Tag Archives: anger’

Acceptance Comes Slowly

Posted on by learning to live like water

So dawns a new day.  I still have not heard a peep from him.  I left another voicemail, I have texted him.  It is unlike him to hold a grudge with me, especially when I am so obviously trying to find my way back to him.  But this morning, acceptance is setting in.

I had a nightmare about him last night. And now I’m trying to see if I can logically understand why he is silent.  So far these are my choices.

1.  He’s still angry with me for being so hurt the other night.  He cannot stand being the bad guy.  All it  required was an “I’m sorry”. We all make mistakes, he made one in not telling me he was not going to come.  He made one in underestimating how much it meant to me.  But a heartfelt “I’m sorry” would have gone a long way.  A phone call would have been nice.

2. He read the blogs I wrote after, “Crash and Burn” and “Sifting through the smoldering ruins” and was furious.  He dislikes i when I write about him, us.  When we are published on the internet.  No one knows me, or him.  He says, “yes, but when your book is published they will know who you are, and then who I am….”  That’s still such a long shot. But I have to write about me.  I have told him any blog I write is a snapshot in time of how I am feeling at that moment.  So why don’t I just journal it, why publish?  Because when I am in pain, confused, fearful I long for feedback from my peers.  The community helps me through it, helps me not to feel so alone.  I am quite able, obviously, when my feelings change, or circumstances change, to own it, and correct it here.  I rue the day I ever gave him the link to this blog.  It puts a bracket on my freedom to write what I feel here.

3.  Maybe he is too sick to communicate with me.  I can’t know that he actually went to work yesterday.  I do know that he wasn’t in the hospital.  I do know that he didn’t die, because I checked the obits this morning.  Sounds morbid, I know, but if he had an aneurism, which could kill him instantly, I would never know, I would never be told by anyone because no one knows of me. So it was some kind of black comfort not to see his name there. Maybe he is just in too much pain to add the stress of talking to me to it.  But…he doesn’t have to talk with me.  Just to tell me how he is, in a text or an email, and then ask me to continue to leave him alone, and I will.  Just to ease my mind.

4. I have occasionally, thought, what if his ex girlfriend leaves her new husband (that she found within 4 months of breaking up with him after 12 years) and wants him back?  He told me many times he was not over her, that he thought she was the one.  I asked him not that long ago, maybe a couple months, what he would do if that happened.  He said he didn’t know.  Which didn’t help me feel secure with him at all, obviously.  There is no making sense of who we choose to love, he says he loved her, and she took him for so much…..  I just don’t know.  But it is what it is.  I mean, I still love him after all the ups and downs we have had, when it is quite obvious to me that this is not a healthy relationship.  This #4 reason leads me to the nightmare.

I dreamed he finally called me.  We were, in the dream, on the phone, but I could see him at his house as well.  He told me he was in love. His voice was odd, kind of a falsetto.  He has in reality a deep, sexy voice.  I kept asking with who?  And he just kept telling me it was real, he was finally in love. (He constantly told me he didn’t want to be in love.) Then I could see his ex girlfriend in his jacuzzi.  And I said, “tell me who it is or I’m hanging up.”  He got mad at that threat and started yelling back at me on the phone.  I hung up, I woke up.

This morning I can’t help but wonder if the universe was telling me something.  I don’t even know what to look up on dreammoods.com.  It is so unusual for me to dream about him, about anyone I know, and to remember it, though I am sure I remember it because it woke me.

So where am I at this morning?  Still  numb, thankfully, from the wine and an Ambien.  It’s nice how the two combine to knock you out on a night when you’d not have slept otherwise.  Especially after the dream.  I am accepting that I can’t do anything about his refusal to communicate.  I can call the hospitals again, and make sure he’s not there.  I considered calling his ex-wife, who doesn’t know me, and asking her to check on him.  Because I am pretty sure, that unless he goes in the hospital, he has not told his family about  his health issues either.  By family I mean ex-wife and kids. But then I think, in my best Byron Katie mind, no don’t do that.  Then you are in HIS business.  (you know, there are three kinds of business:  Mine, other peoples, and God’s)

So to try to stay in my business, only mine today, I won’t try to reach him but just let it be, as he used to tell me all the time.  Maybe he’ll be in touch when he feels up to it.  Maybe he never will be again.  My business is to go on with my life.  So, I’m going to go get my hair done, go to the grocery store, go get 2 new tires for my car and maybe talk to my ex husband about our son while they put the tires on, since his business is right next door to the tire place.  But his business is weather related and we are supposed to have a huge storm this afternoon (of course, it’s Saturday) so he might not be there.  That should keep me clear of him until tonight.

Acceptance of what you truly don’t want to have to accept is such a mind-fuck  But again, it’s reality.  He is not communicating with me, and I need to respect that is how he wants it, for whatever reason.  I can’t put too much energy into that thought, the lump in my throat begins to grow again.

Slowly taking steps to move beyond this pain.

On Being a Safe Place

Posted on by learning to live like water

I took today and pretty much wasted the day. It felt luxurious.

I went on the deck when I got up, with my coffee, my meditation, my lap top.  I had a friend over for awhile, I stayed outside all day.

Meditation was on “Honoring Your True Self”. I chose that one from my Deepak Chopra app on my phone, because, I have not felt that I was honoring myself. Others also were not. But….I don’t really care whether others do or not, as long as I do.

I have been beating myself up for making stupid choices. For ignoring signs. For doing that thing that we are so warned about: Not believing someone when they tell us who they are.

S would occasionally tell me I should dump him, and run, because he was going to hurt me. He told me that last January….and then went and fucked the prison whore. I took him back, I couldn’t let go.

Why? I don’t know. I think that more than being driven by love, I was driven by the uncanny connection we have had, reading each other’s emotions from a great distance, knowing what each other felt when we had not been talking and had no knowledge. I have never had that kind of connection with another person, and it seemed something worth holding onto.

Now…he has been pulling away since spring. I have been pulling him back. For the same reason. It is clear he did not ever, nor would ever love me. At least, not in the way I needed. I think he did, in his own way and in his own time.

Did I love him, really?

I don’t know. I enjoyed his company, and I could read him, if I was with him, or if I was not. I think I mistook that for love.

I have unconditional love for almost everyone, at least, I try. So, for him too. When he told me his secrets, I forgave him. I still do, even tho some of the things he told me many people would judge as unforgivable. Things he never told another soul.

Why me? I don’t know. The connection, I guess. He felt it too. He felt I understood him, I would guess, though he never said that. He did this early on in our relationship. He told me things he had not told either of his ex-wives or his ex gf.

He had developed a personna for them, trying to be who he wanted to be, who he hoped to be, I guess. For me, he didn’t feel the need.

I’m not angry with him now. I think he had a need, now, in his life, to have someone in the background, who knew his secrets. With whom he could fully be himself without pretense. Our connection enabled that. So…I’m not mad about his playing me, his keeping me a secret now, because I think I understand what my place was in his life as far as he was concerned. It was not done maliciously. It was a need he had, that I fulfilled.

It just wasn’t what I wanted out of the relationship. I wanted a man in my life, who could and would grow to love me. Who would let me share his life, as he shared mine.

S couldn’t do that, because if he let me into his life, his kids, his friends…..then I was no longer that safe place for him. I might see the difference in who they thought he was, vs who I thought he was. I might slip….and let them somehow know he wasn’t the man they thought he was.

I get it. I really do.

He had a need to be real to someone, because he holds his cards so close to his chest, because he has created a personna for others that was not really the authentic hm, that was greater than his need for honesty with me.

I’m still not mad about it. I don’t want him in my life, now, because I see that what I want will never ever be possible. If I stayed with him, I would have to remain his secret place to go, so he could feel some relief from the act he needed to put on for people every day.

I love him kind of unconditionally. I feel sorry for him, that he’s felt he had to do this with his life. He’s been doing it all his life, and doesn’t know how not to. It’s not romantic love when you feel the unconditional love for someone, it’s acceptance of who they are.

So, after all is said and done, after I’ve sat with my sadness and my anger, I feel for the guy. I needed more…I want more….he can’t give it. He has to keep showing up at the ex’s BBQ’s and maintain the personna that everyone believes is him.

Everyone but me.

I don’t look at him as a bad man, or a good man, just a man. Just a man I knew and once loved. I wish him peace. I don’t know what will become of the connection that we have had. I don’t suppose it will disappear, but I think I need to try to ignore it. It leads me in the wrong direction, away from the things I want out of the rest of my life. I’m not sure I CAN ignore it, but for the time being, while my heart heals, with this kind of new epiphany of understanding I have, I need to ignore it, and honor my own true self.

BEWARE

Posted on by learning to live like water

Beware Some People Will Sell You A Dream And Deliver A Nightmare

Beware of Those Who Play Their Cards Close to their Chest

Because they are lying to everyone. They only tell you so much, so they can manipulate your thinking about who they are. And then they go on to the next person, and only tell them so much, so they can manipulate that persons thinking just as they did yours.

I was a secret. No one knew about me. Oh, he told me they did, a long time ago. But I was never introduced. I never met his kids. I never met his friends. If they called while I was in the car he either didn’t mention me, or said he wasn’t alone, but never, that he was with me. How stupid could I be? After a year……

Meanwhile…I was falling in love with the person he coached me on. I was writing all the secretiveness off to “he’s just not ready yet…” making excuses for him. Like an idiot. Like a fool.

After all, he took me to his “special places”. Bullshit, special. Bullshit. They were just beautiful places that he knew, from living there forever. It was just part of setting me up to love him.

For 2 weeks I reminded him a 3 day weekend was coming up. I was met each time with, “It’s 2 weeks away…..” I reminded him my son would be gone, I’d have the house to myself. I had visions….hopes….dreams….

But what I got was….an offer to come here for an afternoon. And a lot of grief again, for wanting to plan ahead, to plan for more.

Last week we met and talked, I did not want to be friends with benefits. If that’s what he wanted then we should split up. If he doesn’t know what he wants, then he should figure it out, by himself, and if he wanted to, check in with me when he knew.

Yesterday after explaining and re-explaining it for 36 hours…that I was not interested in an afternoon. A “nice afternoon” as he put it. That was the offer. After 5 or 6 times of saying “Look either come for the night and the day tomorrow or don’t come….” He finally told me he had a “family BBQ” at his ex wife’s that night, and wanted to watch the Indy 500 on tv tomorrow.

As if he didn’t know this 3 days ago. After playing me all day and night and morning this morning, bitching at me for wanting to make plans, for never being satisfied, for trying to control things.  All the while withholding information so that he could manipulate and control me.

He’s been hiding this, trying to manipulate me into believing that I am too demanding,that I want too much, because I wanted to spend time with him.  He probably went to his “family BBQ” and played the poor guy who’s girlfriend of 13 years left him last January after he put in a new kitchen for her out of his own pocket, and then got married. Never let them know he was in the process of fucking over a woman who adored him.

Gee….I wonder how sick the girlfriend was of his games. Imagine 12 or 13 years of this.

Me…I only lost a year to him. Believing his lies to me about how he was open to whatever happened. He was open to whatever he managed to make happen, which was to pull me from someone who really loved me, just to do it, and then use me for his own pleasure. How often did we lay together, and the next morning he would tell me how I “scared” him, how he was afraid of the feelings he had for me, and how he didn’t want to be in love or in a relationship.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

I loved him unconditionally. I made excuses for him every time. I made myself vulnerable. I put myself on the table, emotionally naked and brave, for him to use. Believing that he wouldn’t AB-use me. I was there on every dark day he had. When he had to have surgery, even though he’d fucked the prison whore 2 weeks before, I was there for him. When his best friend died, and he hadn’t talked to me in days, I was there for him.

Because I loved him.

Stupid stupid me.

He didn’t and wasn’t ever going to love me. He wasn’t man enough to walk away from me. He liked the attention. He liked the adoration. He liked my eagerness. He liked what I could do for him. Even though he couldn’t or wouldn’t do it for me.

I loved him anyway

Stupid stupid me.

Allowing myself to be a secret. Allowing someone to use my sexuality for their own pleasure, with no care about how he was using me.

One of these days I will stop beating myself up over being so stupid. But not for a few days.. I drowned my shame in a bottle of rum, last night.  Good rum.  Gosling’s Black Label.  There’s enough left for the rest of the weekend

Gonna try to forget what a foolish woman I am.

Beware of those men, and women, who hold their cards close to their chest. They are full of deceit. And they will hurt you.

I’ve Been Played by an Expert

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’ve been played.  By an expert player. While last night’s poem “Sweet juice of the grape” aptly described where I was then….I just found out the real truth, and I have been so played.  So used.  So uncared for and fucked over.  S is not the man I thought he was, he is not the man I was so in love with.  He knows how to play me, to get my sympathy.  But I tired of his game, and stopped playing and the truth came out, and I am so done with him….more done than I was when he fucked the prison whore.

Right now, I think that’s what he deserves, is a prison whore and no more.  Certainly not a woman who is capable of loving.  I’m gonna go lick my wounds with a bottle of rum, and  have myself a good cry, and when I get back from Florida maybe find a man who deserves me.

I might even give A a call.  We are friends, and I know he’d gladly hang out with me.  He’s moving in a few days, but I bet he’d be happy to do something with me to take my mind off of what S has done to me.  I know I’ll get over S, because I’m capable of it.  Because I know what I want, and even though I thought it was him, now that I know it’s not, I can deal with it.  Hope he can sleep at night with what he’s done.  My ex-husband was called unconscionable 9 times by the CT Supreme Court.  I wonder how many S would get.

i love my strangers :) especially the ones I have memories with aka friends

Learning to Love What Is

Posted on by learning to live like water

I’m trying to work some stuff out here.

I’ve got some kind of bug. My throat is a little sore causing some laryngitis, and my right eye is a little weepy. I have carpal tunnel in my right hand, arm, wrist, which has been acting up. And this morning, the fingers on my left hand are quite stiff and sore in the joints.

I’m a believer in the emotional component of all illness. I am quite rarely sick, this maybe the first time in a couple years. So I am looking at all the symptoms, with Louise Hay’s book by my side “You Can Heal Your Life”.

A sore throat has to do with holding in angry words and feeling unable to express yourself, the inability to speak up for one’s self, swallowed anger, stifled creativity and refusal to change. Issues with the throat in general have to do with expression, creativity.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome has to do with frustration and anger at seeming injustices of life.

Arthritis has to do with feeling unloved, criticism and resentment.

Our hands and wrists have to do with the ease through which we move through change.

Eyes have to do with the capacity to see clearly. Eye problems have to do with not liking what you see in your own life.

I have had an ongoing issue with someone for the last couple of weeks. I wanted this person to do something that they were not comfortable with, quite simply. And I was pushing and they were resisting. It seemed a no brainer to me. Something that would have been fun, enjoyable…whatever. To them it was maybe those things, but maybe not. I can’t speak for them, only or myself.

So….as it turned out it came to a head last night. This person is not going to do this thing with me. I am going to do it alone.

I felt sorry for myself. I felt unloved. I criticized myself, feeling I wasn’t good enough. I also did not feel I was able to express myself fully, not on this subject, nor others with this person, because often I think that expressing what I really feel puts them under pressure. So I swallow it, and don’t say it, when I clearly want to.

This person refused to talk to me about it anymore last night, and cut me off from communication. I was angry, resentful.

Thus, all my symptoms.

Coincidentally, I have been reading Byron Katie’s “The Work” for our book club. And I put the 4 questions to only one of these problems, since it is a process taking time.

I realized that I have been stifling what I had to say about the situation. But I did that on purpose because I knew it would not come out with any loving intent, and I didn’t want to go there with this person. But you know what happens to the stuff you bury…..It makes you sick. Voila! I am sick.

I felt very unloved, and was beating myself up for being so pushy last night. I woke up with a very sore left hand. I am loved, even if not in the way I want to be, but by many others, and by this person as well. The person’s choice not to do this thing with me doesn’t reflect whether or not I am cared about by them, only that they were not comfortable with this particular thing.

But I railed against it, and how frustrating and unfair it was, and guess what, my carpal tunnel has been acting up all week.

I am not moving through changes easily, I am not accepting what is. My joints hurt.

And lastly, I don’t like what I’m seeing, and my right eye is bothering me.

Pretty clear, that the body follows the mind, isn’t it?

So…..doing The Work last night brought me to these conclusions. I don’t love myself. I am afraid of change. My thoughts are not creating a joyful and abundant life for me, but one of lack.

This is all about me, not about this person. It is not what they have done but about my reaction to what they feel. Like Byron Katie says, “Who would you be if you didn’t have that thought?”

I would be excited to do this thing on my own. I would share it, and the excitement, with this person, instead of putting the burden on them to create the excitement with me, and thus in some ways, for me. I would be happy I was doing it, whether or not I was alone.

I want to say maybe it’s meant to be, that I do it alone. Maybe there is a door opening there that I am too blind to see, or to fearful to want to walk through. But why? Because it is what it is. The reality is that I’m doing it alone, so I need to rejoice in that. I need to love what is. Why? Because it is what is happening, and it’s not something I can change. The universe doesn’t screw up, I have trusted it before to work things out for my highest good, and for this person’s. And so this must be it.

This person may join me in this at some point. They have said that. But they can’t right now, so I’ll forge ahead, and repeat to myself every minute that I can that I am loved, I love myself, I will create a joyful life, and I will accept the way life unfolds before me. By myself, I will do this, I will not burden another with these things.

I will walk through the fear I have of doing these things alone, and realize I am quite capable of enjoying them on my own. I’ll find my way.

Acceptance of what is is hard, until we actually realize we have no choice. So we can be mad about it, and ruin this moment, or we can accept it, and find some joy in it, and go forward happily.

I will choose the 2nd reaction. I’m sure it gets easier with practice.

It’s all a lesson in learning to live like water.

From Anger to Acceptance. Surrender, and Let the Shift Happen

Posted on by learning to live like water

I was angry, from Sunday night until last night. It was coming out in all my interactions, with my son, with my co-workers. Was not a pretty thing. Wrote a whole journal about it, thought about turning it into a blog, decided to do the “wait until morning and see how you feel” thing. In the morning after a very difficult night, tossed and turned for hours….I didn’t feel it.

In fact, at the moment I’m not angry at all. I think I am getting enough distance from the whole breakup with S. Today I can look back at the fun cool things we did and be happy for them, I can look at the betrayal and know he’s a messed up guy when it comes to that area. He’s not a bad guy. Like I said when I was trying to remain friends, he’s smart, really smart, funny, really funny, and very interesting. He’s got, as he called them on a dating site, piercing blue eyes.

But he’s messed up too. He does things he can’t really explain, he doesn’t know how to be accountable for the damage he does. He will apologize. Usually followed by “but….” He will try to find something wrong with you, if he has hurt you, to justify his behavior.

Childish, immature.

But not hateful. Egocentric, yes. Terrified of being at fault. But just messed up. He doesn’t set out to do the damage. He just doesn’t know how to stop himself.

He’s still that little boy, who couldn’t do anything right enough to earn the love of those who were supposed to just love him because he was. But it’s his journey to figure that out, not mine.

The biggest thing is, that the sting has gone out of what he did. I don’t see it as directed at me, to hurt me. I see it as a careless act, and the best he could do at the time in the place his head was. So, the hurt that was so raw, now I just shrug it off. He’s a hot mess. But he no longer has the power to make me into one.

Now, not sayin’ I want to set myself up for it again. Still haven’t talked to him, in 5 days, don’t intend to. I have had some opportunities to talk to men who don’t seem to be inclined to have sex with the first strange 31 year old headed for prison they encounter. Or anyone else for that matter. I hope he can raise his sights a little higher, for his own good. So he’s not paying for an STD test every time he has sex.

So enough of him. I’m not angry anymore. One reason is because I had a gathering of some of my closest friends at my house last night. We started a book club, focusing on spiritual books. We’re all into spirit, energy, journey back to source. So, the thing was, I was able to connect, and raise my level of consciousness out of the level of pain and hurt, and low self esteem and questioning myself. Discussion with my friends brought me back to who I am, who I want to be. Which is not someone who is in a relationship with a man who will fuck anyone he can. I get why I did it. I also get why I no longer want anything to do with it.

I had a long talk with my guy-friend, who I went out to dinner with a couple weeks ago. We text, we don’t talk on the phone much, but he asked me to call tonight on the way home, and I did. It was so pleasant, he is such a nice guy. He’s widowed, recently, he hadn’t told me that. Another reason why he isn’t looking for a relationship. He’s still raw. But he misses the friendship and companionship of a woman. Which is fine with me, because I miss male energy, but don’t want to find myself jumping into a new relationship. So we keep each other company, without all that heated energy to get into bed together.

I’m going to go to bed early tonight, and hope to make it through the night. I don’t know what I’m running on, my sleeping has been awful this week. A shift, I think I’m undergoing a shift. I was straying from my path, in my anger and my pain. Coming back to center now. Was a pretty hellacious ride.

I let it go, surrender. There are wonderful things ahead for me, I am sure of it.

Winding Down

Posted on by learning to live like water

Ah. Winding down. Friday night. Was supposed to go to a gong bath, but they canceled it. It’s rare that they ever cancel one, but it’s about 5° out, wind chill in the ungodly sub-zero’s. Which would mean all the equipment would have to be hauled out and loaded in the truck, and then unloaded at the church, then reloaded after. 8 gongs, and their stands and the bowls and the drums, and hell, I wouldn’t want to do it either.

But dang I was looking forward to it. At last weeks gong bath, I was able to begin to really process all my emotions regarding S. I had not been to a gong bath since “it” happened. Funny it seems ages ago, but it’s only been about a month I guess. Maybe 5 weeks. Seems so much longer. But in the end, I knew the road I had to travel. So I was looking forward to this week, to continuing this journey, to finding my center even more clearly defined.

It has been difficult for me, and for him. For different reasons. For me, because even though I knew I needed to break it off, that it was not healthy for me to be prolonging the final ending of this relationship, I still loved the guy, I had pretty deep feelings, I missed him like crazy, I wanted his energy around me. Didn’t want to let go. Still wish I hadn’t had to, completely.

For him…idk. I can’t really speak for him. I know he enjoyed flirting with me, I know he enjoyed our intimate conversations, I know he enjoyed my fearless outspokenness. We both enjoyed the other’s honesty. I know he enjoyed our physical relationship, and so did I and we will both miss that.

But you know, it needed to grow, to evolve. It was time. I was all for the evolution of it. He was not. So he did what he did in large part, to end it rather than evolve with me. And even then…he did not end it right away. But now…I see…it’s ended. It went round about. My emotions went up and down and on and off, until the gong bath last week, when they pretty much went to the off side. We talked, since. But when he began his flirting with heavy sexual content, I asked him to stop. And again. And again.

Because I don’t want to go there again. And really…it still hurts me, to think about what happened. Maybe some day I can joke about it. But now, right now, it is still raw. I wanted the evolution. I didn’t want the break-up. It hurts still.

I wonder why someone would want to stay in the same place…especially at this age. Why would you want to grow old alone? Face all your nights alone, and with whatever advanced age brings you. Why would you not want to be with someone who understands you, gets you, loves you, enjoys you, someone who will sit with you through your pain, and celebrate with you your triumphs. Why not be with someone with whom you can learn to play each other’s bodies like a fine instrument?

A one night stand will never get you those things. Strange will always be strange. It will never be comfortable, close, loving. It might be exciting for a few minutes. A partner can be exciting forever.

I don’t get it. I really don’t.

But…I do accept it. I accept that S doesn’t see it the same way, and he needs to follow his heart, like I told him. And I need to follow mine. I accept that he doesn’t want to talk to me, or be part of my life in another capacity. At least, at the moment. I accept that our roads have diverged. I’m not crying over it. I’m really ok with it. I have no regrets.

I went on a date last night, with a man a bit older than me. On paper we had a lot in common. Creative, love the water, boats, cruising. But there were no sparks. We met for coffee. Then he invited me to dinner. We talked, it was interesting, pleasant, but there won’t be another date.

No connection. With S…there was connection before we even met. I guess that’s why I couldn’t quite envision not having him in my life at all. But whatever, it’s not my call. I made my position quite clear, in my never to be subtle way, that I wanted him in my life, but that we needed to redefine our relationship, set new parameters. He was not so clear, but his actions said he only wanted it as it was.

I have to remember that all relationships are fluid, constantly moving, changing. We are all moving like water, in our own way, around obstacles, over the rough spots smoothing them out, breaking through the dams of our emotions. Who knows what’s next for any of us?

Just, livin’ like water. Getting back to source.

I’m in Charge Now

Posted on by learning to live like water

I do this thing, twice a month, known as a gong meditation. I have been going to them for about 5 years. They crossed my path in during my divorce, which was then in its third year. I was waiting for a date when the Supreme Court of my state would hear my case.

They used to hold the gong meditation at the gym I attended. My friend and I were leaving one Sunday afternoon and they were setting it up in the room where they hold classes like pilates and zumba. We wandered in and the group of people setting them up came over and greeted us. We asked about it.

It is a meditation experience. It lasts from 1 to 2 hours. You lay on the floor, on something comfy, and they play gongs, crystal bowls, tibetan bowls, various drums, rainsticks, bells. The sound can become very intense, it can fill the room like a glass fills with water, and then it can become very quiet. The intense sound we call Tsunami’s. It is so loud that you can scream, or sob and no one will be the wiser. But it can’t hurt your ears. I don’t know why….I think because of the vibrations being so organic.

The point of it is this. The gongs vibrate at the same rate as the human body. They don’t go around you, like many vibrations. They go through you. And they do their magic, where it is needed. Any thought, or belief you are holding onto that is not based in reality has very little chance of holding on during a tsunami. It is the perfect, safe environment to let your emotions bubble up, and let things go. I have done more healing there than any other single place.

Sometimes they are profound experiences. One night, I found myself in front of a wall made of cinderblocks. In each hole in the cinderblock was a piece of paper. And on the paper was written a reason, explaining why that particular block was put in the wall. Every slight, every hurtful comment, every lie, and manipulation, very injustice ever laid upon me, had its place in the wall. It was a wall I had built, purposefully, during my marriage, and the divorce. The wall was meant to keep anyone from hurting me again.

And it worked. I was able to extract myself from that abusive marriage. I was able to keep my wits about me, and help my son to escape it also. I was able to testify during my trial for a day and a half, and keep my head, not be emotional, and tell my story. And to sit in the auspicious Supreme Court as the justices questioned my attorney and my ex’s. And to know, by the questions that were asked, that I would win.

But that night, I realized that the wall had served its purpose, and that now……instead of keeping hurt out, it was keeping me a prisoner behind it. No one could hurt me anymore,but no one could reach me either. It was time to take the wall down. I began to take it down, one block by one block. I don’t know that it is completely down today….but would have to say, by and large the anger and pain I was holding onto in that wall has been forgiven and put behind me.

Another night, I saw my ex and I flying around. I had been struggling with letting go, of him, and all the dreams, and plans of a 32 year marriage, a 40 year relationship. We flew around, we waved to each other. “Good luck, have a nice life! Maybe I’ll see you, and maybe I won’t”, we called to each other. And then I flew in one direction, he in another, and we were alone, without each other, and happy, and I had let him go.

Another night, I saw myself, lying on the floor. And four entities, I don’t know what they were, were hovering over me. Protecting me. From what I am not sure, but I’m sure they knew, and that I needed them. When it was over, as I lay there trying to work my way back to the room I was in, out of the meditative state, the facilitators who are good friends of mine by now, began to talk about how the gongs can thin the veil, and allow spirits into the room. They knew nothing of my experience but I knew that it was verification of what I saw hovering over me.

Tonight I went. I didn’t know what I wanted to work on. The man who hurt me so badly by having sex with the stranger was on my mind, a lot. I have been talking to him. I miss him, his funny intelligent self-deprecating nature. I have always enjoyed his company. But I am full of mixed emotions. First it was rage, then pain, and now, it’s mostly fear. He has been in the hospital the last 2 days, having surgery to repair a hernia operation. I have offered to do whatever he needs done. I try to remember that I don’t have to like someone to show compassion. Of course….I do like him. A lot. So that part is easy. But I am scared shitless of being hurt again. So, fear. I have lots of it.

I went into the gong bath, as we call it. Bathing in the vibrations of the gongs….There are 8 gongs. I had the intention just to try to get deep enough to sort out my emotions regarding this man, what he did, and our relationship, where it should go from here. Love. First of all. Love. I think I love him, in more than the unconditional way. But so what? If I am subject to being hurt like that again. Then I remembered the rage…I remembered it, but didn’t feel it. I have let that fire burn out. The hurt, well….I still feel it, though it is not nearly so raw these days.

But my solar plexus and my sacral chakras both felt like there was a ball of something unpleasant in them. Fear. My heart wants to love this man, my head tells me I’m a fool. I am much more inclined to follow my heart than my head. But my gut…well,not happy with any of it. Fear.

I heard Elizabeth Gilbert talk the other day, about how when she was in India on her Pray part of her Eat, Pray, Love journey, she went to an island by herself for 10 days, and battled with all the voices in her head. Crying, screaming. She told them all, guilt, shame, pain, anger, love, joy, “look, we all have to find a way to work together. So from now on….I’m in the drivers seat. I love you all, you are all a part of me. You all have a place in me. But I’m in charge now.”

And that’s where I was at the end of the meditation tonight. Fear, hurt, anger, love, shame, …listen you all. I’m in charge now. The fear will keep me cautious. The love will keep me compassionate. The hurt and anger and shame….will remind me not to become too vulnerable to someone who has not earned my trust. Maybe he can earn my trust back, maybe he doesn’t really want to. It remains to be seen. But……

I’m in charge now.