Category Archives: mental health

Sep2

I don’t clean up for less.

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Okay, I admit, I am easily entertained. Although I’ve become increasingly pickier with age. Want my money, my time, my attention? That bar is high these days; it will remain so. My standards have been raised. Some people have the gall to tell me that my standards are too high. Others might say they had nowhere to go but up. However, I don’t much care what some might say anymore…

My criteria for acceptable entertainment (as well as information) has been refined, taste aside. I expect high quality in everything I take in, whether that be news, movies, television, music…or our relationship. And by quality, I mean on every level. My senses are going to be bombarded with the culture of sensationalism every day, so bring it. If I am going to watch, I want high quality cinematography. Listening? Crisp high quality sound while I’m weeding out the crap. No more perfumey candles to smell or scratchy fabrics against my skin. I’ve had to improve the quality of the food I eat if I want to be healthy – and isn’t that work these days?! Read the labels, research – and then pay more to have them leave the chemicals and the seed oils out. Even my cat deserves nothing less than the best quality food I can possibly afford.

Now in my 70’s, I’ve survived more than most people can imagine. A lifetime of narcissistic abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse. I have walked through hell. I’ve watched – and felt – almost every person I’ve ever loved suffer through cancer and addiction. Now I watch my beloved child struggle from decades of absent adults, never present enough to protect him from the same ravages. My gorgeous, brilliant nieces and nephews – and their children now; living out the 4th generation of trauma. To say I have paid my dues is an understatement. The only thing I’m sorry for are all the years I wasted making compromises. Repeat after me: “All my debts are paid, seen and unseen.” And be absolutely certain of it.

Now – just now!, am I really getting to the good stuff of life. Droppin’ off the shame. I’m not made for that. Neither are you. So, no more apologies. No more begging to belong. We are everything we are meant to be.

“Be kind to me, or treat me mean. I’ll make the most of it; I’m an extraordinary machine.” – Fiona Apple

Aug21

bugger

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“People without a sense of humor will never forgive you for being funny.” – Joyce, The Thursday Murder Club

In my fantasy life I host a writer’s group once a month. Or maybe we pretend to be a book group or a writer’s group but we really solve murders. We gather around my gorgeous little antique dining table in the upholstered rattan chairs and talk and ponder all afternoon. We have tea, coffee, perhaps a sip of prosecco. We open little party gifts we’ve made or collected for each other, and we eat cucumber sandwiches and scones with lots of cream…someone falls asleep out on the veranda in the chaise lounge. It’s just a little nap. Some drooling might occur, but no one will hold it against you.

They love coming to my home, because, well, let’s face it – I know how to entertain. And put together a list of suspects. No one leaves hungry, and everyone leaves excited and hopeful and full of new ideas. It will be hard to sleep tonight.

In my actual life, a dear friend is moving into a new apartment in a retirement community, as did another friend not long ago. I’m experiencing pangs of jealousy. First of all, I love being old. Helen Mirren said “the best part of being over 70 is being over 70.” So hanging out with peers is ever so appealing. Young people just don’t get it. I want no-holds-barred brutally honest communication – and I also want to be home in my pajamas by 8.

All of my adult life I’ve wanted for nothing more than a big, raucous house full of family and friends. Kids and grandkids, constant coming and going. Music playing and spontaneous dancing and laughter and laughter and laughter. And a private office off my bedroom with a door that locks when “I vant to be left alone.“

That was my childhood home, and I spent the last 50 years of my life trying to recreate it. But it wasn’t real. It was a sham. My childhood home was also hiding terrible neglect and abuse and dysfunction. The big loud happy home was just for show. My parents wanted the happy home, too; they also didn’t know how to make it happen. They didn’t know how to face the addiction demons. Neither was I going to be able to create the life I wanted; I had not a clue how to go about it. And so shame tends to creep into my dreams and cloud my sleep. When I wake I feel entirely like a failure. Where did I go wrong?

That’s where the deep sense of failure stems from: I’m smart…but not smart enough to have figured this out when I was younger. To have stopped trying to please everyone else and keep everyone else safe; to have known that survival mode will never get you where you want to go. I was slow to understand that love is not transactional, nor negotiable. I wasn’t just quite smart enough to know that we really cannot earn our way to health and happiness…to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that I AM already everything I could possibly dream. My loyalty and devotion were misplaced outside myself.

And now I have lived long enough to know the privilege of looking myself in the mirror and asking, “IS that what you really wanted? Or perhaps, is there something far more valuable to be gleaned here?” And now I can let myself fall apart at the seems. I grieve the life I spent trying to fulfill a fantasy that, in fact, I would not choose now. Now that I belong to myself.

“Hope is a renewable option: If you run out of it, at the end of the day, you get to start over in the morning.” – Barbara Kingsolver

Aug6

a new religion called NOPE

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“STOP letting your mental health be damaged by systems that were never designed to protect it!” – Sheila Hammond

If someone asks you if you’ve heard the latest news, and you think, “Dear God, please let it be aliens,” you are not broken. Sheila Hammond has made the YouTube channel I wish I’d thought of. She is funny, and she is tellin’ it like it is! She’s done offering her sanity to systems that profit off her exhaustion. Amen, sister. Amen.

You can care about the world and you can set boundaries. You can opt out of chaos without opting out of your values. You can disengage without being in denial. You can scream into the void…and log off for a nap. Personally, I am done with risking participation in anything likely to jerk me around emotionally. Ain’t nobody got time for that.

In recent posts I have written about losing friends and family members because I won’t attend the protest march (what you resist persists) or join the group or contribute to the cause or watch the news. Don’t get me wrong, I respect them immeasurably. Their heart is in the right place. If I feel compelled to do so, I do know how. As far as I know I still have an FBI record from being arrested in the protests in Detroit during the 60’s and 70’s. Meanwhile that isn’t how I’m most effective. That does not mean I am sitting here doing nothing – but it is amazing the changes you can implement silently from your sofa once you get focused.

It’s scary at first to realize your personal power. However, you have to pull your spirit back into your body and listen. In order to overcome the addiction of culture you have learn to stop the performance art you called life for the past decades, otherwise you won’t know your authentic voice when it speaks. And it does. I hope you’ll join the me in the religion of NOPE. Because as Sheila says, sanity is trying to stage a comeback.

“I command my spirit into my body in full at this time.” – Carolyn Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit

May I suggest we nurture a song worm today:

Aug3

one way only

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Success! My rain spell worked. Which is to say, I left my laundry hanging out on the line all night. Never underestimate me.

A beautiful friend came to visit yesterday afternoon. I was a bit verklempt. I almost cancelled, but I really wanted to see her. It’s been too long. The overwhelm was only because it came at the end of an insanely busy week. By insanely busy I mean 2 things: 1) I had at least one activity scheduled every day, and 2) I never got a nap all week. I usually nap every afternoon.

As it happened this past week I had 2 medical appointments scheduled which had been weeks on the calendar, and I had to cancel them for more pressing medical issues which required immediate attention. I also had to cancel lunch with my friend on Tuesday as I couldn’t drive to meet her. She was concerned about me and drove the hour out to my house on Saturday.

My house is very purposely located on a spit of land that elbows out into Lake Michigan, affectionately referred to by locals as The Land of Oz. I say purposely because I moved here precisely because it is a destination of some determination, ie; not on the way to anywhere. Nobody just drops in. I detest dropper-inners.

When I moved out here on this precipice of life and beauty I had to drive to the post office for my mail. They didn’t deliver mail here just outside the village limits. Yes, that was 2018. I had to join with 3 neighbors and petition the post office for mail delivery, clear and level a path next to the road and install mail boxes. We get mail delivery now, but not necessarily daily. They will deliver your mail when they darn well get around to it. It’s a privilege, and don’t you forget it. I do appreciate it. I know they are short staffed, and I appreciate having a local post office. Many villages around here do not.

Friday I received a new deck of tarot cards in the mail, so I opened them after lunch with my friend. We sat on my very long, deep sofa (a.k.a. Mom’s Cosmic Healing Sofa) and shuffled, talking, laughing and kvetching…and we each drew a card, which took our mundane conversation in a deeper direction.

One of my many withdrawals in recent years has been from the practice of reading and channeling professionally. Because, well, people. Most people don’t really want to be challenged to grow, to face their shadow, to look at the habits no longer serving them. They don’t want to sit in the present moment until the tears come. It isn’t comfortable. It is, however, priceless. The tarot is so beautifully designed for exactly this work, and I cannot use it otherwise. I mean, sure, you can use it to access any information you want to know. I can astral travel anywhere and spy on anyone. I won’t. I can psychically answer all your questions. I won’t. Those are parlor tricks. As Geraldine Jones would say, “that is not my job!”

During her visit, we talked about my friend’s daughter-in-law, who has also been living with chronic Lyme disease. She is much younger than I and has suffered far worse for much longer. We spoke about healing, but my compassionate friend asked about how I deal with pain and not being able to function some days. I told her it has been my greatest teacher. When I am ill (sometimes on the bathroom floor at 3 a.m.) I pray. It’s the only help. I pray with each breath. All I say is: “Thank you.”

Thank you for this body. Thank you for this pain in my liver. Thank you for my life. Thank you for my home, for this bed, for this sweet feline companion, for my beautiful son. Thank you for my big, violent, fu#ked up family – and for the fight in them. Thank you for friends, long-standing and patient, brand new and welcoming. Thank you…for the purpose this illness serves though I do not understand it. Thank you.

Thank you…”so that I can have this one way, along with every other way, to know that I am here.”

Jul11

the world is made of spider webs

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“When I’m an old lady I want to be one of those women that has a house full of plants, weird rocks and crystals. That just looks after her animals, paints and minds her own business with her crazy hair.” – unk

Well I don’t know who said that, but I am that woman now! It’s the second week of July already. I’m getting around to spring cleaning. Better late than never I suppose. For starters, it’s been a little-shop-of-horrors-like around here for a couple of years now. I seem to have a green thumb (I am an old witch, after all.)
I take home little forlorn plants from the grocery store clearance for $3. and two years later there is nowhere to sit in the same room. One small monstera I brought home (it had tipped over and lost half it’s dirt) is now eight feet wide and ten feet high. Seven years ago I bought a foot-high Norfolk Island Pine (indoor only in my climate) to use as a tiny Christmas tree and it’s almost hitting the ceiling now. My son helped me move the plants out to the back deck the other day. They aren’t coming back in. I need to find homes for them. Removing them has opened up every room and it feels so spacious in here I could dance. No really – I could actually dance in here.

This is a small house. Originally built as a summer cottage by a University of Michigan professor, the idiot I bought it from tore out most of it’s original features and knocked out walls to create an open floor plan. If you don’t know how I feel about that you might read some of my older posts. Suffice it to say that open floor plans are an abomination of the human spirit. They suck the dignity out of relationships by unnaturally forcing everyone in the household to share the same noises and smells. It feels like living inside a shoe box. Open floors plans are for worms…just sayin’…

But I live in an open floor plan, because, well, it was the right house in the right place. The plants apparently like this arrangement. They have taken over, spreading from the studio to the kitchen and the living area to the dining area. And down the stairs and across the ceiling. This ends now. I’m taking back my home! I love nature, and I will always have a few plants. But this has become ridiculous. I’m ducking and penguin-ing myself around them.

For my next trick, I’m deep cleaning all those creepy corners I haven’t been able to reach or crawl into. Getting all the spider webs and tumbleweeds of cat hair out. Eeeeewwwwww…and I have taken down the curtains and washed them. Everything has sticky dust. And I wonder why I’m so sick all the time?! Twelve loads of laundry later and the place is looking like new.

So here’s the thing. I’ve read a bazillion books on decluttering and feng shui-ing your space back into order. Psychology journals about how decluttering helps your mental health. And I’ve always done it throughout the years…in little increments. It has never felt like this. Maybe because I’ve been ill? It’s true that I’ve never let my home get this dirty and cluttered before. But something about this is coinciding with a huge shift in awareness.

A few months ago I participated in a Beta test group for a program designed to help older women traversing life changes. I’ve mentioned it here briefly, and I will provide a link for you at the bottom of this post. It’s called the Wayfinding Road. I don’t know what any of us were expecting, but this process with this group of remarkable women has been beyond helpful. The small group I was working with included a recent widow, a woman retiring and moving across the country, a woman whose husband was ill, one who had left the country and relocated to Europe, one who is a political refugee in exile. All manner of circumstances – one uncompromising commitment: a life of continued growth. We quickly realized we had much in common despite a wide variety of life experiences. Soon after the 6 week program began I started having dreams with these women in them. And my dreams were fantastic, adventurous and profoundly healing. I was wealthy beyond measure. Something supernatural was happening. We discovered we were all having experiences we could not explain. We started calling it “magic” for lack of a better explanation.

I have never met any one of these women in person. I have interacted with them only online and via email. If one of them called tomorrow and said “I need your help,” I’d be on a plane. They taught me how to love myself. I’m done with depression and shame and guilt. They taught me how to stop performing my life and begin to live it, deeply. They are well educated, articulate. Some of them speak more than one or two languages. They are all extraordinary. The 2nd time we met I confessed to feeling unworthy of their friendship – but I knew I had 2 choices: drop out or show up. I showed up and they lifted me higher.

I hear them talking to me in meditation, telling me precisely what action to take to heal myself. This morning’s meditation told me that my chronic pain and illness serves only to remind me that I took on the responsibility for my family, and that it is long past time to let them go. Not only can I not be responsible for them, but this addiction to saving them is not helping anyone. I gave it up today and got out of bed pain free.

My life has begun to change now in the last few months. Not in any way I had planned. It’s still going on; it’s a process. I don’t know what this means or where it will lead me. Watch this space. But wow…change is afoot.

Lynnelle Wilson is the creator of Wayfinding Road. Contact her through YouTube or Substack:

Jul1

NO is a complete sentence.

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“I am not knowing,” my southern grandmother Mimi used to respond when she didn’t know the answer to our constant inquiries. You or I would say, “I don’t know.” Or more likely, “dunno.” Mimi was effortlessly – even accidentally, elegant. So she was not knowing.

Needing to know is a scam. Needing to know what’s next, what to be when we grow up, what to do with our life…our “purpose”……ONE BIG SCAM. It’s the invisible CULT mentality of BELONGING scam. It is the insidious, evil programming of the hustle culture; meant to keep us enslaved. It’s grooming us to identify ourselves with a job, a career, a political party, or even a marriage. To whittle ourselves down to fit. To value ourselves for what we do. If, in your infinite failure to be enough, you become an alcoholic or an addict, well…bonus for the cult.

Drop your beliefs. They’re chains. Find your true value within yourself. Value yourself as a verb, and trust your becoming. YOUR true value is in being you, right here, right now. You LITERALLY ARE a work in progress. That is your purpose, P E R I O D. Breathe. God does not make mistakes. You were born. You have every right to be you. End of story. Figure yourself out, don’t figure yourself out…all within your right. I’ve been saying this all my adult life – but not living the truth of it. Still trying to fit in. Still trying to figure out what to do with myself. Still trying.

And until I feel like I want to whisper “YES!” to something, I will practice saying NO to what I don’t want. “No” is a complete sentence. I am so over explaining myself. Find your own why; I am not knowing. I am, however, infinitely curious. Aren’t you? I’ve gone from the immaturity of wondering why I am here to asking better questions, like, what do I really want? I’m trusting God knows why I’m here and therefore I don’t need to know. I don’t owe anyone a version of myself that makes them comfortable. The only person I owe anything is myself. All my debts are paid, seen and unseen.

My darling, sweet Mother used to say to me, “Do something, Susan, even if it’s wrong.” She meant help with the housework, of course! That was her conditioning speaking. In truth, she would never feel like she was enough. She would busy herself to death. What I wouldn’t give for one more conversation, but how would I ever manage to convince her that she was so much more than enough?

Also when I was a bratty teenager, same said darling Mother used to say, “Learn how to spell GURU and you’ll never need one.” G-U-R-U.

May10

and I just ain’t got the time

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“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer; it sings because it has a song.” – Maya Angelou

Recently I wrote that my mojo was missing like Car 54…and then I wrote nothing for weeks. I had nothing. Crickets. Where does it go, the muse, the inspiration, the energy…life? In the barometer of my body it feels to have dropped…way down deep inside. And it feels like death. Well, not that I know what death feels like, although I’ve been close a few times. But it feels something has stopped breathing. It’s hibernating. It can’t be prodded or cajoled to surface; I have to wait until it – she – crawls out from under the covers. It’s always tentative at first. Shy. Vulnerable. Immature.

Music is often the ladder I climb out of that dark womb back to the misty surface of the early morning light. Many years ago a friend told me I have a musical heart, and I think I always have. I come from a family of musicians. I don’t seem to have any talent there, but I often dream in song.

The first time I heard Stevie Winwood’s haunting voice my soul recognized a fellow spirit. That’s what good art does. It wakes something hiding deep inside. How many times did I experience Stevie Winwood in concert? Spencer Davis Group, Blind Faith (at the Grande Ballroom?) Traffic at Joe Louis Arena – The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys tour in 1972 (the year I graduated high school.) I went to hear him. Not Eric Clapton, or Ginger Baker.

Sing to me, Stevie. I’m all alone in this cage, and somebody holds the key…

Feb25

from survival to mastery

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Thank you, Dear Reader, for being here. I’ve gone AWOL again. But I’m back with renewed determination and fortitude. When I go offline here it means I’ve gone offline in my life. I’m in survival mode. It never ceases to surprise me, because, well, I’m far too self aware for that to happen again…right?! (Insert laughing emoji face here.)

We all have a default. It’s the trigger that catches you by surprise every damn time. It’s a sneaky demon. It’s a jealous, vengeful little tick. It doesn’t want your life. Oh wait – yes it does. It just wants what you have. You know what that is, right? Right?!

It’s wants FREEDOM. It wants all the freedom, as if it were a limited resource. It wants a life of it’s own. Let’s not give it ours, whaddayasay?

I have a favorite scene in a favorite old movie, Witches of Eastwick. Brilliant movie, way before it’s time. The women have discovered that they can fly. The dog is barking at them. And Daryl Van Horne kneels next to the dog to calm him, and whispers, “Look what they can do. These are human beings.” And he isn’t – but he sure is in awe of them.

Are you in awe? Are you in awe of you, of your life? Are we? Are we thriving? Thriving requires we free ourselves from survival mode. Apparently I’m accruing more clueage about how to do that, and I humbly come here to share my floundering. Just FYI, I will continue to seek freedom until my dying breath. Some days I’m kicking and screaming (which looks like ranting and raving.) More often than not I’m under the covers, breathing shallowly, wondering how I came to be so small again.

Now about that “clueage” – which we will explore here this week: I have a niggling feeling deep inside that it’s the same issue for us all. I’m certainly not special or unique in this intrinsically human pursuit. There is a common denominator in all our woes. You won’t like it. It’s ugly and you might not believe we are still dealing with this all these years of therapy later. It’s codependence.

Cringe. Yep. You think you healed it or outgrew it, and it finds a way to sneak back in through your pores and infiltrate your bloodstream. You felt safe, and you let down a boundary.

So that’s about the gist of this – boundaries are never going to be negotiable. You are going to have to spend the rest of your spectacular human life patrolling the fence line of your own being. YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO PUT YOURSELF FIRST.

That’s all there is to it…

Feb8

there but for the grace of God

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Okay. Let’s get down to the nitty gritty, shall we? We are less than a month into this new political administration. Regime, more accurately. I see it. I see the evil. Listen, I’ve lived with evil. Come face to face with it in my own home. You know that scene in Constantine where he puts his feet in a tub of water and travels into hell? Done it. (Don’t tell anybody I know how to do that.) That movie’s depiction of hell looked like a Disney ride compared to my experience. But I was successful in my mission. And I learned a few things. I’ll keep them to myself for now.

I was born into an upper middle class family in the suburbs of Detroit during the automobile boom. Both my grandfathers were in business together. They owned a company that built and maintained railroad tracks. That’s how the cars were moved. I was also a direct descendent of more than one founding father, cousin to several Presidents. I was destined to live a privileged life.

It will never cease to shock me how white Americans are so drastically unaware of their privilege. I’m still regularly shocked when I see it in myself, deeply ingrained as it is. But somehow I began to see this as a young girl. Somehow my parents and grandparents and teachers taught me some true values. I know right from wrong. And true from evil. You see, good is not the opposite of evil: truth is. Do not be fooled – we are not in any sort of political dilemma; the political era we see playing out is a symptom of a much deeper struggle over values. We are in a spiritual battle for the soul of humanity. Out there is a hologram we are projecting. We humans WILL come out the other side of this healed, whether it takes a decade, a century, a millennium – or ten minutes*. Our choice.

Perhaps this is the reason I don’t fear the future. Maybe it’s just my old age. Are we looking at some horrifically hard times here in the U.S? Probably. If we survive, will we lose loved ones? Very likely. I am looking as purposefully and accurately as I can, in order not to be naive or shy away from painful awareness. And, I am doing my homework.

News flash: the sky is not falling. It already fell. You are standing on it. Now, pull your head out of your past and get busy. Take the absolute best care of yourself possible. Love the people in your life. Love your pets, the animals around you in nature, all life. Love them all fiercely. Live with intention. Sage your house like a mutha, especially after you feel anger, fear, or sadness. Detox your body. Vote with your money. Practice your rituals. Keep calm and stay inside the salt circle. KNOW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, your values – and never, ever – EVER – compromise them. Not for any person, not for any amount of money, not even if your life seems to depend on it. Don’t be the Judas. Stand true to yourself at all costs. And to the best of your ability, give nothing to fear. Contribute nothing to defensiveness.

Would I stand up to a bully? Absolutely. And I’ve had a lifetime of practice. Would I defend my loved ones – or anyone less fortunate, for that matter – against a bully? With my life. But make sure you aren’t one. Don’t go looking for the others. There are no others. And the best way I know how to do that is to extricate the unhealed trauma from my own body; to face my own demons. Believe me, we all have them. As long as you are still sitting there in your lovely home, sipping your tea or coffee, only think about Heaven. Imagine it. Open your heart and radiate warmth. Read uplifting stories. Learn who to trust. Turn off the news. Most importantly, expound endless mantras of gratitude.

* (what A Course in Miracles calls the Holy Instant)

Feb7

…the same thing we do every night, Pinky…

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“The way you alchemize a soulless world into a sacred world is by treating everyone as if they are sacred until the sacred in them remembers.” – unknown

That’s a great meme, and I don’t doubt the truth of that statement, but I’ve never practiced treating everyone as if they are sacred. Far from it. I’ve been ornery and downright cruel at times. I’d like to think I’ve matured, but who knows. It is easier said than done, and as we know, patience is not one of my virtues.

But if I know anything, I know this: our unhealed trauma is causing all the problems. All. The. Problems. Including our current political chaos. Unhealed personal trauma directly results in chaos, both personal and collective. That said, chaos isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s uncomfortable, perhaps even painful, but inevitably it leads to change. “The universe is a process and it’s method is change.” – Germaine Greer

If I am a miraculous and unique composition of the same particles shared with all (seemingly disparate) parts of the earth, how can I not be in a constant state of change? Back in my twenties and early 30’s I went through a couple years of bodywork sessions with a Buddhist monk from Seattle. He was recommended by fellow roller skaters who appeared to be growing younger before my eyes. He flew into Detroit bimonthly to offer this particular healing modality. I would pay him a lot of my hard-earned money, and he would chant and dance around the table, sometimes yell, and reach in through my belly button to adjust my spine. Some form of exorcism was taking place. The hour session was usually painful and sometimes frightening because I didn’t understand what he was doing. Now I know it would be classified as “psychic surgery.” But I had profound healing experiences, physically and spiritually. I was accidentally learning that all my pain was a form of emotional resistance stored in my connective tissue – ie., unhealed trauma.

And I remember thinking at one point, “the more I allow my mind to flow with the abstract, the more I stand to gain here.” Or as my young son would have said at the time, “you’re just gonna have to let your imagination go with this, Mom…” It was a valuable lesson. That said, healing trauma is a lifelong commitment, no doubt about it. I’m convinced it is stored in every cell. So start paddling, Pinky…