Category Archives: Wisdom

Flashback

Posted on by learning to live like water

A blast from the past. I don’t watch much TV. I turn it on in the evening, and often pay no attention to it. It’s just for the noise.

Tonight I’m watching the news, which is something even more rare than watching at all. I hate the news. At least, network news. But tonight there was a story about the CT Supreme Court reversing the decision on Michael Skakel and sending him back to prison for the murder of Martha Moxley. They showed the Supreme Court Room, and boy, did that bring me back to some difficult, yet triumphant memories.

December 2, 2010, exactly 2 years after the first day of our trial in Superior Court. More than 3 1/2 years since I had left my ex.  2 years since my son had come to live with me.  I remember sitting as a spectator, because that’s where the actual parties to the cases sit, in that auspicious room. The pomp and circumstance was palpable. Classrooms of students from local colleges filed in to watch the proceedings. The officer in charge of the courtroom gives all of us instructions. There was not an empty seat. Classrooms have to book it way ahead of time. The Supreme Court hears 2 cases a day. I had been waiting for 2 years to be heard. Two years from the 3 day trial my ex and I had, as he attempted to make sure I got less than 10% of the estate from a 32 year marriage. He lost that first Superior Court decision. He appealed, and then requested to have the appeal raised from the Appellate Court to the Supreme Court.

Meanwhile, every asset from our 32 year marriage, every dime, was in his possession.  I had a paycheck.  That was it.  (And just for added stress, my son was in a bad car accident 4 days before, broke his ankle, totaled 2 cars.  Of course the man with all the money did not contribute one cent to the deductible for his health insurance, or on a replacement car.)

7 chairs at the bench in the front. Like 7 thrones. The people who sat there would decide my future. I hoped they were just, I hoped they could see the truth about what had been done to me. Each atty gets a certain amount of time to make their case. My son’s GAL (guardian ad litum) sat with my attorney, to help her if needed. Because, he got it. It took him awhile, but he finally got it, and for the last year, and during our initial trial sat on my side. When my atty made her case, she didn’t even need all the time allotted. The judge in our Superior Court decision could see my ex coming 100 miles away, and did a ton of research for us, since there was no law regarding our issue. He wrote 7 pages, citing cases in other states. It was all in our brief, not much needed to be said. The point was that for him to prevail would have done a grave injustice, I think is what it said.

The justices argued with my ex’s atty. Not mine at all. They had some questions, but not many. They had a lot of questions of my ex’s and some actually argued with him, telling him that what the judge did, he was supposed to do.

In the end, I won. The decision was released April 18, 1 day before my 60th birthday. I had been secretly asking the Universe to give me the decision for a birthday present. Really.

They called my ex “unconscionable” 9 times in their lengthy decision. Unanimously.

And, my case made case law in CT. No one will ever be able to do to their spouse what he tried to do to me again. That makes me proud, really. And really, eases some of the pain of waiting 4 years to finally be free of that man.

A couple of years later, a Yale 1st year law student contacted my atty. His first assignment of the year in contract law had been to write a brief on my case, and could he come and see her for about an hour, and see some of the files. Imagine that. My case, my 4 year struggle ended up being a case which Yale University used to teach contract law.

I could go on, about how my life changed that 60th birthday. How I went house hunting, and bought my dream house, and later segued that house into this lovely life I now have in Florida. How I didn’t even consider having a date until I was moved into my new house. I hadn’t wanted to embroil anyone else in that mess. I learned that avoidance of something doesn’t mean you’re ready for it. I fell in love with someone who devastated me emotionally as badly, if not worse, than my ex did as he tried to separate my son from me, and hurt me financially. What my ex never did to me, my first love after divorce did. No need to expound on that. It’s all in the pages of this blog. I’m pretty cautious now.

Funny what just a flash of one picture can bring back.

Love and light everyone.

On Being Vulnerable

Posted on by learning to live like water

our-deepest-fear-is-not-that-we-are-inadequate-our

A friend who lives close to me came by tonight and dropped off a couple of rakes she offered to loan me, rather than me buy one. I was going to buy one today because I need to rake up the back yard, from stuff that’s fallen from the huge tree, which someone told me is a banyan tree, though I’m still not sure it is, and from the palm tree that is entwined with it. I want to get the yard cleaned up, and put down crushed shells back there. It’s supposed to cool off later this week, so it will be a good time to do it. She offered to loan me her rakes rather than me buy one.

I invited her to eat with me, and watch the Voice. She’s the friend who sings, really sings, so I thought she might enjoy it. She doesn’t have TV. We had about an hour to kill til the show was on, and I’d told her about Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability, so we watched it. She loved it…she already understood it, but loved it anyway. It’s probably the 20th time I’ve watched it. It has almost 27,000,000 (yes 27 million) hits now. Literally.

But I thought about how while I espouse vulnerability all the time, I still don’t make myself completely vulnerable. While I am fully willing to be the first to say “I love you” with no guarantee the feeling will be reciprocated, and while I’m fully willing to invest in a relationship with no guarantee it will work out. I was fully willing to move to a town where I knew 1 person, and willing to do what I had to do to create a new life here. I thought I was fully willing too, to show up, to be seen, and to risk failure, because after all, I write a blog. I pour my heart out here, I have few things that I won’t discuss here.

Then I look at my friend, who sings her heart out. I look at the others who go to open mic and sing because they love it, and aren’t afraid of the failure. Of the people who are willing to sit in front of a crowd and read their poetry, and risk that maybe people will not like it, or worse, criticize it.

Those people are really espousing vulnerability. Their lives are alive, and full of joy, and they get off the stage and they collaborate on playing music together, or putting together other venues, or asking people to come hear them read their poetry.

I’m not that willing. I am terrified to get up in front of people and read my poetry. I am even terrified when my friend gets up and sings it. I can’t, yet. It terrifies me to my soul. I easily allowed myself to fall in love with someone and completely gave my heart to him, with no guarantees. Yet, I cannot get up in front of a crowd and read a poem I’ve written.

What’s up with that?

I think if I’m going to walk that walk, and talk that talk, I have some work to do. Allowing my friend to sing the poems was a start, I suppose.

I think it may align with Marianne Williamson’s famous quote, that our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful beyond measure. Who am I to write a good poem, that people like? What if I can actually write? What if….does that then put expectations on me that I’m afraid I can’t meet and that then I’ll disappoint them? And then disappoint myself?

Brother. This shit gets deep.

Every time I have watched that TED talk, I have learned something else. I always take another step, begin to excavate another level.  As Brene says, “Lean into the discomfort.”

Well, here’s to some productive digging.

Love and light, all.

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.

 

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.

 

Through the Darkness

Posted on by learning to live like water

  
 I saw you standing in the shadows

You thought that you were hidden 

That the darkness kept you invisible. 

But you didn’t know

The light from your eyes

Pierced through the shadows and the darkness

And illuminated the path to your soul

For those that cared to see it. 

One woman, this woman, 

Saw your sadness of keeping hidden

And followed the light beam

To where you had lived so silently,

To take your hand 

And walk with you

Into the light. 

Trying

Posted on by learning to live like water

  

 

I am still trying to “let it be.”  It is hard. I realize that I am seeking almost constant reassurance.  I guess it’s just scary for me. Probably just as scary for him.  I find myself reaching for him and most of the time pulling back, knowing that often reaching across the distance makes it a wider gap between.  Sometimes it slips past me anyway. 

I guess I should listen to Yoda. 

Gaining Understanding

Posted on by learning to live like water

I went to a gong bath tonight. In case you don’t know what that is, it’s a meditation, which lasts about an hour, which takes place with the vibrations of primarily 8 gongs, with some crystal bowls, drums, bells, and other vibrational equipment. The gongs range in size from about 18” in diameter to maybe 44”. Gongs vibrate at the same rate as the human body, so the sound does not go around you, it goes through you. When they play them loud it’s incredibly loud, and is a perfect time to let go of anything that no longer serves you.

The meditative state I am able to achieve during the gongs is extremely deep. Usually. Generally speaking, the louder the gongs, the deeper I go. That’s because when they are loud, you cannot hold a thought, it’s just not possible.

Tonight, I had no intention when I went to the gong. I know I’ve been through a lot of emotional stuff in the last couple of weeks. Ending it with S, issues with my sister and my mother. Also watching my ex self-destruct, even from a distance, is not pleasant.  While I had no set intention, I knew the gongs would take me where I needed to go.

Tonight, I was in a place where S was, energetically. We were not together, or apart, just both there. He was looking at me. I used to say to him that I could “see” him. I could see his center, I could see his soul, his essence. I don’t think he understood. Tonight, he was, in this deep meditative state I was in, looking at me, I think, trying to see me. He could not. He just looked at me with this questioning look on his face. Of course, in time and space I have no idea how long that was for. In that place it seemed like a very long time. He was trying….but he couldn’t.

I believe for a person to see anyone else, they first have to see themselves, they first have to know that their center comes from love, that love, unconditional love, is the beginning and end of every soul. It is there before you have a body, it is to what we return when our bodies give out. I am sure S could not see that in himself, so he couldn’t see it in anyone else.

I had no regret, no sadness, just understanding. I believe that’s why he kept thinking he needed to be alone for awhile, and discover who he was. And that’s also why I supported his doing that. But every time I supported it and encouraged it and said, “just check in with me from time to time, maybe, let me know how you’re doing” he would want to be with me, for a short time. I can’t do the short time. I can’t do the physical without the emotional. I can’t. But I do hope he undertakes this journey on his own, with out the safety net of my bed to fall into his old ways.

If he ever is able to see himself and love himself, so that he can see others the way I could see him, I’d love to hear about it.

A on the other hand, sees himself, and others, and never has a bad word to say, is happy in his life. And is eager to share love. I don’t think anyone can help but love him, he attracts it, as he gives it. S once said to me, “but you don’t love him.” He’s right, I don’t love him in the way that I loved S, in the way I want to love a partner. But I love him.

I saw him briefly during the meditation too. He just made me smile.

My friend who went with me tonight was having problems with her daughter today. I think most of the problems are because she, my friend, cannot let go of her kids, and they are adults now. On the way there I just wanted to tell her “You are too much in their business.” She knows, studied Byron Katie for a long time, and knows what I mean. There are three types of business according to Katie….mine yours and Gods. We only belong in our own. But I didn’t say anything before hand because I wanted to help her, not accuse her of something.

After the bath, on the way home, I told her that sometimes people have to back up, to get some perspective in order to see each other as a whole person. And maybe that’s what her daughter was doing now. I told her what she needs to do for her daughter is just be there, just love her, unconditionally. If her daughter gets mad, or upset, to just say, “Honey, I don’t want to fight with you. I just love you….can I just have a hug?” I told her that her daughter needs to know she will still be standing there no matter what they dish out to her. Because eventually, they will see it, and love her back.

Love attracts love. Anger attracts anger. Hate attracts hate. But love is the strongest….there is nothing stronger than unconditional love.

It was such a good meditation tonight.

The Value of Being Able to Say “I’m Sorry”

Posted on by learning to live like water

Hoʻoponopono

The Polynesian method for reconciliation and forgiveness

This poster is something I learned in Reiki.  A method, and words, when heartfelt, to resolve the damage we do to each other through our actions and words.

So many people are unable to apologize, and to make amends.  My ex, for example, was never able to acknowledge damage he did to me, or our relationship.  I have often thought since that he had borderline personality disorder, as he was unable to feel empathy at all.  He could never understand anyone’s pain except his own.  and he could not apologize.  It was a large contributor to our subsequent divorce.

A long time ago i heard about the 4-R method for dealing with having hurt someone, intentionally or not. It is quite similar to the Polynesian method of Hoʻoponopono.

1. The first R is for Recognition.  One has to recognize that their actions, or words, have caused another pain.

2. The second R is for Remorse.  Remorse is sincerely feeling bad that you caused someone pain.

3. The third R is or Regret.  Regretting your actions, or words, that caused the pain.  It is different from remorse.  Remorse is about the pain caused.  Regret is about the thing that caused the pain.

4. The fourth R is Repair.  Repair of the damage done.  It starts with an apology, a heart felt, unconditional apology. One that doesn’t involve excuses, buts, or extenuating circumstances.  Just a straight-forward, “I’m so sorry I hurt you.”

One night when my ex falsely accused our son of something heinous, he apologized the next day…but he apologized for being tired.  He didn’t apologize for his words and actions that had us all up all night.  I simply told him, “Tired is not what you did wrong.”  But he couldn’t apologize for his words that devastated my son, or kept me up all  night trying to calm my son down, who couldn’t believe that his father accused him.

He knew he had done wrong.  But he couldn’t face it.  I suppose it went back to his childhood, where if he did something wrong he got the crap beaten out of him.  And often it wasn’t he that did the wrong thing, but he got the beating anyway.  That’s regrettable, that’s sad for him…but until it’s acknowledged, and that baggage worked through, it is just a cycle that continues.  Even if he didn’t beat our son, he was teaching him, by his own actions, not to be accountable for his actions.  Teaching him that other’s feelings didn’t matter.  Teaching him that the only thing that mattered was that his own ego was in tact, and not bruised by his actions, or words that came out of  his mouth.

The saddest part is that his inability to feel my son’s pain, or mine, or anyone else’s, has isolated him.  He is alone, no one in his family wants to be around him, because it is a trait that carries to every one, no one feels safe around him . He has no relationship with his son.  My son feels he has no father.  I used to tell my ex, “You’re going to die old, sick and all alone, because you push away the people that love you.”  And that’s what has happened.

“I’m sorry” are two beautiful words.  They build a bridge between two people, a bridge that can be crossed to find common ground.  It comes from love…from the soul, not the ego.  An ego given free reign, without the soul’s love and compassion, is really, in my estimation, the cause of all ill in the world.  People’s egos make them believe that their emotions, their beliefs, their pain, is far deeper than anyone else’s, and that everyone else’s is secondary to theirs.

So, I’ve tried to live by the 4 R’s.  It’s one reason I wrote yesterday’s blog, Lucky 7’s.  I realized I had been unfair to S, and wanted to repair that.  Not that anything I said before was not true, just that it was unbalanced, and putting it on here hurt him.  It’s what I have taught my son in the years since we both left his father, and I think he gets it now.

But we are still done, I don’t expect to be writing much more about him.  We just can’t find common ground on many important subjects.  Apologies being one of them.

Apologies are good for the soul.  I wish my ex had been able to see that.