Category Archives: truth

Some Fundamental Truths Introspection

Posted on by learning to live like water

This morning my FB feed was, thankfully, not all about the antics of our tweeter-in-chief. I am so sick of reading about him, even though I think it’s important that we know what he’s been doing because it will affect all our lives. It’s just nice to have a reprieve from it, and especially on a quiet Sunday morning, to be able to sit and watch a couple of cool, human interest and/or funny videos and read some good articles.

One of my favorites today was from the Huffington Post, titled “10 Fundamental Truths That Will Change Your Life.” Just a list, with a short discussion of each, of things like “You’re living the life you created. (#4), Fear is the #1 source of regret. (#5), Live your life in the moment. (#7), Your self-worth must come from within. (#8), and Change is inevitable – Embrace it. (#10). Not to say that #’s 1, 2, 3, 6, and 9 weren’t just as important. These just stood out to me at the moment. Another day, another list, lol.

I have always said I dislike regrets, I dislike wishing my past was different than it was. Instead of regrets I say they were mistakes, lessons to be learned. Lessons that were not coincidental, but were part of my life’s journey to evolve my soul. Some were difficult, some were easy. But with all of them, it was, is, important to learn the lesson and then to Let It Go. As they said in the Huffington Post article, “No amount of guilt can change the past, and no amount of anxiety can change the future.” Learn the lesson that has presented itself. Then…put it in the past. And live in the moment. The present moment.

Am I safe? Do I have food to eat? Do I know if any of the terrible things I might think are really true? And if I don’t, was/is there any reason to obsess over them? Not meaning to preach here, just kind of relate a journey which took me from an abusive marriage to a new life in a place that I love, and a close relationship with my family, and friends. 10 years ago, I left that marriage. It was the beginning of creating a new life for myself. I accept that I also had an equal hand in creating the old, fearful and sad one that I lived in for so many years. But do I regret that life? No. I learned some of my most important lessons ever there. And, of course, without it would not have my son. Sometimes I reget that it took me so long to learn the lesson, but….it is what it is. I took as long as I needed, and now at the age of almost 66, I see the benefits of the lessons.

I’m so grateful that others have gone before me on this journey and have shared their wisdom. So greatful for the great teachers of these essential wisdoms who have been put in my path, holding a candle or a floodlight, or sometimes just taking me by the hand and guiding me….whichever was needed for me to see, and comprehend.

I guess that if I were to add a #11, it would be, “Every day find something to be grateful for. Even if it’s just your breath.” Gratitude is probably one of the most important things we can do for ourselves. Even to the point of being grateful for all our hardships, for the lessons we learned from them. Sometimes when I can’t get to sleep, I just start listing in my head all the things I’m grateful for. My son, my family, my friends. The bed that I sleep in, the food in my fridge, the moonlight outside my window, the air that I breathe. I’ve often fallen asleep making that list. It just brings a sense of calm and order, and peace.

Guess I’m doing some introspection this morning, caused by that article. If you want to read the article, here’s the link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/10-fundamental-truths-that-will-change-your-life_us_58dc0459e4b07f61a2bb8ae0?

Love and light, everyone.

4 AM Introspection

Posted on by learning to live like water

Awake at 4 Am, out of bed at 5. Not really a whole lot on my mind, except reflection of where I’ve been, and where I’m headed.

I thought a lot about the two men I’ve loved, my ex and S. I clearly saw how I fell in love with them, and why and how both relationships turned out to be so unhealthy for me. I thought about the article on Metta Buddhism, about how you can’t, just can’t, care for anothers happiness at the expense of your own. Any more than you should care for your own happiness at the expense of someone else.

So many of us were brought up to be pleasers, wanting to make everyone happy. Which is ok, as long as you include yourself in that equation. But when a relationship is making someone else happy,or even just filling a need of the other person, but bringing you a lot of discomfort….it’s time to let it go. I stayed in my marriage WAY too long, in the end it brought me only discomfort.  In trying to be the woman he wanted me to be, I lost myself.  It took me years to remember who I was.  Even now, that’s all that talking to him does, so thankfully, I don’t do it often. And S….yeah, I should have let that relationship go long before I knew the truth. It started bringing discomfort to me within the first year, even before his ex came back into the picture and he began the grand betrayal of both of us.  It was always a push-pull game, and I’m really not much of a player. I don’t understand the rules. Nor do I want to.  Again, I filled some egoic need of his, but he was careful not to allow himself to give too much to me.

Both relationships were a matter of me thinking that I could please them enough eventually, and they’d love me the way I loved them. In retrospect, with time and distance, I don’t think either man is capable of that kind of love, mostly because neither one of them loves themselves.

It was just an observation this morning. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

I get “Notes from the Universe” in my email every day Monday through Friday. (www.tut.com) They are written by Mike Dooley, who some of you might recognize from his work with the Law of Attraction. Everyone gets the same note. This was today’s note, which seemed to speak to the observations I was making in the dark, under my comforter.

“Just do it, Debbie.

Everything you need to know, you know, and everything you need to have, you have. Everything!

Time and Space is a primitive school. There are bigger challenges “out there,” bigger adventures, and lots more friends, but you gotta do what you gotta do, here and now. You gotta live the truths you’ve discovered, apply the principles, and never again think, “Why isn’t it working?” “It’s hard,” “I don’t know,” because such thoughts are like hitting the replay button for whatever you’ve just been through.

Look ahead with your dreams in mind and give thanks, because you know exactly what to do.

Tallyho,
The Universe”

I read this, thinking, I know this. I KNOW this. So…gonna try to do this more now. Not forgetting the lessons of the past, but incorporating them into my vision of the future. I hate covering the same ground twice, so I need to stop putting myself in a position where I’m doing that, going forward.

I guess some needed introspection was why I woke up at 4 AM, clear-headed and rested. I guess I needed to put this stuff in it’s place in my psyche

Love and light to everyone.


Sleep and Trust

Posted on by learning to live like water

sleep and trust

For years I was such a bad sleeper. I guess that’s normal, living with a sociopath whose purpose in life was to create chaos in yours, and your sons. Never knowing what you might wake up to. Wondering if the earth would tilt on its axis by morning. I took over the counter sleep aids for years on end. Never went to bed without some sort of help, and often, they didn’t help. I’ve taken 4 Tylenol PM and not gone to sleep.

I often wonder if I did any damage to my body all those years. I figure not sleeping probably would have done more.

Since I moved out of that house, it’s been rare that I take anything. It took some time to wean myself off of the fear of not sleeping. I wasn’t physically addicted to the sleep aids, but I had a lot of fear of not sleeping at all, and having to go to work and be functional the next day. Now, I know if I don’t sleep one night, I will sleep the next. So I don’t generally take them.

Last summer though, when the carpal tunnel was really bad, I got prescription Ambien which helped me to sleep through some of the pain. That particular ailment gives you the most pain when you are sleeping. I’d have to get up multiple times during the night to run my hand under warm water, to relieve the throbbing. The Ambien got it down to just once usually.

As soon as I was through the surgery and the carpal tunnel was no longer an issue, I found out about Betty Boop. Which sent me into another tailspin, in which heartbreak combines with trust issues, mostly, not trusting myself. After all, there were myriad flags flying, and I chose to believe the obvious lies I was being told, and not to see the truth that had been slapping me in the face all summer trying to wake me up.

If you follow my blog, you know that relationship did not end there. You know that he tried to keep me in the periphery of his life, that he could not let me go, even though he’d chosen her. He continued to break my heart on a regular basis until really, about 6 weeks ago, when he asked to come see me after leaving me about a dozen voice mails and I finally talked to him and said, no. No, we aren’t going there again.

I reclaimed myself.

I have not talked to him since. I had some short communications with Betty Boop, but then blocked her so I won’t even see another email from her. She made up a lie, for her own benefit, telling him I’d done something I had not done. It wasn’t a big thing, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. She and he are welcome to play all the games they want, and feed each other the lies they need to hear, but leave me out of it. I’m not angry, I just can’t get drawn into that childish adolescent stuff again.

I realized last night that when I called him and left a voice mail just telling him that it was a lie, I’d unblocked him, and had not reblocked him. I reblocked him again last night. Again, not because I’m angry. Not because I have any bad feelings at all for him. But because I am moving on, I don’t want to be part of that little drama any longer. He loves the triangulation. He’ll have to find another 3rd leg to make her jealous with.

The point is….after I did it, I slept a solid 7 hours. I’ve done that a lot lately. Even with all the agita over the hot water heater, and trying to find a mover, and trying to train 2 people at work, I’ve been able to sleep. Because none of it is emotional. None of it makes me question who I am. I’m beginning to trust myself again.

Today I woke refreshed from a good night’s sleep. There is a very gentle rain falling outside, so I can’t sit out there, but I opened the slider to my deck to let the fresh air in, and listen to the peace of it. The stillness.

I am beginning to absorb, assimilate, that my dream of moving to Florida and retiring is manifesting. I guess there is always a ying yang with it, and the yang to that ying is that my son won’t be with me any longer. I know it’s time for him to fly on his own, I know he will love Colorado. I know it’s an adventure for him. I know I’ll still talk to him every day, and that our bond can never be broken.

But God, I will miss his chaotic energy in my life, his youthful exuberance, the plethora of friends and young people constantly running through my house.

I’ll get through it. I’m trying to just look forward to driving cross country with him. That will be a wonderful way to say goodbye to our old life.

I’ll keep the Ambien by my bed, for those few nights when it’s hard.

The rest of the time, I’ll just sleep. I’ll have my life back, completely. There will be no triggers down there to remind me of what I thought I had, and didn’t, nothing to remind me of all the pain I endured. I will just enjoy the fruits of my work to heal, and continue that process in my “Avalon”. My place of healing and new beginnings.

Love and light, all.

Getting From There to Here

Posted on by learning to live like water

A blog I follow, Edge of Humanity Magazine, put up a post linking to a video of Grace Slick and the Jefferson Airplane singing “Need Somebody to Love” at Woodstock. (https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/23191541/posts/1034769613 The quality of the recording is not so good, but it’s Woodstock, and the performance is iconic.

It reminded me of the time back in maybe 1974 or 1975, my ex was driving to Boston in his new Jaguar XKE 12 cylinder convertible. British racing green. He had a CB radio. He pulled up alongside a tractor-trailer. The graphics on the side of it were “Jefferson Airplane”. It was their stuff, being hauled to Boston for a concert. He got on his radio, and managed to hail the driver of the truck. They talked for awhile, and he finally asked if anyone in the band was in the cab with the driver.

“Yeah,” the driver said, “Paul Kantner is here.” Then Kanter got on the radio and talked to my ex for awhile. When he found out my ex was driving the Jag, he asked him if he could pull into a service area, and Paul could ride the rest of the way to Boston with him. Then he invited ex to the concert, backstage, to meet the rest of the band, etc., etc.

My ex had a business appointment in Boston that day. To do what Kantner asked, he would have had to blow it off. So, he declined the invitation.

That was when he was 25 years old, lol. And trying to build a future. But what an opportunity he missed! I was frankly surprised when he got home later that day and told me about it, and that he’d said no. I thought he was so dedicated, to us, to our future, I was impressed. We’d been together by then about 5 years. We weren’t married, but we had a life together. Still.. I was surprised. He could have made up an excuse to the appointment, and had a night that he never would have forgotten. It might have changed his life forever, who knows?

Years later, when I thought of it every once in awhile, I thought and still think about 25 years later when he made excuse after excuse about why he couldn’t get into work on any given day, how he had so much to do. It was our own business by then, and I was there, running it, handling it, enabling him, to sit home and do nothing, except become a seriously abusive alcoholic. God forbid I should ever question him. God forbid I should ever object. Doing that could end up with no dishes left unbroken in the cabinet and food all over the floor. To question him was an unforgivable sin.

Well, I did, finally, when I left him. When I got a job outside the business so that we could eat, because his disinterest in running his own business over the years caused the business to go from gross sales of about $2 million, down to about 10% of that. But getting that job enabled me to execute a plan to leave him, to get away from his abusive ass, and get my son away, and salvage the rest of my life.

Another instance of misplaced trust. Because he did big things, like not miss an appointment in exchange for a chance to meet the Jefferson Airplane, I trusted him to be working toward a nice life for us. I guess he did for years. Just like I trusted Scott because he told me about the prison whore, showed remorse, tried to repair the damage. I thought, if he’ll be honest about something like that, he’d never lie about smaller little things.

But it’s the little, insignificant things that count. Being there, listening to you, wanting to know how you are, if you’re ok, respect, taking an interest, being proud to be seen with you,….I could go on, and on.

My ex was all those things in the beginning. As he began to withdraw into alcoholism and became more and more abusive, sociopathic…he began to isolate himself and his family. Scott…always had isolated us, I kept waiting for him to open up. I kept waiting for him to make me part of his whole life, not just one facet of it.

I could beat myself up over that. It seems so stupid in hindsight. It was such a red flag flying. But when we were together, it was so often magical, it was fun, it was loving (even though he denied that later). I honestly thought he was just afraid, I believed him, that he was afraid of getting hurt again.

My ex….is just such a sad story. He’s just destroyed his life. But he abused us so badly, when I left him I was completely out of love with him. It took me years to work through the anger at what he tried to do to me. I guess I didn’t completely work through it, because I fell in love with a man a lot like him, a pathological liar who could deceive much more expertly than my ex could. My ex actually tried for years not to be who he became. Scott worked at it his whole life, and it shows.

I learned about trust. With both of them. It will be a long time before I trust a man again. I am grateful to Brene Brown for dissecting trust, and showing us how almost every moment in a relationship is either an opportunity to connect or an opportunity to betray. Every small little moment. The few large moments that these two men didn’t betray should not have outweighed all the small, every day, seemingly insignificant moments where they did. Over and over.

I saw my ex do it to everyone, lie and betray their trust. I blew it off for a long time. When he began to do it to my son is when my eyes began to open. It was the unconditional love I had for my son that opened my eyes to the truth. It was a gradual understanding that everything he said was a lie.

Scott, I didn’t see until it all hit me in the face, and knocked me down and broke me into thousands of teeny pieces. His well crafted deceptive screen blew apart in explosions, and ripped me apart. I had no idea, and then….I had to deal with and accept that everything for the last 6 months or so of our relationship was a lie. A manipulation. A deception. I still work at comprehending the depths to which he pulled me. Or tried to. I guess he did pull me there for awhile. I can only thank God that I found a way to get back up, from being flat on my face in the dirt, bleeding and bruised, to my knees, to a crouch, to finally a fully standing position again.

I don’t talk to either one of them now. They both remind me of times in my life I’d rather forget. I’d rather leave them in the past. I can’t help either one. I love them both, I love the light I always saw. I love their potential. But their reality, I can’t be anywhere near. It’s one of the things I will be gladdest about when I move to Florida. To be 1500 miles away from the scene of their crimes.

Sunday morning musings. How I got where I am. What karmic lessons I have learned. I know that these two men were my best teachers. These lessons are not textbook type lessons, they are part of my being now. Part of who I am. I have evolved because of them. For that reason, I am able to be grateful for the experience of them in my life. Now, I’ll take those lessons with me, and perhaps in the last quarter of my life, find the love that can last.

Love and light, everyone.

Thanks to Edge of Humanity Magazine for the link below.

Gratitude and Release

Posted on by learning to live like water

thankful

I didn’t think I’d sleep last night, but I slept well.  I went to bed and lay under the covers with the kind of chill I get at the gong baths that starts from the inside, my heart and solar plexus chakras, releasing.  I did my gratitude list, I was grateful for my son, my warm bed, my home, my two sisters, my parents, my life.   And then I fell fast asleep.

It did me a lot of good, to speak my mind, to say to him, and to her, what the truth was from my perspective, and demand that I not be made into something I was not.  That my relationship with S not be made into something prurient, and shallow, because it so was not.  Anyone who reads my blogs consistently can see that.

When I was being grateful for all those things, I also was grateful that I am strong enough to stand in my story.  That I could articulate what was true, what was undeniable.  That I didn’t have to sit in the shadows and swallow a lie.  I am so grateful that my life has taught me to stand up for something.  To stand up for myself.  The fact that someone I loved cannot stand up for himself, or me, is his problem.  He will live with that karma.  If she stays with him, she will also have to deal with it.

He has so much fear.  For some reason, he feels that if he admits to caring for me, not even loving me, that it will take something from her.  How silly.  Caring for one person doesn’t negate the love you have for someone else.  She can’t be that jealous, that he couldn’t care for someone else when she wasn’t in his life.

My conscience is clear this morning.  I am ready more than ever to go on my vacation, free of emotional encumbrances that bind me to the past.  I am more ready than ever to make this move for the same reason.

It’s all been hard, so hard.  Some of the hardest shit of my lifetime.  And trust me I’ve been through a lot of shit. It’s not as hard as the problems I had when my ex was trying to keep my son from me, but it’s running a close second.  I trusted my gut now, as I did then, and as I freed him from abuse, I have freed myself from betrayal.

I always have to remember, that everything that happens to us brings us to where we are.  I like where I am, I like who I am.  Therefore, I am grateful for all of it, and all the lessons I was taught.   I also try to remember that many wise people say our purpose in this life is to learn lessons and evolve our souls.  I have felt the power of speaking up for myself, not because of it’s affect on anyone else.  If there is, or isn’t, an affect on anyone else, I likely won’t ever know.  But I feel the power within me, that I loved myself enough not to swallow another lie.  And that’s a wonderful thing to know, that I can do that.

 

WWYD? (What would you do?)

Posted on by learning to live like water

 

What would you do

What would you do?

If someone you used to love, told their ex-not-quite-current girlfriend (I don’t know what her status is at the moment.) that the only reason they asked you over for the weekend was for the sex?  Because she found out and was hurt, and he couldn’t stand up and own that what happened, happened because he wanted it to?

What if you found out this, in a round about way, from the ex-not-quite-current girlfriend, who was just trying to make sense of what happened to her?

What if, this ex-lover denied and betrayed you to her over and over, and had done the same to you, with her, up until recently?  And what if, that whole weekend you’d been trying to help  him, while your heart broke, to find a way back to her, because that’s what would make him happy.

What would you do?

Well, I wrote them both an email.  I told the story from my perspective.  I told her I was not angry at her, it was just a lie that she believed.  I was angry at him, for minimalizing and marginalizing our relationship.   I made it clear what I believed to be the truth and why.

I am a lover of the truth. I need it out on the table, I need to see it all, I need to allow people to draw their own conclusions from what IS, not what one person wants it to be to assuage their guilt.

What happens now, is what happens.  Probably nothing.  I hope she’ll forgive him for caring for someone when she was out of the picture, and even when she was in it.  Emotions don’t die, but he chose her, and I have to live with that, and can, and I am. I believe he still cares, and feels bad that he’s done it to me again, but didn’t see another way to heal the rift with her, than telling yet another tale

But that’s the problem for me. I mean I’m the loser here.  But I won’t live with him lying about who I was to him, and who he was to me, for a short time. I won’t be turned into some bimbo who fucked a man who didn’t give a shit about her.  For God’s sake.  I don’t regret a minute of of any of the time I ever spent with him, I am not ashamed or embarrassed by anything I ever did with him.  I’m sorry it hurt her, and I’m sure she probably feels the same about me now, because she’s a kind person.

It’s over now, I want to let it go.  I want to keep the memories I have, unflawed by his lies, his spinning of the truth into something other than it was.  I just want to be perceived as someone who loved him, and someone he cared for.  And then I want to find someone who can love me the way I can love.

He’ll never be able to love anyone that way.  But I know there are other people, men, who can.  He was good practice for me.  I learned what I want, and what I don’t, in a man.

I want someone who I can trust.  Someone whose light doesn’t come on once in a while and shine so brightly that it hurts your eyes because they are so accustomed to the darkness.  I want someone whose light illuminates my path, and whose path I can illuminate, and we can keep each other from falling into the pitfalls because we have so much light.

So, what would you do?  Did I over-react? Or was it appropriate and necessary?  I’d love your thoughts.

 

Manifesto

Posted on by learning to live like water

I love Brene Brown, as anyone who follows my blog knows.  She is brilliant, and can explain things in very human terms which are easy for us to relate to.  This manifesto is from her book Rising Strong, which has been instrumental in getting me from the weepy, sad, rejected woman I was 6 months ago, to the strong, self assured woman I am, who knows her worth. I’m worth more than I was getting. And I am still not afraid to be vulnerable.

Rising-Strong-Manifesto

 

Rising, Rising Strong

Posted on by learning to live like water

Woke up happy today! Even though it was my cat Maggie who woke me at 5:30, snuffing and purring around my head. I don’t know why she did, it’s not her normal MO. But whatever. I laid in bed for about 15 minutes, luxuriating in the fact that I did not have to get out of bed and get ready for work. I slept well, again.

Feeling more centered and grounded, and myself than I have in a long time. There are no unresolved issues in my head. I have a lot going on, like, a real life. No illusions, it is all real at the moment, and not something I have to roll around in my head constantly wondering what is really going on. I have vacation, plans with friends, a house to get ready for sale, things to do.

There is no drama. I can’t believe what a difference it makes, to have the drama out of my life. I sleep, for one thing. I am smiling a lot more. Thinking clearly. God, it’s so good to feel like maybe all that stuff really is in the past, and I only have good things to look forward to at the moment.

I guess some people, just love the drama. I like it in a movie, or a play. But in my life? Uh uh. No. Not at all. To live it? Nope. I leave those who love it, to live it on their own. I remove myself….

Real life, real truthful, honest life is so much more interesting. Knowing who you are, and what you want is so much more fulfilling than the wondering what is going on, or the creating a situation where no one knows what’s going on. I have extracted myself from that situation.

The sun is out today, bright, beautiful. It is cold but warming. I intend to take a long walk today, hopefully I’ll find a friend to go with me. Life is also bright and beautiful at the moment.

In the words of Rumi…

You have seen my descent

A Little More On Physics

Posted on by learning to live like water

Following up my last post….the Physics of the Quest.

It is amazing how uplifting it is, to actually see the truth about some thing that’s been making you crazy, or just taking up too much of your headspace.  To be able to put it all in it’s own place in your psyche and actually just go to sleep, untroubled.  To wake up, and know where you are going, and see the possibilities in front of you.  To be able to let other things go, when you are able to see how incongruent they are with your beliefs and values, your desires, your lifestyle, your dreams.   Just identify and expunge.

It’s also good to know people are doing the best, from the place they are in  at the time. Then you don’t need to hold a grudge, don’t need to hang on to hate and anger and pain. I feel so much sadness for people who are so afraid of the truth.  To imagine that anything else will protect you.  So silly. The other choices, the ones other than facing and accepting the truth, will just make you sick.

As if lying and hiding the truth will ever protect you or anyone else.

Duh.

The truth really does set you free…..Just fly, lift your wings onto the breeze and let it carry you where you want to go.

Especially if you can combine it with unconditional love.  Love that never dies, but love that doesn’t weigh you down either.

In the words of Crosby, Stills and Nash,  “Let the water come and carry you away.”

Oh yeah.