Independence Day 2017- Freedom from ……..
Waking up kid-free, people free, day off, with only my dogs and an invitation to join trusted others without a requirement to do so is niiiice. The fact is I need lots of people-free time to recover. Not to recover from the people I love(ok, well maybe a little from them) but to recover so that I have something good to give them, not just my 48 years of fatigue. I have been learning about trauma. A reality that is taboo, too obscene and scandalous to speak of, yet honest dialog is essential for healing, no matter how many decades have since passed. Time does not heal shit. Truth does. The knowledge of our experience is stored in our bodies. (more…)
So, over lunch, I conducted a survey on my sons and their friends, a highly evolved bunch….of course. I asked: “If you were at school and there were only two plates being served for lunch: 1) highly popular but not what you like and 2) an offering of something far less popular, maybe even unusual (They suggested swordfish) which you liked. What do you choose? You would be seated at the table only with others who chose the same food selection as you.” Brilliant response were as follows: 
connection, wholeness, peace, and kindness of people who value me. I no longer doubt and dislike myself enough to subject myself to the painful brand of love-and I have for now stopped begging for it to be different, with my family of origin. Without self-love, I was willing to come around, to dine with people who name call and behave in ways which are diminishing to me- creating unnecessary hardship and loss of innocence for my children. I realize how I came to marry my children’s father, emotionally and morally vacant, concerned primarily with appearances. Not knowing what being loved and nurtured felt like, I chose more of what I knew. As I have recovered; learned what it means to offer, receive, and welcome wholesome love and nurturing, I no longer tolerate or take blame for others whose behaviors and words I experience as foul.