(Content note: There’s some talk of sexual abuse in today’s piece. Just be easy with you, ok?)
Good morning, good morning. It’s chilly this morning, and there’re some scatters of overnight snow on the ground, but at least our 80 mph winds with the below-zero windchill have died down for the moment.
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged acceptance, cognitive dissonance, radical self belief, self trust
Good morning. How do you reach for a morning when all you want to do is snuggle up into the weekend? I have books and movies I want to tell you about, a hillside to describe (one covered with cows and wild turkeys and salt air). I want to tell you about tiny new lambs hopping like rabbits through green California pastures.
Today I am back at work after a long weekend up at Tomales Bay. Something happens to my body when I go there, when I am in that landscape, a place that feels like home — there are cows and sheep (though no miles-long corn or wheat fields) and wild green pastures — and then there’s the sea and the bay. I want to tell you everything and it’s hard to settle in on one place to begin. Someone wrote about that at Dive Deep yesterday — how everything wants to get written at the same time, so many voices and characters calling for our writer’s attention. Continue reading
Comments Off on can we trust release?
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged ease, joy, radical self acceptance, self trust, trauma aftermath
Candle, genmaicha, and fast-moving fingers this morning — the puppy is just about ready to go out, and I got started late because I needed to have some notebook time.
(some straightforward language about trauma and violence this morning, just to give you a heads-up, my friends…)
This morning I am thinking about fear, and about what we do with it.
At the end of this month, I will be leaving my part-time day job, in order to open up space in my work life for Writing Ourselves Whole and for the writing that I need to do. I gave notice about a month ago, and spent the first couple of weeks in exhilaration and planning/idea-generation mode. Then ‘reality’ began to set in: What in the hell am I doing? Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged believing in ourselves, dreams, Goethe, radical self care!, self trust, trauma aftermath, W.H. Murray
"The truth is that they don't know what they want, sweetie. Ignore them, it isn't worth it. You see yourself beautiful, you're beautiful!!"
Good morning! Today has been morning pages on the floor of my office, candle-lit, at 5:05, then a dawn-break walk with the puppy, where we were serenaded by an owl. Now it’s nettle-mint-skullcap tea and settling down for some quiet time. We are learning the different ways to be with each other.
What next? The sun comes up. I wrote in my journal, “she wakes up like morning in a new town.” I’m afraid of becoming one of those pup-parents who only talks about her dog — and then I remember that it’s only been three days. Yes, it’s ok to still be obsessed.
Comments Off on talking to the triggers
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged intuition, listening to triggers, radical self care!, self trust, sophie, trauma aftermath
she says, "the city is ours!"
Good Monday morning to you! Right now, I’m in my living room, and just to my left, at my feet, is a 5-month old, hound-lab-mutt mix puppy called Sophie. We found her in the animal shelter up in Mendocino County (a great road trip for us, a less fun road trip for her) on Friday and brought her home to live with us on Saturday — today is our second full day together, this new pack of ours, momma & poppa & Sophie Star. She curls up into a small ball when she’s sleeping, then stretches out wide and long, and is a fireball of energy when she’s awake. She’s quick, smart, and has been making this huge change very easy on us.
What do I want to tell you? I’m exhausted from not sleeping, really, for two nights — there’s a new life in the house, one I’m responsible for now. What sounds will she make? How will she take to her crate? Will she let me know if she needs something? This morning she let me get up and do my morning pages before I opened her kennel and we went out for our walk, just as the sun was about to lighten the sky. It’s 6:42 now — I stayed in bed as long as I could, and got up at 4:23, listened to some tail-thumping coming from the crate, but no whining. We are learning how to be with each other, how to flow with each other’s movements, how to accommodate each other’s needs. Yesterday we went on 5 walks together — in the past, I could go days not taking one walk. The past is finished now. (That, of course, is a tautology, but still…)
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged do it anyway, fear, radical self care!, self trust, sophie, transformation