Category Archives: change

Aug21

a wild night

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Part of me feels like I should come clean about something. All this soap box espousing about raising our consciousness and waking up and becoming more self aware sounds inspiring, doesn’t it? Did I forget to mention that it makes life harder? Yes, that’s right. Not easier. Harder.

When you are committed to personal growth, or perhaps you naively just want to live a more creative life, things are gonna get rough. You’re a boat rocker. You want more than the other people around you want for you, or believe you are capable of. Those people you lived with growing up are not going to like this. The people you work with are not going to like this. The friends you know you can count on aren’t going to like it. They have an agenda, consciously or not, and it is not your agenda. 99.9% of the time it will not leave any space for you to stretch your wings – it will be all about slowing and deferring any change. To the best of their ability.

In an interview years ago, I remember Oprah talking about her friendship to Gayle, saying that she stayed “after the leap,” and that the majority of people will not. But she didn’t know that would be the case when she decided to up her game and strive for success. None of us realized what it would mean to develop healthy boundaries, to speak up when we became aware of dysfunction around us. We didn’t know that it would be so challenging for those around us. We didn’t know.

Heads up: your relationships are going to fall apart. There is a popular tarot deck called This Might Hurt. Haha! While I am not a fan of the artwork and don’t use this deck, I sure love the name of it. Yes. The tarot is a brilliantly designed tool for self development. Practicing with it will open you up and make you more self aware and much more intuitive. And it will hurt; that’s a guarantee. That genie ain’t goin’ back in that bottle.

I remember at one point in my 20’s thinking all my families’ troubles were caused by my father’s alcoholism…and then a decade or two later realizing that some of us are autistic or had ADHD. And then learning about narcissism. And it goes on and on. You see it and you can’t unsee it.

The truth will out. What you think today is the cause of your frustration, or your unhappiness, or your illness will open a can of worms. Today is the tip of the iceberg and it is melting faster than you can imagine. And you are going to have to take responsibility for having started the fire underneath. Oh, and learn to swim…

I was in my sixties when my father died and my four siblings stopped speaking to me. I was recently divorced, grieving and more isolated than I ever could have imagined. My son wanted little to do with me. When I lost my elderly dog I grieved like never before; I suspect it was a cumulative grief. I could justify all of this discord; I had learned through hardship how to set boundaries and they did not like the new me – the person they could no longer gaslight and manipulate. I had been told one too many times that I would never be able to take care of myself. I had better stay. I had better be quiet. I had better be nice.

My darling Mother used to say to me, “It must be lonely at the top, Susan…” It was leveled as an accusation. She didn’t understand why I was so different, so confrontative. Obviously I thought I was better than the rest of them. But that wasn’t true. I saw them as remarkable, brilliant, so very full of potential and settling for so little. I wanted them to join me on this journey. I didn’t want to be lonely; I still don’t. Please don’t leave me…yet in truth, I was leaving them. I had seen through the superficiality of their choices and I wanted deeper connection. I wanted to matter. I wanted them to know that they mattered. Really, really mattered. But they didn’t see what I saw.

Almost every person I have ever loved has struggled with addiction. Eventually I have lost most of them, either to death, or by extricating myself from their insatiable neediness in order to have some semblance of peace. I stopped housing them. I stopped driving them. I stopped working for them for almost nothing. I stopped giving them money. I stopped defending them. I stopped allowing them to use me.

Codependency is my addiction. It is theirs, also, masked by alcohol or drugs or gambling. By the grace of God I have not had those to overcome. But once I realized this and stopped tolerating bad behaviors, I woke up and saw the part I played in the destruction. And I can’t do it anymore. I’ve had to re-evaluate my values, my priorities, my own behavior. And yes, it is lonely at the top. But something deep inside me knows that this is the only dance in town, this seeking for the truth, this prioritizing mental health, this commitment to growing up.

Decades ago in meditation I heard “do not squander your father’s inheritance.” I dismissed that as I knew my father had no money to leave his children. What the heck did that mean? Now I wish I could remember when I heard that, but it still applies today. Today I would write that sentence differently: Do not squander your Father’s inheritance.

Jul28

Don’t beam me up, Scotty

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Yesterday’s post seemed a bit preachy about what I don’t want. I beg your patience. What I DO want, and have always wanted, is freedom. Peace of mind. That’s my measurement from here on out for the rest of this incarnation, which I hope will be many more years. As Mimi would say, “good Lord willin’ and the crick don’t rise.” Do I need more exercise to pull that off? I certainly do. So thank you to my dear, dear friends and family who do continue to entice me out to share in activities. I have to pick and choose wisely right now as I am still recovering from a debilitating, albeit invisible, disease. Thank you for not giving up on me.

This delicate balance I seek to find this summer includes what feels like a huge psychological shift. Now in my 7th decade I seem to be just discovering what freedom means – specifically, to think freely. To dig down into the depths of my true being and find out what it is that I really want. Who I truly am. To stop using life energy to flail against what I don’t want. To stop protesting, to stop feeling put upon and pulled at by those around me.

Two or three nights ago now I woke, as I always do, between 3 and 4 a.m. I “heard” the voice in my head, seemingly out of nowhere, stating very clearly: “THERE IS NOTHING AGAINST YOU HERE.” Intuitively I knew that by HERE it meant, in life, on earth, for all time. There is nothing against me. There never has been. And as my old mentor Jack Boland would have said, “therefore, as night follows day…” that means that everything is FOR me.

This concept may take a minute or lifetime for me to grok. I’ll have to get back to you on this…this is what I mean when I say, “on the road to enlightenment, I’m taking the local.” I mean to get it with every cell of my being. Don’t rush me.

Please indulge this idea with me: what if everything is for you? Another long time mentor is Rob Bell. Young as he is, he is onto something. Several years ago I went to listen to him speak in his home town of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He left the evangelical mega church he was pastor of because they wouldn’t let him teach enlightenment. There’s something I might do if you asked – I’d go to hear him speak again. He leads you out – out of the restriction of your personality into your natural state of freedom. He gets it, or as he says, there is no exit strategy here. “This is not an evacuation theology…”

It’s true that I don’t want to go anywhere with you. Because I want to be nowhere with you, as in nowhere = now here.

Jul4

Happy Independence Day, Hero

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Any chance you might have an issue with authority? If so, I’m just sure we can be friends. To say I am resistant to suggestion would be an understatement, and yet I am constantly seeking advise, input, more input, ideas, opinions and help from any number of sources.

My dearest friends will attest that I directly – and regularly – say to them, “Tell me what to do.” They think I’m funny. They have known me long enough to know that telling me what to do is futile. Even when I ask, there’s maybe a 30% chance of follow through. Maybe.

Now let us not confuse my fierce independence with any remote understanding of healthy boundaries. Those close to me have also seen me make absolutely stupid decisions just for the sake of being contrary. What can I say? Growing up is hard to do…

Just this week I had a bit of a tete-a-tete with my past. My ex called and wanted to talk. This would generally send me into a tailspin of anxiety. What was he up to?

We met a few days later for breakfast. It was quite pleasant. He is 17 years older than me and has had some serious health challenges. So, he is face to face with his own mortality. That is humbling. But it was just a few hours later that he called again. Strange. This time he barked at me to pull up a website on my computer. He wanted me to look at a car for sale. He had asked about my Jeep at breakfast. The previous time we met for a “catch up” the Jeep had limped into the restaurant parking lot squealing and lurching. It’s the old car I had from our marriage, now 13 years dissolved. It’s on it’s last leg before the scrap heap and I’ve been trying to figure out how I will afford to replace it.

When he asked about it I had quipped, “It’s running well. It’s about time to think about looking for a car.” Ever-so nonchalant. Pardon me, but I’ve had more than 30 years with him to learn to generalize my answers. I give out very little information. It’s not so much a conversation as an interrogation, or a relationship as a transaction. He is never without an agenda.

Sure enough, several hours later and he’s found me a car. Mind you, we had not discussed anything about my looking for a car. No details were asked for or volunteered, no direct inquiries, no interest feigned. This was entirely based on his assumptions. He found me a car. Another Jeep (I had not been considering buying another Jeep. For one thing, I can barely climb in and out of this one anymore.)

This is how that second phone call went: “Hi. What’s up?” I was taken by surprise. “Get to your computer! Look at this website!” I had no idea what this was about until my laptop had booted up and I asked for the website name. It was a car dealership. “Look at this Jeep! If you’re interested I could go drive that for you tomorrow.” As if I don’t drive…or he has any mechanical prowess. But I do forget sometimes how utterly incompetent I am. He sounded like he was on speed (what is in those Manhattans?) He desperately needs a project, and he needs it to be me.

Wait. What? S L O W the heck down…why are you directing me to look at a car? Well…he could “help me” buy that. Sadly, I’ve also got 30+ years experience knowing that this is going to be a long, convoluted process that will somehow end up costing me sleep, peace of mind, money, and self respect. I graciously declined. I have learned a little over the decades. For better or worse, I have learned to be my own hero.

I thanked him for his concern and generosity. I don’t want to generate any animosity. I’m careful not to invite the repercussions of his wrath. I am struggling with my health also, but unlike my ex, I am also struggling financially. There was no room for partnership in that marriage, nor fairness in the divorce. I receive spousal support (the new word for alimony) which is a small fraction of his income and 90% of mine. Less than law would allow, but as much as I was willing to fight for. I wanted out intact. Okay, that’s not true – I wanted out alive. It was too late for intact.

My former husband is not a bad man. He is charming, highly intelligent and extremely like-able. There are many wonderful things about him, and I wish I knew how to have him in my life. He is what is known as a vulnerable narcissist. He would do anything to help. It’s just gonna have a few little almost invisible strings attached…kinda like walking into a spiderweb. Sticky.

Now with the hard-earned wisdom of distance, all of this simply makes me enormously sad. We are both alone in our old age. But I know my true value. Not only will he never know mine; he will never know his own. We are all so very fragile. As Maira is inclined to notice, we are all striving, and we are all heroic.

Jun30

I Wouldn’t Trade You For the World

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It’s just after 11 a.m. I’m beginning my second morning. It starts around ten or eleven, depending on how long I’ve been up. I wake most days between four and five. I have water, my chewable vitamins, and I write. First, Morning Pages according to Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. I made that contract with myself in 1997 and I intend to honor it the rest of my days. Then, I might write on the blog here, sometimes one or two posts, and schedule them for publication. While I’m writing I make coffee and I might throw in a load of wash. Or, I might get back into bed instead of making it…have a “napitation.” That’s where I start out meditating and end up napping. By this time it’s getting to be nine or ten-ish. Later if I napped for a couple of hours. And so begins my “second morning.” My day is a success and it isn’t even noon yet!

This morning when I woke from my nap I went out and mowed the back lawn before jumping in the shower. Now it is raining – that soft, cool rain that smells of cedar and wood fire; that only comes leeside of the lake tucked among the dunes. There is nothing better than rural Michigan in the summer.

To say that I am enjoying retirement would be a gross understatement. I have never loved my life more. It has taken seventy years to find “the house of my belonging.” But I am also struggling. It is a different stress than when I was younger, married then divorced, married again and then divorced again, raising a son through all the chaos, working a job or two, keeping up a home – always far, far too busy, living a “scramble” life.

On these sumptuous mornings I am filled with gratitude. I want nothing more than to listen intently to the sparrow listing it’s recent discoveries as if the inventory is of utmost importance, the cat obliviously asleep at my side. I wouldn’t trade a moment of this for the world.

The foxgloves are dropping their purple hats just as the daisies are about to announce the certainty of summer. They aver: don’t look back. But I do look back. I am full of every day I have known so far, and I don’t want to forget a second of it. I seem to have lived a thousand lifetimes in this one. I cherish them all.

I miss my Mother terribly. She’s been gone 21 years now, stolen from me far too young by Liposarcoma, the “angry cancer,” the cancer of the soft, fatty tissue of the abdomen – though she barely weighed a hundred pounds at 5 foot 5. I never once saw her get angry in her life. Apparently she kept it hidden in her deepest recesses.

She had more reason to get angry than you or I ever will. Anger seemed to hurt her. I would watch her face contort into grief when faced with the atrocities of her life. I cannot hold a candle to her level of understanding or forgiveness, let alone her unending gratitude. Faced with the same abuse, I’d have committed murder and been writing this from a prison cell. I don’t have a fraction of her strength.

My son was her first grandchild, and she was obnoxious with the photos. She carried a “Brag Book” in her purse, and I’d introduce her to friends or coworkers saying, “This is my Mother, Doris – would you like to see the photos of her grandchild now or later?” The sun rose and set with him. Many of my happiest memories are because of her, and my son and I know we were so privileged to have had her. She was a remarkable person, and the world is undeniably a better place because she lived.

But growing up we five children teased her mercilessly. Not least of which about her singing. She taught herself to play the guitar and she practiced, usually alone in her room at night, and sung quietly. In the decades to follow she would often look at me lovingly and sing a line or two…if I could, I’d sing to you:

Jun26

Fortune Sides With She Who Dares

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Decades ago I bought a cheap cuff at a sidewalk fair. I simply loved the inscription: Fortune Sides With She Who Dares. The inside of the bracelet also has an inscription: I Will Make My Optimism Come True.

This thing is made of some cheap alloy and is worn thin, tarnished and bent out of shape. I treasure it. I will make my optimism come true, it says. Long before the concept of “toxic positivity” came into being I was busy re-inventing myself for the umpteenth time. Turns out, it’s a way of life. As they say, it beats the alternative. But I’ve never been toxically positive. Those who know me will attest that I’m barely positive at all. I lean towards the cynical view of life, but really only in the short term. I am eternally optimistic. And only ever momentarily deterred.

My seventh decade is proving a daunting challenge. Perhaps most of my generation have this in common. We grew up with a lot of cultural expectations about what our old age would look like and those are all proving to be untrue. Health concerns aside, my retirement income doesn’t cut it any more. Retirement was great while it lasted; it’s no longer practical. For starters, the appliances are mocking me. The dishwasher’s heating element is burnt out (a metaphor?) and last night’s lightning turned the clothes dryer into R2D2. It’s blinking frenetically and won’t quit talking jibberish.

So I am having to learn new skills. The work I did to support myself in the past isn’t a viable option as I can no longer spend hours on my feet. I’m learning technical skills now and looking forward to expanding my earning potential, reinventing myself still and again. My lifelong curiosity serves me well. And I do have some wisdom to share, and hopefully a modicum of inspiration.

My Mother was the epitome of optimism and determination. On those days when I can barely get out of bed, or I’m really feeling down and defeated, I remember to “channel my inner Doris…” She never lost her sense of humor. Upon hearing us children complain she would often quip drolly, “other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” She was a master of perspective.

I have lost small fortunes in my life. I have joked when people asked me what I do for a living, “I’m a career researcher…” while wishing I had stuck with something, anything, been more consistent and made wiser investments. Exercised my intellect more and emotions less, perhaps loved myself a little more. I suppose if I’m paying attention, I fall in and out of love with myself a dozen times a day. In truth, I’ve never understood the tenet “love yourself.” That sounds rather airy-fairy to me. But I do know how to love my life. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: you just have to be a fraction more curious than scared. Some days a fraction is all I can muster.

So by measure of risk taking, I can only say that I wish I’d done more of that – taken bigger risks on myself. Trusted myself more deeply, invested in my own creativity. I wish I’d learned earlier that boundaries are the property lines by which we proclaim ownership of ourselves and keep out the thieves who would steal our souls.

Georgia O’Keeffe said “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life, and I never let it keep me from a single thing that I wanted to do.” She Who Dares. Turns out there are a lot of people in this boat with me. We will show up every day – making our optimism come true. How will YOU show up brave today?

Personalized Cuff Bracelet, affiliate link may result in paid commission; https://amzn.to/3xqOtUp

Jun3

the only egg in the room…

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…besides my head. Pardon me, I couldn’t resist. If God is in the details, Fiona de Lys is an angel incarnate. Here I am, still in wonder. Join me in my rabbit hole this morning? What do fashion, storytelling and rest have in common? Let’s visit Fiona and have a look ’round and see what we can learn about living a creative life…a deep, soul quenching life of peace.

Her home tells a story, a “narrative” as she calls it. She is telling us her personal story – about what she loves about her home, color, and her work. She can’t separate those out, nor should she. Let’s face it, our homes are at once metaphor and expression. Fiona was being restored as the space was being restored. When life’s changes (whether chosen or forced) require a move we must slow down and listen.

When she talks about the home needing to breathe she is describing a physical characteristic of many European and northern African houses. The lime finish on the walls is an organic material, a kind of chalky plaster. The climate is not friendly to gypsum, or what we call drywall. In her stairwell you see it’s natural state before any color is added. It’s a soft, mottled finish. And it does contract and expand with the temperature and humidity.

She likely added solid flooring. That is a fairly new addition there. Many old English country houses are open to the ground underneath the floorboards or bricks. Most of them do not have central heating systems. That is why you see doors on every room; they closed the heat of the fire in to stay warm. If they are listed (on the historic registry) they were built long before these amenities had been invented. Having a “cooker”, or Aga, later became the only source of heat other than open fires. Notice the desk in her dining room is almost as old as the U.S. How is it that we are not humbled by how much we have to learn and how much we take for granted? I’m convinced that if we possess any emotional intelligence at all it came from our ancestors through our genes. But I digress…

This home is full of interesting details and ideas. I’d love to hear what you noticed and liked. Fancy trying any of them?

I am new to the Amazon Affiliate program, and have yet to figure out the technology of adding a section to the blog. Any link from inside the YouTube video is from the sponsor, in this case, Homeworthy. The links following here provide me with a small commission should you make a purchase. Let’s start with the shoes. I have these! They look just like the Amazon essentials I love, found here: https://amzn.to/3X7y3e0 They’re comfortable and I wear them often. William Morris coffee table book for inspiration: https://amzn.to/4c2om4B, Green Kimono: https://amzn.to/4aEln1a

May19

we all know this…and yet

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The military has used visualization techniques since WW2. Olympic athletes practice them daily. Grief counselors know this works as well in reverse; they will tell you that having faced a life-threatening situation you must grieve as if everyone involved did, in fact, die. Your subconscious cannot tell the difference between the threat and the reality.

Einstein knew it. I posit that it was the truly valuable discovery he made – far more valuable than splitting atoms. He said, “imagination is the language of the divine.” In more recent scientific studies, since the ability to map the brain while neurons are firing, we now know that intuition and imagination are the same brain function. So, psychic ability can be taught, and it turns out daydreaming is one of the ways to learn it. (Hence the value of the tarot, of storytelling.) Being busy and “productive” all the time is the way to lose it. This brings us full circle around to “Rest As Resistance” – the only way to have freedom from oppression is to mentally remove yourself from the culture; to learn how to think freely again.

I’ve had it all my life. I suspect that being the eldest of five children in a chaotic, abusive household required my “Spidey senses” be hyper-vigilant. And so the natural sixth sense was not un-developed, but allowed to function. Maybe I’m not dysfunctional so much as I’m super-functional.

I remember watching the movie Brainstorm in the theater in 1983 and getting it. This was no longer science fiction. It made for a good screenplay; I knew better intuitively. It was what my son calls “soft disclosure,” meaning it is preemptive propaganda being presented to the masses as fiction so we will readily accept the reality in the near future. And we did. We’re living in someone else’s reality (or dystopia) now. Let’s take back our own.

So, why are each of us not experiencing absolute joy and prosperity? And the answer, as far as I can surmise, is that we don’t practice. We are scared out of our wits of our own power. The only truly meaningful question becomes: WHAT IF? What if time is NOT of the essence and money IS no object?!

What do YOU want? Have I got some stories for you…

May6

Now what do I do?

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Today is a dear friend’s birthday. I sure am glad she was born. She has been a constant inspiration to me for decades…how lucky am I? What if the gift of her in my life is just a simple metaphor for God? What if EVERYTHING is conspiring to help me?

Years ago I was driving north with my sister in the car; I don’t remember why. It was just getting dark and we were still about an hour south of home. Suddenly a police cruiser was behind us and put on his flashers. While I slowed and prepared to pull onto the shoulder my sister went off with her own emergency signal. It went something like: “oh what the hell?! You weren’t speeding! Why is he pulling us over?! What did you do wrong?!” I calmly turned to her and said, “Why would you assume something is wrong? How about we wait and see what this is about?” As it turned out, I had a tail light out. I explained to the officer that we had just picked up the vehicle from the dealer the previous day, as my husband had hit a deer last week (unfortunately a common problem here.) He said, “oh! I know exactly what the problem is. Pop the trunk and I’ll fix it.” Soon we were on our way, safer for the help. My sister, btw, made some comment about how lucky I am and how I never seem to panic (don’t believe it) because I always assume I’m in the right place at the right time. I’ve had far too many experiences of divine intervention to possibly believe in coincidence. Sadly, my sister would write in her memoir years later that she feels abandoned by God, that she “even knows a tarot card reader he blesses more than he blesses me.” I’m that tarot card reader, evil as she thinks that is. She can’t begin to comprehend how I seem to skirt the extreme hardships of the rest of the family. I could tell her, but she would never believe me: I HAVE MORE FAITH.

I don’t care who you pray to, or spell with, or your name for the divine within or without. Faith means that you know that you were “made this way,” for just “such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14) – that somewhere along the way, likely early in childhood, you decided that God doesn’t make mistakes. You decided that everything – EVERY SINGLE THING serves a purpose here on this planet we call home. And that you are not given the entire plan on purpose. You don’t need to understand. It’s NOT YOUR JOB to police the human experience, and NEWSFLASH! – you are not the gatekeeper of Heaven. Isn’t that a relief?!

Let’s spend a week asking “what if?” and be one percent more curious than fearful. Let’s be one percenters. And let’s celebrate those wonderful souls whose lives bless ours. Happy Birthday!

Apr3

when it’s nobody’s business

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Heart pounding anxiety woke me up at 3 a.m; which is not unusual anymore. I managed to talk myself off that ledge in about a minute. I’m getting better at it. My goal was freedom. The goal is always going to be freedom. Because I feel like my dream world, my rest, was hijacked. It’s mine. I want it back.

My friends and I are all worried about our adult children. They are struggling to find their footing in a culture that is undermining them every step of the way. And we are not sure how to help, or if we can. Mind you, they were raised as we were, in decent middle class families. We were well educated, but our current incomes are not cutting it. We don’t have the financial security we thought we were building all our work life. Our children left school in debt with no guarantee of a job, let alone a living wage. I read a news article last week that shocked me to my core: recent studies have shown that at least fifty percent of the baby boomers in the U.S. are financially supporting adult children. In many cases it’s the adult child and their family. They came home to get their feet back on the ground – in one case cited, 13 years ago.

Children or not, everyone I know is struggling. We are all trying to figure this out as we go along. We have no role models. We’re outliving our parents, and we are in entirely uncharted territory. We are the first generation that is openly talking about the abuse our parents and grandparents kept secret. No one was consciously dealing with narcissistic abuse 20 years ago. Or 10. No one recognized that past generations were being groomed for sexual abuse. The culture tolerated it, they tolerated verbal abuse, even laughed about it. They tolerated bad behavior, made excuses for it. Hell, we’ve voted it into the White House. Taking accountability for your behavior was optional. Do you wonder we have an epidemic of dementia?! (Help me forget!) Addiction? Of narcissism? Of sex trafficking? Of all manner of spiritual bankruptcy? Can no one connect the dots here?! That pandemic was no accident – it was a physical manifestation of a spiritual problem. It’s time to pull our heads out of the sand.

Meanwhile, I’m struggling with my health. Last week I called for a doctor appointment and was reminded that I have to be interrogated by a nurse over the phone to determine whether or not I am sick enough to qualify for a precious appointment. I have to beg just to be seen. Then before I can be given the necessary antibiotic I have to endure a week’s worth of tests. Meanwhile, I was prescribed a temporary superficial treatment. Medicare doesn’t cover that prescription, so I didn’t fill it. I can’t do that and buy groceries. And I’m angry about that.

Now, lest you think me ungrateful, or just a whiner, I am aware of opportunity hiding here in plain sight. When worry and anxiety seem to steal my peace I know my training is not yet complete. And I’m not havoc-ing it anymore (see blog post of March 15th.) Intellectually I know that the way out of angst is gratitude. But my intellect is not easily coerced. I can’t expect to start pontificating about big, general platitudes and get myself free. Those old affirmations aren’t working anymore; this feels like spiritual warfare.

But. I can start small…go back to basics. I’m sure glad I bought an orange desk chair instead of black. Orange is the happiest color. Wow, I love my bed. I love my wide Frodo feet. I walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I say “Thank You” to everything I pass (yes, out loud) – the floor, the countertop, the cat, the doorway, the moon outside. Try it. There are big things I am grateful for, too – like my son having survived cancer. He is struggling through his self-proclaimed “mid-life crisis”…but he’s here for it. Not all of his friends have made it past 40.

I can re-member myself whole. I have resources in my spiritual tool box: friends, some of my family, a loving therapist, tarot cards! At 3 a.m. with a racing heart I call in invisible help: “Christ Jesus, Archangel Michael, Ancestors! Any and all available light workers.” That’s step one. I am NOT TO BE TOILED WITH here. Neither are you – know that. God didn’t make a mistake. You were not a cosmic afterthought. You do not need to “find your purpose”…you ARE your purpose. Live like you belong here. There are no qualifications you haven’t fulfilled. You have exactly the same right to be here as 8,019,876,189 other people. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Since that has been established, I can be the narcissist’s worse nightmare. My home, my mind, and my body – my sanctuary – is a no tolerance zone. No talking down to anyone. I carry an expectation that you will be on your very best behavior around me and show up as present as possible. Don’t ever settle for anything less from anyone. Not your teacher, not your boss, not your doctor, and certainly not your family. I can laugh at myself with the best of them – when I’m silly or wrong. But don’t make fun of me at my expense. Don’t ridicule me. I’m a fucking spiritual Jedi, and I’ve trained my boundaries to be stronger than my empathy. Everybody sing along now…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YBv1aOawCBg%3Fsi%3DWZND_RBPLuLEgQV8