Category Archives: Growing

One Last Gong Bath Tonight

Posted on by learning to live like water

gong bath

Last night I sent a friend in Scotland Reiki. I only sent it for about 15 minutes, because I was so tired from getting up at 4:30 am yesterday that I started to fall asleep. (Sorry, Ogden, lol) But it did me good, which is the cool thing about giving reiki, you get it too, as it passes through you. I got the first 8 hours of sleep that I have gotten in about a week. I hope it helped him too.

I did my meditation this morning, as usual. Trying to prepare myself emotionally for this long trip I begin tomorrow. I realized at some point during the meditation that I can probably finish everything I need to finish to leave tomorrow, and still have time to go to the gong bath tonight. That would be the best thing for me.

I have been holding so much emotion in my sacral and solar plexus chakras. Every morning I wake up and have that nervous feeling in my stomach. I work with it throughout the day, but still, it’s there. And from time to time it overwhelms me, to drive such a long distance and then leave my son there. It’s just a mom thing I guess. I spent so many years trying to protect him from his fathers wrath and biting tongue, and then so much time freeing him, and then the last 8 years trying to help him heal. Making him believe that he is worthy of love and belonging just because he exists in this world, and just because he is my son, and I think that I’ve been successful on that count.

It’s just hard. We are so close. I am so happy and proud of him, that he’s set this new life up all on his own. I’ve tried to help, of course, financially a little, contributing to new tires and car alignment, and I’ll help him set up his place in CO, but he’s done all the work himself to find a place to live, and to get a decent job.

But anyway, I think the gong bath will help me to release a lot of the angst I have over the whole thing.

Not to mention all the people I’ve been saying goodbye to. There will be a ton more when I get back from CO too. I love this place I live, except in winter, lol, it is beautiful. But it’s the people who are in my life on a regular basis that will be in my heart.

So gonging I will go. I sent my friend Linda an email telling her I was now intending to come. Just once more to lay on the floor and let the tsunami pf the vibrations of all Peter and Linda’s gongs carry me where I need to go.

Working through it this morning.

Love and light…..

Note:  the picture at the top is not the gong bath I go to, but is very similar.  (Pic is from Google Images.)  We also have 8 gongs and all kinds of other vibrational instruments.  And most of us lay on the floor, it’s my preferred position.

Blowin’ Away on the Summer Wind

Posted on by learning to live like water

summer wind

I walked with my cousin this morning, a short walk, just a couple of miles. The rain stopped, it was cloudy, and though it was very humid, it was cooler, not quite 80. It was a pleasant change. It’s was that way all day, til a short time ago.

We talk, deep and honest, always. I talked to her about moving, and when I talked about leaving my son in Denver, I started crying. Geezus.

The walk was nice, but I can’t even talk about that without losing it. I don’t know how I’m going to actually do it.

Then I went to the grocery store this afternoon. I ran into one of my best friends there. We have known each other 22 years, since our kids were 2 and in Story Hour at the library together. Her daughter and my son were born on the same day. My son is older, lol, by 3 hours. A fact he never let her daughter forget.  She was part of our small book club.

She had just come home from a big family vacation to Ireland and England, with some side trips, one to Paris for a few days, I think. I had called her to see if she wanted to go for a walk about 3 or 4 weeks ago and she said, “Um…I’m in Ireland.” LOL. I said, “Oh, I guess you don’t want to go then…..” And laughed. We talked a little, texted a little.

So it was good to see her, and just catch up briefly. I told her I sold the house while she was gone, and she looked happy and sad in the same moment. We talked about it briefly, because she had an engagement she had to get to, but I choked up again, talking about taking son to CO. I am a basket case. I so wish he had a father. Or I should say, a father who wasn’t a sociopath. Anyway, we are going to try to get the book club together to say goodbye the week after next.

I truly can’t believe I’ll be out of here in 6 weeks. I’ve feel like I’ve been talking about it forever. It’s been so often, my final escape from so much drama in my life, from men who can’t love, or won’t, who have caused me so much pain.  Men who have taken all I would give, and given me back nothing except pain, and heartache, and lies.

Now I look at it as just an awesome thing I get to do. I’m so over all of that. I think about it, and I think, the drama goes on, I’m sure. Just without me. Because, really….how could there ever be any trust there? Yeah, she lied, a small tiny lie to make him stop lying to her, to make him believe he’d been caught red-handed.  I seriously only objected to it because she involved me, and it just wasn’t true. But really, he’s the one who cannot tell the truth. How could she ever ever trust her heart to him again? So much like my ex. Just cannot talk without trying to manipulate someone.

I feel like, she’s just in her comfort zone with him, and willing to put up with his bullshit.  She was never going to talk to him again, twice now, til I did.  So she did.  What kind of foundation for a relationship is that?  If I’d told him to come here that night 6 weeks ago when he asked me so many times….what would she have done then?  Wanted him back?  I was leaving anyway….who knows?  Such a game they play.

Whatever. It’s none of my business. Sometimes I just go off on a tangent, it was part of my life way too long.  I still feel connected to him on some level, it’s weird.  But it doesn’t stop me from living this life.  If we are connected through past lives, which I feels sure we are, we will bump into each other again.  But this life time….I don’t think so.

The whole point, now, is….I get to retire.  I don’t have to work, unless I want to.  I intend to find a part-time job, grocery money.  I get to live by the water, which has always been my other home.  I get to do the things I love to do, that I have a passion for, and not spend the bulk of my time at a stressful job.  I will be so free.  As hard as it will be to say goodbye to my son, the fact that he’s not going to be living with me, makes me all the more free.

I didn’t do any packing today. Just normal house chores. Laundry, shopping, making some food so we’ll have food to eat during the week. Now I’m outside in the sacred space, lol. With a dark rum and diet coke and half a lime squeezed into it. Feeling pretty content. Sun is out, and it’s breezy. This mornings humidity is blowing away.

As are the last years tears, and pain, and drama. Blowing away, leaving cool, clean energy in it’s place. Life is so good.

Love and light, everyone.

Closure is Vastly Overrated

Posted on by learning to live like water

No closure

I’ve been doing the Deepak Chopra / Oprah 21 day meditation on losing the weight.  I’d like to lose another 10 or 15 lbs before I move. Just to be a new me, really the old me, long ago, when I was young..  I’ve lost a couple lbs (first I had to lose the 4 lbs I gained on vacation, lol.)

As it turns out though, being overweight has so much to do with our emotional state, at least I know that’s true for me.  Being hungry for lots of things, often manifests in food. For the longest time, I’ve wanted real closure with S.  All the endings, lol, and there have been many, have always been ugly, have always left me confused, and in pain, or angry. This morning during the mediation I realized that what has happened is my head gets stuck on replaying over and over the words, the scenarios, looking for hints, looking for something to hold onto.  It’s a loop, that I get stuck on, and I’d say many of us do.

Today I woke with no angst, or desire for that old life.  Then listening to Deepak’s quiet voice, I realized that I have to question that loop I get stuck in occasionally.  Is it real?  Is it true?  (And I say that in my best Byron Katie voice.) And, does it matter?  Does it have anything to do with what goes on now?

No, is the answer to all of it.  It has always been chaotic with him, it has always been extreme, it never made any sense and never will.  I have to stop the loop in my head that wants it that way. Just shut it down, and realize that my life and his no longer intersect because they are not supposed to.  The love and the passion that we shared is really the only thing that I choose to remember. Whether or not he perceives it, or chooses to remember it that way, I have to let go of.  And just move on.

There is no closure.  There wasn’t with my ex either.  My ex, is a mess…..I love him, I don’t want him in my life in any way.  There is only chaos, and still…he seeks power and control by trying to make me feel bad that I left, that he’s broke, that I salvaged what I could.  S…I love him too, but also can’t have him in my life.  Again, there is only chaos, of a different kind, but chaos nonetheless.  I saw, in January, how he was quite willing to bounce back and forth between me and B, when it suited him.  I hope he finds happiness, but I don’t expect he will.  There is no closure with people who live in their ego.

So…we have to break the loop that keeps asking for it.  The one that keeps asking “But why?” to all the myriad questions.  Suffice to say it’s over, there are better things ahead, and just move on.  Trust in the universe to right the wrongs, to bring your dreams to you.

In the meditation….he talks about breaking the loop that always brings us to eat as the answer.  That identifies all hunger as actual need for food.  I think those of us who have loved narcissists, or abusers stuck on power and control, just have to give ourselves closure, by breaking that endless loop that races through our minds.

And really move on.

Every day, I am able to do that more.  Yesterday I was stronger than the day before.  Today, I am stronger than yesterday.  The memories I choose to keep, are tempered by truth, and I detach myself from them.

Moving on….it starts slowly, one small weak step, then another.  At first away from the pain and heartache, but at some point, we begin to walk toward something, our dreams, ourselves.  I have begun to walk briskly toward my dreams.  Those memories are shrinking into the distant past.

Was it real?  Wast it true?  It doesn’t matter.  It’s over.

Life is good.  Make yourself a beautiful dream, and start taking one small step toward it.  You don’t need closure to do it. You just have to start walking.

Love and light.

 

Just Some Observations

Posted on by learning to live like water

 I wrote a blog about S and I, about how we would get together after work. But I’ve deleted it, just now. Decided it was too personal. 

I went to bed last night, and just thought about how it was, and how he could be that way with me, and then leave and go to her bed the next day…and never tell either of us.  What kind of mentality allows someone to do that?

How could it not be special?  He said, after I found out, “My relationship with you is nothing like my relationship with her.”  How could he separate his emotions like that? How could he be two different people? How could he not feel extreme guilt when he was with either of us?

Well, we always pay.  What we bury, or ignore, or deny, our bodies deal with.  No wonder his diabetes is back.  No wonder he had those terrible headaches last summer.  Maybe the headaches were a lie too, just an excuse he made up so I wouldn’t press him to see him on Saturday night.  Nothing is for sure anymore.

I told him, back when I would talk to him, to see his pulmonologist.  I didn’t think the health issue I was feeling was his diabetes.  I thought it had to do with his breathing.  Probably because when I’ve done reiki on him, his heart and throat chakras were so blocked.

It’s all just an observation now.  I look at what happened without emotion now.  It’s not really even a pleasant memory anymore, just a memory, like a dream that suddenly goes bad.

You wake up, and say, it was just a dream.  An hour later, you’ve forgotten it.

I’ll find someone else to sit on the deck with me and stargaze.  I’m letting go, with every word I write.  7 weeks out, I think I’m doing pretty well.

Early Morning Thoughts

Posted on by learning to live like water

Early Morning Sunrise 11-23-15

Early morning sunrise is beautiful this morning.  I have been up since well before dawn, but I slept well last night.

I did my final day of the Deepak Chopra 21 day free meditation this morning.  When it was done I saw this sunrise, like a simple gift from the universe.

Every morning I wake up a little farther from the chaos of the last few weeks, and it usually lessens throughout the day.  I am not slipping backward, which is a huge thing.  I have no more rogue waves knocking me down.  Nothing pushing me backward.

Grateful this morning, I guess.  Just grateful.  There is so much to be grateful for, even the hard lessons.  I can see it all as a gift.  Even though at times, I still pick my jaw up off the floor at the depth of deception that one man can create, he deceived himself worst of all.  His deception made me smarter, and wiser.  I have grown from the experience.  As long as we do that, it’s never a waste.

It’s only a 3 day work week this week.  Hopefully I will go to the sweat lodge Saturday.  I know it would be really good for me.  I feel blessed that there are so many healing opportunities around here to bring me back to myself.  Every day I remember more who I was, and who I am.

Thanksgiving will be quiet as usual.  Just me and my son.  I’m grateful he’ll be home all day. It is the first time in a few years he has not had to go into work in the late afternoon to work overnight for Black Friday.  In fact he has the day off, his new job is not a hot spot for Christmas shopping.

Been texting with A this morning, since early, which is really early for him.  He is telling me about his son’s girlfriend, coming to see him from Maine, to New Mexico, talking about moving out there.  I think he is wistful, that I have no interest in doing that.  I have always told him I could never live in the desert.  I wouldn’t mind visiting, but probably not him for more than a day or two.  I love him, but it’s a love that’s better from a distance than up close.

I’m still sure the up close one is headed my way.

Love and light.

 

Finding Your Own Way

Posted on by learning to live like water

https://www.facebook.com/GilbertLiz/photos:

I had a conversation about this today.  It’s so easy for us to do what others want, or expect us to do. To stay in a marriage or a relationship because it’s easier than leaving it, even if it leaves you cold, or alone, or unfulfilled.  Lord knows I have done it.

Lord also knows that I have learned the lesson now, that my life is mine, to decide what I want out of it.  And I will fight my way to the light if I have to.  But I won’t settle for less than I want.  I am lucky, I know what that is.  I know what I want, I have some idea of how to get it.

But I intend to extend my hand to those still seeking.  Not to do it for them, but to support them and cheer them on in the quest to give their lives meaning.  No one should settle.  Life is for living, fully, passionately. As people have supported me, I will pay it forward.

You are enough.  You are so enough.  It is unbelievable how enough you are.  (another Liz Gilbert quote)

Growing Pains

Posted on by learning to live like water

Today was kinda rough. But there is no growth without pain, is there?

After texting with S yesterday, which never comes to any good end, I just cut it off, and thought that I’d not hear from him for a few days, but I heard from him today on his lunch break. And again, to no good end.  Yesterday I cut it off when it started to get ugly, today, it got ugly, and I blocked him, for good.  I have no desire to argue with him, and that was the only point.  To argue over nothing, as if it mattered how it turned out. It didn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, and I’m sick of it.  Why argue when you have no relationship?  What’s the point?  I don’t want anything from him, except to be left alone by him.  It’s over and done.

As in the Rumi quote, watch my rising.

There is no need for ugliness.  The love doesn’t disappear, it just transforms, into something else, a different kind of caring, that doesn’t leave your heart aching and your stomach upset.  It wasn’t my choice then, now it’s a choice I agree with.  It’s a choice I want, I want to be free of the old encumbrance, I want nothing to hold me back from finding that which I want.  I don’t want to ruin what are good memories with any more bad ones.  It’s like my dysfunctional marriage, I still can remember many good times, even though the ending was ugly, but I want no more ugly memories to add to it.  And the same with S.  No more memories at all, just let it be done.

As it should have been ages ago, way before Betty Boop came back.  Long ago.  With the prison whore probably.  Or when the first signs of withdrawal showed after his friend died.

But whatever, it’s over now.  I don’t want a text, a voice mail, an email.  I don’t want one more minute of it.  The longing is turning into something that I don’t want to feel, the missing him is starting to feel ridiculous. Missing what?  I don’t know.  Nothing that I can’t live without. Nothing that I haven’t lived without for a long time, and nothing that I don’t feel better without now.

He has his “one, the one”.  My opinions about that are none of his business, nor is how I feel about him or see him.  Whether or not I can still unconditionally love him, is none of his business.  I hope he quits thinking about it, and tries to make something work in his life.  With her.  And leave me alone.

He said he wanted to find a way to keep me in his life.  There is no way.  I don’t want to be in it.  I get to make that choice, and I made it, irrevocably today.  Too much ugliness.  I’m just done with it.

Lessons, there are always lessons.  Even the ones you think are hard, and you hated learning them, raise you to a place you’d not been before, if you choose to learn them.  Watch me rise….watch the experience lift me into a smarter, wiser, more tender, more loving place.  Every experience can lift you or knock you down.  Trust always, that what happened was supposed to happen, and glean from it what you can that will help you grow.

That is my intention.  To grow, to be better than I was.