It's About the Climb, Is it?

What a day this has been. Wow. Rollercoast ride of emotions, to say the least.

This morning was A-MAZING! I surprised myself with how well I held the space for that many people - 75 kids and 15 adults! WOW! After running that much energy, I was burning up. I thought, perhaps the kids would only last for 5 minutes on the meditation. We went about 25 minutes! And then I gave them time to share about their journeys. I had time to allow about 10 of them to share and was completely drop-jaw awed and inspired by their experiences. WOW! And the way they sunk into doing their art was unbelievably cool. I thought we'd take maybe 60-75 minutes to do the whole process. We were in there 90 minutes and some of the kids weren't even ready to call it quits at that point.

I'm in love with myself for being willing to step up and share this gift I have. I love myself for wondering if children this age would groove on it and then being willing to give it a go. I love myself for being open to the possibilities and the result is the teachers are in love with the experience, as are the children and we will be doing it more often - every Tuesday in my home room. That SO rocks!

I wish that was all there was to say about my day. And, maybe I could leave it at that. However, that wouldn't really explain the "rollercoaster" part of the opening of this post, now would it...

Ye-eah... that.

Sheesh.

I'm wondering how I'm going to pull out of this emotional tailspin that seems to be spiraling at a deadly rate toward hell in a flaming handbasket. (WOW! Okay... I'm going to take a moment here. I just pulled a huge Freudian slip and I need to look at it. I wrote "emotional tailspin." I meant "financial tailspin." Give me a moment please...................................)

Yeah. I get that this is hugely emotional for me. My money is flying out the window faster than it's coming in and I can't do anything about it. I have not enough money for what is due. I have barely enough to make my car payment, phone payment, gas, car insurance and a little food. I live with my father to cut expenses that way. And, oh goodness! Thank all that is holy for that blessing. Just thinking about where I'd be right now if I didn't have this room to sleep in puts me into a miserable, gelatinous puddle.

So, I go to speak with a bankruptcy attorney to see if there is any possibility of that helping me out. What do I discover? Fuck. I discover that I need $1149 to claim bankruptcy. WTF?!!! If I had that much money, I'd pay off my creditors!!! What the hell?! And then, if I do pull that money out of my butt and want to keep my car, I need to requalify with the lendor, sign a new agreement and prove that I can make the car payments. Well, hell. How do I prove that? Given that I have no job, no job prospects and my unemployment benefits dry up at the end of February, how the hell will I pay that bill? And the courts will not grant the reaffirmation on the loan unless my attorney will sign off on my ability to pay the loan payment and my attorney won't sign off on that unless, of course, I can. So, yeah. I got nothin'.

I am so scared and sad. I cried all the way home and feel horrible because my 12 year old daughter witnessed it all and that ain't nothing a little girl should have to carry. My stress is becoming her stress and that ain't right. I feel worthless and hopeless and helpless and so very sad. I'm trying to have faith. I believe and have faith that something is going to change, something is going to give, something is going to happen to turn this all around. I'm having faith and, yet, I feel dangerously close to losing faith.

It feels like I'm standing in this vast open space of nothingness but there are no options. How is that even possible?

As I drove home, one of my favorite songs came on, The Climb, and I burst into tears as the lyrics floated through my mind and out my mouth. Eventually, I had to stop singing because I was gagging on my tears...

I can almost see it
That dream I'm dreaming but
There's a voice inside my head sayin,
You'll never reach it,
Every step I'm taking,
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking but I
Got to keep trying
Got to keep my head held high

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing,
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down but
No I'm not breaking
I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm going to remember most yeah
Just got to keep going
And I,
I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on, cause

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes I'm gonna to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb (yeah)

There's always going to be another mountain
I'm always going to want to make it move
Always going to be an uphill battle,
Sometimes you going to have to lose,
Ain't about how fast I get there,
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb (yeah yeah ea ea)

Keep on moving
Keep climbing
Keep the faith baby
It's all about
It's all about
The climb
Keep the faith
Keep your faith

So, the song tells me to keep the faith. I'm afraid I'm forgetting how to do that...

Ohhhh...

My song for today.



The pain I'm feeling is almost unbearable... Sadness... weeping... and I still live... ohhhhhhhh...

I Wanted It!

Oh! How I wanted that blue ribbon to be mine! Oh! I really, really did. It's been a long time since I've wanted something that much. Part of the mentoring program I did with Dr. Gay Hendricks was a competition amongst the participants for the opportunity to be hand-delivered to the Big Four publishing houses. I wanted it!

I didn't get it.

Part of me keeps wanting to rise above the sadness and focus on the positive points - I got excellent experience; great feedback from a successful, world-renowned author; created and completed a 27-page professional proposal; yada yada yada. However, I feel sad. Really sad! It seems like it would be appropriate to cry with how sad I'm feeling, but the tears don't come.

Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnn...

News came in from the mortgage lender. That's a no, also. With my income being cut back over the last two months, I'm now upside down in my debt-to-income ratio. No house for you, Angie.

Yep. I'm sad tonight.

Holding Space

Please hold space for me and my friends. Many of us are at the hospital with one of our beloveds. Their six-week old baby stopped breathing early yesterday morning. I have been at the hospital with her since they got here. There is no brain activity and she is on a full ventilator. Please send love, peace and healing to Natalie and Joe Read, the parents of Adrianna Read in this time of grief.

Thank you.

Tears...

They fall. Quietly and persistently. Saying goodbye... or the knowledge of that impending word stills my heart at times and I bow my head. Grateful for the time. Wishing there was more. And holding on for all I am worth.

The Phone Call

My phone rang. It was my good friend, Jen. We had talked earlier and it had been a bubbly, peppy talk so I wasn't prepared for the quietness in her voice.

"Have you talked to Mary recently?"

I went on alert. I had thought I had more time with Maret. I had thought that the doctors had lied. I had thought that, since we had passed the seven day mark that we were golden. Even though I reminded myself that we all are on borrowed time and Maret more than ever, I still thought we were home free.

"Not since earlier today, before she went to the eye doctors. Is it Maret?"

"No." She choked for a moment and my heart crashed. This much emotion and it's not Maret? Oh. My. God.

"What is it, Jen?"

"Mary's doctor has scheduled her for an MRI brain scan tomorrow. There is a possibility that she has a tumor."

My world crashed down around me as the tears exploded out of me with such a force that I was certain my lungs would collapse. "NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

We cried together and I sniffled into the phone, hiccuping and saying, "I wasn't prepared for that news. I feel like I have been blind-sided."

And then we laughed together because, somehow, my choice of words were ironically poetic and hilarious. Especially since it was Mary's narrowing line of vision that had caused her concern enough to go to the eye doctor's. I spoke with Mary later on last night. I heard the fear and the sadness and the anger in her voice. I could hear her asking questions in her mind, the same questions I was asking in mine, I suppose.

In the quiet of the night last night, while I tossed and turned in bed finding no respite from the sadness in the depths of sleep, I stared into the darkness and wondered... what am I to make of all this? I feel scared and sad and angry. It feels like too much. This week feels like too much.

I will go to Mary on Friday, in the quiet moments of the afternoon, and lay my hands upon her head. In the stillness we will find some peace and, perhaps, a miracle or two.

AAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh...

"He's in jail," his wife told me. I wasn't sure how I wanted to respond. I felt anger, sadness and fear all at once.

My former husband was in jail this weekend. This time, my daughter and I were not involved with the domestic violence scene. This time the police got him. This time when he called me, asking me to be involved and arrange to bail him out, I said, "I can't." I turned off my phone for the rest of the weekend.

I feel sad and scared and angry.

I am appreciating myself for staying out of it this time, even though I am judging myself to have done it in a chicken-shit way. I am appreciating that I knew my limitations and that if I heard "the call" I would don that hero cape and swoop in. I am appreciating that I did something differently this time. I am appreciating my awareness that I want to focus on everyone else's stories and "problems" right now so I no longer hurt. I am aware that my feelings of alone-ness have heightened to painful levels. I am aware that I feel weak and wobbly and as though I cannot stand. I am aware that I want someone to hold me, comfort me, wipe away these tears and show me that there IS something different for me and... oh my god... there just isn't anyone there. I feel sad. Sad. Sad...

Ah-ha!

Soooo... after my heart-rending conversation last night, I went to Life Skills in a fairly vulnerable and emotionally raw state. At one point, I was crying so hard I was doing those little baby hiccups. The sadness was so huge and soooooo old.

I was stunned to feel the impact and that it was SO big. I was confused by that. I feel like I have had huge strides in the "loving me" department and that my body is finally understanding what that feels like... after FOUR decades! Being hit with this massive pain and sadness and... shame? (What the hell?! Shame? Wow! Where did that come from???) Being hit with that was startling because it was so intense and there was nothing I could do to stop the sadness. It just came and came and came. Waves of it crashing over me and through the gaping hole that had been left by the double-edged serrated sword that had slashed through me.

I couldn't not cry. Crying was all I could do. And when I could finally breathe easy again, between the sniffles and the hiccups, I checked in with myself, walked myself backward to the moment and actually listened to myself.

After he said those words, "I am married to her because she had the balls to make the moves," the very first instinct was to lash out in anger in violent and unhealthy ways. I instantaneously wanted to punch him in the face, kick him in the balls and scratch his eyes out. I realized that that instinct was covering the truth of the fact that OH MY GOD, THAT HURT! As I looked at myself in that moment, I saw me shrink and collapse inward. Mixed in with the need to violently wound him, I heard myself think, I am never gonna be enough for him.

What the?!!!

I am never gonna be enough for him?!!!

Good lord!

I am clear now that the "him" in this sentence is the operative word. It doesn't necessarily mean my former husband. It means anyone. And therein lies the intense sadness. I had thought I was enough for myself now. I had thought I loved myself fully. I had thought I finally understood what it feels like to be enough.

Now I have discovered that there is a part of me, still, that is not on board with all this. That part is directly in the center of my body and is now a gaping wound. It is oozing sadness and "not enough-ness" and I am feeling the pain of it all.

Several of my friends kindly pointed out last night that this was a Gift. I have now uncovered the part of me that was still holding on to the old belief of "I am not enough." I have discovered, thanks to his participation, that all of me was not into this loving myself stuff. So, he gave me a gift and for that I am thankful. It was just a very painful one.

Hard to Swallow...

"The whole reason I'm married to her," he said, completely oblivious to the knife he was slamming through my gut and heart, "is because she had the balls to make the moves on me."

He is referring to the last woman he had an affair with while we were married. He is referring to the woman he introduced to his family before we were even separated. He is referring to the third woman whom he got pregnant (and the only one successful in retaining the pregnancy) while we were married. He is referring to the woman who moved in to my place, used my wedding china and my wedding pots and pans and my entire house of furniture and decorations within two days of me leaving him.

He is married to her because she had the balls to make the moves. She had the balls to make the moves.

Why did that hurt so damn bad? Why am I sobbing and feeling as though I have died inside? Why did it feel like it cut right through the center of me and out the back, ripping all of my insides out with it? Why do I want to scream? Why am I crying? Why, after all this fucking time, WHY did that fucking piece of information hurt so goddamn much?

See... told you! Just had to give me a bit before the posts would become so not "light and lovey"...

TT - "Behind Those Eyes"

As I have mentioned before, I am a Reiki Master, trained in the art of facilitating others in their healing. Just after I completed my internship and Mastered, I took on a regular client in a business trade arrangement. We have been working together for almost two years now. When we began, she was in the beginning phases of her third battle with cancer.

She lost her right breast first to cancer about thirteen years ago. Five years later, she was diagnosed with a much more aggressive and completely different cancer in her left breast. They said they got it all. Five or so years later, she started feeling ill and went in for a check-up. That visit revealed that the aggressive cancer was back. It had settled in her hips and skull. Since then, it has spread to her legs and spots have shown up in her liver.

In the beginning of our work together, we were able to eliminate her pain and drastically slow the growth of cancer. Her tumor markers dropped to astoundingly low levels and her oncologist kept saying, "Whatever you are doing, keep doing it." She continually expressed her gratitude that she was completely without pain. I was grateful to be working with a client that was so firm in her resolve to get well and to live. I appreciated watching her physical and spiritual presence grow and her voice become strong. I loved hearing her stories and feeling her energy and supporting her on her journey. Our intention was clear from the very first session when she stated, "I am going to beat this cancer. I am determined to live my life as a healthy person."

Last fall, she took on a huge project of moving her aunt into a rest home. This entailed cleaning out her aunt's residence of many, many decades. For a month straight, they toiled and labored to clean out the home. I noticed that she was showing signs of fatigue. She accepted responsibility for not caring properly for herself and for working too hard on the project. Just as her project was wrapping and her energy level was at its lowest ever, I got bitten by that bug and ended up wading through the West Nile for over six weeks. I was unable to work for almost three months.

When we got back together just before Christmas, I was startled to see the stark difference. I felt tears burn my throat as she whispered, "I can't beat this cancer. It's not going to go away. I have accepted that." Her entire outlook had changed and I felt the desperation run through her body. She was so tired of the battle. So tired of the struggle. The pain had escalated. Her markers had shot up. Her energy level was completely drained. Her life force was strained. Her body was being ravaged by a weed that had not been properly tamed.

I reverently placed my hands upon her body that day, praying that I could do something to bring her back. The rhythms of her soul were so slow, they were almost undetectable. I wanted to pull my hands back and yell at the universe. I wanted to be angry with her. I wanted to hold her here, make her live.

At the beginning of this year, she came into my office for her first Reiki appointment this year with tears streaming down her face. This beautiful, 5'10" warrioress stood before me defeated and deflated. A physically diminished woman, her clothes hanging from her shrinking frame, her eyes haunted. And, behind those eyes, the message of the warrioress was clear: the journey has taken a turn we were not prepared for. I watched her and intuitively knew it was time to help the warrioress lay down her sword and shield and prepare her to be laid to rest. My heart sank to the floor and I cried with her. I wasn't ready to let her go. I wanted to hold on for forever. I wanted my beautiful, strong friend to be with me throughout life. I wasn't ready to release into death another one of my deeply-loved friends.

In the beginning, our appointments were every other week. This year, though, I switched her to every week because her life force was so weak. She had things she wanted to finish before she walked off the earth. She wasn't ready to go either. Our sessions were about refilling her reserves so she make it from week to week.

She started chemo again, as per her doctors assurance that "this will help you feel better." This morning she called me to say that she wouldn't be here for her appointment. She was going back to the doctors. After one dose of chemo, her system is completly shot. She went in yesterday and they told her they would need to give her four rounds of stuff (I don't know what) to boost her system before they could even get her strong enough for the next chemo dose. Something has gone seriously wrong.

I feel sad to know that the world is going to lose this amazing woman. I feel sad that I am going to lose a best friend. I feel sad that cancer is rampaging through humanity at alarming rates and we are seemingly at its mercy. The problem with that is, cancer has no mercy. It is not a respector of class, race, education, age or sex. It takes where it can. There are gifts in cancer. I know this. She has taught me this, as have several other people in my life. The sadness, though, of knowing that I am literally watching my friend die is intense beyond belief.

TT - "Sisterhood"

It's Saturday. I am finally addressing the Talk Thursday topic, Sisterhood "assigned" by Cele.

When the assignment came down the wire, I was decidedly pissy about it and said as much to Cele. I felt so UNsisterish at the time. I still do. I was startled when I felt my hair bristle on end when I read the topic. I was even more taken aback when I realized that I had no idea what "sisterhood" really means.

Sisterhood, for me, has some conotations with which I am highly uncomfortable, stemming back to my religious days. In The Church, men are "Brothers (Elders, Brethren)" and the women are "Sisters." Nobody has a first name. For a long time, I thought that every adult's first name was that and that somewhere along the way there was some sort of stripping of the unique first name and everyone became generic Brother or Sister.

Also, I am of the belief that women, in general, do not play well together. My life experiences have supported this, unfortunately, more often than not. I have very few "real life" female friends because, plain and simple, I don't trust them. I have experienced women throughout my life as being petty and bitchy and willing to do just about anything behind my back. Women have proven to me time and again that they are not here to support me, but rather to tear my hair out strand by strand, douse me with gasoline and set me on fire.

Nowadays, I am still very limited in the number of close friends whom I allow to really begin to know me. And, honestly, I think I still am guarded enough that there is no one single person that really knows who I am. In that limited number of close friends, there is one woman. She is someone who has known me since I was 11 and, even with her, I keep her at a distance.

In the one relationship where the terminology "sisterhood" should most directly apply - with my sister - I am unclear. My sister is five years younger than me. When she was born, all I could think in my five year old brain was that there had to be something much more special about her than there was about me. That was the only way I could figure out why she was seemingly more important than me. That feeling has carried on throughout my life - this sense that I am less than my baby sister. She's a college graduate. I am not. She's married with two children. I am divorced with one. She has her own home. I am living in a petite guest room. She is near to debt-free. I am drowning in debt. She is running her own highly successful business, bringing in five figures in some months. I am struggling to stay afloat. This less-ness is purely self-imposed and, frankly, insanity. I am just so different from my sister.

All of my life I have had this part of me that seemed to be missing. A hole. I have sought to fill it with stuff that didn't fit. Men. Food. Knowledge. What I mistakenly thought was love. In the end, I was (am) still left wanting, aching and wishing for this Norman Rockwell painting of a life where my Sisters gather around me and hold me up. Where they are beside me, cheering me on and wanting me to succeed. Where the women of my world want me in their presence and are women who I want in my life.

I have this sense that, as I journey ever further into the depths of the power of Me, I am growing farther away from the possibility that I will be a part of a Sisterhood. I feel a desperation of aloneness that calls to me from the darkness. A sense that, as I grow in my divine power, I become less able to blend with the humans, I become more alien. I feel scared that I am to find myself forever in a life wherein I am alone, without a pack or a tribe and without a partner.

And then I feel sad.

Yeah... Sisterhood... what is it, anyway?

Time, Space and...

...and... so what would I want more of? Time, Space and Money? Time, Space and Sex? Time, Space and Love? Time, Space and Chocolate?

Or, how about all of the above?

Today I am aware that time has accelerated. I feel an urgency around me, as though I cannot go fast enough to keep up with it all. (Which, on the heels of yesterday's post, that is sorta ironic.) It seems that it (time) is sliding away from me. And space? That is so at a premium these days. My petite guest room feels confining. And here at the office, I am being booted out of my space because Current Boss needs to sublease my half of the office for financial reasons. That means I will be moved over to a not-so-spacious space, crammed in a corner and much too close to his disasterous office of compressed chaos. Then, in the airy space where I am sitting right now, there will be a bitchy primadonna interior designer who thinks his shit doesn't smell, along with his entire staff. (Apparently I am angry about this change.)

The additional personages will take up the entire half of our office space. Good for Boss Man who is rarely here. Uncomfortable for me as I will be here day in and day out having to deal with the prissy ass. Not only that, my healing space office which is on this same side as I currently sit, will be in the middle of all that. Boss Man says, "R has agreed to let you use that room your office is in," with emphasis and snide intonation on the word "let." Yes, he has so kindly agreed to let me use that space. However, I know him well enough to know that he is going to want to lord over my time there and I doubt, highly, that he will respect the need for quiet.

I feel the time rapidly approaching when I leave this place, all together. I am scared about that. I am more scared that I am not willingly doing anything to leave this place. I have a story that there is nothing out there that fits my needs. I feel scared to leave the miserable comfort here. I am angry that I am feeling the necessity to change day jobs and find a new healing space. I feel scared that I will have to pay for my new healing space. At this point, my income doesn't allow for a lot of flex room. If I get a new day job, I have a story that I will lose either my time or money. If I add the expense of a new healing space on top of that, I may lose my head.

I am aware that this post is quite incongruent, whiny and jaggedy. Which, in and of itself is very appropriate as that is how I feel right now.

I want to go back to bed. Things seem so much better with my head under the blankies.

Ye-eah. Right.

Go! Go! Go!

My pattern in life, generally, is go, go, GO, GO, GO! GO! GO! CRASH!!! #$&$%*&$%$!

I know this about myself and it is something I am wondering about. Wondering how I can go through life more easefully.

Last night it played out in my dreams. It was an uncomfortable night with very little deep, healing sleep. I stayed near the surface, tossing and turning and never relenting to the cushion of repose. I dreamt of going, going, GOING! And then I would explode into bits. The bits would land as bizarre Seuss-like animals, ironically enough, and become lodged head-first in the walls and earth. When it would be time for me to leave the room I was in, I would have to gather all the parts and pieces of myself and figure out how to reabsorb these now-alien particles. Inevitably, an important part would be buried irretrievably and I would slink out of the room hoping no one would notice the mess I was leaving behind, nor the gaping hole that the missing piece would leave. Over and over it went. Room after room, I would leave behind one piece of me until I was a tattered mess, wobbling and unable to stand.

It's a fairly blatant message, I think.

And yet, I have no idea how to do it differently. I have asked this before and find myself asking it again and more often as of late... how do I do/be something differently if what I am doing/being - is all that I know? I would think that if I had access to different responses, I would have done that long ago. Yes?

I feel sad about the bits and pieces of me, which scatter upon the crash, that are getting irreparably damaged and resolutely lodged in areas wherein I cannot gather myself back into myself. I am evermore aware of the phantom limbs and guts which pain me, mostly because they are lost and alone in the wilderness desert I am journeying.

Perhaps that is why I feel so alone right now. Parts of me are scattered from hell to breakfast and beyond and I have no way of calling them in.

Ack... now I feel scared.

Hippity-Hip

Sooo... It's Easter. Apparently I should be posting some sort of ode to Peeps or hollow chocolate bunnies. However, I am feeling decidedly UN-Easterish. I am sitting here in my room, hibernating until the very last moment. Not really wanting to emerge from the cool darkness here. I wonder if Jesus felt like that? Do you think He wanted to stay in that tomb? Or do you think He was excited to come out of the dampness into the sunlight to be greeted by, none other than, Mary Magdalene? (Not that I am equating the petite guest room to the tomb, nor myself to Jesus.)

Hmmmmm... I am feeling angry right now. Shit. (Sometimes I wish I could back to the days when my anger was non-existant and my life seemed more pretty.) I know from whence the anger stems. I did another faux pas with my Meditations. Dammit if I cannot get this lesson down!

I am part of a yahoo group of people who graduated from my massage school. (or I was a part of this group. I have now been removed by the moderator who is an "old" friend that I have usually butted heads with because he is set in his way and plays it so by the book, refusing to look outside the box which is his little world... okay, that was rude. I'm leaving it though because I feel petty. Petty... so not attractive) People have recently been posting lots of stuff about seminars/classes/workshops that they are hosting. Silly me. I thought that what *I* do would be interesting for people too.

So, I checked in, dropped a quick note - which I haven't done for about two years - and shared this:

Hi, Friends!

I am amongst the charter members of this here MCU Friends yahoo group. (Hi, JIM! And thanks for setting this up and continuing to monitor it!!! Love ya!)

I am an amazing facilitator of healing through the written word and intuitive, interactive hands-on healing sessions. These are my passions and my divine purpose. I felt inspired, today, to share one of my gifts with you, my Meditation of the Week. I design these unique emails every week, write the articles and include artwork - of which, sometimes, it is even my own artwork. I feel happy when I create these beautiful Meditations and want to share them with the world. I will start with you. :)

I invite you to spend a moment with me and nurture yourself. If you find yourself moved and would like to be a part of my adventure, you can go to the sample on my website www.momentsofawakening.com. At the bottom of that page, there is a sign up box.

With love,
Angie


Then I attached a copy of my latest Meditation.

Okay soooo... ugh... this was followed by a very public and humiliating (for me) reprimand:

Hi Angie,
Although we love ya to bits, this is not a personal blog space and posting this lengthy blog to over 100 people, most of whom don't yet know you and did not request this, was not appropriate, particularly without asking first.
Please don't do that again.
Now they have your link to your website so those who wish can go there and enjoy your postings.
Those who have other interests in being members of this list won't have their email spammed again by this.

If anyone else has blog space, My Space, etc. things to share with the list, it's ok to make a brief mention and include a link inviting us to go there if interested, but please don't post a full-out blog here. A paragraph that you think the group will have interest in, certainly, but a full out blog, nope.

Thanks.
James
(list owner/moderator)


Following this public discipline session, he and I had a private interchange. He was "kind" enough to send me a formal definition of SPAM, implying that my post fit within all aspects of his definition. And eventually our posts disintegrated to the result of him kicking my ass out of the group because he doesn't "need the extra drama in my life."

Whatever.

So, this is going to sound totally unenlightened AND I am going to say it anyway cuz it's what is rattling around in my head. Apparently, *I*AM SPAM!!! I feel so sad right now. I only wanted to share what I love. I want to SHARE and, yet, I end up feeling wounded, injured, rejected. This is more than just with my Mediations. It is a common theme. I am wondering how I can more easefully and more quickly spread my Meditations (how can I share ME) AND keep my sensitive heart whole and happy?

James mentioned in his last post to me: "This really isn't about you as a person, Angie, though I sense it does seem that way to you." This is common feedback for me as of late. "This isn't personal. It's business." I have never understood that statement, especially when *I* AM the business. I just heard this very same thing from my former husband/boss on the very same day, "Angie, you just take this all too personally."

I don't know how to respond to this. I am an emotional being. I am sensitive. I think from my heart because, when I think from my head I get all fucked up. My head is unclear. My heart is always pure. And so, I am emotional. I don't know how to do "not personal."

And, apparently, the universal message is that I have got to learn how to do that. Somehow, I have to develop a thicker skin. I have a story that that means changing my core self. I am uncomfortable with that.

James also wrote: "I think you're a little unable to sense other people, but that's just my opinion and I could be wrong." I wanted to fly off the handle on that one. I am unable to sense people?! WTF!

Then I hear the advice from ALC yesterday... It is quite possible that all I think I know is absolutely fucking wrong.

Okay. I will hold space for that. And I will hold the universe in solution for this question... "I wonder how I can move through business effortlessly AND with ease AND joy?"

From Peeps, to Jesus, to SPAM... what a trip!

Out, In and Out Again

Up front and honest... I feel REALLY SCARED to write this out. I feel vulnerable and raw and exposed.

It has been about 60 hours since I got that phone call which stopped my heart and sent me spiraling through fear and nausea. I am angry. So very, very angry. and confused. and angry. I feel infinitely and seemingly unendingly tired. I feel like I could lay down right now and never wake up. I am pushing myself to go forward, pushing and pulling because if I don't, I fear I will get stuck here. My head feels like it is full of cottonballs soaked in acid and interspersed with anvils. Breathing is difficult and exhausting. My shoulders and back of my neck are caught in a vice grip of death and I have hot pain shooting from my lower back and down my legs.

Today, as I sit here at my desk wondering what I am supposed to do, I am scared. I used to be so proficient at everything and now I feel like I know nothing. I want to curl up and sleep, yet fear that will be a disservice to myself. I am angry that my daughter is startled at every loud sound now. I am angry that he broke his word to me. I am angry that I believed and believed and believed and... still... it happened. I am angry that his mother wounded him so violently and so deeply that I fear he will never surface as a healthy human being. I am angry that my daughter was scared. I am proud that she was brave.

In the instant that I was dashing out to the car, frantic and literally running to get her although I was a good half hour away, I was surprised that I was dialing 911 before I even realized it. To my detriment, I have usually wanted to handle things myself. This time I couldn't. I was too far away. My daughter needed me right then and I was too far away. She was alone, fighting off a beast and her mommy wasn't there to help. I feel angry about that.

I feel angry that this situation superceded my life. I feel angry that my commitment to ease and flow showed up LIKE THIS. i feel angry that while I am choosing differently for my life there are still others who are choosing to remain the same and it is directly effecting my life. I feel angry that HIS decisions, HIS behaviors are pouring over into my life. I feel angry that I was in a shelter. I feel angry I had to sit for ONE FUCKING HOUR at midnight and fill out forms before they would let us go to bed. I feel angry that I had to worry about if we were going to get lice. I feel angry we had to find sheets and blankets before we could make the bed before we could go to sleep. I feel angry about so many things about my experience at the shelter and the reasons we were there.

On Friday, I felt drained in sadness and fear. I hated that I was going to a shelter. I hated that I was hearing Marcus say, "I want to die I want to die I want to die" as he called me in desperation, feeling like a trapped wild bear, gnawing off his foot to save his own life. I am so fucking angry that this man was SO FUCKING WRONGED by his mother that he cannot see through to the light. I am so angry that she will never acknowledge the damage she has caused and release him from his bondage. And I am SO AWARE that there does come a time when an adult has to stand up and be an adult. I fear that he will die before that time comes for him.

I rose with the dawn this morning, feeling beaten and groggy, as though it had been me he had battled with. I have held space of calm for so many people this weekend. I have been an anchor for Marcus so he did not pull that trigger and end his life. I have held onto trembling little girls while they cried. I have comforted them when they were afraid to feel. I have helped them dance and scream and wail and cry and move their little bodies in the hopes that all the energy of that night will not get lodged in there deep to haunt them in the darkness. I have talked him off the ledge and into the light of reason. I have held her up when she couldn't hold herself up. I have been strong for everyone.

And now I feel so very weak. and alone. and tired.

And I am sad that... here I am again... alone.

Never Saw It Coming

I am so tired.
I would have never guessed that the string of events that I experienced yesterday were coming my way.
I am so completely without words...
and so tired
and sad
ugh

Left Out

Apparently my sister and her husband were in town from Idaho Falls last night before they flew out to Hawaii this morning. I know this because my father called to talk to my brother just now and brother told him he had gone to dinner with sister and her husband last night.

I wasn't invited.

This is a common occurence.

What I don't understand is why I am still bothered by this, after all these years.

But, I am.

Inside

"Come in," he said, his voice pleading and hoping. "Come in and hold me. Just for awhile. Hold me. I miss you. That is all I need. I only need you to hold me."

He felt small in the big room. Small and needing me, needing my comfort.

He needs me. I am a healer. Who am I to deny one who needs to be healed.

It is a thought that stops me at times. When do I heal? When do I need to turn from that Gift?

"Please, Angie. Please. Just for awhile."

It is my love, my tenderness, my gentleness that he misses. It is that which he once had and threw away, carelessly and uncaringly. Unknowingly, he threw away the greatest gift he could have ever had.

He threw away me.

And with that being said, I still want to hold him. I still want to ease his pain. I still want to heal him.

But I can't.

So I left.

And feel even more empty than I felt before.

Alone.

Vulnerable.

Wounded.

Hold me, please. Hold me. Cherish me.

Someone, please! See me for who I am. Love me for who I am. Inside.

And now, I weep.

Weeping

Okay... so this is the day of many blogs (four thus far). "Enough, already!" You say? HA! I am just getting started!

Soooooooooooooooo... I started a blog a few days ago. A blog that stayed in draft for some reason, which I no longer recall. (Perhaps because the blog is now being taken out of draft and being placed in the trash.) What I had written looked something like this:

I am so excited!!! SO SO SO EXCITED!

I have been invited to join a group of women - called Master Minds - and create this marvelous manifesting energy. I think it is going to be the most beneficial thing I have done for myself yet. I attended for the first time today, not knowing what to expect, and totally got my mind blown. It was unlike anything I have ever experienced and although the entire thing was weird and wild and foreign, it was a perfect fit! I am so excited!!!

Ummmmm... yeah... so that is where I stopped. I got interrupted there and had planned on going back to tell more about my experience, about what I am playing with manifesting and how it felt.

Now, about this group... it is a closed group. In other words, people do not just come and go as they please. You are in and you are in for the long haul. There is a scheduled time, every two weeks and it is never missed. They start on time. They end on time. And that... is... that. These women have been meeting for years. One of them moved away and there is an open slot. I was so completely honored to be asked to fill it. I didn't even know this group existed. Yet, they asked me. And my dear friend who asked me said a few days before the first meeting when I was worrying about my different schedule (all of them have huge flexibility because none of them work for anyone else), "Don't worry about the scheduling. Amazing things happen with this group. If you are meant to be there, it will happen." Well, it happened the first week. Something came up and the meeting had to be miraculously moved from Tuesday (their standard day) to Friday. So I got to go.

I work Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday full time. My boss has been so gracious in accomodating me in my funky schedule and wants me to succeed in my own business. He allows me to work only Mon-Wed full time, then a couple hours on Thursdays and Fridays so that I have time to build my own business. He wants to see me happy. He supports me in my success. He wants to see me do it. I feel so very grateful for that. Because I work only Mon-Wed full time, I have to work Mon-Wed full time. All the vendors and employees know that is when the office is open.

Friday's meeting was breathtaking and life-altering and so...so... amazing. I was excited to go forward into this year with that new energy. It was something I was really looking forward to and felt like it was where I was meant to be. But, no! NO! And I am so sad about it. However, I didn't start out sad. I started out ANGRY! Hello anger...

Thing is, I really despise being shown something and then having it taken away. I have the Gift of Sight and sometimes I can see the future outcome for myself. Which is a huge detriment because then my human side gets all involved and steps in and fucks things up, trying to get to the beautiful end earlier, avoiding divine timing and forgetting about others' Free Will. Well, this group was like that for me. I got to try it out and experience it. I got to feel hmmmmm... this feels really good! This feels like I am meant to be here! This feels like a perfect fit for me!

"We're sorry," My dear friend said tentatively. "I have talked with the others and it just isn't going to work to only have it on Thursdays or Fridays. They really want to stick to the Tuesday schedule and we like the flexibility of having the entire week to pick from, if there needs to be a change."

"Well, then," I said, trying not to sound like a rejected puppy dog and failing miserably, "I will have to pull out of the group." I wanted to vomit on the words. And the anger flared up so big and strong that I wanted to throw my phone at the wall.

I could hear the dejection in her voice, "I know. I feel so sad. I'm so sorry."

And I am hearing... No, you DON'T fit in here. No, you AREN'T enough for us to open up for changing it to Thursdays or Fridays. No, you can look, but you can't touch. No, sorry, go away. Only the cool girls get to eat at this table...

I am hearing that, mind you, in my head, not my ears. The other women are really being compassionate and willing to look at the options.

They are.

However, they are unwilling to commit to keeping it on those two days so that I can commit to attending. They want five days a week open at their disposal.

(And, the enlightened side of me wants to tell you that I can totally understand their side of the stories and I see their compassion and can feel their sadness at me not being there.)

And, frankly, right now? The unenlightened side of me does not give a fuck what the enlightened side is saying. It is one more thing that I have been shown and then have had taken away from me. Why couldn't they have discussed this first? Why couldn't they have discovered they would not limit themselves to Thursdays and Fridays BEFORE they let me in?!

It would have been such a different situation if they would have just said, to start with, "So sorry, we cannot conform to a Thursday/Friday situation instead of our standard Tuesday. It won't work." I could have rolled with that. I would have not even minded, actually, because I hadn't tasted it!

But no! Now, I have tried it. It's like letting me have really good, mind-blowing, earth-transcending sex for the first and only time in my life and then saying, "Ha ha ha! No more. You got to try it out. You got to see it. Now... psyche! Nope!" (this group wasn't that good, but you catch my drift.)

I have had way too many things as of late be shown to me and, even in some instances got to try out, only to be told... nope, not for you.

I really, really hate (and, yes! I fucking said hate!) it when I hear the, "If you're meant to [fill in the blank here...] it will work out..." because, in the moment that it doesn't work out I am left with that why not me feeling. That is the worst!

I am fucking tired of it! Tired, I say! TIRED!

(And yes, goddamn it! I hear the victim in that. I need to vent to get this out and that looks like playing victim right now, apparently.)