From Within

Everything came from without during those dark, star-guided days.  My circumstances were my master, others were my Gods.

Any strong answer I had well up from inside was only accepted if my Gods stamped their approval on it.

"Don't have sex right now," my insides would scream, "Please, please stop."  So to counseling I would go, to the phone, to the masses! 
Is it okay for me NOT to have sex right now? I'd ask.

Fear was my constant companion, my guiding star.
Through it all, I was terrified that I would lose my husband.

I was terrified of losing the person who had hurt me, broken my heart and trust, betrayed me and abused me.

So why?  Why was I scared?

Because Danny was God.  Losing Danny meant -in my life and mind -that I would lose the one thing in my life that mattered most.  Danny had my heart fully.  I thought about him everyday.  I wanted -above all -to please him, to make sure he was happy and do his will... even if it meant giving up my own.

I couldn't fathom a world without Danny, without having a marriage with him intact.

But God is a jealous God.  He desires Alicia.

Today, boys and girls, I have NO CLUE if my marriage will last.  I don't know if I will get divorced.  I don't know if someone else will raise my children.  I don't know if Danny will relapse or cheat on me or die in the line of duty.  I have no clue when it comes to my relationship with any mortal human.

BUT OF MYSELF I CAN SAY FOR CERTAIN: I will be okay.

I
Will
Be
Okay.

I have taken a stand I didn't believe I was allowed to take -I stood up to Danny and told him I could not live with him if there was no recovery.  That was risky.  I put my marriage on the line FOR MYSELF.  I realized after one harrowing day of mistreatment that Danny -though important and worthy of love -WAS NOT MY GOD.

My God Hunger had tried for years be filled with Danny which isn't fair to God, Danny or Alicia.  When I began taking my soul appetite to righteousness (it's all very "Blessed are those who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled") and filling it with GOD HIMSELF, I began to bask in the freedom that comes with leaving the past with the Savior and the future in the hands of God.

Will my marriage be okay?
Who knows.
Will I be okay?
Definitely.  

My God is loving, constant, aware, prepared, all-knowing and He WILL NOT FAIL ME.  He will not leave me.  He will not betray me, control or manipulate me. 

God did not want me in my marriage as it was.  He was NOT okay with the conditions, the absence of safety and the dysfunction because both Danny and I are better than what we were perpetuating.  

Danny rationalized his addiction just as much as I rationalized his behavior.

God desired me -He wanted me to see myself, to start me on the path of living, of becoming who I would be. 

I am His.  We are intimately connected in a way no mortal can play-out.  Ours is a transcendent love -ratting the cages of fear and glaring light into the darkest corners of shame. 

God touches my center, and I can do all things.  I learn, I seek.  Calmness settles on me, and I become sensitive to it's absence.  My anxiety is quieted.

I am free from abuse.
I have the answers to my life's questions within.
I have the capacity to change.
I am an agent unto myself.

And so I row into the Sun today, and we talk about life's daily duties.  We talk about my failures and we talk about my victories and in the calm chapel of nature, God's presence envelopes me.

Please, I plead, my sweet sister -the power to break free from abuse is WITHIN YOU.

God is waiting.
He desires YOU.
He will not fail.

If Fear is your guiding star, remember The Sun -don't sacrifice an internal, eternal summer for starry darkness. 



 

A Blossom Day

I woke up and hit snooze, couldn't face it.  Not yet, not yet.  The same routine, the same protests from the same children... I give into my own protests for a few minutes more.
The heavy conversation from the night before is streaming like background noise through my mind... I had been so bold, so honest.  He had been bold and honest.

I dismiss my snoozed alarm and open my gospel library app.  Revelations is fascinating.  What does it all mean?  Is it trying to warn me that the world is about to end but I'm so caught up in trying to figure out how to be married again that I'm missing it?  Am I missing out on fear I'm supposed to be feeling?  This makes me laugh, but it's a worry that hits me from time to time.
As a person who suffers from anxiety, it seems crazy that I'm actually asking if I should be worried MORE.  It SEEMS crazy, but it is -in fact -normal.  Normal for me.

Cold cereal.
I'm impatient.  It isn't their fault.  Satan sees my husband back in my bed, and he reminds me ALL DAY LONG about stuff I can't control.
"What about the future?"
"What about the lack of trust?"
"What about your inefficiencies?"
"What about how you can't be assertive to anyone at all in the entire universe?"

I sign papers to return to school.  I push the medical bills off to the side of the table.  The kids fold their arms, we pray in haste.
Lunch is put in a sack for the girl.  I leave a note for her on it, she loves those notes.  Sometimes they're movie quotes.  After we marathon watch "Once Upon a Time" I like to write, "Every lunch comes with a price, dearie," because it makes her giggle and try to talk like Mr. Gold.

Socks are found.  Miracles never cease.
They are filling their young mouths with shredded wheat when the bus rolls up.  They run, I snap.  I hate being mean in the morning.
"I need my coat, my coat!"
"YOU. DON'T. HAVE. TIME.  PLEASE GO!"
I tell them I love them and hope that that's ALL they heard.  The bus pulls away and two big chunks of my heart go with it.  I feel lighter and heavier all at once.

What's the next right thing?  A healthy breakfast.
I boil water to make grits.  I decide to have an egg fried in coconut oil, maybe an orange on the side?  That's when I feel his hand on my shoulder.
"You should go for a walk," Danny knows how much I love walking.  I think of 5 different reasons why I'm not important enough to carve out time to walk and then dismiss them all because -I AM important enough.  I strike out into the cold with orchestral classical music streaming through my ear buds.  I feel the sun on my back -such a stark difference between the loving sun on my back and the white frosted road under my feet.

The sun is mine, I've decided.  It was fashioned to keep me warm, to give me light.  I feel safe with it.  I love the white rays of early morning.  They seem to massage my entire being, infusing it with energy.  Satan begins his descent into my thoughts, and tears spring to my eyes as I surrender them to God.
Attack after attack.
I want a pill, or something.  I want to make the fear and the things I can't control GO AWAY.

I can't decide if I'm crying because of my anxiety or because I can't have a pill to make Satan go away.
I breath in, breath out... remind myself to breath in the white rays.  I feel the cold around me.  I see the frosted weeds by the road.  I really SEE them.  I focus on SEEING them.

I think of the episode of "The Paradise" I watched with Danny the night before... of the man who says so perfectly, "You are so worried about your past and future that you're missing what you have... this present moment."

I focus on NOT MISSING THIS MOMENT mostly because when I quit focusing on being present, Satan plants seeds of chaos in my mind.
I conscientiously relax my shoulders. I work on letting tension go.  I listen to the music in my ear buds.  GOD is in that music.  I tell Him so.  I tell Him I hear Him in the harmonies, the violas, the winds.  I hear His messages, feel His presence.

He reminds me that I am His, and we walk together.  I see the frost-bitten stems of what were once fully blossomed wild sunflowers, surrounded by bees and teeming with ants.  Maybe the death should affect me?  It doesn't.  Should I feel guilty that I find the frosted has-beens equally as beautiful?  I nod at My Savior... the role the Son plays in melting the frost.

I decide that there isn't a single reason in the world for me not to be writing more.  Something settles in me... bravery?  Vulnerability?  I don't know, but I let it rest inside of me as I turn down the dirt road leading to Dad's farm.  The ground is frozen.  I smile at my luck, dodging what was last night's mud puddle, now frozen solid.  I decide the frost is just for me as well.

Then I remember the blossoms.  There have been blossoms all over town, and a frost meant the blossoms had all frozen.  It's happened every year for the past 5 years... everything warms up unseasonably and then freezes over.  So many trees have lost their fruit.
I think again of the hard conversation from last night.  My heart seems to be in it's own sort of wild 5-year Blossom n' Freeze.

Will there ever be fruit again?
Then I giggle because FRUIT.  Me producing fruit means having babies which means...
I shake my head because somewhere deep inside, I'm a 10 year old boy.  Maybe it comes from having three older brothers? 
My classical music comes to a halt.  My phone rings, "Mom, can you please bring me my coat?"

I come inside and find a warm, healthy breakfast waiting for me.  I relish the runny yolk mixed with hot grits.  Is there anything better?  Maybe.  But in that moment?  Never.

The past few days have been so difficult.  I think of the words in a blessing my husband gave me a few weeks ago, "There will be days that you feel you cannot make it through and you will find that is by the Grace of God that you do."
Those days have hit full force.  Even now, as I eat I realize I must get up.  I must go to work.  I must get the baby to the sitter.
I realize I can use the next ten minutes to look cuter or meditate, and I meditate because looking cute isn't as important as it used to be.

I'm late dropping the baby off, late to work. The computer is broken.  I sweep the office.  I file a few things.  I find a few names on Family History and feel really good about it.  Ancestors! 
I take my daughter's coat to her.

I sweep some more.
I catch up on texting.
Dad buys me a tamale from Ruth -she comes in every Wednesday and saves a tamale every week for me.  I love small towns.
The phone rings -it's Jackson. He's calling because his Mom just paid her bill off.  Jackson's mother raised four boys as a single Mom.  Jackson is in his mid-30s now and living states away.  His mother now lives alone and paid her account off with us with her tax return.  Jackson pays it again -in full -and asks my Dad to please return $900 to his Mom.  I love THIS small town.
I pick my son up from school.
The computer is fixed.  I cram a day's work into 45 minutes.  I'm late picking the baby up.
Danny comes home for lunch.  We eat together.
I turn on "Calamity Jane" with Doris Day for 15th time this week and the baby falls asleep.  My son becomes busy and I feel like I can sit down. 

But the next right thing isn't the internet.  I open my computer and start a new Word document, and I WRITE.  I write for two hours until my phone goes off and there's a text from Danny.  He won't make it home in time for scouts.  I cancel Scouts.
I play the piano just long enough for some deep emotions to rattle loose.  They stay in my piano.  My piano is my emotion catch-all. 

The kids and I take a walk with The Horse Dog.  We visit "our" club house behind a short row of trees that were never actually planted but sprung up the way stubborn trees sometimes do in the desert.  My son battles the invisible ninjas I convinced him exist and my daughter picks up rocks for her collection.
They are beautiful to me.

We come home and drink hot chocolate.  Homework is done.  Reading is done.
I make dinner while they furiously clean the living room, knowing that when it's done, they'll be able to play video games.

Danny comes home after a hard day's work of policing, and I'm glad he's alive.  I think about his job... about how it throws a weird wrench into the whole thing... he could die at work.  Any day, he could stop a car filled with drugs and guns and die.  I feel like I need to treasure him MORE.

I treasure him in the moment, and we eat gluten free pancakes for dinner with eggs on top because I'm still on a yolk high from that morning. 

I am tired.
I feel like I've had some major victories: finding some names in family history, writing some stories... these are the things that make me COME ALIVE.

I sit down in a recliner filled with clean clothes.  I don't mind them.  I can snuggle with them.  Will I fold them?  Are you kidding? 
I open up Netflix and being mindlessly scrolling.  Danny is home now.  He can keep the kids from fighting while I rest, rest, rest.

I shut out the outside noise and hone my attention fully on scrolling through movie titles.  It feels good.

I feel a hand on my hand.  Danny takes it, pulls me up, leads me away from the television.  Minutes later, I'm sitting in a hot bubble bath with candles and more classical music.
Danny sometimes knows when I need my chapel even when I don't SAY it.

I climb out of the tub and he has hot towels waiting for me.  I'm grateful, SO GRATEFUL for this man.  So grateful that it's been a GOOD DAY.
It's been a blossom day.
More blossoms -stubborn blossoms that seek the sun despite -IN SPITE OF -the hard frost.

The kids have their nightly dance party, and we watch some Mormon Messages.  We pray and the kids are sent to bed.
They get out.
They go to bed.
They get out.
I don't know whether to laugh or cry.  I remember how much the Steps apply to ALL THINGS and hold boundaries with them.  They think I am mean.
I tell them I love them.  I hope that's all they remember...

I put on some clean PJs and braid my wet hair.  I decide my body is important enough to deserve to NOT sleep in my contacts again.
Danny and I stream one last episode of "The Paradise" and I cheer when Moray realizes that Denise IS NOT HIS POSSESSION BUT HIS EQUAL and he gives her WINGS even when she doesn't know she wants them.  I remember how satisfied I'd been when she SLAPPED him across the face when he spoke to her as if he owned her.  Denise is my hero because she is true to herself and follows her gut like a champ.  Denise the Champ.

I go to bed satisfied and grateful for The Blossom Day.  As I begin to worry about tomorrow, I stop.  Can I be married tomorrow?  I'll worry about that tomorrow.  I can be married today, and I will be married today.

I am determined to record it so that I may enjoy it, even when the frost comes.  Gratitude is my greatest friend in my anxiety, and I want to remember that I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE GOOD DAYS.

Not By Shadows, But By Light

Flannery O'Connor is dear to me.

I really, really love her way with words.  See:

Frank.  She shoulda been called Frank.

When someone has a truly great relationship with and passion for words, I feel something well up inside of me.  A spark, maybe?  I don't know... it's almost as if words make a person immortal.  Certain passages have a way of reaching into my soul, and I feel in those moments as if I'm linked to the author by a bond surpassing anything mortal.

A deeply personal SOUL hug?

Suddenly it doesn't matter that Emily Dickinson isn't recluding away in her bedroom right now because she's long since passed away because I KNOW THE TRUTH and the truth is that Emily is my own bosom friend.  Her words have immortalized her, endeared her, and become her.

Today, I found a few words written by Flannery O'Connor.  They were written in a journal, perhaps a journal that was never meant to be read?  Perhaps that's why she's so vulnerable and honest?

But, OH, how grateful I am.  I feel less alone.
Flannery O'Connor has also been immortalized because of her words -she is always with us, always sustaining and inspiring us.  Her spirit is on earth, floating around libraries and Pinterest and landing in our laps like a neighbor popping in for an unexpected visit.
Except Flannery doesn't care about laundry on the floor and clingy toddlers because she's dead.  And dead people have impeccable perspective.
Probably.

What I Learned From Boundaries

When I was 11, my mom gave birth to the cutest baby boy in the entire world.  He became "my" baby, and I dressed him, played with him... I took him to my friend's house so we could both play with him.  His blond curls and bright eyes were irresistible.  The older he got, the more fun he was.  He was the ultimate third wheel on movie dates -he kept my boyfriend and I from getting too close by being the coolest distraction EVER.  It was during this time that he got really into Zorro.  He wore a cape and mask always.  He had a sword.  He could quote "The Mask of Zorro" with PRECISION.  Come to think of it, our entire family could.  We became closed captioning pros because no matter what movie we watched, Zorro was being acted out in the background by a blond toddler.
Have you ever heard a toddler with a fake Spanish accent?  It's probably one the greatest things in the entire world to listen to.

"The Mask of Zorro" has become a weird kind of comfort movie for me.  I watched it so many times with that cool kid... sometimes I put it on just to hear the lines and remember what life was like when I walked into church with a kid wearing a black mask.

I still have the movie memorized, and when I think of boundaries, all I can think about is Antonio Banderas in a training circle.

He wears a necklace representing the training circle for years without realizing exactly what it was.    

(I think that last line, "Perfect.  Do it again" pretty much sums up how boundaries feel.) 

As I worked in that first outside ring, I learned that boundaries weren't about OTHER PEOPLE.  Boundaries were about ME.

Setting boundaries has been -and sometimes continues to be -one of the scariest things I've ever done.

I used to think it was because other people were scary.  I can't manage Danny's reactions or behaviors and that made telling him what I'm not okay with really intimidating.

What if he yells?
What if he hates me?
What if he's right?


Something I learned while setting boundaries early on was that they aren't about HIM at all.  They aren't about any other person but Alicia.  It didn't FEEL that way when I spoke them because I was so terrified that whoever I was setting them with would think I was __________________ (mean, impatient, controlling, younameit).

The first time I heard anything about boundaries, I was terrified.  I didn't think I was allowed to set them, speak them.  I knew Danny would be upset, and I'd spent YEARS trying to keep him from being upset with me... with anyone and anything at all, really.  I knew when he was upset, I would be scared and possibly hurt.  Setting boundaries felt like setting myself up for pain, and that felt like a really, really BAD idea.

But as I thought about it...
It would feel really good to actually SAY THE WORDS, "I have a right to feel safe in my marriage."
And to add, "If I don't feel safe, I will do something about it."

My first boundaries were prayed over, typed out, read to my counselor and then read to Danny.  My hands shook.  I couldn't look Danny in the eyes.  I kept my eyes on my paper.  My cheeks flamed.  My heart pumped.  I was so grateful that my boundaries were printed out for me to read because as I read them, I wasn't reading them.  My mind was spinning.
I was terrified.
I found myself wanting to make him OKAY with my boundaries... to MAKE HIM FEEL LIKE I was still nice and I still loved him and I wasn't mean.

Reading those words out loud was scary, yes, but it also did something surprising: it gave me permission.  They were a sort of challenge, actually.  It was as if I could hear myself saying, "Okay, Alicia, you READ them... you SPOKE them... now will you LIVE them?"
And I didn't want to let myself down.

I had been let down by so many people, including myself, and I knew that while I couldn't help the fact that others would continue to let me down, I could at least STOP LETTING MYSELF DOWN.

I moved into the second ring, and there I learned that boundaries weren't an addiction thing... they were an Emotionally Healthy Person Thing.  I began setting boundaries with everyone -not just Danny. The longer I went to meetings and the more counseling sessions I went to, I started to see that boundaries were a real life thing that emotionally healthy people did.

This was revealing to me.
Things that are revealing and ground-breaking to me are generally simple, obvious things to other people.  I feel almost silly sharing them, but I can't deny that I've been in a very DARK place where obvious and simple things evaded me completely.  Seeing light shine on them has been miraculous and I want to SHARE THE MIRACLE with everyone, even if everyone already GOT IT.

I found that keeping my boundaries gave me permission to live the life I chose, and this gave me encouragement.  So I kept doing the boundary thing.

In the third ring, I learned the importance of practice, practice, practice.  "Do it again." The more I set and keep boundaries, the easier it is.  Practice makes everything easier, right?  But is it really practice?  I believe practice plays a part -a big part -but the practice itself isn't the THING.  Living a life with boundaries in place cultivates something more rich than I ever could have imagined.

The fourth thing I've learned from boundaries is that I'M ENOUGH.
Through all of this being married to someone with a porn addiction stuff, that's what I've heard the MOST.
"Alicia, you are enough."

It sounded true and false all at the same time.

Sometimes it made me cry to hear it.  I cried because I felt like maybe it was true and I would never believe it for myself.  Sometimes people said it I dismissed it completely -because if it were true, my life would be wildly different, right?

It turns out that the more I set and keep boundaries, I HEAR MYSELF.  I hear myself saying, "I'm not okay with being lied to.  Why am I not okay with it?  Because I DESERVE MORE THAN THAT because I AM ENOUGH."

The thing is: I hear myself say that even if I don't ACTUALLY say it.  When I set and keep a boundary, I let myself know I am enough. Anytime I don't set and keep a boundary even though I feel that I need to, I send the exact opposite message, "I'm not enough."
At this point, I jump back to the prior circle and practice, practice, practice.

The more I practice, the more I realize my worth.  I begin to care for myself better, stand up for what matters.  Courage comes, perspective shifts, and priorities are put right.  My gut exhales.  I exhale.  Self-care steps in.

I am enough.

I don't cry about that anymore.
I don't dismiss it.

I hear it and acknowledge it because it's true.  I'm not better than or less than.  I'm not smarter or messier or skinnier or wittier or not as spiritual.
I just AM.
And I'm enough.

Knowing and feeling this makes boundaries less scary and more natural.

It turns out that the scariest part of boundaries isn't other people... It's me.  The scariest part of boundaries is opening myself up to the possibility that I am incredibly worth it and that I have the potential to take control of my own choices.  THAT is scary, folks.  In fact, the only thing that scares me more than that is living a life without being true to myself, standing up for myself, and living a "painted into a corner" life.

With my choices in my own hands, I have no one to blame.  That is also scary.
With my choices in my own hands, I have full ownership of my potential.  Terrifying.

Here's my final -up to this point -boundary lesson: The farther out I am, the scarier it is.  As I dance in and out of the third and fourth rings, I find that owning my choices, my potential, and my enoughness is the best damn thing I've ever done.

And it's my privilege to do it again.

Body Healing

Over a year ago, I wrote a post about Pressure.

I struggle with holding tension in my body.  My shoulders have been tight for the better part of my 29 years.  I'm pretty sure I stressed out when I took my first bites, first steps, and first few swings at my older brothers.  I've spent YEARS holding expectations, shame, disappointments, confrontations... in my BODY.

It's gradually falling apart... the doctors keep taking things out of it and handing me papers with the words, "chronic inflammation" on them.  Tonsils?  Gone.  Gall bladder?  Gone.
My body is on fire. (Stop singing Alicia Keys.  Once you start, that power ballad never quits.)

My first counselor asked me to begin paying attention to my body -to the way I physically react and feel when I felt the trauma of my situation.  I began to notice that I felt my head sort of spinning, my heart pumped faster.  I began feeling the need to FLIGHT... FLIGHT my way into the bathtub and fill it with hot, hot water and big, fat bubbles.  When it's really bad, I find myself picking at my own skin nervously.
But the most prominent symptom: tight, tense shoulders.  I began to notice that my shoulders were tense constantly.

I felt tense in Sunday School when there was silence.  I felt tense when I talked.  I felt tense when I crocheted (must. finish.  must. finish.) and I felt tense when I watched television (maybe because I felt shame for watching?  I don't know).
I felt tense at the grocery store.
I felt tense when I went running (must. burn. calories. be. skinny. wear. leggings. boots. with. fur. cute. hair. bun. be. adorable).
I felt tense when I did yoga, when I ate.

As I've made a conscientious effort to release tension, I've felt calm and peace.  I've felt freedom that comes from letting go of finishing, performing, and perfecting.  And I've begun investigating WHY IN THE CRAP I've been this way for so long.

Looking back on my life, I see that I was raised to make good choices out of fear.
I jokingly say, "I did what was right not because I was afraid of God but because I was afraid of Dad."
Putting someone other than God in my center is an issue I've had long before I'd ever laid eyes on Danny.  Ironically, while I was being raised out of fear, I was also being taught that being afraid was weak... something to get over.

I want you to take a second and imagine -if you will -how much mental wreckage that all adds up to.

I have a lot of healing to do.  Marrying a porn addict took my "sickness" and BLEW IT UP.
I am so scared.  I am so scared all of the time.
I recognize that I am scared.  so scared all of the time.  and I HATE myself for being so weak and scared.

I feel shame for being scared.

It's a whole lot of crazy running rampant.
In a BYU speech given by Elaine Marshall in 2002 when she was the dean of BYU's College of Nursing, she says:

healing is active—you have to be there. Your friend or your husband or wife or your mother cannot do it for you. You have to face the problem and the pain. To begin healing, you must acknowledge and feel the hurt. Only those who don’t feel, those without conscience, cannot heal.
My mother once told me of an experience she had one winter morning as she drove down to check the cattle in the lower pasture. She noticed a car off the side of the road. Inside she recognized a young mother and three children. When my mother asked if they needed help, the woman tearfully reminded her that this was the place of the accident two weeks earlier that had killed her husband. She answered, “We are just here to feel the hurt.”
On that first day as a nurse, I assumed cure, care, and healing to be synonymous. I have learned they are not the same. Healing is not cure. Cure is clean, quick, and done—often under anesthesia. The antibiotic kills the pathogen; the scalpel cuts out the malignancy; the medication resolves the distorted chemistry. Healing, however, is often a lifelong process of recovery and growth in spite of, maybe because of, enduring physical, emotional, or spiritual assault. It requires time. We may pray for cure when we really need healing. Whether for cell reconstruction, for nerve and muscle rehabilitation, for emotional recovery, or for spiritual forgiveness, healing needs work and time and energy.
Healing cannot happen in a surgical suite where the pain is only a sleepy memory. Cure is passive, as you submit your body to the practitioner. Healing is active. It requires all the energy of your entire being. You have to be there, fully awake, aware, and participating when it happens.

I spent a few hours with a close friend last week.  She called me the next day and voiced her concern over my health.  Because she's been in a similar situation, she knows the toll trauma can take.  Her advice to me was simple and full of concern.
"Alicia, your body is hungry.  Feed it.  Feed it good food.  As women, we get caught up in eating salads, and salads are good... but your body needs more than that.  Cut out anything that is causing you extra stress -anything at all.  Your body can't handle more stress.  Drink lemon water in the morning and do stretches -not more than your body is willing to do, don't push it. Sleep is so important.  Get a lot -get enough."

I've been so busy working on my emotional healing, that my body has gone by the wayside.  Rhyll Crowshaw once told me, "This addiction literally KILLS women.  We have to take care of our bodies.  It is VITAL."

Does this mean a program?  Work out DVDs?  New Running Shoes?  Cute Yoga pants?
No -all of those things add up to more tension and pressure for me.

This means me writing out every day step-wise what I will do the next day for self-care.  This means tapping into the self-love I've babied into existence through recovery work.
This means walking the full-sized puppy and running only when his contagious energy touches me and I can't help but break into a sprint with him galloping into my path.
Together, we are Grace Personified.

 This means turning tension into acceptance.  Accepting silence, accepting myself, accepting the cold air and the time spent waiting for the children to finish eating, the sun to finish setting, the dust to settle.

This means more naps.
This means more real food and less fake food.

This means more meditation, more yoga, more calm, more peace, more perspective.

And as my mind clears and my life simplifies, I will find another facet of healing -one my Savior has had in store, waiting for me to be ready to choose it.

I begin to see that everyone around me -EVERY one -is sick in their own way.  They are all struggling.  They react not because of me and my illnesses but because of THEM and THEIR illnesses.

Healing pulls me OUT of myself and opens the world up -I begin to see what I was too sick to see before.

I see beauty in my mind, in my heart, in my white skin.
I see love.
I live from this.  I accept this.
I offer this to God, broken and serene -and I ask, "What would Thou that I should do?"

And then I walk and trip with my big puppy.

Or I eat something grandly filling -oatmeal with blueberries, a pat of butter melting deliciously into the grain.

Or I read Dr. Seuss out loud.
Or I plug myself into Massenet's "Meditation" and allow myself to just... BE for a little while.






And I find within myself a solid sense of SAFETY -an solid inner-chamber wherein fear and shame can not penetrate, where true love for God and self resides.

My shoulders relax and serenity sweeps tension into the other room.

THIS.
THIS is healing.

It is work, there are no pain killers for this kind of healing... but there is immeasurable recompenses for the pain.

More Important Than Staying Together

Whenever I mention our separation to anyone, I see fear flash across their face. 

Could this be the end of our hero?!

It's true.  It COULD BE.  Endings scare people, I'm finding.  I don't know why exactly -maybe it reminds us all of a ultimate ending?  of life ending? 

Having to defend my separation makes me feel crazy, so -I have found out the hard way -I don't.  The thing is: GOD is okay with Danny and I not sleeping in the same bed, and I am okay with it and that's that... as the quote written above my piano says, "Trust in God and Thyself."

It does bother me -really it does -that it's seemingly more accepted for a wife in an emotionally abusive situation to STAY LIVING IN IT than it is for her to GET OUT OF IT.  But here's the thing: a separation *can be* the key to healing a marriage scorched by addiction.  It can be very healing.
As my intuitive Bishop put it, "You aren't handling things in the conventional way, but I would go so far as to say your marriage won't survive if you don't do this."

Sweet validation.  Nectar, nectar, nectar.

In my time apart from Danny, I have shred fear.  I have found myself AND FOUND that -contrary to what I once thought -I actually like myself.  Always?  No, not always.  But "I like myself most of the time" shows 95% improvement over where I was in 2012.  Two years ago, I hated even looking in the mirror.
I frequently struggled with my faulty image beliefs.  Today, I can look at a woman with fake boobs and polished abs and NOT automatically believe that I am less than, ugly, and worthless. 

Today, there is hope.

I find in my life a creation cycle -similar to those held by God as he created the very Earth I stomp every day.

For a long time, I was in this dark, scary place... it was in it's very beginning phases when, without light, the Earth tossed and turned and heaved and exploded.  Something very important was taking place, something called TRANSFORMATION, but in the thick of darkness, all I could see was just that: darkness.
Hopeless.
Scary.
So scary.

Then, slowly, the heavings slowed and illumination took their place.  LIGHT filled every darkened crevice, and God was seen.  I was able to see what the darkness had produced, and it was beautiful.
"Could it be?" I asked myself, looking across the variety of canyons, rivers, lakes, pastures.  My own complexities amazed me.

After the light came the seeds -beautiful seeds planted every dang where.
After the seeds came LIFE.
And after LIFE?  Came a new woman.

This is God's creation cycle.  This is the cycle that repeats itself over and over and over in my own life -lately, it's been one VERY VERY BIG AND GIGANTIC creation process.  The darkness could have won.

But right now, I stand illuminated.

This is what my separation has given me.
LIVING WITH emotional abuse was very, very dark.  God didn't want me to stay there.

There can be wholeness in marriage.
More importantly, there can be wholeness in SELF.

I believe strongly that individual healing comes BEFORE marital sticking-it-out.
For me, individual healing could not take place IN my marriage, and I'm okay with that.  God is guiding me and letting me know what is okay, when it's okay... maybe not always WHY, but that's His way.

As light surrounds and fills me, I can say that I am on my way to becoming a new woman filled with fresh life.  In the meantime, God is taking care of everything else.
Fear has no place in the creation cycle.

And when the new woman steps bravely out into her new world, perhaps God may initiate a new creation cycle in my marriage. 
Can I handle more darkness?  More tumult?  More tossings?

I can't.
God can.
I will let Him.

Things

I feel a sort of disconnect from the recovery world vs. real life realm.
In truth, my recovery world and real life are meshing together so naturally, the Me Of Two Years Ago is peeing her pants a little, but the Me Of The Present feels so natural about it all that she wonders why everyone doesn't discuss the physiology of masturbation over a round of Ben & Jerry's (Karamel Sutra, anyone?)

In the way of updates, Danny worthily baptized our daughter -this is important, folks and friends, this is pivotal and important.  Her baptism day has always been this sort of unknown -a Future Event looming over our heads, neither of us knowing if she would be able to be baptized by her own father or not.
The day has come, and she was.  It was touching and highly emotional for our highly emotional and easily touched family.

I'm still wearing my ring, though we are still separated.

It's weird how this separation is working out.  While I wish I could transfer what's going on in my head to the confused heads of those around me, I know that GOD KNOWS what's going on and that's enough for now.
I like Danny.
I LOVE DANNY.
But I can not commit to living with him right now and sleep peacefully at night.  God knows it's not time for me.  I need more healing.

My trauma is like a bad batch of hormones -they aren't predictable, I don't understand them, and they pop up fully without welcome or warning.  I have NO CONTROL.

While I should be great friends with the idea of NO CONTROL by now... I'm not.  I'm getting there, and we have our moments... but true bonding hasn't occurred.  Not yet.  I understand the beauty in embracing a lack of control, but there are still aspects of it that really BUG me.
Trauma is one of those aspects.

I hate that trauma hits sometimes when Danny comes home 20 minutes late.  Logically, this is should only be mildly irritating IF THAT.  But for me?  It can be cataclysmic.
I hate watching trauma dovetail around me in rapid succession... faster than I can surrender it and find peace again, it hits, hits, hits.
I HATE THAT.

I feel controlled by trauma, though I know that isn't fully the case.
It FEELS true sometimes.

I keep thinking of the war in heaven.  I keep thinking about Satan's plan to force my hand.  I keep thinking how, when Danny was in the thick of his addiction, I thought Satan's plan was pretty genius, actually.
I keep thinking how the person I truly am in my core of cores refused Satan's plan because it employed a tactic I balked at: control.

I don't remember exactly what I felt, but my core does.  And my core balks at control.
It balked when I felt it in my marriage, and it balked when I tried to employ it toward my husband's addiction.

I'm feeling a cleansing of control in my life, so when trauma pops up and takes over, it just pisses me off in a big way.

It's good for me.  I'm learning from it and growing and finding out WHO I am and what I'm made of and in the meantime, I'm popping in to say that this blog -this super secretive blog -doesn't feel so secret anymore.
I'd love to get to know my readers more in real life and I'd love to send you a link to my other blog -the one where my recovery life (meaning my LIFE LIFE) is bleeding out all over the pages.
So reach out, if you want to, and come and meet my family.
I'll send you the link if you email me at brabadges@hotmail.com

Wishing you serenity in the present,
Alicia