Tag: heart healing

Moon Enlightenment

Watching Her through the window

I catch sight of my reflection 

My cheeks seem to sparkle 

The Moon’s gentle light, transforming the trails of my tears  

Melancholy Grief 

So much of myself lost 

Given and taken away 

The silver rivulets tracing cracks I’m trying to repair 

Trying to feel worthy 

I am not a throw away vessel to be used and emptied 

This was (is) my failure

Her light reflects on my face, the idea I am wearing her magic, the only love that will protect me 

Is my own 

The Tapestry I Wear

Tattoo 11,12 and 13 have all been done over the last 3 weeks. In honour of my 50th revolution around the sun. 11- to remind me of my creative spirit. 12-to remind me that soul rebirth is always possible. 13- are two binding runes, one for wisdom and one for spiritual growth.

This need for permanent adornment of my body started in my 40s, like an ownership stamp. I was determined to strip away all the facades heaped upon me. I wanted to have my story on my body.

There are magical Sigils to help tame my mental monsters and remind me they will never win.

Other symbols to remind me of where I’ve come from, where I am and where I’m going.

I have lived in this body for 50 years. It’s only been the last 10 that I have really focused on physical and mental healthcare, but it has happened in waves.

It’s really only been in the last three I have started to appreciate this body. It has been broken and healed from trauma and violence. It’s has been large, it has been medium and no matter how much I have tried to shrink inside I have never been small. I have birthed two beautiful babies at two very different times in my life and this body feels that love every day. This body has given and received pleasure. This body lives now with varying degrees of chronic pain.

I have given this body over too many times, too freely, in trying to find an acceptance and love I could not freely give to myself. So now every symbol, every picture, every spot of ink that is beginning to cover parts of me is a reminder that this body, this temple that houses my spirit is and always has been mine.

This body as lived through Maiden, it is slowly leaving Mother and intending to gracefully and boldly enter Crone.

I do not know when I will feel this skin tapestry has sufficiently recorded enough.

But it is a story worth telling. It is a body worth loving ❤️

Rage ( Pt2, the Kicker)

The kicker

I’ve worked so hard from where this knocked me to the last time I was finding ‘self’.

I built hope

Hope that there was misinformation and miscommunication that could be healed

But I was so far down, buried in shame

Things I held true disintegrated like my hard fought ability to trust

But I resolved to build, trusting the vision I had would come, it feels like it is meant to be. The feelings of love in my heart would build a better foundation

Every baby step I make, a look or breath of a word can knock me down.

I resolve to lead by an example.

I resolve to lead without shame

I resolve to stay open to love and trust

I resolve to stop letting myself down and treasure the very humanness I am told is what shines ( not shame as the whispers say)

Rage -venting the feelings (pt 1)

Rage

Don’t pay me lip service

If you ask me what I need

That is not enough – not without action

If I ask you to come to my playground because I’m always at yours

Don’t decline because it ‘doesn’t suit you’

Raging about my gender will upset me

Raging with out room for learning and compassion will shut me down

Making it know that parts of me, things I care for and hold dear are ‘not your cup of tea’ so

you ignore them completely, shows me you do not accept me for who I am

Your rage breaks me apart. My shame can bury me. This time my rage will help me rise

Quiet quitting isn’t just for work

Do you know what the true quiet quitting is?

When you want the time, attention, effort and energy you put out to be appreciated and in some form returned and you come to the realization it is not.

When you yearn so much to be validated, seen, and heard, and when you recognize it doesn’t materialize and you just give up.

Quietly of course, your opinions get quieter and smaller, you begin to ask less, you begin to do less and you feel the shrinking taking place.

It happens in small ways at first, and not in every place in your life at the same time. It’s barely even noticeable because nothing was noticeable to begin with in that space.

Until finally the space that you took up is all but folded it on itself and winked out like a little fairy light.

That my friends is a quiet quitting,

everyone trying so hard to be heard and very few taking the time to listen. We eventually stop putting in the extra time and attention in the places we feel undervalued.

This happens in every place we inhibit, work, school, friend relationships, family relationships- our daily lives.

Nothing is ever truly balanced, that is one of life’s hard truths. Another, is that no one ( not even ourselves) can live up to the expectations we create. Compassion and understanding are needed for moments of unbalance, but should not have to be the space you always operate from.

Perhaps this is the truest form of self love? To often this disconnect is unnoticed, or blame shifted to the person receding. A reaction of fear that the person/place being receded from may need to be accountable.

What are/have you quietly quit? What was the outcome? Who has quietly quit from a work or personal relationship with you? Do you understand, will you admit your role in the dissolution? Have you ever noticed the places you quietly quit on yourself?

New beginnings old ghosts

Lately the anxiety is bubbling just under the surface. I have had a wild month. Slings, arrows, bricks, mortar, silence and a deafening cacophony.

I had a big slip- with some help I fought back most of the way.

I have been fighting hard to breath life into the amazing opportunities in front of me.

To not be crushed by feelings of doubt and inadequacies. To not rely on ample input from the outside. To believe the reasons I’ve been given about why I’m the one who can accomplish these tasks. To trust I’m making the right choices. To not build my hopes of success by the involvement or encouragement of others. To choose carefully how I build, what I build and with who.

Trust trust trust myself

Today is shaky. Today is overwhelming. Today is very isolating. I know this place. And today, in this glorious Solstice, I cant seem to find it in me to get the monsters to be quiet, I cant seem to shake the dark. I cant seem to find my way. I am tired. I am sore. I have no voice but the inside screaming isn’t stopping.

Yet…. I have to, and I will do what needs to be done today. Measured breath, clenched jaw, head down and do what I can. Ride it out.

So tonight when I am finished doing what I must, I’m going to go to my favourite places amongst the trees, maybe find a Fae door or two. Breathe, ground, and let this finally wash through me. To let the God(dess) hold me steady, this too shall pass.

Awkward Tales From the Shadow Side: Self Owning the Ugly

The rage is almost unbearable

I want to scream till I am spent

Childhood lessons:

refining sensitivities to others, anticipate the needs to keep the peace, prove my worth.

Do not ask, do not demand, it is selfish, you are not worthy to ask so much.

Adult lessons:

I taught you how to treat me. She is kind, giving, forgiving and hardly asks for a thing, we love her.

But when she does she’s needy, an emotional sucking hole that has the audacity to want to be first. Know your place.

The rage ( at self) comes from trying to change and loosing out when I’m no longer suitable. The rage ( outwards) comes from not being considered, from not having someone, anyone anticipate how tender I am and how I might be affected. The disgust I feel ( at self) for this ridiculous notion and foolish hope.

The sadness and exhaustion comes from knowing what saved me in childhood can be dangerous to me in my adult life if I am not careful, also knowing that my empathic skill can still be a superpower.

Rage at seeing the cycle, more rage at the seemingly inability to break it meaningfully. Disgust knowing I can not demand to hold value with others until I hold value within. Frustration knowing my self worth has been dependent for so long on how others need me.

She beats her fists against the glass and still insists she’s a valid lass

A Message on the First Night of Yule

The 12 days of Yule have begun. It is also the night before Winter Solstice. I had been thinking over the weekend how I wanted to honour the start and celebrate my Ancestors, my Kin and my own Spirit.

The Universe directed me. I have hit a wall, a hard one. Physically, emotionally and mentally.

By the time I finished my ‘official’ day yesterday I was done, my body and mind were heavy and exhausted.

I went to bed early. Knowing enough to try to rest as today was another full tilt one.

This morning I had a headache and I felt like I ran a marathon ( this is a common body response when my anxiety has been high). While I have had some anxiety peaks in the last month, I did not feel this was the sole cause of my malaise.

I am burned out. The stress of the outside world has pecked away consistently at my armour. I have been on go for so long I’m not sure, other than when receiving a massage, when else I’ve actually hit pause. Even sleep feels like a momentary dead drop and right back at it.

It’s almost amusing, because one of the things on my never ending ‘to do’ list is to rearrange my schedule in the new year to have more ‘life, quiet, creative, connection time.’ It moved up the list to a top spot.

On this first day of Yule, the day to honour the Mother, the strong feminine, I honoured myself.

So today, I hit a full pause. I am grateful for the clients who understood, rebooked for another time and encouraged my day of rest.

I kept my pjs on. I ate light, I slept, read, listened to podcasts, curled up with my dogs.

I honoured my wisdom to listen to my body, my strength to not push through, I nurtured myself.

There is guilt lurking in the back ground, things left undone, not productive enough for the day. But the self talk I am practicing is that, this is what I needed, this was critical soul food. That in order to be present and participate, I needed this recharge.

Do I feel whole? No, but I feel a little more peace. The burning stiffness that anxiety trails through my muscles has softened. The pounding in my head receded. I don’t feel as emotionally drained.

I am not the only one. But I am one of the few that finally gave myself permission to stop.

I should have done it sooner. I have been the one who did not listen, who crashed hard with illness and yet kept going. Waiting for someone else to tell me it’s ok, that I am deserving to rest.

Do you feel this? Are you just trying to carry on despite everything?

On this first night of Yule, my gift to you is permission to hit pause.

You are worthy and you are very deserving.

Rest, move mindfully and know that’s more than enough.

Awkward Tales From the Shadow Side – for the child that was me, for the child I have, for the children lost and not yet found

There’s so many things crashed inside my head right now. The weight of the world seems to be bearing down today, I’m not a damn thing I can do about it.

Universally I feel devastated today, I can’t help but think how we have undercut and undervalued whole peoples because they were different. I think of the thousands of Indigenous children who were stolen, abused, and murdered. I think of all the parents and families that felt that missing piece, who feel that missing piece and that there is no way to make this right. The best we can do is shine a light.

Universally I feel crushed by this never ending pandemic, the reality of how it affects mental health. How exhausting it is, to be in a push/pull of society between trying to do what’s best for the ‘we’, with out a heavy cost to the ‘me’.

Today I also feel in my own personal heart space a confusion of heaviness. Grieving for the devastated child that still resides in me.

As I am on the cusp of parenting a newly minted teen ( in less than 72 hours she will officially enter the teens), I feel so much loss and grief. I did not really expect it. I did not expect to remember the loneliness I felt at her age. The fear. The deep abandonment of loosing my Mom the year before and an absent alcoholic father.

I feel lost now. How do I parent her? How do I protect her from the horrors of this world, that I keenly experienced? How do I know if it is the right guidance- what she needs VS what I needed/wanted at that age. Her situation is so very different than mine. I try to never impose the ‘me’ needs over the reality that she is not me and she has different needs. That was good until she surpassed me at still having both parents, intact and present.

I had tried to set up much in the way of distraction today, but it all has fallen apart.

So into my head I will stay, for just a little while, I’ll listen to the little girl with the wounded heart. Who is still so frightened and alone. Who navigated a dangerous place and came out with scars and wounds yet to be healed. But grew into someone mostly intact, praise her for growing into a loving mother who cares, who worries, who’s willing to grow.

I will go stand in the sun, and remind myself that even though I did it alone, my daughter isn’t. That she is a fortunate one, not like the thousands of children still not yet found but always cherished.

I know that if I lead with my heart and that she knows I’m leading with my heart, it will all be OK. And in the future, hopefully, she won’t be sitting on a warm fall day, with tears on her cheeks, mourning for the child that she was, for the child that felt abandoned and lost and hopeless.

That she will be sitting on a warm fall day with a smile knowing deeply how much she was loved and cherished and protected.