torn wide open

I have begun the official path of my spiritual journey of healing.  I am off chemicals (anti-depressants, ambien, ativan).  All natural, eating well, gardening, learning to meditate, learning reiki, raw as hell.  Part of me just wants to get it over with, part of me wants something to numb it all.  I feel it all so intensely- everything beautiful, sad, alive, lonely, I'm torn wide open, shredded, raw... partially aware, not enough to protect me.  

I am afraid I will fall in, get lost in myself.  or worse, fall out, little bits of me evaporating into the universe and never coming back, floating away until I disappeared.

From the book "Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle

The "sane" are not really sane, and the psychotics are not as mad as they appear to be... such people feel unreal and disconnected... their fear of losing themselves is so consuming and over-whelming that it results in self preservation, rather than self satisfaction...   The person is plunged into a void of nonbeing in which he flounders.  There are no supports, nothing to cling to, except perhaps, some fragments of the wreck.  Madness need not be a breakdown.  It is also a breakthrough... intellectually, emotionally, interpersonally, organizationally, intuitively, theoretically, we have to blast our way through the solid wall, even if at the risk of chaos, madness, and death.

That's the part I'm afraid of!

exquisitely perfect

so.  In my last life I must have been a mermaid... I could communicate with my heart.  Now I have clumsy legs and I struggle to use words.  I miss the water and communicating with my heart.

I am learning.  We are not good or bad; we are perfect.  Just like flowers and butterflies, seeds and strawberries, sunlight and the moon.  We have everything perfect inside us.  The only thing that can be labeled bad is when we judge and punish ourselves.

Don't analyze, don't judge, don't punish.  Just be.  We are absolutely magnificently, exquisitely perfect, right here, right now, exactly as we are.  Flawed, confused, curious, silly, inquisitive, baffling, messed up... exactly as we are supposed to be, on this journey called life.

Beautiful imperfect humans (in 3D heavy clumsy earth bodies).  And the best part- it just gets more beautiful along the way!

The world needs to bow down before love.

thoughts before my first reiki session...

I want to feel loved, content, in my place, that I belong both in my body and on this planet.  I want to feel safe, grounded, connected, oneness with all that is good and divine in the universe.

I want to feel strong, healthy, fit, limber, radiant, fluid.  I want to eat foods that nourish me, and surround myself with people who nourish me too.

I am afraid...  Afraid I am not strong enough to survive the process of healing.  Afraid there isn't enough time or money to learn what I need to learn to grow and heal.  I am afraid there is so much damage that I will never be ok.  What if I can't turn it into something beautiful?  What if I always feel raw, vulnerable, unworthy?  What if I never fill up this empty space within myself, no matter how much I give and love?  How can I inspire and help heal women when I myself feel small and vulnerable?  How can I be a good mom if I never had a mom?  How can I ever feel loved when I wasn't wanted?  How can I find balance between feeling so much love for the world, and feeling so sad at the same time?  I feel raw and in wonder and blessed... also lonesome, weird, and so sad.  I am frustrated with what is, and so hopeful for what could be.  I feel so connected and alone....?

I want to make a difference.  I want everything to matter.  I want there to be more than just... this?

Can I learn to comfort myself?  Can I hold me in my arms, gently tell me it will be ok?  Will it be ok? Would I believe me?

grief and reiki and hope

The other day I went to my old house to get some plants and the clawfoot tub in the yard.  I hoped to be there before the renters but they showed up early, caught me standing in the front yard with a shovel, sobbing.  The house I lived in and loved for ten years...  is no longer my home.  Strangers are moving in.  My marriage is done.  

Why does it make me so sad to dig up plants?  I get to take them with me and replant them.  The new tenants were so kind and understanding, as I wept big tears and could not voice the words behind them.  

Also on my mind that day... my friend had major surgery and I was to go take her lunch and be with her that same day.  I hated to take my sad sorry-ass energy to her, so soon after surgery.  When I called, she said, "No worries!  I am on narcotics, I won't even remember.  Come anyway and be with me."

While I was there, her friend came by to give her reiki love.  Oh my, words cannot encompass this beautiful, surreal, sacred experience.  His energy was so loving!  He was absolutely tender and gentle with her, his hands on her hands, then on her face, her heart, her belly.  He could feel her sadness, as she welled up with tears and asked if she was still a woman.  He honored her, listened, and reassured her that yes, she was definitely still a woman, all the while holding her hands and caressing her hair.  

He asked her, "beautiful, how long has it been since anybody just held you and let you cry?"  She mumbled sleepily, "Oh, I think since the last time you held me".  I burst into tears, and wept, overcome with my own grief in the world, for my pain, and for her pain, and for his gentleness.  I wanted to curl up on his lap and let him hold me too.  Everybody needs a lap and arms, a safe place to grieve.

He asked if I'm an empath, and yes I am.  He suggested that I lay down with her, and hold her, snuggle her, comfort her, help ground her, as he did reiki on her.  I laid and put my head on her shoulder, my dear friend of almost 20 years, she and I held hands while he did his magical energy work.  I could feel the energy move all the way through, calming and connecting and nurturing.  Protective even.  

I was not held as a child.  I have no memories ever of being held.  When my gramma was dying, I wanted so much to climb in bed with her and hold her.  I still have recurring dreams of doing this.  She would never have allowed it though, so I mourned her loss from the other side of the room, my only real parent and I couldn't even hold her as she was leaving me.

In a way, I am touched, because THIS is what I have needed my whole life, not counseling or meds. Part of me knows I need this.  I don't even know what reiki is, but I need this.  In a way, I am relieved to know this exists.  And I am sad that we have to pay someone to re-teach us something that should be so instinctual and innate.  I'm broken hearted because I am still filled with grief of my own, I am empty, lonesome, unfulfilled, have no family, and don't know how to recover.  

I yearn for this peace and grounding.  I don't want to have to ask someone else to teach me.  I don't want to rely on someone else to give me a safe place to learn this, a stranger (who feels strangely safe?) to ground me and guide me to heal.  But I don't know how to do it myself.  I feel vulnerable and small sometimes, knowing both how much I have survived, and how much growing, learning, healing that I still need to do.  

Part of me just wants to be held.  Most of me actually.  I don't know how to allow it, being vulnerable and safe with someone.  And part of me is hungry to learn all this.  In the meantime, I went home, in awe and touched by this new human experience, where good people can hold you safe and help you heal.  I cried all day.  I cried so hard I couldn't even brush my teeth for bed, my eyes swollen shut.  I can't even comprehend that this really is possible for humans to be so loving.

do nothing guru- julie o rose

This writer inspires me, this passage moves me.

Aum returns us to "I am"- a creative sound that allows stillness to speak.  In the silence of our soul, we hear an inner prompting guide us into wisdom, knowledge, understanding.

I am willing to learn and unlearn.
I am present in this moment.
I am thankful to be alive.
I am 100% responsible.
I am a Sacred Being.
I am free to be.
I am an inspiration.
I am a life-giver.
I am a wellspring of wealth.
I am a living scroll.
I am alone... all one.
I am a Blessing.


I am love.  Be...in love.  An invisible heartbeat forms and reforms my human heart and transforms me now.  My mind attunes to the love song my heart sings to me.

thoughts from Eckhart Tolle

Notes from this deeply powerful book...  The Power of  Now

Resist nothing.  My true nature as the ever-present "I am" consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form.  Peace, bliss, sacredness.  You have it already.  You just can't feel it because your mind is making too much noise.

Every person contains the seed of enlightenment from within, the knower behind the thinker, the deeper self that immediately recognizes spiritual truth, resonates with it, and gains strength from it.

Radiant joy of being and the deep unshakable peace that comes with it.  

what if this is all i ever am?

What if I can't outrun my thoughts?  Even when I keep going, my mind still goes faster, processing, questioning, thinking, doubting, debating, growing, stretching lists, tasks, schedules, meaning, the world... all at the same time.

What if, no matter how much I do, it's not enough to make a difference?  What if I'm busy being a mom, working, doing chores (background stuff) and that's all I ever do?  Is that enough?  For who?  God?  Is the energy spent there just as important as important as energy spent other ways?  I will never ever make my birth parents proud.  Will I make my son proud?  Or me?  What if this is all I ever am?

What if I never fill up this empty space in myself, no matter how much I give, because nothing can never fill up being an unloved, unwanted, vulnerable child?  What if I can help others, but not myself?  What if I can love and lift others up, but I fear I will be alone when I need it?  What if I always need to be lifted up because I don't know how to do it myself?  What if nobody cares anyway?  How can I believe in love and giving when I have no role models or examples of it?  How can I be strong when I am hiding the scared, abandoned, unloved little child inside me?  How can I be a worthy mom, when I never had one?  How can I inspire and heal women when I am myself just a fragile child?  How can I be a strong safe place for women, when I myself need a safe place?  And be reassured that all will be well... all is well...

The most important roles in the world- being a woman and being a mom- and I am hopelessly painfully ill-equipped to do either.  Yet I dream to do do more.  Silly girl.

This human-being thing is messy and complicated.  I have no idea what I'm doing.  I know what I want to be though--  a strong woman, a worthy mom, and an inspirer to change the world in good ways.  

Today I cried.  And cleaned the bathroom, did some dishes, prepared dinner for my son, cried on my journal... Not even close to my ideal yet.  Maybe God (or divine or universe) appreciates effort, even if I'm doing it all wrong?  Boy I hope so.