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I’m Sorry She Said….
Love. Valentine’s Day. First love. Relationships. The parent child relationship. The love of self.
If you are reading this, you probably have some literacy in basic psychology. You have probably come across the notions of the first relationship, and how that lays the foundation for our first sense of self. If you have been hanging out with me lately, especially in recent years, you have probably heard me prattle on a little about our subconscious drivers. About how if everything is great and awesome in your life, that is wonderful...and I am so happy for you! But if not, a great place to look is at your actions and reactions, and then below the surface. To uncover what unconscious patterns or origin stories might be driving your bus. Then we can look at the given, and challenge it. By challenge it, I mean pick it apart, examine it, see if it holds up. Is it true?
Do you want it to be true? Does it benefit you? Does it help you benefit others? What are you mirroring in your life?
Last year I started out 2020 with some pretty big hopes and dreams. I have been wanting to build my career in wellness. Wanting to take this way of being that I am, this way that I believe that I have helped myself and often helped others, and turn it into a career. I have read a lot of books. A LOT OF BOOKS. A couple of things that rattle around in my brain include:
Women won’t go for work that they aren’t more than qualified for, where as men will go for work they are only 60% qualified for. (I am not recalling the source, everything is this amalgamation of collected data in my brain at this time, but I have heard this more than once.)
You don’t need another degree or to spend more time and money getting another credential...take the leap, do the thing! (This might be from the book entitled...The Big Leap.)
If you want to be the noun, do the verb. (This was from a podcaster for creative types that I randomly heard on the radio, but like most things, it is not the first time or place that I heard it.)
I want to be a writer, so here I am writing. I want to be a helper and a healer, as a career, so last year, I tried to help and heal.
I kicked off the year with a vision boarding workshop. And my goal was to do a workshop every month, for all of 2020. I got 3 under my belt….and then Covid happened.
We are coming up on 1 year of things changing dramatically. And that is it’s own saga. But what do you do when the rug gets pulled out from under you? You pivot. You question the given, and you start over.
I'm sorry she said...
Last year at this time I was offering my ‘Will I be My Valentine’ workshop, an invitation to practice radical self love. Radical. Self. Love.
I started 2020 with the notion that I do things for myself anyway, I am always in process, and my purest goal was to share my process with others, with no expectation of specific outcomes. So as I wrote the workshops for each month, I looked at the themes in my own life, and what I was working on. February is ripe for Self Love, for those of us who don’t have it all figured out yet. It is 2021. I don’t have it all figured out yet.
Now I mentioned Covid and the need to pivot….At some point in the year I began meeting virtually with my group, and we became a gal pal cohort of folks just supporting each other. We are still meeting today, and this group has been a source of support, insight and acceptance, as we navigate challenging times. And sometimes have a laugh, and a virtual hug. We do what we can! So that was the pivot. But sitting here in a new year, the next year, I am thinking of the workshops.
Because I work and think in terms of ‘What am I doing?’ ‘What am I telling people I am doing?’ and ‘What should I be doing now, or next?’ I am sitting here typing this out right now.
I'm sorry she said...
I woke up pre-dawn after a big long sleep. I was exhausted, it has been a week. A terrible awful gut wrenching week. The kind of week that makes you drop what you are doing, figure out only what you have to be doing, and try to survive one breath at a time.
Since it has been about a week of that, and I slept for 10ish hours last night, 12 if you count the nodding off on the couch while hanging out with my family, I woke up pre-dawn asking myself, what’s next? What’s now? What’s today?
I started circling the drain of my mind, of my commitments, of my stressors, of my outlets. Of my relationships.
And this came up. The February Blog. Valentine’s day. This website and this concept of an at least, monthly, blog, is one of my pivots. One of my passions. One of my outlets. One of my dreams.
And I know where I want to go today, but I don’t know if I am ready.
I'm sorry she said...
Self. Self Love. Relationships. In Love with Others. The First Relationship.
Where do you look when things aren’t working? What do you do? How do you solve for X?
I can feel how much I am staying on the surface here and theoretical.
This is where the deep work is.
OK, let’s go for a dip….
My earliest memories of my mother, my relationship of origin, my first sense of self, came from a woman who was either trying to die, or telling me that she was going to die.
My earliest memories are of her fighting EMTs, or being unconscious and not able to fight. Of her throwing herself down the stairs. Of her passed out in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, caught by her forehead hitting the door. Of my dad leaving to go to the convenience store because she had cut the phone cord. Of the cupboard where the dishes should have been that were full of pills. Of the ways she told me she was going to die.
‘5 years. I won’t make it 5 years. In 5 years I’ll be gone.’
Of the hospital rooms, the emergency rooms. The strange hours on strangers couches.
Of the altered person stumbling around, telling me the ‘games are in the wrong place, we don't keep them here.’
Of the man, the dad, who loathed her.
‘Sorry means nothing’ he said
‘And she cost me $10,000.’
Of the cops taking me away.
Of the dad and the grandpa telling me ‘You’re just like her’.
And I’m fast forwarding here…
Of the mom who swallows needles and pins and paper clips when we talk.
That’s some mirror. That’s some first relationship.
I’m sorry she said.
I’m sorry.