't have enough time or money or or or...<br />
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In truth, at our cores, we believed that WE WERE NOT ENOUGH. By the natural flow of the laws of the universe, because we believed in scarcity, scarcity showed up for us -ever constant, ever depressing.<br />
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I was so steeped in scarcity that I never EVER paid full price for anything, so I always ended up with 5 shirts on clearance that I wasn't ever sure I liked but thought I needed because my other shirts were getting too old or too small.<br />
Scarcity brought on chaos the same way I push my babies in a stroller... they are beholden to one another. And is it just me, or are they both wrapped up in a frigid layer of fear?<br />
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Rooting out scarcity and chaos hasn't been a quick fix. No Condo Method or Fly Lady could have fixed my issues. <br />
This has been a Jesus Fix, through and through.<br />
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Sometimes it got much worse before it got a smidge better. For months at a time, I had to QUIT CLEANING altogether because of shame. I found every time I did dishes, I was tense and stressed. I had to finish them and be perfect about it. I wanted to make my husband happy. I HAD TO BE ENOUGH -clean enough!<br />
It turns out, I never once did the dishes because I was grateful or felt true love for the offerings of food on my table.<br />
I only did dishes because I was afraid of being messy, because I wanted others to be happy.<br />
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It was the same with laundry and vacuuming, with sweeping and dusting. I was a homemaker, trapped in a hellish prison of workhouse shame.<br />
Cleaning was -I thought -MY MAIN JOB and I was rendered paralyzed by shame.<br />
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So?<br />
I quit.<br />
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I quit until I could wash with gratitude and love. I quit exercising for the same reasons.<br />
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Those were hard days where I knew I was doing hard work but was frustrated because it wasn't the kind you could SEE. My house was dirtier than ever and my body? Sick and getting heavier each day.<br />
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It was like working Step 1 every durn day, "My life -my shame -has become unmanageable."<br />
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But gradually -GRADUALLY -good things came around. Just as when I believed in scarcity and it showed up... as I believed in LOVE, it showed up!<br />
Love.<br />
Abundance.<br />
God.<br />
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Pizza boxes started getting thrown away in a timely fashion. Clothes started getting donated, and I found that I was worth paying full-price for clothing items that I genuinely loved. I can actually have my laundry DONE sometimes for a few seconds... whereas even just last summer, I could do laundry all week and still be walking on clothes instead of my laundry room floor.<br />
I began healthy, healing practices for my physical health. I began walking without tension in my muscles, "How much weight am I losing?" slowly began to be replaced with a happy sort of presence where I just appreciated the place I was in -the fresh air and clouds, the birds and sunshine.<br />
I began enjoying my time at the sink as I found appreciation for my dishes. I recently rearranged my cupboards in a way that has substantially decreased the chaos. I cleaned out my closet, and it's stayed clean because chaos and scarcity are starting to visit less and less and less and less.<br />
I now keep freshly cut flowers and greens on my piano, and my house sports beautiful things from beautiful people: stained glass from a dear recovery sister hangs in the window over my sink, beautiful crystals from my brother are scattered here and there throughout my living room. There's LOVE in my home and GRATITUDE and JOY.<br />
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Last year for Father's Day, I spent the day before cleaning my buns off. I got armpits deep in the kind of sweat that they never talk about in Vogue, and mucked, mucked, mucked.<br />
Then I went to the store.<br />
I bought a bedspread, something I'd never done for the King-sized bed we'd bought YEARS earlier (because, as I said, I believed money was scarce). I bought a new shower curtain (hadn't done that since we moved in -we'd just been living with the liner our landlord had put in). I bought a matching bathmat and a few bathroom decorations. <br />
I set everything up and then wrote a note to my husband, "Because you're worth it" and left it on the dusted, newly decorated headboard.<br />
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He still keeps that note where he can see it every morning, and a few months later, he returned the favor -cleaning our room and leaving me an answer "because you are too."<br />
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A few weeks ago, I noticed a thread-bare spot on our sheets, so I threw them out and bought new ones within the week. In the last year, I've bought mascara TWICE instead of making one tube last for two or three years.<br />
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I realize these kinds of things come naturally for some -they certainly came more naturally for me before addiction and trauma took up cellular residency -but these things are now substantial miracles, folks. Downright.<br />
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Anyway, last week I did The Awful Sweat thing again and mucked out my house. Spring Cleaning is stupid, right? It's a stupid farce. It's like cleaning on Saturday. Everyone talks about it like it's the NORMAL thing to do but everyone also knows that Sunday is the Great and Terrible Day where everyone trashes all the houses, so WHY?! WHY do we clean on Saturday?!<br />
I'll tell you what: I don't. I hike on Saturdays now. Or shop or play or whatever because CLEANING is for MONDAYS NOW.<br />
And Spring Cleaning is now POST-SUMMER cleaning because who cleans at all during the summer time? I don't really because there's swimming and hiking and sunshine and monsoons and mud and reunions, so why clean?<br />
And let's start talking about how hiring cleaning help is one of the most beautiful ideas in the history of ideas. I'm terrible at cleaning, and I appreciate that there's folks who aren't who I can pay to come work their mystical cleaning magic in my home.<br />
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Yesterday was Monday (cleaning day), and I made my bed. I wore clean underwear and clean clothes, and I washed rugs and the 4 thick towels we bought to replace the 13 thin towels we'd been hoarding for ten years. A few months ago, Danny and I bought a repo'd Kirby at a discount, and because our house is cozy (read: small), I can plug that thing in a central outlet and clean the whole house. I run over all the carpets and then I switch out attachments and dust everything. I go over our hard-surface flooring with the special hard-floor attachment. Our ceiling fan gets a once-over... and I apologize to the spiders before demolishing and swiping their homes.<br />
<br />
As I worked, I kept hitting on this idea of <b>foundations.</b><br />
My buddy Taura is a yoga instructor who now lives in the South and sometimes visits with her children who are so cute I almost forget that mine are cuter. A few years ago, I was doing yoga in her backyard during the time in my life where I wasn't doing dishes and I was trying to figure out how to do yoga without hating my body.<br />
Everyone around me was flowing and glowing, and I was weary and wobbling.<br />
I'm all legs. Did you know that about me? Percentage wise, I'm 70% legs, 20% torso and 10% head n' hair.<br />
It is never more apparent than when I'm trying to Zumba and can't make my legs move like the shorter folks move theirs -OR when I'm trying to make downward dog work like the girls next to me.<br />
Comparison truly is the thief of joy.<br />
"If you're falling, check your foundation."<br />
That's What Taura Said. Someday I'll write a book and call it What Taura Said and fill it full of quotes Taura probably had no idea she said.<br />
I've never been able to forget that one.<br />
<br />
If anything feels like <i>falling</i>, scarcity and chaos and fear feel that way.<br />
So what, then, are my foundations?<br />
Christ. Yes.<br />
BUT<br />
I'm realizing it goes a bit more shallow than that.<br />
It's my undies, really. And my made bed. It's my dishes. It's my Basic Human Foundations: the first thing I put on that send a message one way or the other.<br />
Clean, crisp underwear let me know I'm worthy of a clean foundation.<br />
Clean, orderly clothes let me know I'm worth the time and the money.<br />
A nice, lovely bed makes for better sleep -sleep is a huge part of the foundation of my mental, spiritual and physical health. So much healing happens in that sacred rest -even God shuts off the light in order for sleep to move in.<br />
Pretty, clean plates are the welcoming mat for good, solid food. I'm not just talking about green and clean -I'm talking about cream and oats, butter and bread, meat and potatoes!<br />
<br />
Yes, Christ is THE FOUNDATION.<br />
But where LOVE is, There God is. And LOVE, my dear sweet healing sisters, can be found in a made bed.<br />
Which thing I never before had supposed.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-78125431630943388152017-08-08T11:21:00.000-07:002017-08-08T11:22:28.433-07:00I am FreeI feel compelled to write. I feel compelled to record everything -I take pictures of everything, cry about moments passed, happy or otherwise. My family teases me about this, hates the way I point cameras in their faces.<br />
No pictures.<br />
Don't blog this.<br />
<br />
Is it because they feel unworthy of being recorded in some way?<br />
<br />
I guess the whys don't really matter. The only thing that really matters is what I think of me and what I know about me and that is simply: I feel compelled to record everything which means God wants me to.<br />
<br />
It's hard to let go of those other voices, though. Sometimes it's easier than others, but lately it's been a hard battle. So loud, those voices. Lots of them coming at me -some coming at me from within me.<br />
Stop writing.<br />
Stop recording.<br />
Stop talking.<br />
You're superfluous.<br />
You're insignificant.<br />
You're insufficient.<br />
Someone else could do it better.<br />
Someone else has done it better.<br />
Someone else is cleaner.<br />
Someone else is quieter.<br />
<br />
These voices used to rule my life, my decisions. I didn't even know they weren't truth. <br />
<br />
So there's progress there. Now I can see them for what they are. Lately, they've been so present and loud. I just keep thinking... God is up to something. Great inspiration and enlightenment seem JUST on the other side of heated battles like these.<br />
<br />
Today my mind is spinning circles. I just returned from a trip that just sanded me down. I'm sure there was some polishing and refining going on, but I don't look or feel it on the outside. All I want is sleep!<br />
I spent a lot of time with people I dearly love who don't work the healing path I'm on. <br />
My house and health are a mess, my friends.<br />
But my soul is as rest, my soul has access to peace and calm!<br />
<br />
During my time away, I had two separate experiences where people asked me about my grandchildren.<br />
My grandchildren?!<br />
I'm THIRTY ONE. I'm not done having my own kids yet!<br />
<br />
These comments came during the thick of my facing some old trauma that was raked up by situations I was facing, and I wanted to run to the store for some anti-aging cream. Maybe run and get a haircut real quick? Start coming up with an exercise plan to lose weight and look younger?<br />
But no.<br />
No, no, no.<br />
<br />
The REAL answer is acceptance. Love. Love myself as I am. The comments hurt less when my own self-worth has been buoyed up and fostered.<br />
<br />
My prayers during my trip were just so honest. I told God I was sad. I was facing some grief and loss. Shame was on my back, and on top of it all, I'm VAIN. I'm VAIN and 31 and people called me GRANDMA.<br />
I felt so childlike crying up to God, "Am I even loved at all?"<br />
His answer was accompanied by a loving, lifting sensation -the kind He's sent me since I was a child, "You are free."<br />
<br />
I am free.<br />
That's what He said.<br />
<br />
And as the week unfolded, I saw more and more what He meant. I am not as bound as I once was by fear. Though my pride is still loud and proud (ha!), it doesn't bind me nearly so much as when I didn't EVEN SEE IT AT ALL.<br />
<br />
I am free.<br />
Free to take pictures and free to record. Free to talk and write. Free to do that which I'm compelled to.<br />
God is calling, and I must answer though the rewards feel *just* on the other side of mind battles fought in fields of fog as thick as molasses.<br />
<br />
Today I am resting up, writing up and laughing at my 4 year old who keeps sneaking kittens in the house. I need laughter daily, just as I need God daily.<br />
I lamented to my mother about the "grandma" comments, "I've always looked older than I am," I said, trying to sort of comfort myself.<br />
"It's because you're confident," she surprised me with her response.<br />
<br />
Confident?<br />
Healing HAS given me access to a place where I don't care what people think of me AS MUCH (still an issue though). I am moving forward without worrying what others will think... willing to sacrifice my marriage if it means getting better both physically and mentally and spiritually. And that is confidence.<br />
THAT is free.<br />
<br />
I am free.<br />
When I yoke myself to God, I am free.<br />
<br />
He's always pulling funny ironies like that: last shall be first, small shall be great, yoked shall be free.<br />
<br />
I love Him for it. I truly do.Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-45469150303114149082017-04-06T17:07:00.001-07:002017-04-06T17:07:44.677-07:00Trauma is for the BirdsMy schedule is travel heavy right now. Because I live the quintessential country wife life, I don't travel much farther than "town"... ever. There's miles of wide open spaces right outside my window, and it feels so good. My wanderlust is at an all-time low, and whenever it kicks up, I sit down with a hearty dose of BBC TV and all is well once again.<br />
<br />
But I'm in the smack-middle of a travel fest (per my definition). Lots of trips to the PHX area and one to SLC area -all for family celebrations: wedding stuff, baby blessings. It's all good.<br />
Except it's thrown me off big time. I think maybe my chi or chakras or aura or something is off? Or the moon phased? Hippies, help me out here.<br />
<br />
The good news is that recovery is saving my bay-cun. Seriously saving it. I'm hitting my dailies harder than ever, working to be daily accountable to a recovery sister for them.<br />
#1) Prayer/meditate (I'm up to 20 minutes every morning, and it's doing wonders for my anxiety)<br />
#2) Scripture study<br />
#3) Eat ONE raw green food per day (after where I ended up in 2016, this goal is really shooting for the moon, believe me. I was being literal when I talked about bacon earlier).<br />
#4) Exercise (I added this one after supreme consistency with the other three for three weeks)<br />
<br />
When there was huge family drama a few weekends ago, I was able to stay out of it and have my serenity *mostly* intact (I'm not super-human, okay?).<br />
And last week, I was living a big-hearted small life where washing dishes felt meditative and rearranging my living room felt cathartic. I have felt a soul-filling satisfaction that has washed my life with a calm that feels miraculous, and I found myself asking the Lord, "Am I allowed? To live this way? It feels unfairly nice and I feel undeserving because I still struggle with loving my next door neighbor."<br />
In Neal A. Maxwell's BYU Devotional from 1981, "Grounded, Rooted, Established and Settled" he said:<br />
But family life seems so ordinary now. Even so, some may still say, “Should I not be doing something else?” Ah, but that is not the real question! The real question is: “Why should I desire more than to perform the work to which I have been called?” (Alma 29:6). That is the question.<br />
<br />
I can say that last week, I had no desire to do more than the work to which I've been called today -and that work is dishes, cooking, serving my neighbors and -of course -my dailies. Perhaps God wants to refine my patience, so my relegated tasks are routine, daily activities that run the threat of killing me with being FLAT, FLAT, FLAT.<br />
I know that pre-recovery, it certainly felt that way. I felt unseen by my husband and unseen every time someone puked on the sheet I'd just washed. Even the trees were the enemy -showering leaves on the grass I'd just raked.<br />
<br />
To feel that burden begin to lift as my perspective has shifted feels liberating.<br />
It IS liberating.<br />
<br />
But my schedule isn't liberating. Though there be miles of open air and space waiting to be taken in front my kitchen window, there be no wiggle room in our budget or travel calendar. <br />
I feel the pinch, and I feel a bit more wobbly and ready for trauma to come visit.<br />
<br />
My dailies have anchored me to Christ -or maybe anchored Christ to me? <br />
Even with them, and with Christ, trauma comes. And it came, as the Grinch so wittingly observed, "it came just the same."<br />
<br />
Sitting in my chapel (read: bathtub) I felt it physically ripping through me, and I recognized it. I decided that now is the time to make friends with my friend that has chosen to lodge -without permission or consent -in my very own cells. My body isn't playing host to my trauma... my body simply IS a host, like it or not.<br />
It feels invasive because it is.<br />
<br />
During my peaceful week last week, I hit on a podcast and listened to it 3x over (something I've never, ever done).<br />
It's a really informative (borderline entertaining) podcast from On Being about how trauma lodges in the body:<br />
<a href="http://www.onbeing.org/programs/bessel-van-der-kolk-how-trauma-lodges-in-the-body/" target="_blank">LISTEN HERE</a><br />
<br />
I didn't know when I was listening to that podcast that a big trigger was just days away, but God did. <br />
Thank God for God -amIright?<br />
<br />
And as I sat in my tub and let the trauma come in, I made a decision to let the trauma in FULLY. I scraped my schedule clean and just sat it out. In the days leading up the trauma, my body was sending me messages. This is FANTASTIC because my body has felt utterly cut off from me since I hit my rock bottom. But it had been SPEAKING to me. <br />
The pattern in my life went like this:<br />
My husband betrayed me and then I betrayed my body, and someday I'm going to write a book called "Porn and Oreos" and fill it with every gritty, betraying detail. Suffice to say: my body doesn't trust me just as I don't trust my husband.<br />
But lately, it has said things to me like, "one more apple" and "let's go for a walk" and "mmmm ginger."<br />
So you can imagine the pain I felt when my body slammed the door in my face after the trigger hit. I couldn't HEAR my body anymore. Nothing was getting through! I couldn't even move my breath past my chest. The last message that had come through before I was triggered was this:<br />
"Good morning, beautiful day for sushi."<br />
SUSHI.<br />
And so it came to be that I was fixated on sushi because I didn't know what else to do with myself.<br />
<br />
One big problem is that there's 80 miles of good highway between me and closest sushi joint, so with a little perseverance on my husband's part, Nori and Friends were secured and we made our own.<br />
Nori and mango and avocado and cucumber and green onions and cream cheese. It was glorious.<br />
<br />
The next day was General Conference. After the first session, I napped. It's amazing how a big trigger can feel exactly like running a marathon. It just hangs on, doesn't it?<br />
After the second session, I noticed my 4-year old putting on her tennis shoes. She filled up her Beauty and the Beast water bottle and headed out the open front door into the brilliant Northern AZ spring afternoon.<br />
"Where are you going?" I asked.<br />
"Oh mother," she said, "I'm going to enjoy the birds."<br />
<br />
She's my ONLY child who calls me that, and I never, ever correct her. Who would?!<br />
<br />
"Can I come?" I asked.<br />
<br />
When trauma comes around, I can't find my toes. I can't make a connection between my legs and my brain. I forget I have fingernails -so you can imagine how in touch I am with the rest of the world. The week prior, I had FULLY enjoyed the birds during my meditation and prayer in the morning... they really are so brilliant this season. The birds' song is wakeful, an anthem for the season. They sing and kids ride bikes where they weren't riding them a few weeks ago. They sing and blossoms flourish and bloom. The sing and the world stretches, wakes and gets back to sunshine.<br />
<br />
And so my Alice answered the call, and I went with her. <br />
Being still and sitting with trauma isn't easy, but I've found that for me -it is the best way: let it move through while I find the line where my body and spirit connect again. Is it called a Soul Line?<br />
Maybe. Maybe "Soul Line" will be the title of my second book? *insert winky emoji*<br />
<br />
The trigger is lingering, I can feel it. <br />
But my body is starting to open the door it slammed in my face (maybe because I stuck my foot in? and that's why I couldn't feel my toes?)<br />
<br />
So here's to dailies and herbal tea and birds.<br />
And kids who call me Mother.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-66403007290226301172017-03-21T12:06:00.001-07:002017-03-21T12:06:40.261-07:00Fair LadyOver the weekend, I introduced my kids to <i>My Fair Lady</i> starring Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison.<br />
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I don't remember the last time I saw the movie in it's entirety. It's been years. During those years, I've gone through therapy and support groups. My body has been raked through the coals of inflammation. In short, there's been a transformation.<br />
Watching Eliza Doolittle transform before my eyes was a different experience this time.<br />
<br />
I watched her as a flower girl with dirt on her face. I watched her moan and cry out. I watched the longing in her eyes to become something more, and I watched that longing turn placidly into acceptance.<br />
A dust-covered flower girl WAS WHAT SHE WAS. Period. <br />
<br />
Then I watched her find a glimmer of hope. I watched her face as she realized that maybe -just maybe -she could change. <br />
<br />
I watched as she washed her body, changed her clothes from rags to soft, feminine cloth. Her hair went from harsh to soft. <br />
She began to CARE for herself -externally and internally. She cared for her body, her hair, her clothes. And her internal worth began growing. She began to feel and know her worth. <br />
<br />
I thought of my Step 9 to myself -my amends to myself. For my 30th birthday, I pulled an Eliza Doolittle Project without really calling it that. I bought new underwear and a new outfit. I had my hair cut and dyed. I ate at my favorite restaurant. Most importantly: I promised myself that I would always care for myself. That I would continue to buy bras and mascara when it made sense and not 2 years afterward. I would drink water and green juices. I would eat protein and walk, walk, walk with my shoulders back and my face to the breeze. I would inhale the love of God instead of the hate of self.<br />
<br />
But we are works of progress, amIright?<br />
And progress isn't progress without REGRESS to back it up.<br />
<br />
In the beginning of November, a police officer was shot and killed in the line of duty an hour away from where I sit right now. In my county. In the county my husband works for as a police officer.<br />
As my heart stalled, my husband drove straight for the gunfire.<br />
And yeah.<br />
Shots were fired his way.<br />
While I sat on the couch, wrapped in my husband's cop shirt.<br />
<br />
It was surreal. This addiction messes with EVERYthing. I love Danny and I struggle with the addiction side of him. Divorce has been a very real option for us. We've separated at times. When times like that hit, I was conflicted every day -sending him to the battlefront.<br />
"I love you. I'm scared."<br />
That feels like the two lines I've lived by as the wife of a cop and the wife of an addict.<br />
I love you, Danny and I'm scared as hell.<br />
<br />
Don't hurt me.<br />
Don't get hurt.<br />
<br />
That night -the night he ran to the gunfire and I tried to remember what it felt like to care about dinner and laundry -something inside of me broke.<br />
<br />
I haven't had my hair done. I haven't bought mascara.<br />
I haven't exercised.<br />
I haven't cared for myself.<br />
<br />
My writing has struggle. Where once words flowed through my mind and out of my fingers, I found nothing but blank space that I filled up with a Victorian-Era murder-mystery.<br />
And now that that's over, I found The Great British Baking Show.<br />
#bingebabybinge<br />
<br />
I didn't even realize it had happened. I just thought maybe the holidays were so busy they killed me.<br />
I thought maybe it was being a mom to 3. Maybe it was just the whole healing thing?<br />
<br />
As I sat with the ladies in my writing group two weeks ago, one of them said, "We haven't had anything from you in MONTHS."<br />
"Yeah," I nodded. I tried to come up with an excuse, but they all seemed to get jammed in my throat as I realized the last time I'd written anything for hobby purposes was the day before The Shooting.<br />
<br />
"I haven't written anything since The Cop Shooting," I said, realizing it for the first time as I said it.<br />
"Makes sense," the ladies in my group said, almost in unison.<br />
<br />
I see it now. I SEE IT.<br />
I just don't see yet how to get back up, to turn back on. What does it all mean? And how deeply is it affecting me EXACTLY?<br />
Or has it just triggered other issues that were lying dormant, waiting for some kind of trauma to wake them up? <br />
<br />
Cue help.<br />
Self-help is the trickiest snitch in the world. It means well but always bites me in the bum. But in the last year, I've haltingly picked up SAFER self-help options, and so far it's going okay because for the most part (hello, progress and regress) God is driving this serenity train.<br />
So I made an appointment with a coach -a well-being coach? A health coach?<br />
Basically, someone who can take my hands and put them over my heart and teach me how to open it and retrieve the answers that are now, themselves, lying dormant.<br />
<br />
This is so messy, you guys.<br />
And I look messy.<br />
<br />
But as I watched Eliza Doolittle emerge in her diamonds and jewels, I knew that it was me, in my own messy way.<br />
I wear my jewels on the inside.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-50949390924894246052017-03-06T22:07:00.000-08:002017-03-07T12:40:03.329-08:00Less-WorriedI brought a lot of books to our marriage. Poor Danny had no idea what he was getting into, no idea that I dreamed of one day filling an entire room with The Written Word and fancy leather chairs and maybe a few smoking jackets for good measure.<br />
I had classics I'd collected (some bought, some stolen from a high school that shall remain nameless...), a beat up slam poetry book, scriptures, churchy books, a book about a woman named Alicia who lost her entire family during WWII! As the years went on, I collected more and more. <br />
One year for Christmas Danny bought me a bookcase, and I filled it. FILLED it.<br />
Last summer, I tried that Kondo Method of cleaning where you get rid of books that don't fill your gills with guts and glory, and I think I tossed the slam poetry book and one of Dr. Laura's books about feeding husbands properly or some shizz like that.<br />
I guess slam poetry lost some luster between midnight feedings and overdraft fees...<br />
I won't even get started on why Dr. Laura doesn't bring me joy.<br />
<br />
In fact, I'll drop all the booky stuff and just say what I came to say: Danny has a mountain of cop books (case law is apparently very important), so he gets the bottom shelf.<br />
His one other contribution to our bookcase is THREE paperback books by CS Lewis: the first three in the Narnia series. He'd picked them up as a kid and just sort of never let loose of them.<br />
<br />
Having fallen in a sort of fantastical love with the way Lewis moves words around, it started to bug me that I'd never read them. Danny and I have been trying to read them together. <br />
<br />
As we've read his words, I keep thinking about a quote of his that has meant so much to me. I wanted to share it here:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;">“[To have Faith in Christ] means, of course, trying to do all that He says. There would be no sense in saying you trusted a person if you would not take his advice. Thus if you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions, but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you.”</span></blockquote>
<br />
It reminds me so much of Step 3, but also? It is what recovery is to me daily. Handing myself, my will and my day over to God because I trust Him -THAT is the goal that SOMEtimes I meet and SOMEtimes I don't. I think of another great wordsmith, one Dr. Seuss, who said very wisely,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"<span style="background-color: white;">You won't lag behind, because you'll have the speed.</span><span style="background-color: white;">You'll pass the whole gang and you'll soon take the lead.</span><span style="background-color: white;">Wherever you fly, you'll be best of the best.</span><span style="background-color: white;">Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">Except when you don't.</span><span style="background-color: white;">Because, sometimes, you won't.</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white;">I'm sorry to say so</span><span style="background-color: white;">but, sadly, it's true</span><span style="background-color: white;">that Bang-ups</span><span style="background-color: white;">and Hang-ups</span><span style="background-color: white;">can happen to you."</span></blockquote>
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Bang-ups and Hang-ups. I was reading in my scriptures today about how God GIVES us weaknesses, and I got hung-up on that word, "gives." Such a positive word. God gives us all good things, so surely my weaknesses must be good? I recently listened to a Monk talk about how he quit having panic attacks when he accepted the panic as his friend. He quit fighting it and accepted it. </div>
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In 12-step talk, I think we'd say, "he surrendered it."</div>
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Because you can't surrender something unless you've accepted it.</div>
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I think back a few months ago to the sacred time I spent with my Granny who gently rubbed my feet and talked of the time in her life when she was left alone with eight children. How did she survive that?</div>
<div>
With God.</div>
<div>
"I'm so grateful for those days," she said, "I didn't know it then, but God was giving me exactly what I needed. I see it now, and I just remind myself when things get hard that God is always giving me what I need. He is so compassionate."</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Compassionate because He gives us adversity.</div>
<div>
Generous because He gives us weaknesses.</div>
<div>
It seems counter-intuitive, but honestly, I don't think God is much interested in the intellect of men and their worldly philosophies. I think He's more interested in truth, simplicity, peace, meekness (the less-mentioned virtue, the underestimated underdog!), charity, love, humility, purity of heart, and willingness.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A less-worried world is what God is after.</div>
<div>
A world where men worry less about battlefronts and more about the divine smolder sparking around inside of their own chests.</div>
<div>
A world where the battlefronts surrender to the love of a neighbor.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Lately my life has taken on a small shift that has made a big difference, like the small shift in a track that causes a train to land in one city rather than another.</div>
<div>
Life has become much less about RECOVERY and much more about simply HEALING and living genuinely with my whole heart forward. I can't imagine I'll ever be off this track, and though I'm sure I'll miss out on ending up in a City That Might Have Been, I'll end up in A New City more suited to my needs.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<i>A less-worried city.</i></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-21509250899790908262017-02-14T11:45:00.000-08:002017-02-14T11:53:59.663-08:00Acquainted With the NightValentine's Day.<br />
It is my nemesis, my bull in the china closet. It comes bashing in once a year, plowing through the careful contents of my brain, and then it leaves as loudly as it came.<br />
I'm left sifting through the, "what just happened?" emotion.<br />
<br />
A few years ago, I "took the bull by the horns," so to speak, and I felt sure I was strong enough to tame the beast into docility.<br />
<br />
My first Valentine's with Danny was really, really painful. Each following year, I tried to make up for the first one. I wanted ONE good Valentine's Day with my husband, but each passing year seemed marked by the first. There were so many expectations, some realistic, some not -most all went unmet. <br />
And to tell the truth, I didn't want him to really love me the way Juliet died over Romeo. I only wanted him to see me -maybe notice how much thought I put into the day. <br />
Did he see the clean house?<br />
Did he see me with the kids?<br />
Did he see the way my tangled, wild hair fell around my face?<br />
Did he notice how happy I am in the kitchen, singing with Doris Day and Loretta Lynn while my long, wild hair slipped strands of herself into the pasta sauce?<br />
<br />
It's all I want still. To this day.<br />
To be seen apart from my parts. To be seen for the present version of who I am and what I'm doing -even if that's just breathing in and out while turning over a page of "David Copperfield."<br />
And not to be seen for what I have to offer.<br />
Sexually and otherwise.<br />
That's earned, isn't it? I'm guilty of only loving myself when I've earned it, and that mess of a therapy party has been enough to last me a lifetime. Feeling that I'm only worth what I have to offer to SOMEONE ELSE?<br />
I don't have room for that anymore.<br />
<br />
A few years ago, I landed myself on the back of that crazed Valentine's Bull. My lanky legs were a fair match for the breadth of the beast, and I made sure that I WOULD HAVE VALENTINE'S DAY and NOT THE OTHER WAY 'ROUND.<br />
I made Valentines and sent them out.<br />
I took the whole Romeo nonsense out of the day.<br />
I planned an annual feast with just my own kids and husband, and I celebrated love in it's pure form.<br />
<br />
It worked really well. For years.<br />
But guess what happened this year?<br />
<br />
Last week, I got really sick. I was down in bed for 3 days, and the 4th day was a pretty funny joke of a day where I think I washed three dishes and went to bed at 8:30.<br />
No time to prepare Valentines.<br />
Usually for our feast, I spend a bit more money and make the day a bit more fancy that your regular Tuesday.<br />
But this year, I had no money having so lately become a stay at home mom again.<br />
<br />
To sum up: there wasn't lots of distractions from the pain. Because that's what I've been doing all these years on top of that docile bull: distracting myself from the hurt and calling it healing.<br />
<br />
It isn't healing.<br />
And as it turns out, under all the busy distractions of sending out cards and setting a fancy table, I'm still really hurting.<br />
Really.<br />
<br />
Why?<br />
Isn't the time for hurting over?<br />
Haven't I been here for too long?<br />
Does this mean I'm stuck? Over six years in and still hurting!<br />
What's more: it truly feels as if the pain will never leave. Does that mean I don't understand the Atonement? That I discount it? That my faith in God is weak?<br />
<br />
I've heard it said that you can forgive without forgetting, and maybe for some the pain still stays with the memory, even when forgiveness is in place.<br />
Maybe for some forgiveness feels as impossible as sobriety does for others.<br />
<br />
Last night, I rolled into bed with ominous anticipation of today. I thought about putting boundaries in place, boundaries like, "stay off facebook."<br />
I flicked on my phone and scrolled through my feed to distract myself (because that's apparently my go-to when the going gets uncomfy), and I ran straight into Robert Frost's words. My heart thumped in my chest, the way it does when words strike me so deeply that the only response to them is utter silence.<br />
His poem, "Acquainted with the Night" begins:<br />
<br />
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I have been one acquainted with the night. </div>
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I have walked out in rain<span style="border: 0px; font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">—</span>and back in rain. </div>
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I have outwalked the furthest city light. </div>
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I have looked down the saddest city lane. </div>
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I have passed by the watchman on his beat </div>
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And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<br />
Yes, that's me. Walking through the darkness and dropping my eyes, unwilling to explain to my bishops and any other watchmen why. Outwalking the city's lights, walking beyond the reach of man. Chasing and also running from the rising sun/Son. I know this feeling well. It's finding me today, after years of running from it. <br />
<br />
I'll get quiet now and let Frost finish:<br />
<br />
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I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet </div>
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When far away an interrupted cry </div>
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Came over houses from another street, </div>
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But not to call me back or say good-bye; </div>
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And further still at an unearthly height, </div>
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One luminary clock against the sky </div>
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Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. </div>
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I have been one acquainted with the night.</div>
<br />
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Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-87748308618116614362016-12-23T11:13:00.000-08:002016-12-23T11:13:25.114-08:00In the Spirit of ChristmasThis year, the Christmas season hasn't been peaceful.<br />
<br />
My rock bottom anniversary is December 27th -the day I came undone in every possible way. Years later, I heard Danny's full disclosure on December 13th. This year, my body seems to remember. <br />
<br />
I slipped into depression without even seeing it.<br />
<br />
Depression, for me, isn't debilitating sadness or a full inability to get out of bed. <i> It starts out as truth</i>.<br />
"You're out of shape. You're past hope. You move like a 50 year old because you don't take care of yourself."<br />
<br />
I believe it all because I sometimes I wear a blindfold and trust every voice around me. I can't see where they're leading me.<br />
"I don't feel good," I told my husband, "Just getting my dailies done takes EVERYTHING in me. Scriptures, prayer, good food, a shower. It's all I can do and I'm maxed mentally."<br />
"That sounds like depression," he says.<br />
<br />
Depression.<br />
<i>That place.</i><br />
<br />
The blindfold comes off and I look around only to find myself at the bottom on a dark hole. How did I get there? I took the stairs, blindfolded and steady.<br />
<br />
As I've been sitting in the bottom of that hole, I've also been online shopping and checking things off my list.<br />
Recital.<br />
Concert.<br />
Crafting.<br />
Cooking.<br />
What else needs to be attended? attended to?<br />
<br />
Check, check, check, check.<br />
<br />
My husband is right -this is depression. It isn't a low low or a high high -it is a sort of numb middle ground where I can't feel the present moment. I don't think I even really want to.<br />
<br />
Christmas is so rich with incoming stimuli -so many feelings. I feel nothing except, 'Can I go home now?'<br />
<br />
As my blindfold comes off, I simply make a start. I start my way back up the stairs by reaching out.<br />
"Heavenly Father, I'm down here again."<br />
"Hey, friend... just reaching out to say I've hit a depression and need to say it out loud."<br />
"Hey other friend, I'm reaching out because the holidays are hard and I didn't see it happening, but I've gone into depression."<br />
<br />
Reaching out is the first and best step.<br />
My sponsor talks to me about peace and slowing down, and as she talks, I think of what The Savior did. Someone once told me that if we're struggling, we can remember that Jesus saved the entire world in three days. I've clung to that for the last year. <br />
"Things feel bad now, but in three days, things will feel totally different. Can you hold on until then? Just three days..."<br />
<br />
Robert Frost tells us that nothing gold can stay, and I remind myself that the opposite is true as well: nothing bad can stay, not forever.<br />
<br />
A friend of mine reached back to me without having known about my experience with my sponsor. She brought up the 3 days of darkness before the Savior arrived in the Americas, and I know God sent this message to me: Time is on your side, so much can happen. Hold on through the darkness, daughter.<br />
<br />
So what does this have to do with Christmas?<br />
<br />
I guess I feel distant from The Savior of the World, but I acknowledge and appreciate the example of SUPPORT He lived. He was surrounded with support at all times.<br />
This isn't saying He was supported at all times.<br />
<br />
But He had His people. His parents, and family, His 12 disciples, His friends: Mary, Martha, Lazarus.<br />
He had support. He reached out.<br />
"Can you not wait with me one hour?"<br />
<br />
Next year will look different because I will set some boundaries. Three days from now, things will look differently.<br />
I can hold on.<br />
I can hold on while I climb back up.<br />
I can hold on when I slip down a few steps.<br />
I can.<br />
Because God can for me.<br />
Because He does.<br />
<br />
He is my support, even if I don't always tap into that truth.<br />
<br />
I hope your Christmas is filled with some solid support, whatever that means to you.<br />
Love,<br />
Alicia<br />
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This is me with someone in my support circle -The Savior of the World saved our marriage, and here's a piece of the first family pictures we've taken in three years. That's a miracle to me.Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-11861096127279608622016-12-13T21:50:00.000-08:002016-12-13T21:50:52.227-08:00Supporting MyselfWhen I was growing up, I used to wander around my great-aunt's ranch house -the one she'd inherited when her parents had passed on. It was an adobe wonder with stunning tile work through the hallways and glaring red carpet in the bedrooms. In the living room, there was a magnificent picture window looking over the small city below, and a stone's throw to the left were two shadowy, cold bedrooms with a bathroom between them. I crept into them one afternoon and was held captive by the pictures hanging over each bed... in one room there was a younger version of my great-grandmother, and I could see pieces of my mother in her face... her nose, her expression, it was familiar to me. In the other room, a portrait hung of a handsome man I'd never met. The mystery of it all kept me busy for hours.<br />
<br />
<i>Who was he?</i><br />
<i>Where did he come from?</i><br />
<i>Where was he now?</i><br />
<i>What did he do? Who did he love? </i><br />
<br />
I worked up the nerve to ask my aunt.<br />
"Who sleeps in those rooms?" I asked, knowing that she slept in the great room just off the kitchen.<br />
"That's where my parents slept," she said, thereby increasing the mystery by a million fold.<br />
<br />
<i>Were they even married?</i><br />
<i>Why separate rooms?</i><br />
<br />
Now that I'm older, I know a bit more about the handsome man I've never met and who passed away long, long before I was ever a thought.<br />
But I still don't know why they didn't sleep in the same room together.<br />
I'd ask someone about it now, but the mystery of it all still keeps me busy when my imagination needs a midnight feeding.<br />
<br />
Lately, I've wondered if Danny and I will end up that way -sleeping separately for as long as we both shall live. It isn't ideal, and I shake my head sometimes at just how much my marriage doesn't look like what I thought it would, even in surprising small ways. I think I'm even more surprised at how okay I am with it, grateful even. One thing that is coming up for me lately is how much SPACE I need, not just in marriage but in general life. I need space for my imagination to cook up worlds without end. I need space for rejuvenating. I need space for safety.<br />
<br />
The couch provides me with safety in that way, and during times where we sleep apart, I talk with God and allow myself to feel the peace that comes from the space instead of overthinking the WHY of it all. Right now, I just need more time with God. I'm on a slippery slope these days, and I can feel my center slipping into enemy territory. Others are in my center, and God is on the outskirts.<br />
<br />
The couch becomes a chapel in it's own right.<br />
The nights are cold and just before the sun peeks in the east, the temperature drops even lower. A few years ago, I picked up a few piles of scrap yarn and started making a scrap blanket. I used three strands at a time, not thinking much more about it than, "I have lots I need to use up fast." <br />
Using my favorite basket-weave stitch, I weaved for hours. As my yarn basket lost weight, my blanket gained it. <br />
So heavy.<br />
Too heavy.<br />
I couldn't keep up. Eventually I tied it off and shoved it in my linen closet to think about later in life. Much, much later.<br />
<br />
But about a month ago, I pulled it out and covered myself. The heavy blanket -though it wasn't wide, it was long -felt indulgent against my nightgown.<br />
Every night, I pull the blanket over me and drift off. Every morning, I sit cross legged on the couch and cover my lap with the blanket while I meditate and pray.<br />
<br />
Yesterday after a solid prayer session, I opened my eyes and looked at my blanket.<br />
<br />
Do you know how good it felt to cover my own arse? To have something so protective of me MADE BY ME, standing guard every cold, dark night... the triple strands reminiscent of The Godhead that surrounds and upholds me as I plug through life's daily scraps, carefully weaving them all into one broad picture?<br />
<br />
Prayer.<br />
Food.<br />
Dishes.<br />
Soul Food.<br />
Can I stretch and walk today?<br />
Dishes.<br />
Clothes.<br />
Emotions.<br />
Family members.<br />
Wind down.<br />
Rest.<br />
Repeat.<br />
<br />
The blanket is an empowering way to start my day -a beautiful reminder that <i>I have my back.</i><br />
<br />
It's an important reminder to have. A vital one.<br />
<br />
Maybe this blanket deserves to be stitched into a heavy finishing sooner rather than later.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-41892456278067304032016-11-29T10:35:00.001-08:002016-11-29T10:35:29.769-08:00Shameless Bad DaysLately, I've had more opportunities to explore some trying "bad" days, and I'm finding ease in not handling them very well.<br />
That is to say: I'm handling them better than I would have 7 years ago, pre-recovery.<br />
And I'm also handling them worse than I did two years ago when I was oblivious to the grip perfectionism held (holds) on me. On those bad days, I worked hard to do everything right.<br />
<br />
<i>Reach out.</i><br />
<i>Pray.</i><br />
<i>Use tools.</i><br />
<i>Self-care.</i><br />
<i>Good food.</i><br />
<i>Sunshine.</i><br />
<br />
After a few days of "perfect" behavior, I'd inevitably crash and burn, unable to keep up with my own expectations.<br />
<br />
A couple of days ago, a trauma trigger hit in a hard way. A comment was made about my looks that hurt.<br />
I cried on the spot, and I cried hard. <br />
<br />
Does it matter what other people think of me? The way I look?<br />
Not really.<br />
What does matter is my own self-worth and acceptance.<br />
<br />
But guess what? It still HURT.<br />
<br />
So I let myself cry, and I prayed and I cried to a few safe women about it. The next day, I knew I'd want to numb out. I knew I'd want to exclusively eat the gingerbread and frosting I'd made the day before. I knew I'd find a series on Netflix to curl up with. I knew I had no appointments during the day. <br />
<br />
I reached out.<br />
I prayed.<br />
I talked about my susceptibility to numbing. I talked about my pain.<br />
<br />
Then I curled up on the couch with a stomach ache and a three year old and dozed off while she watched a cartoon.<br />
Did I eat gingerbread and frosting? YES! Exclusively? ALMOST!<br />
Did I numb out to a movie? NO! Did I keep a movie going in the background while I got the house ready for feeding the sister missionaries? YES!<br />
<br />
I ate a nourishing dinner... and then more frosting.<br />
<br />
It wasn't awesome, but it wasn't despair either. I didn't do the day PERFECTLY, but I DID THE DAY and I prayed and told God I was hurting and not coping well.<br />
<br />
Today will be a day of repentance -something else I'm learning to remove the shame from.<br />
<br />
I love Baron Baptiste's take on repentance. It was a game-shifter for me.<br />
From page 6 of his book, "40 Days to a Personal Revolution," we read:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"...I came to understand that what he [Brahmacharya] meant by repentance wasn't that we should dwell on where we lost our way and all the ways we are bad, but rather to have the courage to face the pure, unsweetened truth of ourselves so that we can move on and grow in more honest and authentic ways. It is simply the willingness to see in full truthfulness what we need to face within ourselves and our lives so that we might get into the right alignment. As Jesus taught, it is always the truth that sets us free."</blockquote>
<br />
So today is a new chance to seek for alignment once again, to look for my own unsweetened truth. And what is that pure truth?<br />
<br />
I'm finding it isn't initially clear to me in situations where I'm right up against pain. It's like one of those science projects where you look at a slide under a microscope while the teacher asks you -smiling all the while -what it is.<br />
And you have no answer because it just looks like a confusing mess of messes.<br />
"It's thread," they say, or maybe, "skin" or "oil."<br />
THEN you see it. THEN you can't NOT see it.<br />
<br />
Being up against pain is like that for me. While I'm up close and right up against it, I can't tell what it is or what's going on at all. I just sit with it and stare at it and it hurts so much. I talk about it and I eat about it.<br />
As the days roll by and more distance is placed between pain and Alicia, I start to get clear about what I'm dealing with. I start to be able to see what's going on.<br />
<br />
It's as if I'm able to "zoom out" from my microscopic slide and gain some clarity about what I was up against.<br />
<br />
Yesterday, I was still too close to the pain to make anything out of it. I only prayed this prayer:<br />
"Heavenly Father, I'm hurting. I don't want to numb out. I don't want to stay in victim. But I DO want to remain completely true to where I am and what I'm feeling."<br />
<br />
THIS IS NEW TO ME.<br />
Am I always honest with myself? NO. This is something I'm learning, like a newborn learning how to walk.<br />
<br />
I ended my prayer and listened to myself and what did I need? To sleep some more because my stomach hurt. <br />
<br />
So I didn't "do" yesterday perfectly according to my old standards of perfect, but today, I feel like I can begin to apply repentance. I can see some of the "pure" truth about myself:<br />
<br />
I use sugar as a Savior.<br />
I can use the Savior and my Savior.<br />
How?<br />
<br />
I am deeply affected by others' opinions about me.<br />
I can someday access a place where I'm not.<br />
How?<br />
<br />
I can also see the beauty in my sensitivities. I can see that my body needs love and caring, and I can honor that today with some yoga (which I skipped yesterday) and some green juice (I skipped any and all greens yesterday).<br />
<br />
In Tutu's, "Book of Forgiving," he tells us that in order to forgive others, we need to tell our story. We need to talk about what happened, and I DID that with God and a few friends. When we're ready, we'll be able to name our pain.<br />
We'll be able to name our pain as we tell our story.<br />
"This happened, and I feel ___________."<br />
<br />
This morning, I woke up and was able to say, "That happened, and I feel rejected."<br />
<br />
That's why it hurt so much! Because as a wife going through betrayal trauma, feeling rejected because of physical appearance cuts on a very deep level -for me.<br />
<br />
So I'm logging off to roll out my mat. <br />
I'm logging off to get some greens in on top of the frosting I downed a few minutes ago.<br />
I can go to my meeting and drink my favorite herb tea, slather on some oils to help nurture what's been hurt, and look around and find God.<br />
And laugh, for crying out loud. Because I thrive on laughter.<br />
<br />
I might fall on my face, and that's okay too.<br />
<br />
I choose to TRY to tap into realignment today, and I didn't yesterday -not fully.<br />
That's where I am.<br />
This is me being true and honest with me.<br />
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Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-74253700058541572802016-11-02T12:00:00.001-07:002016-11-02T12:00:46.083-07:00Candy Apples and PTSDMy sponsor has often said that recovery for a woman married to a sex addict takes 3 to 5 years. It's a grim thing to hear when you're in the first 3 months or years, and I'm here to say that I feel like I'm finally getting there after 6 1/2 years.<br />
<br />
My days are spent free from obsession, though not from fear. But I now have the clarity to access a life where I take action to choose to NOT act on fear. I own a lot of my own choices now, in a way I never thought possible before. I have a new lease on life.<br />
<br />
But guess what?<br />
This new life, with it's new perspectives and insights and serenity, still isn't free from everything. Last night, after a perfectly nice day and holiday, I was triggered.<br />
<br />
By a candy apple.<br />
<br />
What?! Doesn't the sheer dumbness of it all make you mad?! It makes me mad.<br />
<br />
Triggers are those insane things that happen without warning! They put your head at war with your heart, and emotions fly around as fast as your heart pumps!<br />
<br />
I KNEW IT WAS CRAZY TO BE TRIGGERED BY AN APPLE AND THAT MADE IT WORSE.<br />
<br />
I've been hard at work in the kitchen these days because I genuinely love cooking. I go through these hobby patterns where I delve into something I love for weeks at a time and then leave it for something else. I vacillate between cooking and crocheting and making sock monkeys, mostly. I always write, that one never cycles out.<br />
<br />
On Halloween, I made apple glazed pork chops with a side of the most delicious apple sauce. I made homemade mashed potatoes to go alongside. It was a feast! And when I went to bed that night, the dishes were done. It felt so good. These last few days, I've baked and cooked in my favorite Loretta Lynn apron that I bought right by her house in Hurricane Mills. That's me on the porch of her haunted mansion. That Loretta is one tough cookie, and I gotta say: her spit fire got me outta bed on some of my darkest trauma days.<br />
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I've watched Hope Floats while washing dishes, and most of all: I made 3 batches of caramel apples.<br />
Not JUST caramel apples because I don't actually like caramel apples... but the caramel apples that are dunked in caramel and then white chocolate and then sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar.<br />
I feel like I need to quote Jason from Studio C right here, "We just made diabetes land!"<br />
<br />
These apples are so diabolical that they leave our home VOID of charity.<br />
NO ONE SHARES THE APPLES. EVER.<br />
<br />
I gave a few away to visiting teaching ladies (sorry I missed you this month, but here's something better than a visit. Don't share it), and I gave a few to my parents. <br />
<br />
I was looking forward to eating my last one last night, and Danny ended up eating more than his fair share and I had to share mine.<br />
<br />
It isn't a huge deal. Mildly irritating? Eh.<br />
But anger hit hard.<br />
<br />
I could hear a chorus of my counselors' voices, "Anger is a secondary emotion."<br />
YES.<br />
<br />
I wasn't actually mad. I was scared.<br />
<br />
Taking more than his fair share of THE apples was a TAKEY thing to do! After I've given SO MUCH. I've given pork chops and apple sauce AND APPLES! What's more? I've made apple syrup and apple pancakes and APPLE CIDER! I've bought bacon which is a real treat when you've only got so much money but you've got so many kids and food goes in mouths as fast as it goes in fridges.<br />
I've made delicious dinners over and over and over. My hands are cracked from washing dishes as the weather dries and cools (who needs a dishwasher when you are one? that's what my dad says anyway...) and all I wanted was to enjoy my addicting annual caramel apple.<br />
My last one, anyway.<br />
<br />
And I couldn't.<br />
<br />
There's been an unhealthy history in our marriage of me giving, giving, giving and Danny taking. I wasn't setting healthy boundaries. I wasn't even giving from a loving place. I was hoping my giving would eventually end his addiction, or at least manipulating him in SEEING ME.<br />
It didn't work, of course, because real life doesn't work like that.<br />
<br />
That way of life was hell on earth, and any hint of it in this new life scares me to pieces.<br />
<br />
I didn't want to talk to Danny about it. I just went inside of myself and isolated. When the kids went to bed, I opened up and told Danny that I was mad. I told him why. And I told him trauma was at work.<br />
Over an apple.<br />
<br />
I told him I knew in my mind my anger was disproportionate, and that's what trauma looks like. It doesn't make me stupid for "overreacting." It distorts my reality and messes with my head in a way that feel *almost* irretrievable.<br />
I used to feel shame for that. I think I still do feel some shame for it.<br />
The shame makes it exponentially worse because I begin hating on myself for exhibiting trauma -it makes feel like some kind of crazy freak and WHO ACCEPTS CRAZY FREAKS?!?!<br />
<br />
No one, right?<br />
Wrong.<br />
Jesus does.<br />
<br />
And the trigger isn't true. I don't live a life where I only ever give, and Danny doesn't only ever take. In fact, when I was isolating, he was putting soap in the bathroom soap dispenser and finishing up the dishes so I wouldn't have to. He was hanging up my wet laundry and picking up the bathroom.<br />
<br />
But even if he wasn't, I can rest in my own boundaries. I can give as much as feel healthy.<br />
I can make crazy amounts of dinners right now (and hopefully freeze some) and feel self love. I can NOT make crazy amounts of dinners right now but make crazy amounts of sock monkeys while my family eats frozen dinners and Subway and feel self love.<br />
<br />
The trauma is real though, folks.<br />
And the very fact that a caramel apple can send me into a tail spin of fear is evidence of just how hellish the trauma is. My entire being is terrified to go back to that place.<br />
<br />
And for good reason, for good reason.<br />
<br />
Today is a day for nurturing which means I'm back in the kitchen with my Loretta Lynn apron, making some granola and muffins and whatever else asks to be made. It's a day to listen to what I need, to not let the trigger rule the day.<br />
It's a new day, a new life.<br />
And I'm feelin' good.<br />
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Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-45760610771112242472016-10-21T10:08:00.002-07:002016-10-21T10:08:41.281-07:00Puzzles<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The week before General Conference, I saw this Alice in Wonderland puzzle at Wal-Mart. I fell in love. I actually really love puzzles, but I'm so picky about them that I don't do them often. Also, I've always had little kids around and you can't do puzzles with little kids around because<br />
<br />
1) Destruction<br />
2) Choking<br />
3) Sanity.<br />
<br />
But my youngest is almost 4, and my oldest is almost 10. And look at that puzzle! Look at all the details! It wasn't a scenery puzzle with mostly sky or grass or water. It has a river and flowers and a queen and sparkles and a tea party and cards and and and!<br />
The kids and I put it together while we listened to conference. I listen so much better if my hands are busy doing something. It's a genetic thing. Also a genetic thing? Sleeping through conference. We are a family of hard workers and we also sleep hard when there's noise. So sitting down while people talk?<br />
Let's just say I don't have a single relative that suffers from insomnia because there's such a thing as TV, and my relatives don't last through movies.<br />
<br />
But with a puzzle in hand, I DID IT!<br />
<br />
Since then, that puzzle has been done once by my mom and once more by us. I noticed yesterday that the kids had started it over again.<br />
<br />
As I looked at the 750 pieces strung together in a scrappy, rough fashion I thought about my own personal "cycle" type trials... I mean the trials that keep coming, coming, coming.<br />
Shouldn't they get easier?<br />
Shouldn't I have figured them out already? Weeded them out?<br />
Who am I kidding? If there's anything I know about yard work, it's that weeds come back until you get down to the roots.<br />
My Dad is pretty hard core with his tactics. There's a type of tree that comes up rogue in our yard, and you CAN'T pull it up by the roots.<br />
"Chop it off, drill down the center and pour the poison down the hole."<br />
<br />
He's like a war torn sarg who never *actually* set foot on a battlefield.<br />
<br />
Some of my trials are like 25 piece puzzles. I mess up and stumble a bit, but getting them solved doesn't take too long. And the next time the same trial creeps up, I'm all over it and have it wrapped up in seconds.<br />
<br />
But then there's the 750 piece trials.<br />
They take forever. They consume me.<br />
"What? Dinner? Oh... Isn't there cheese in the kitchen? And tortillas? There's three meal options right there, you lucky kid! Go for it!"<br />
There's so many mistakes and so much confusion and sometimes I tell the box IT IS WRONG BECAUSE LOOOOOOK and I swear the company forgot to put the right pieces in the box OR they didn't send enough.<br />
I spend a lot of time studying the picture on the box, just as I spend a lot of time studying my trials in the scriptures and books.<br />
<br />
When it's over and done, I'm always so glad I did it. <br />
<br />
When the same trial comes around again, it isn't easy-peasy like it is with the 25-piece puzzle. It might be SLIGHTLY easier, but it is still a huge time-consuming labor of love. I still get frustrated and I might have even bribed a kid with money to find a missing piece.<br />
Whatever works, right? Survival mode.<br />
<br />
Anyway, looking at the puzzle pieces strewn all over the card table this morning, I realized that there's nothing wrong with me.<br />
Because today I'm in the middle of a 750 piece puzzle that I've put together before and guess what?<br />
It isn't all that easier this time.<br />
<br />
It's time to stop shaming myself for that. It's time to stop the voice that says, "Come on, you've done this. You know this."<br />
Because YES, I've done this.<br />
But that doesn't mean I KNOW IT.<br />
It just means I'm taking longer to learn something REALLY worth learning, and God is kind enough to teach me.<br />
<br />
Humility is the hardest won prize.<br />
If I could bribe my way to the finish line, I'd be all over it.<br />
<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-49526710128241676812016-10-15T11:44:00.000-07:002016-10-15T11:44:19.332-07:00The Terror is Over<span style="font-family: inherit;">On Saturday night, I went to the adult session of Stake Conference. At the end of the meeting, the stake president had us read the account of Christ sleeping on a boat during a storm.</span><br />
<br />
<div class="" style="background: 0px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Pahoran, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2px; margin-bottom: 26px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" uri="/scriptures/nt/mark/4.37">
<span class="verse" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">37 </span>And there arose a great storm of wind, and the waves beat into the ship, so that it was now full.</div>
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<a class="bookmark-anchor dontHighlight" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="38" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; color: #0091bc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </a><span class="verse" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">38 </span>And he was in the hinder part of the ship, asleep on a pillow: and they awake him, and say unto him, Master, carest thou not that we perish?</div>
<div class="" style="background: 0px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, "Palatino Linotype", Pahoran, Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2px; margin-bottom: 26px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" uri="/scriptures/nt/mark/4.39">
<a class="bookmark-anchor dontHighlight" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="39" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; color: #0091bc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </a><span class="verse" style="background: 0px 0px; border: 0px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">39 </span>And he arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">I've read that passage so many times before. I know I have. But my life is different now -things looks different, I process things through different eyes and a soul that has been baptized by fire.</span></div>
<div class="" style="background: 0px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2px; margin-bottom: 26px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" uri="/scriptures/nt/mark/4.39">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If Christ is our ultimate example, and he is able to sleep through "a storm of great wind," doesn't that mean I have that power within myself as well? And if I have the power retain my peace and serenity during the storm, then surely I have the power to eventually calm the wind as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Addiction brings so many chaotic side-effects: physical, financial, spiritual, emotional! How often I have felt like the disciples of Christ, feeling the need to shake Him awake -surely, SURELY He was sleeping through my storm! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Don't You care? I'm perishing, here!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Betrayal Trauma has been my deepest wound to date. During an energy healing session last year, the woman working on me told me that I had come to earth with betrayal issues -that I'd carried them with me ancestrally. </span></div>
<div class="" style="background: 0px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2px; margin-bottom: 26px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" uri="/scriptures/nt/mark/4.39">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">"When you carry it already within you and then it manifests in your life, it can almost be impossible to recover from. It is just so hard."</span></div>
<div class="" style="background: 0px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2px; margin-bottom: 26px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" uri="/scriptures/nt/mark/4.39">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Her words were a lifeline to me. There seemed to be so many women around me suffering from betrayal trauma who were doing SO MUCH BETTER. They seemed healthier, more active, happier in their own ways. I felt so much pain and fear. I was devastated.</span></div>
<div class="" style="background: 0px 0px rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2px; margin-bottom: 26px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" uri="/scriptures/nt/mark/4.39">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rhyll Crowshaw has often said that a woman's recovery generally takes 3-5 years.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">After I read about Christ calming the storm Saturday night, we sang, "Master the Tempest is Raging." Do you know how many times I've not been able to finish that song? Tears have flooded (good use of the word flood, by the way) my eyes and I've just stared at the words on the page with pain in my heart. The third verse felt dumb to me -like it was meant for someone else... someone going through a trial that was smaller, easier. </span></div>
<div class="song-player" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 1px solid rgb(220, 214, 200); box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: "Open Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px 0px 40px -10px; padding: 1px; vertical-align: baseline;">
</div>
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Lyrics</h3>
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1. Master, the tempest is raging!</div>
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The billows are tossing high!</div>
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The sky is o'ershadowed with blackness.</div>
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No shelter or help is nigh.</div>
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Carest thou not that we perish?</div>
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How canst thou lie asleep</div>
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When each moment so madly is threat'ning</div>
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A grave in the angry deep?</div>
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(Chorus)</div>
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The winds and the waves shall obey thy will:</div>
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Peace, be still.</div>
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Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea</div>
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Or demons or men or whatever it be,</div>
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No waters can swallow the ship where lies</div>
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The Master of ocean and earth and skies.</div>
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They all shall sweetly obey thy will:</div>
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Peace, be still; peace, be still.</div>
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They all shall sweetly obey thy will:</div>
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Peace, peace, be still.</div>
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2. Master, with anguish of spirit</div>
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I bow in my grief today.</div>
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The depths of my sad heart are troubled.</div>
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Oh, waken and save, I pray!</div>
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Torrents of sin and of anguish</div>
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Sweep o'er my sinking soul,</div>
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And I perish! I perish! dear Master.</div>
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Oh, hasten and take control!</div>
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3. Master, the terror is over.</div>
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The elements sweetly rest.</div>
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Earth's sun in the calm lake is mirrored,</div>
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And heaven's within my breast.</div>
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Linger, O blessed Redeemer!</div>
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Leave me alone no more,</div>
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And with joy I shall make the blest harbor</div>
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And rest on the blissful shore.</div>
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Text: Mary Ann Baker, ca. 1831-1921.</div>
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Music: H. R. Palmer, 1834-1907</div>
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<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">The terror is over? Are you kidding? Peace felt like some kind of farce new-agey people posted memes about during their quarterly juice cleanses. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I started my recovery 7 years ago. That's more than 3-5 years. That's almost *almost* double. I've done a lot of stuff during that time: conferences, retreats, programs, workbooks. I've felt myself fishing, fishing, FISHING for help, much like the apostles of old.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I tried everything that landed at my front door. There was meditation and yoga and support groups of all kinds! My cell phone was used more than my dish rags. I called for help, I scrolled through articles. There were sponsors (plural) and real life friends and online friends. I prayed hard and long. Sometimes I hated God, sometimes I ran away from Him because His answers were confusing and made no sense to me. Sometimes I still do.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Here comes the big</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">BUT</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">During this last year, I have found peace in the wind storms. Waves have crashed in my boat, just as they always have, and I have accessed this place of stillness and peace -no juice cleanse needed.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I have found contentment and acceptance, and I've realized getting present with where I am is the key to truly living life.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Things I knew in theory became understood. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">My finances -a big wave that have crashed at our door -are slowly beginning to still. Why? Because I AM STILL. I'm putting them in God's hands. My physical health is crashing in right now, and I know -I see now -that if I hold still and rest, the storm will calm around me.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I feel the truth of this. I feel it fully. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">As I sang the 3rd verse on Saturday night, my heart burned within me. Master, the terror is over.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">The truth simply is this: when and if Danny acts out again, I will be okay. God has me. God has all of me. It will be okay. I will be okay. </span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Pain and trials will come, and they won't be easy -but they will be different now. I see it differently now. Something has come undone and redone within me, and I wouldn't go back for any amount of money.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">This takes a lot of work... working to let go. The irony is not lost on me. It isn't easy, either. Church is harder now. I hear things that don't feel right at all, and going to church isn't comfy like it used to be. I listen to people judge others from the pulpit and I get so angry and THEN I JUDGE THEM, and so it is: church is the place I go to grow and sometimes it is awesome and sometimes it hurts like hell.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Those proverbial mirrors aren't fun to look into, but I'm glad I know they're there now. I didn't know that before.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">For whom God loveth, He chasteneth.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">And wo unto Alicia when she is at ease in Zion.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">She isn't at ease right now. But guess what she is? At peace.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Yesterday we cleaned the kids room. I haven't taught my kids housekeeping routine stuff. I've struggled with it in my own life, and working recovery for so long has taken precedence over dishes and dusting. The kids' room has gotten so bad that it was dangerous.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Someone could trip or get mold poisoning, or something.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">We banded together -the three kids and Danny and I -yesterday and we cleaned for 3 hours. I asked the kids what they wanted for a reward for cleaning and they were united in their cause, "TACO BELL!"</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Easy enough.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">And kinda gross, but whatever.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">As we worked together, I felt an old sort of feeling burning in my stomach and heart: goodness, happiness. Those feelings always came up right after Danny relapsed. The Honeymoon Phase was my favorite. It felt so high and good and sweet and wonderful. It is what kept me hanging on through the definitely NOT Honeymoon Phases.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Yesterday as my son disappeared under his bed and started throwing blocks and papers out, my oldest argued with Danny about WHY she NEEDED every RIPPED PAPER EVER, the youngest refused to put her kitchen stuff away until we chanted, "TACO BELL" and Danny and I passed the trash bag back and forth... I felt that old, familiar happy feeling.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">But it used to hold a really painful element: I knew it was full of lies and false hope. It was the doughnut kind of happy -it tasted so good while it lasted and was followed up with sickness and regrets.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">But everything that happened last night? The high wasn't as high as it used to be. There wasn't that fake, shiny lining around it. It just WAS. And as we sat around a table at Taco Bell, I was happy.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I watched the kids stuffing their faces with tortillas and beans and cheese and laughed out loud. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">These days are rare and beautiful, and I can do something now that I couldn't before: I can show up.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">The flip side is true as well:</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I show up for the awful days.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I feel it now, I see it now.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">I reach out like crazy -to God, within, and to others.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-indent: -10px;">
<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">The terror is over, and now I look to God and work on sleeping through the storms of life. I can pause and let go of giving circumstances more credit than they're due. I am not my circumstances.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;">Which thing I never before had supposed.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-36437848574438655682016-08-19T16:17:00.002-07:002016-08-19T16:18:16.146-07:00There's TomorrowTomorrow.<br />
<br />
It feels so far away in the middle of a typhoon.<br />
<br />
As I curl up in my bed with a belly full of chips of the corn and chocolate variety, I feel pain and shame. <br />
<br />
I have tools. I have tools right at my fingertips. I also have dirty dishes at my fingertips and dirty hair and lots of folks who are way worse off than I am right now.<br />
<br />
My typhoon is a fun fest of woman hormones, disappointment, and marriage stuff. I've tried to find clarity and set boundaries and process.<br />
<br />
Why can't I get up and drink something healthy? That's easy, right?<br />
Why can't I hop on my mat?<br />
Why can't I let myself have one dang day where all I do is search for the bottom of the snack bag and NOT HATE MYSELF for it?<br />
<br />
There's two tiny people on my shoulder -one is Glennon and she's telling me to be where I am and love my own guts. The other is Jillian Michael and she's yelling at me about self-discipline and change and her eyebrows are scary and Glennon is whispering to me about loving someone who doesn't love themselves is also important but first? chocolate.<br />
<br />
How do I get out? How do I pluck my shame roots up and toss them over the fence? How do I juice veggies and fight the voice saying, "Too little too late, sister"?<br />
How do I stop streaming crappy Netflix movies? Or get my kids to leave me alone so I can just stream crappy Netflix movies?<br />
<br />
How do I move into acceptance?<br />
I remind myself that circumstances are fake things about time and money and hustle. I let go of the need to turn today around! and hit restart! <br />
<br />
Today is just one of those foggy, hard days.<br />
I used to earn my way through them, but now I'm just going to feel sad because, as Frost says, "Nothing Gold Can Stay" which means nothing sad can either.<br />
<br />
I don't pin my hopes on Tomorrow, but Time gives me wonderful gifts like:<br />
distance from pain and<br />
clarity and<br />
Tomorrow.<br />
<br />
So Tomorrow it is. Today can't stay forever. Robert Frost wouldn't allow it.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-64165051880156979562016-08-04T15:48:00.003-07:002016-08-04T15:52:33.819-07:00On Repeat<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="720" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XwHVS7Q5cOI" width="1280"></iframe>Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-86490125298864164372016-06-29T17:18:00.002-07:002016-06-29T17:18:35.961-07:00Plucking Scarcity <div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It started with my bank account. I overdrew by a minor math error -again. Two bucks short, a thirty dollar fee -there
wasn’t enough money. Payday finally
came, though not fast enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Five hours later, I’d paid for my daughter’s piano lessons,
my son’s haircut, pulled cash out for school expenses, bought five food items
and cut a check for 20 dollars to the cute girl looking for donations for a
good cause.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My check was gone.
Gone! How did that happen? There just wasn’t enough money to draw from,
and between the piano lessons, the haircut, and the shopping, there wasn’t
enough time to THINK let alone make the Mother’s Day cards we’d planned to
make. What about dinner? I crack open the rotisserie chicken I’d
grabbed at the store -it’s tiny.
TINY. There wasn’t enough for a
family of five, no matter how careful I was about portioning.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As the three year-old fusses in bed and the kids fight their
way through their bedtime routine, I sink, wallow and WEAR that moment… My
Scarcity Moment. Brene Brown started an
entire book with a chapter on Scarcity -the lie we tell ourselves: what we have
isn’t enough and <i>who we are</i> isn’t
enough.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div>
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<div>
<br /></div>
<br /><div class="MsoNormal">
I heard it all
pouring out as I melted down in front of my husband.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>There’s not enough money.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>There’s not enough time.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>The kids need more than I have to offer,
they deserve more.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I’m the worst at my job, not proficient
enough.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<i>I am not enough.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That succession is lethal. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The effect I let my bank account balance have on me triggered
a ripple effect of scarcity. It started
with circumstantial things (money, time) and transitioned very carefully into
internal, personal things (parenting, self-worth).<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If self-judgement
were a sport, I’d be semi-pro. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sometimes I play God.
I take His jobs on, looking very much like a three-year-old girl dressed
up like her mother in lipstick and heels.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I got this,” I shrug.
I exact judgement in all its reckless forms -on others, on situations,
on myself most of all. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kim is my counselor, and she tells me how important it is to
STOP. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“When a self-judging thought comes up, be aware of it and
counteract it. You won’t always want to
do that. Sometimes you’ll want to just
sit in it. When you decided to sit in
your self-judgement, have a consequence in place.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Consequence?” My
imagination vacillates between a stern school marm rapping my knuckles and
kicking back on my plush bed in time out.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“What will you do if you decide to sit in self-judgement?”
She asks, unwilling to give me direct order.
Kim knows how much I’d love to just be told what I should be doing
instead of deciding for myself. I can
barely manage a menu at a fast-food joint let alone be responsible for
following through with self-chosen consequences. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“I guess… I have some positive affirmations written
down. I could read them all in front of
the mirror,” I’d hate that. Talking out
loud to myself is pretty high up on the list of things that make me uncomfortable,
“And reading a few chapters in a book about how amazing women are.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today I’m procrastinating my consequences. I went a full month changing my hateful “not
enough” thoughts into productive “enough and then some” thoughts. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So what went wrong?
What happened? What left me in
that pit of self-loathing?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Scarcity.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How do I reverse the effects of scarcity? It starts with resting up, refueling a
depleted mental, physical, emotional and spiritual system. Then I get present, quieting the rush and paying
attention.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Gratitude somehow always follows. As I close my eyes and feel the sunshine on
my face, I feel grateful for life, for sun, for the moment. As I feel the warm suds on my wet hands, the
burden of dish washing turns into a blessing.
I’m grateful for blessings. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In those moments, I have enough money. I have enough time. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And if I hold still a little longer, taking deep breaths and
letting the gratitude percolate, I remember: I AM ENOUGH. Scarcity cannot survive a heart full of
self-acceptance. Like the weeds that
grow in my lawn, scarcity keeps popping up.
I pluck, I pull, I mow, but scarcity is one of my weeds. Though I can’t
keep it away forever, I find purpose and beauty in the plucking. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-91954336148797149252016-06-07T14:55:00.000-07:002016-06-07T15:06:58.846-07:00Protecting MyselfThroughout my life, I've had an "ebb and flow" relationship with God. With God and everyone, including myself. It never felt really intentional, and as I felt distance to God, I would try and close the gap with prayers, scripture study, service, temple attendance, or anything that I felt would help.<br />
<br />
But this time.<br />
Something different is happening.<br />
<br />
The ebb is of my own, intentional making. <br />
<br />
WHY? This is the question tugging at my heart and brain. What is going on? God has given me some hard answers to prayers, and I've sort of stopped asking him questions because of it.<br />
<br />
Is it because I don't trust Him? Because if I did, I would be asking more questions, opening myself up to more answers, trusting that HE HAS ME.<br />
<br />
Maybe. Maybe it is trust. I've tried praying about it, talking with God about where I'm at, but it's really hard to talk to God about where I'm at when I don't know where I am, not really.<br />
<br />
As I sat in my church meetings on Sunday, someone was talking about living up to our full potential. They referenced a talk by <a href="https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2011/04/your-potential-your-privilege?lang=eng" target="_blank">President Uchtdorf </a>in which he says, "<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , "zoram" , "noto sans" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 28.8px;">let us not pass through life immersed in the three Ws: wearied, worrying, and whining."</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: "open sans" , "zoram" , "noto sans" , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 28.8px;"><br /></span>
I love words and wordy things, so I penciled the clever alliteration in my notebook, "Wearied, worrying, and whining." I stared at the three words, and they seemed like a brief character description of myself. <br />
<br />
Recovery work really feels like a polishing, grinding, burning, refining, and all of those other pain-inducing words. It has been hard. As I feel myself gain some footing on letting go of what I can't control in my marriage and with my relationships, I find myself just incredibly physically sick.<br />
I feel God is saying, "You've learned to let go of Danny, you're learned you can let go of your kids and other relationships, you're learning to let go of your marriage... are you ready to let go of your health?"<br />
<br />
This sucks, folks and friends. It truly sucks. I come from "hustle" stock -people who hustle like it's a competition.<br />
Well, it is. And we're winning.<br />
<br />
What do you need to hustle? A good, strong body. I have Danish ancestry (lots of Danish ancestry) and Native American Ancestry and even some Spanish ancestry. I am built to last with solid shoulders, long legs and arms with the potential to be filled with lots of hauling, heaving muscles.<br />
I look a bit like a man.<br />
But anyway.<br />
<br />
That body -the one that came in 3rd in an arm-wrestling contest in 5th grade, the one who did chair sits longer than most kids, that one that did sit ups and ran miles and pulled weeds and drove tractors... it is DYING on me. <br />
I feel betrayed by my own skin.<br />
<br />
Wearied, worried and whining about summed up my sole existence.<br />
How do I stop? I wrote under the words. With my chronic health issues, how do I stop feeling weary? worrying? whining?<br />
<br />
These are questions for God, I told myself. And THAT'S when it hit me.<br />
<br />
There's no way I'm asking Him about this. He is the Master Refiner, and refining HURTS and I can't handle more hurt.<br />
Ergo, I built a wall between me and Thee.<br />
<br />
Not coming down.<br />
At this point, I don't think I can even handle feedback about how I'm dealing with stuff. I used to look for ways to be a better person. I'd come up with programs and goals and charts and stuff, but now I work recovery and the hard stuff FINDS ME before I have a chance to go looking for it.<br />
I feel sanded down today. Correction: I feel like I'm BEING SANDED and not by the pretty, yummy sandpaper that tickles... but by the coarse stuff that would peel skin off a cat.<br />
Meeee-ouch.<br />
<br />
I started to feel some shame about how I'm trying to protect myself, but it melted away. God gets me. I don't get God... I feel like a small child, looking up at a mysterious, wonderful world that feels untouchable and saying, "You hurt me and I don't want to hurt anymore."<br />
When I was a kid, I would watch adults at parties and feel the same sort of feeling... those tall people who laugh at jokes I don't understand and say things like, "We'll talk about it when you're older."<br />
Older.<br />
Wiser.<br />
A world away.<br />
<br />
I was never content being a child. I wanted to grow up and solve the mysteries held hostage in the world of adults.<br />
<br />
Now that I am an adult, I feel more like a child than ever, and God is the One I'm studying, wanting to unravel his mystery world.<br />
<br />
There's one thing I've figured out. Adults get kids, but kids don't get adults. And I'm finding that as an adult, I don't get God. But He gets adults. He understands mortality.<br />
With that little knowledge, I feel safe being where I am and being honest with God about it.<br />
<br />
"I'm struggling to pray right now. I equate You with pain, and I'm hurting a lot."<br />
<br />
That was Sunday. <br />
<br />
Monday I had counseling. I was planning on reading my latest Step 4 inventory to my counselor, and I was nervous. I've done Step 5 before, but it's always a little nerve-shaking saying stuff out loud to someone else.<br />
The day started out fast and hard: kid peed in my bed, dog had the runs. I had health stuff going on, but we somehow all made it out the door and to my work. My kids go with me, so it can get pretty hectic sometimes.<br />
Yesterday was no exception.<br />
When my shift ended, I loaded us all in the car and all I could think about was heading home. But a thought crossed my mind, "Get the mail."<br />
I hadn't gotten the mail in weeks because -as I was about to tell my counselor in a few short hours -I struggle with denial, and if I don't GET the mail, then there's NO MEDICAL BILLS.<br />
<br />
*MAGIC*<br />
<br />
But I listened to the thought I had.<br />
I opened my box and found that there was a package -one I hadn't ordered. Intrigued, I went back to my car and opened it up.<br />
It was a Himalayan Salt Crystal Lamp, gifted to me from a friend. I'd had my eye on one of those lamps for over a year! But I'd reasoned myself out of getting one over and over, and now... here was one. Sitting in my lap! I couldn't believe it.<br />
I drove home and plugged it in. <br />
<br />
As I read my Step 4 to my counselor over the phone that afternoon, I sat next to my lamp and felt supported. Every once in a while, I'd reach out and touch it, just to feel loved.<br />
<br />
After I finished reading, my session was up. I hung up the phone and felt raw (like cats probably do after their skin has been sanded off, right?). I wanted to eat some fudge. Well, MORE fudge since I'd already down a couple of pieces. I wanted to clean my house and earn my own love.<br />
<br />
I decided the healthy thing to do would be to just rest, and when I went to my Amazon Prime Streaming Happy Place, I found that they'd just added a new movie to stream for free -one I'd eyed at the store a few days earlier and snapped a picture of so I wouldn't forget to rent it very soon.<br />
<br />
And there it was, just waiting for me.<br />
<br />
After the kids went to bed, I curled up next to my lamp and watched a movie.<br />
<br />
It turns out that God is strong enough to reach through my protection wall and show me that He loves me deeply and perfectly and that unconditional love isn't pain-free, though it isn't always pain-filled.<br />
<br />
God,<br />
I'm grateful and I've cried about it. I'm still afraid to let my guard down. Pain still scares me. Refinement isn't something I'm ready to paint my face and do war dances about... but I'm trying each day in my own way.<br />
I am weary. I am worried. I whine.<br />
But I'm also trying and I'm trying really, really hard. You see me, and I am blown away by your perfect timing and perfect love.<br />
Am I ready for our relationship to flow again? I don't know. But you've shown me that for You -on your side -the flow never ebbs.<br />
I don't understand that, but I admire it.<br />
Thank you, and I do love You, even as I stumble.<br />
~Alicia<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5105967228437010361.post-78196218830003869732016-06-02T19:38:00.002-07:002016-06-02T19:38:53.290-07:00Sometimes... I need a foot bath to make it through the hard questions.<br />
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<br />Aliciahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04004323785009200338noreply@blogger.com2