Sometimes...

 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Sometimes even the best intentions backfire.

Sometimes they blow up in your face.

Sometimes what is in our heart doesn't always come out of our mouth in such a way to convey our true feelings or intentions.

Sometimes we give meaning to things based on our own internal messages rather than the message that is being conveyed.

Sometimes even in the truest of intentions...

Others get hurt.

Offended.

Irritated.

And sometimes no amount of trying to "work it out"...

can work it out.

Sometimes

it works out best

to just let go.

This...

can be one of the hardest things to do

yet can be one of the best things to do

and often is the seed that will allow us to grow.

In the beginning of my journey I looked to the world and those in it to adjust and "make" me feel ok. 


I tried to "work things out", often taking responsibility for how others were feeling and the choices they made. 


I had a sense of responsibility to make others ok and that others would make me feel ok.


And recently I've had a couple of situations where I got to learn this lesson again....


that its not about what others do, think or say that makes me feel "ok'...


but its about me learning and knowing how to be ok...


when others aren't. 

I Became the Student...


Photo Credit

Thank god I don't have to be perfect anymore!

Accepting Imperfections as Perfection:)

I had a circumstance over this past weekend that reminded me just how thankful I am that I no longer have to be "perfect".

It was one of those situations where someone else decided that the way I was communicating was ineffective and decided that it was within their rights to "tell me all about it".

This person had no idea of who I was, what my life experiences had been or the path I've followed to find freedom from the pain of the past.

And the lesson learned was two fold:

1. Use discretion with whom I share my pain

2. What other people think of me...

is none of my business:)
~

From the archives one year ago...

You're Nuts Not Traumatized This piece addresses the subtle ways in which peoples life experiences can shape the outcome when life experiences are denied or ignored.

The Sting of Stigma; The Wind Never Lies This is part 3 of a 3 part series....you can link back and read parts 1 and 2 from this page. This is a piece that shares stories of those who have lived the reality of discrimination related to being tagged or "marked" with the label of "mental illness".

May is "Mental Health Awareness" month...so lets get aware of the difference between being "marked" and being discriminated against. 


The human condition is not a disease. 


Human distress is not a disorder or a defect of character. 


Let go of the labels and you'll be surprised at how quickly the "stigma" goes away.


But thats just my opinion:)


 Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

Going Through...

In the journey of life there are going to be times of stress; triggers of memories and feelings that take us to that place we'd rather not go. 


The thing is - when we resist those memories, the thoughts and feelings that crop up is when we find ourselves feeling irritable, angry, touchy. Or we might feel down, depressed and dissociated from ourselves. 


The key is to recognize this in ourselves, bow to the experience and embrace the feelings that we might go through them to finally live beyond them. 
~


I Believed


Tears Wash the Soul Free

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

To Let Life Unfold....Naturally

Today I can let go and let life unfold...naturally

Doing this means that I no longer have the need to carry the burden of fixing another's pain or problem or orchestrating life events that are not within my control to begin with.

It also means that when I let go I have the opportunity to allow my own mind, emotions and body finally begin to heal as my energy is now focussed on managing the one thing I can truly affect and change; me.

To allow life to be "natural" is to allow it to grow and unfold as it does, without undue influence. Much like a the National Parks....that are preserved, free of the influence, control and construction of mankind.

To "let go" and "let life unfold naturally" is to recognize that my need and efforts at controlling the people, places and things in my life is artificially influencing situations, circumstances and relationships that exist outside of the realm of of what I truly have the ability to control within myself.

And while that may "feel" better at the moment; often the end result is more drama and chaos as others resist my efforts to influence their thoughts, feelings and choices.

Today, I can recognize this behavior as that false sense of power that came with my efforts to claim power when I was truly powerless in the face of a situation or circumstance that was outside of my control - that place where I felt and truly was powerless by the actions of those who were meant to protect and nurture me as a child or in the face of an overwhelming life event that took control out of my hands for a time.

So today - I can let life unfold naturally and that includes acknowledging that perhaps I was once powerless but today I can claim my power - by allowing others to have their own.

Q: How can you take back your true power today by letting life unfold naturally?

Originally posted May 4, 2010

Seek Knowledge, find Wisdom, live your Truth!

What is Love?

Recently I posted a touching story about the "Sting of Stigma and Unconditional Love" here.

And for the longest time I've thought about writing a post on the idea of "What is Love"? Well, Mel's story about her friend Julie's journey and death following her diagnosis of "mental illness" seemed the right prompt for this post as we approach the end of "Mental Health Awareness Month" for 2010.

There are two things that truly suck about this struggle to maintain psychological integrity - the first is being given that free, lifetime membership to "Club M.I." without asking for it. That stigmatizing "mark" that goes with the label of "diagnosis" that often leads to discrimination or being treated differently, sometimes as "less than".

The second is how this label affects relationships with the people who could make the biggest difference in the life of someone who is struggling with mental health issues from family and friends - to Medical Providers, Doctors and Therapists.

These are often the people we turn to when we are needing that "soft place to fall" when life's journey hits a rough patch. Unfortunately these are oftentimes the same people who can compound the problem by offering "conditional" love and acceptance vs the unconditional love that Mel gave her friend, Julie, as she was dying from a disease that may have been curable - had she not been labeled "mentally ill" and her physical needs gone unmet. (In the comments of this post you can read how Suzanne nearly died when her physical complaints were attributed to her being a "hypochondriac" and "delusional" - click here to read.)

In Mel's story I noticed first her attitude toward Julie as being one of acceptance of Julie as she was with no inkling of judgement or attempt to minimize Julie's experience or effort to influence her in order to make Mel feel more comfortable...

"She was so amazing. Funny thing was I always told her I didn't think she was bipolar, some would view her as acting crazy at times but strangely I saw it as being in another dimension or something."

And I saw compassion for her friend's situation...."I never told her that seeing men in trees was her imagination, just that I couldn't see them."

So what is "love" - I mean true, selfless love? Love that put's another's needs before my own?

It's the love that says "in all your muck, your crap, your issues....I will stand beside you through it all..."

Q: What does "unconditional love" look like in your world?

To Let Life Unfold...Naturally

Today I can let go and let life unfold...naturally

Doing this means that I no longer have the need to carry the burden of fixing another's pain or problem or orchestrating life events that are not within my control to begin with.

It also means that when I let go I have the opportunity to allow my own mind, emotions and body finally begin to heal as my energy is now focussed on managing the one thing I can truly affect and change; me.

To allow life to be "natural" is to allow it to grow and unfold as it does, without undue influence. Much like a the National Parks....that are preserved, free of the influence, control and construction of mankind.

To "let go" and "let life unfold naturally" is to recognize that my need and efforts at controlling the people, places and things in my life is artificially influencing situations, circumstances and relationships that exist outside of the realm of of what I truly have the ability to control within myself.

And while that may "feel" better at the moment; often the end result is more drama and chaos as others resist my efforts to influence their thoughts, feelings and choices.

Today, I can recognize this behavior as that false sense of power that came with my efforts to claim power when I was truly powerless in the face of a situation or circumstance that was outside of my control - that place where I felt and truly was powerless by the actions of those who were meant to protect and nurture me as a child or in the face of an overwhelming life event that took control out of my hands for a time.

So today - I can let life unfold naturally and that includes acknowledging that perhaps I was once powerless but today I can claim my power - by allowing others to have their own.

Q: How can you take back your true power today by letting life unfold naturally?

Blood, Sweat and Tears

For some reason lately this song has been running through my mind..."Spinning Wheel" by the group Blood Sweat and Tears from 1969.

This has been in the context of that "racing mind" that seems to go along with mental health issues, that feeling of "stuckness" and feeling of powerlessness to make the nightmares stop and...the loss of hope that my life could be anything different than what it has been..

As I thought about this song, I Googled for the meaning behind this song and found this:

Whatever is troubling you, whether it is lack of money or homelessness, it will work itself out one way or another and it's just not worth getting upset over.

(Read more: http://www.faqs.org/lyrics/Blood-Sweat-and-Tears-Spinning-Wheel.html#ixzz0ktljhxFs)

For the longest time I struggled with the idea of "letting go" of the past...and all of the emotional pain - and baggage - that came with it.

And the simplest way that I can describe this "letting go" and as is in the song "ride a painted pony, let the spinning wheel turn..."

Is to recognize that when I am "spinning" on the past, the pain, the betrayal, the traumas and issues that my life experience has been - as long as I'm "spinning" on it I'm simply going in circles, round and round and round. A dilemma with no end in sight.

Over time I have been able to learn to recognize when I'm "spinning" that I am often holding on to this rumination in order to validate my experiences that were denied by so many others in my lifetime...but also that as I ruminate over the pain of the past I am searching for a way to resolve the past in my today, which of course is impossible.

So I have to ask myself what is it that I am accomplishing with this re-living of these resentments and I have come to realize that this allows me to continue to avoid the emotions that are connected to the experiences in which my power was taken from me in one way or another.

That I have effectively put myself on the Merry-Go-Round and am riding the painted pony that is not going anywhere, not accomplishing anything - other than to spend my today reliving and holding on to the pain of a past that I cannot change.

But I have also learned that if I can let go and stop reliving the pain of my past...that I can ride the Merry-Go-Round with the joy and excitement of a life lived in freedom...and a peace beyond my understanding.

Choosing to Trust Life

let life unfold naturally...

The first time I heard this I had absolutely no idea what it meant.

"Let life unfold naturally"...yeah, right.

But as I committed myself to this new path of a life of insight and awareness - living life consciously - it began to make sense.

I began to notice just how much I had to control things - people and circumstances - in order to feel safe and validated.

I started noticing how often I tried to influence others lives and choices.

I became more aware of how easily I could become irritable when someone or something interfered with a carefully laid out plan that didn't go exactly the way I intended.

So, with gentle awareness of the many ways I was attempting to influence and orchestrate people and circumstances, I was able to begin to let go a little here...

and a little there...

And I also became aware of and was pleasantly surprised at how much less stressed I felt when I was able to relinquish control of situations and circumstances that were not mine to influence to begin with.

I realized...that I was learning to trust life, trust myself and to "let life unfold naturally".

When the Student is ready, the Teacher will come

Mondays; argggg, I hate Mondays...

You can see the post I wrote a few months ago about Monday's here.

So what's this got to do with anything?

Well....it's Monday. :)

And for me it's back to basics day.

As I've been meandering around, meeting and greeting others and carrying on the discussion about healing from past trauma there's been something in the back of my mind. Couldn't put my finger on it before but I think I've found what I was looking for.

In the beginning this blog was based on a conversation that Michele (Heal My PTSD) and I were having on her blog post dated January 2009 titled How to Tap your Inner Hero. Our conversation was on the "how" behind learning to live in the moment and leave the past behind...

In This Moment is a post I wrote last year on that "lightbulb" moment when I realized that I could change my life...simply by changing my mind.

Giving Up is Not an Option is another earlier post on how I arrived at this insight and the awareness that living in the past held a price...

In the end, this journey is all about how we choose to spend our moments. The hard part is finding the path that will take us there.

The problem that I see and have seen over this journey of mine is not that we are an incapable population - in fact, quite the opposite - as survivors of trauma who have chosen to do the hard work of healing and finding our way out of that dark place, we are the most resourceful persons on the face of this earth I believe.

The problem in my mind is that we have been taught to focus on "doing" in this journey rather than learning how to "be" in our own time and space and to "be" ok. Unwittingly, we have been guided down a path that has taught us to avoid our pain in various ways rather than learn to embrace it and go through the process of emotional healing.

I spent years losing my "now" to attempting to "figure out" how to "do" whatever it was that I was supposed to be doing to "get better". I had the "diagnosis" - "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder" - but the focus was never on learning how to go through the natural grief process to reclaim or find that part of me that was buried deep within the emotional distress and deep seated belief of helplessness to change my circumstances.

The focus was on "doing" to the exclusion of "being".

And this is where I find myself today. Returning to the original purpose of this blog. Finding a way to share the path I have taken to pull myself out of the mire of the past and beginning to live "in the moment". That only one true thing that exists; the "now".

Because that is where I have found the peace lies. Learning to live in "now" and how to "let go" of those thoughts, feelings and behaviors that are no longer bringing me a peaceful "now".

So today I decided to pay attention to the unrest I have been feeling instead of trying to avoid it or cover it up with more "busy work" or creating my own "daytime drama" as often happens when I get lost ruminating over solving problems that are not mine to begin with. I decide to get back to the basics of living in my now and trusting that by doing so, I am laying the foundation for my best life tomorrow.

And while it is easy for me to engage in the many life issues that come up each day - especially those surrounding the issues we face in our healing journey's, I find myself returning to Micheles orginial question to me from that post How to Tap Your Inner Hero....how did I learn to live in the moment?

And still, nearly a full year later, the best answer that I have found to this question is that living in the moment is a simple concept although not always an easy one to apply.

It is not about "doing", although "doing" is a part of this process as we put one foot in front of the other and learn to walk in this new way. At the same time it is learning about "being". It is the path we are each on that will provide us our own answers in our own time.

In other words...as long as we are searching, inquisitive and open...we will be ready to receive answers that will guide us down our chosen path where we can all create a live our best life each day.

And it started with simply becoming aware of the "story" behind the language I was using like telling myself that I loved Monday's. That Monday's were the best day of the week...that Monday's were a new start for another opportunity to create the life of my choosing. Another 1,400 minutes and opportunities to turn things around, to change my life and step back on my new path - the now.

And then as I became aware of those opportunities to change my story and language at the same time I changed that "backstory" in my mind of how "Monday"s sucked".

This is that place where I was the student that was ready - and willing to take the action - and my teacher always came.

Every time since.

And every time still.

Photo credit is here.

The Keys to the Magic Kingdom

The keys to the magic kingdom.

Thats what I thought I was looking for all those years that I struggled with "managing" the symptoms of post trauma stress like the unexpected anger or feelings of rage, the depression and mania as I swung from one extreme on the range of emotions to the other. There was no middle for me; it was all or nothing.

The social angst that I experienced if I left the safe cocoon of the little world I had created in my head and my home became incapacitating. The most basic of human interactions became unbearable. The nightmares required medication to sleep but did not provide relief or peace, only a chronic state of lethargy.

The noise in my head was at times unbearable to the point of not wanting to die but not knowing how to live beyond this. Dissociation once again became my saving grace and my best friend as I floated through life day after day, year after year.

Emotional swings became my common ground as I fluctuated from the depths of depression to the highs of rage or overexcitement. Guilt and shame permeated my being for not being able to control my behavior as I swung from one extreme to another.

The hyper-vigilance was "paranoia" and what others might have termed irrational fears or psychosis was the reality I lived in every day as I battled a war long ago over yet still raging in my head although forgotten and buried amidst the chaos of my mind.

I existed solely to orchestrate and control my life and my environment in a vain attempt to avoid further emotional or cognitive distress that would surely come if I didn't. My life was consumed with getting away from the past - at the expense of my future.

I didn't know what was "wrong" with me - yet ultimately what I discovered was there was nothing wrong with me at all but that I was experiencing a normal human reaction to "trauma".

I simply did not have enough information to make the choice to move beyond being a perpetual victim or to get past living in "survival" mode where symptoms are managed instead of the freedom to create the life of my choosing outside of the nightmare of "mental illness" aka PTS.

The keys to the magic kingdom.

Do not exist.

What I found is that the solution to healing from the past is first, not easy. In making this decision to begin to face my past, to grieve what was my truth...well, I knew there would be times that it was going to feel like a dark and lonely road.

I accepted that no one else could walk this part of my journey for me. That I would face the demons of the past one by one, standing my ground as I determined to come out of this battle a whole person no longer fragmented or tormented.

Second, this journey is not a "quick fix". There is no pill, no book, no therapist or doctor that could "fix" me. I spent years depending on others to provide me with the answers, believing that if we could tweak my prescriptions a bit here and a tad there that in time I would be "better". That if I could only get my therapist to "understand" then he/she would be able to provide me with the magic map that would lead me out of this dark place.

Yet by becoming dependent on things, circumstances and people (regardless of the certificate on the wall) outside of myself to provide me with my answers and offer my life direction and purpose, that I was forfeiting my own power and sacrificing my own potential in the quest to have someone or find some answer outside of myself that I knew would be "the answer".

As I depleted all other resources about me - my family, there were no friends to speak of as I could not tolerate the most common of social interactions, doctors, therapists, the emergency admissions to the psychiatric ward of the hospital that would give me only respite for a moment - but no relief - ...I came to the conclusion that I was down to one thing; one resource. Me.

I accepted that there was no-one that could put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

There was no pill that would make the nightmares and the noise in my head stop.

There was...me.

And I determined as I looked back on my journey to this place where I now stood and accepted that I was my resource. I was my solution.

I stopped fighting.

I stopped resisting.

I started learning how to walk this walk and knew deep within myself that I was going to make it. I didn't know how exactly but I knew there was more to life that what I had been living.

Within my own self, I slowly walked up to the edge of the mountain, tears running down my face. I spread my arms as I stepped to the edge and knew deep within my being that there would either be something there for me to stand on - or I would learn how to fly.

And I haven't looked back.

Thank you for dropping by and reading a bit of my story and the steps I took to begin to reclaim my life. Read more about me here and what this blog is about here.

Next post: Like the little engine that could...finding self empowered healing through the awareness that I could choose to change my thoughts and how this was the beginning of changing my life.

Photo credit/source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rammorrison/481677631/

I am not a can of soup

Hmmmph.

Today I'm struggling with finding my voice. I feel fear at speaking up and voicing my true thoughts and opinions. I fear being judged and ridiculed for having an opinion as for too long I lived in a family system that discouraged any form of autonomy. Yet - I am choosing today to not accept this as my story any longer.

For too long I wore the labels that others gave me; at the expense of developing any sense of self or feeling of control over my life or life choices.

As a small child one label I wore was "brat"; others were stupid, selfish, idiot. In time more labels were added to the list like whore and slut (thanks dad).

When I was married "bitch" was added to the list.

And when I got away from the violence in my marriage I became a "victim".

When I entered the mental health system - a whole but injured person - I was given the label "mentally ill", "addict" and "alcoholic" to wear along with the sub-labels of "depressed", "bi polar", "dysthymic", "paranoid", "psychotic" among others.

And I wore each and every one of these labels very, very well. I carried the shame and believed that I was "less than", that I was broken beyond repair.

And today I am speaking up to say - I am not a label.

I am. Period.

I exist and I have every right to exist, to breath, to experience a world and a life that knows no boundaries, to decide what kind of person I will be, what kind of future that I will live.

Today - I write my own story and continue to shed the labels that in the past have left me feeling helpless to improve my lot in life and hopeless that I even could have a life of my own choosing.

Today - if I was to wear a label I will choose it. And today I would choose to "label" myself as curious, intelligent, caring, wonderful, kind, considerate, empowered, brave and courageous....

Today - I am and I am free.

One step forward...wait.....no thats two steps forward??

and two steps back it seems sometimes. Or is it two steps forward and one step back? either way this week I did move forward but it was a bumpy ride.

Last week was my first day on this new job - and after being in "hyper vigilance" mode the weeks before as I prepared my brain and body completely shut down. I could not think, my body felt weak to the point of just getting off the couch required superhuman effort it seems.

So I accepted that I needed to rest and in a couple of days I had some energy - my brain was working again and I dove into the follow up of my program - and the hard drive in my new-to-me 1 year old laptop - crashed.

Who'da thought? So I deal with that and set up my old slower-than-molasses pc and try again over the weekend and my internet server goes down. Phone calls. More phone calls. "So sorry - we will get someone out to look at it Monday".

So - the old way of coping goes something like "OMG I AM GOING TO FAIL AT THIS. HOW CAN I DO MY JOB? I JUST PUT OUT $X IN THIS NEW SYSTEM AND LOOK AT IT....OMG HOW AM I GOING TO DO THIS? THIS COMPANY PAID ME TO DO A JOB AND I CANT EVEN SEND OUT AN EMAIL..." Get the picture?

Now mind you - in the past, this was the only way I knew to cope I.E. not cope and blame circumstances and people outside of me for why I was failing.

So I had a moment. Ok; I had a FEW moments. I felt stressed. I felt agitated. I paced. I felt isolated and insignificant. And then I decided that I could do this anyway. And with this decision I took one step...then another.

I wrote my follow up email to my corporate group in a word document on my atiquidated pc. Then I let it go and went about doing other things and got a good nights rest.

Monday morning. Still no internet.

I made plans to head out to the coffee shop and hope my old laptop would 1. boot up and 2. not freeze up.

Then - as I'm talking to someone about which new external hard drive to buy I look at my modem and - whila! I have service!

So I quickly re entered my contacts into gmail (remember, my computer crashed right after my last group so they werent accessable to me here) did a quick cut and paste and sent it off.

I pulled up my powerpoint and started doing my revisions (as long as only 1 program is running I am guarenteed my old pc will SLOWLY get the job done). I saved my files. Printed to the printer that works with the pc and then copied in color on the new-and-improved-wireless printer that works with the laptop that does not work.....

And I was done and ready for work yesterday morning.

What's the point here?

The point is that my old coping patterns still come up when the stress level goes up - but - that with understanding of what was happening inside my head (overgeneralization, catastrophizing, black and white thinking etc...) and that I am no longer that little child victim, helpless to affect change or protect myself - I was able to pull myself out of what could have (in the past) been another excuse to stay in my hole and live life as that perpetual victim of circumstance.

So here we go - cheers to me for making lemonade when life gave me lemons :)

Free fall...

Free fallin'.

I posted John Mayers version of this Tom Petty classic yesterday here.

This is one of those songs that I think of as an example of what its like to go through this process of healing from the past and letting go of that pain that seems to otherwise dwell in the deepest and darkest places of my being. Those experiences that made me who I am today. The hurt, the shame, the fear, the guilt that formed who I was and how I had lived my life.

But when I made the decision to get beyond all of that and to" step off to the unknown"...I truly believed that "one of two things would happen"....

And after awhile there was sometimes something there for me to stand on as I learned to become aware of the thoughts and beliefs that held me in that prison in my own mind.

But at first...as I learned to believe in myself, trust myself and learn to surround myself with those who would encourage and uplift me --- to let go of the relationships that needed me to be dependant or "ill", those who told me how no matter what it was, it just wasn't good enough...it was more about learning to trust myself. It was about learning that I no longer had to be consumed by the demons that haunted me from my past, or the fear that enveloped me about my future. It was "stepping off into the unknown"...and trusting that I would learn how to fly if I could just....let go.

I believe I can fly...!
Originally uploaded by rAmmoRRison