RIP Maya Angelou ... I will dearly miss you

I Rise 

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise. 

Maya Angelou

My patio

One of my very favorite places to be is where I am at this moment ,,, sitting on my back patio, at my new table while one dog lays at my feet and the other one tries desperately to get me to throw her ball repeatedly.  :-)  It's a happy place and time, sitting here sipping my tea, eating breakfast, listening to the wind in the trees, watching the dog walking/bike riding activity in the park right behind & below my house.  This is something very precious to me, this morning ritual of moving slowly & thoughtfully into my day.  It is extremely important to me to preserve this, and while I know we all have to make a living, including me, my intention is to design a full life where this precious morning time remains as is.

I'm so grateful for this not just because I know there are people who don't have this, or even because there was a time when I didn't have it either.  My gratitude really springs from clearly remembering a time when I had it and didn't know how precious it was, and when it was taken from me while I was sick.  All those morning laying in that hospital bed three years ago, physically and mentally incapable of recalling how it felt to feel good, to not be in pain and to have ones own life without tubes, nurses, all manner of strange pharmaceuticals and no fresh air.  They really need to make hospital rooms with windows that open ... fresh air is crucial when you're trying to heal, I think it is anyway.

My gratitude now also remembers a time, a lifetime, of mornings where I was hung over, exhausted from trying to sleep with too much alcohol in my body, regrets over having drunk so much (yet again) and maybe what I did the night before (or who I did it with), feeling puffy and bloated, my stomach and head in turmoil, dehydrated and just having no peace whatsoever in my heart.  Feeling like I'd failed again, beating myself up again for not being stronger, smarter and more capable.  And in all of that, there was no appreciation of the life I had, the beauty of the morning and it's surroundings.  I thought I was a grateful person then, but I see now that my gratitude was more about what I had avoided, or what I had "gotten", not for this beautiful life because I couldn't stop berating myself long enough to be present to what was.

I'm still not always present to what is, appreciating each moment and letting future moments unfold as they will.  But I am doing a whole lot better than I was, and have stopped trying SO hard to be someone that I am not and never will be.  I surrendered my attempts at controlled/disciplined/moderate drinking, accepted my powerlessness and in doing so, I got myself back.  That's pretty powerful stuff, and I'm grateful for that too.

Ok, going back to sipping tea, throwing the ball and relishing the moment.  Have a great day!!

Food obsessions

So I just noticed something - A significant difference in my body when I ate an orange versus when I ate maple syrup (aka sugar).  

You may not know this about me, but I don't just have an addiction to alcohol, I also have an addiction to sugar.  And like alcohol, I have no shut off valve with sugar and it's really, really bad for me.  My whole life I wondered what the heck people meant by a "sugar high" ... all I've ever gotten from sugar (in any form other than fruit) is an instant feeling of lethargy & fatigue, a racing pulse & pounding heart.  However, once I get it in me, all I want is more, and more, and more.  And with each bite, I feel worse, and worse, and worse.  Once I've gotten it out of my system, I don't crave it ... but it's that "getting it out of my system" that is challenging.  Exactly how my alcohol addiction behaves, exactly.  

So tonight I told myself I could have a spoonful of almond butter with maple syrup (I know, weird combo but there it is :-) ) if I had an orange first.  I ate the orange, relished it's cool sweet juiciness.  I felt the sensation of freshness, of being refreshed, and of lightness.  Then I ate the almond butter/maple syrup combo, and felt heavy, burdened and my heart started pounding.  One food left me  feeling light, the other left me feeling heavy.  Hmmmmm, I really like having that comparison in my head next time I reach for one versus the other.  

Aaaand, I notice when I put a citrus essential oil in my drinking water (Tangerine, Orange, Lemon or Grapefruit) I don't have those sugar cravings!!  Happy observation.  :-) 

Asking for help

I don't know about you guys, but asking for help has to be one of the toughest things for me to do.  And it's not that it is hard to ask - it's hard to remember to ask, I just don't think "gee, maybe someone else knows this thing I don't know and would be willing to help me".  No, my thoughts go more like "I've got to figure this out to feel good about myself, as I'm sure everyone else in the world can do this except me".

So, last week, after noting and writing about feeling stagnant, it finally occurred to me that I need help.  I have all these irons in the fire right now, and am struggling with how to pull them all together into something cohesive that I enjoy doing and can earn a living from.  My thinking was that it would somehow just come together, as long as I'm moving forward it will coalesce without my having to make it happen, which I obviously don't have the current skills to do.

Since that doesn't seem to be happening, I decided to ask for help in the form of a personal life coach.  I'm really so excited about taking this step.  It won't be cheap, but she's very good at what she does so I know I'll get much more than my money's worth.  Plus, I believe that I'm putting out into the universe what I'd like to receive ... abundance, in all it's many forms.

So begins the next step in my evolution, or beautiful metamorphosis.  Yayyy me!  :-)

Good night for now!

Shopping ... or not

Quick Saturday morning comment about something that happened earlier this week.  I've talked here before, I think, about how over the last 16 months of sobriety and working on myself I notice that my other OCD compulsions (or addictions) have also started to heal.  A big one of those has been shopping.  For years now shopping has been one of the many things I did to try and fill this emptiness inside myself.  I bought things constantly, things I didn't need and in fact, could never make use of in a million years just due to shear volume.  I bought clothes, shoes, makeup, beauty items (you should have seen my hall closet, it looked like a mini drug store), perfume ... the list goes on and on.

And what I realized over the years is that it wasn't about "having" this stuff, it was just about the "buying".  Once I got everything home, the thrill was over.  I'd hang the clothes up, tags still on and eventually do a big closet clean out, take big bags of stuff to Goodwill and the process would start all over again.

But as I've begun to fill that vacuous space inside myself with gratitude, clarity and a true connection with God,  the need and desire to buy things has diminished and now even gone away. I got a card from Ann Taylor the other day for $50 off an order, and it just went into the trash.  What I was feeling was "I've got every.single.thing I need and it's plenty".  Gone was the "yes but I could just look online, I might find something I need" and before an hour had gone by I would have spent enough to "save" that $50, and before long a box would arrive that I might not even remember ordering, full of more beautiful things to hang up and ignore.

So, yes stopping all the money spending is great!  But what feels better than that is just realizing I have enough, more than enough, I have abundance in spades.  Abundance in my closet and in myself.   I'm growing!  :-)

Grateful

It's amazing how, with just a little prayer and staying focused, our attitude can shift so quickly from feelings of being overwhelmed by life to just pure gratitude for what life is at this moment, right now.  That's where I am today.  And one way I get here, in addition to or maybe because of surrender and prayer, is to recognize that any pressure I'm feeling is self-imposed.  Wow, what a relief!!

I truly have so very much to be grateful for!  What a blessing it is that I have the life I have, that money isn't a constant struggle, that I can take this time to become the woman God intended me to be.  Sometimes I feel guilty that money isn't a struggle for me right now, and sometimes I get downright panicky when I think about my future and money, how is all this going to come together and work out?!  And that panic and fear can be overwhelming, and it actually keeps me from seeing what I DO have, how great things ARE, right now!  Fear of the future can keep us being, and staying, present, in the moment.  Guilt, panic and fear don't serve anyone, they don't make one single thing better and they don't move us forward ... I wrote yesterday (or whenever that was lol) about feeling stagnant.  With today's clarity and 20/20 hindsight, I am seeing that those feelings were largely due to losing sight of the present moment, forsaking it in favor of worrying about the future and not seeing how far I HAVE come and how much I AM doing.

I am 51 years of age, and I have never, not once ever, NOT had everything I need to be just fine.  I've had air to breathe, food to eat and water to drink, relationships to learn and grow from, animals to love and be loved by, a roof over my head, a car to drive with gas in it, warm clean clothes to wear ... the list actually goes on and on ad infinitum.  There is no evidence to suggest, to even hint, that this won't always be the case - and for this, I am so very grateful and thankful, I am so blessed!  I am going to work on living more in the present, seeing all that I'm already blessed with and giving more back.  As I told someone else yesterday (need to listen to my own words),  when we give love we get love, when we give acceptance we are accepted, and so on.

Ok, now I need to do something more productive!!  lol, just kidding.  ;-)

Stagnant

That's how I'm feeling right now, have been for the last week or two.  I feel stuck where I am, kind of in limbo.  Not sure what, if anything, I'm meant to be doing about it.  I've been praying and just asking for guidance, and I think this is for a reason.  What that reason is doesn't seem to be my business at the moment.   And in truth, I am probably moving forward more than I realize.

In a meeting I was at yesterday the topic was humility.  And I chaired a meeting on Sunday, sharing a part of my story to demonstrate that we're not ready for recovery until we're ready, that bad things can happen which in retrospect seem like an opportunity to change direction, but when we were in it, we couldn't see it that way.  And someone observed that what he was hearing was how selfish I was when I drank.  So I've been processing those two things the last couple of days ,,, humility and selfishness, asking myself if I'm humble and if that selfishness is still with me, still guiding my actions.  Truth is, I don't really know.  Selfishly speaking, I think I am pretty humble.  lol (total tongue in cheek).

I've also developed a small crush on a guy that goes to some of my meetings.  I don't really know him very well, just his age and how long he's been sober.  The very thought of taking a secret crush to any kind of next step just freezes me up ... I really am not ready for that.  The only way I've been able to navigate relationships with men to date was with (or through) alcohol.  I've never dated sober, never had sex sober and now that I am sober, I can see that I have never let myself be truly vulnerable with a man.  That's a lot to think about.  But I enjoy thinking about him and .... well, yes fantasizing about him lol.  For all I know he could be in a relationship.  For right now, it feels good to JUST feel this way, even if it might be totally one-sided.  

Some fear and uncertainty about the future creeping in again.  So many things to do, things which I tell myself everyone else has figured out and is on top of, but in truth I don't know if that's correct or not.  And I think I too have some things figured out that others might not have, so I just need to stay present, notice from time to time how far I've come and leave the future in Gods hands where it belongs.

I believe that's it for today.  :-)

Menopause The Poem

I wrote this about two years ago, well I started it then, just finished it recently.  Things are much better now, but this describes some of the craziness I was feeling after arriving at menopause surgically due to colon cancer and chemotherapy.  Maybe some of you can relate.  :-)

Menopause The Poem

Menopause menopause, what can I say,

You have changed my life in so many ways.

I used to be so cool, calm and collected,

Now I’m all sweaty and my hair looks neglected.

Some things are itchy, others are dry,

Sadly my libido has sailed away, gone bye-bye.

One minute I am crying, so full of sadness, 

The next in a rage, gripped by pure madness! 

My memory is shot, have you and I met?

I’ve known you for years?  Damn, how could I forget! 

So I spit in a tube, have a lot of blood taken,

From this sweaty nightmare I will soon awaken. 

Now slap on some hormone creams ,,, one, two and three,

Ahhhh here it comes, my return to sanity. 

Starting to remember more names, faces and dates,

But when I go for a walk, do I need a bike or skates?

To those who are young, this is all so mysterious,

And men - forget it, they’re not even curious. 

Our baby making days are over and done,

But now, whoa boy, we can really have fun! 

Don’t let society tell us we’re through,

Now is our moment, time to live life anew.

Self discovery, new passions, find a four-leaf clover, 

Let me assure you, our life is far from over. 

Sisters, we go deeper than just our ability to mother,

Our true strength resides within us, not within another. 

It is finally our time and we will be silenced no more, 

We are fierce women, let the world hear us roar.  

Spinning Head

I'm feeling a little traumatized by some things that happened this weekend, around addiction issues with other people.  I will talk about it once I've spent some time processing, and feel like I won't be outing anyone.

In the meantime, I am sitting here posting this from a local Starbucks, which has become my "office" when I need to get out of the house.  I have a home office, but sometimes I feel paralyzed and overwhelmed with all that needs to be done, both personally and professionally.  So getting up, getting dressed like I'm going to an office and coming here (I go to different ones for a little variety.  Stop laughing at me) helps me corral my thoughts into action and I get more done.

So as I'm sitting at this one, which is right next to a large corporate office complex, and people are coming here with co-workers on a coffee break or to have a meeting, I am hearing their conversations and wondering that there was ever a time when this felt "normal" to me.  Lots of superficial discussions, people being charming and playing the political game ... blech!!  Don't misunderstand, I am in NO way judging any of it, I am simply observing, remembering and noting much my life has changed in the last three years since I left the corporate world I used to live in.  I didn't just live in it, I thought that was all there was, I didn't yet know anything else or have anything to compare it to.

Now, I am finally emerging from my cocoon of recovery from the last three years (I write much more about this in my chapter "Beautiful Metamorphosis" for the anthology I'm co-authoring titled "In Pursuit Of The Divine: Written Stories to Empower a Woman's Soul" coming in mid-May.  Stay tuned), and looking around at what my life used to be and seeing what it is now.  What exactly the future will be is still a little murky, and that's ok.  God's got that and for now, He's not showing it to me clearly and I know there's a reason for that.  But I don't believe my best future is going back to the corporate environment, what I have to offer and give doesn't fit into those parameters.  There's a reason it never felt natural to me, and that I always seemed to be mis-stepping and getting into hot water.  It always felt like a game that had rules which everyone around me knew inherently, without having to ask or learn, but I never knew what they were and always felt like I was running behind everyone, trying to just catch up.  Anyway, it's interesting now to sit here and observe that world, and feel so outside of it, having NO desire to return to it.

I've been eating food the past week or so that is NOT good for me, and which causes me much pain.  It's what I call having a case of the "fuck its", and it's dangerous territory for an alcoholic like me.  At least I'm aware of it and am talking about it.  There are physical and emotional consequences for me to behave this way - physically when I eat sugar and gluten, I feel pain in my body, dis-ease in my digestive system and general discomfort.  Emotionally, it feels very similar to how and why I drank, so it screams "danger" at me.  Thankfully I'm seeing my therapist this week, she can usually help me zero in on what's going on and how to process it in a healthier way.

I believe that's enough for today.

Mental health journey

I wrote this entry for my mental health providers website as part of Mental Health Awareness month.

Three years ago, in April 2011, God delivered to me a wake up call in the form of colon cancer.  The life I was living at that time was so out of alignment with who I really am, or who I was meant to be.  I was numbing all my darkness and pain with alcohol, sex, food, shopping, traveling - and not even sure what exactly I was so afraid of feeling.

My cancer wasn't fatal,  but it was the end of the life I was living at that time, and I believe that's exactly what it was meant to be.  Physical recovery forced me to slow down, the spinning top that I had become was no longer able to hide from what my life had become.  The spinning stopped, a lot of things started to come into focus and I knew everything had to change if I was to survive.  And I knew that I would need help on this journey.

I got into a recovery program for alcoholism in January of 2013, one of the best decisions I've ever made.  And as I started to peel back the layers of scar tissue that had grown over a lot of original wounds, I sought counseling help from someone who understood my alcoholic mind.  Based on a recommendation from my doctor, I started seeing Kathleen to begin the process of looking honestly at myself, my pain and find some different coping mechanisms.

As part of this journey I have come to realize that I, like many of us, carry certain beliefs about myself, my life and God.  Some of these beliefs came from inside me, some came from suggestions from others that I chose to accept.  Many of these beliefs are very limiting, and with the help of sobriety and counseling, I am better able to examine them honestly and decide whether they still work for me or not. Beliefs such as I am only fun and interesting when I drink, or that the only thing I bring to a relationship with a man is my body & ability to be pleasing.   I am an introvert and an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person), and quite the loner in reality.  My belief that those parts of me were socially unacceptable, and even broken, led me in a lot of self-destructive directions.  I couldn't see it as self-destructive when I was in it, although I wasn't exactly happy either.  I just thought that if I could only get the combination right for once (lose enough weight, find the right man, work the right job, earn the right salary, etc), then at last I would be happy.  It was always around the next corner, out there somewhere ... and never did I believe that my drinking was the very thing keeping all that happiness constantly out of reach.

I still have a ways to go, but today I have learned that I can't survive if I seek to numb rather than feel and that my feelings won't destroy me.  I've learned a lot of self acceptance, and believe that is the key.  I still want validation from others, but it doesn't determine if I'm ok with me.  I am grateful for all the lessons learned so far, for the journey I am on and for the healers I have been blessed with along the way.

Thankfully, Friday

Wow, it's been a very intensely emotional week.  Normally, in my current lifestyle, Friday's have been feeling like any other day of the week when they used to be my favorite day.  But this week, I'm feeling a profound sense of relief that Friday is here, that I don't have a lot of "must do's" today or the whole weekend, and that I can finally feel my breath letting out.

First of all I have to say I got a facial yesterday, and she did some really deep extractions (removing blackheads with some torturous little metal instrument) that really HURT!  Still hurting today.

Okay, got that off my chest.  A friend of mine in recovery, who just had six months of not drinking under her belt, went out and drank last weekend and is, apparently, still drinking.  It's hard to watch that happen, and even harder to watch what it's doing to their daughter who is just a teenager.  I can see what this is doing to her (the daughter), at least some of it, but I don't think they can.  The whole situation has hurt my heart this week, and while I didn't feel my sobriety was being threatened, my serenity sure was.  But I'm doing much better today, and have finally come to realize that it's not my job or my right to try and "save" someone, that is Gods job and He is so much better at it than I ever was or thought I was.

The gift that this has brought to me is a profound reminder of how close I am, we all are in recovery, to that darkness that was/is our addiction.  I know my friend is in a very dark place right now, and if I could shine a light in there for her, I would.  But I know for sure that I don't ever want to go back into that darkness.  I was driving up to a hair appointment yesterday, and hearing the news that she was still out drinking, and my heart just sunk.  But in that moment, as I was driving, texting (which I know I shouldn't have been) and feeling so confused, I could feel Gods presence with me, like He was sitting right there beside me in the car, all around me and inside me.  It was very powerful, and I believe He was letting me know that He is taking care of her and not to let her darkness steal my light.  So I've reached out to other women in the program in the last few days, gone to a few meetings, met with my sponsee and let her know that she's slipping into risky territory too.  All of those things have helped put me back into a good place.  I can't change my friends trajectory, but I can keep myself on track and by doing so, maybe I can shine some light into her darkness.

On an exciting front, I've been asked to write a blog entry for a mental health provider's website about my journey thus far (part of it anyway).  That's so cool, and I'm so flattered to be asked.

AND I finally finished Menopause The Poem last night!! I'll post it later, been working on it for a few months.  :-)

I believe that's all for today my friends, have a blessed weekend.  We are finally into the 80's here this weekend and lots of sunshine.  I intend to ride my bike, walk my dogs and just be.  <3