It has taken me roughly 15 minutes - two bathroom trips, a handful of failed computer log ins on multiple computers, the feeding of two starving cats, and the brewing of one cup of coffee - to get, here.
I've never considered myself a morning person. I'm pretty sure I don't even consider myself a morning person now, but I've become accustomed to playing the part. The allure of alone time - meditation, writing, yoga, cardio - has been pulling me out of bed sometimes an hour before when I absolutely needed to be. Even I can't believe it some mornings.
My life is coming back to me. The me that I fought for and found 6 years ago is resurfacing, and I couldn't be happier. "If I can be an example of getting sober, than I can be an example of starting over." Macklemore said that. And although, he is obviously talking about alcohol sobriety, it works just as well in a multitude of life circumstances.For me, it's food. It's giving myself the things I need to stay clear and grounded; it's loving, listening, and taking care of my body. It's breathing & letting go. It's not picking up the cookie just because it's there, or shoving my face with a whole bag of chips while scrolling through facebook or watching TV. For me, it's about showing up to the gym, being accountable, and giving my best. I've been hovering around 80% effort these last several years when I do show up which has been inconsistent at best.. And I've been yielding those results.
With Grace & Gratitude
Saturday, December 30, 2017
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
A Letter to my Incidental Father
I've heard of your irritable presence making itself known among the family. My brother especially. You still posses the ability to push his buttons and break his heart. But he won't ever tell you that. It's a shame we couldn't find some common, healthy ground - you and I. It's a shame I couldn't feel more than indifference after years of crying. It's a shame my brother wants nothing more than for you to be there, and you don't - for whatever reason. Especially, when you should know that ache, that nauseating vacuum of gutteral pain at feeling forgotten - as I have done to you. In layman's terms, you should know what it feels like to be rejected and left out of someone's life you love. Yet, you do it... often. There is something deeply wounded within you. For that, I can feel empathy and compassion. But other than that, I feel free. Free from dark dust you stir up after a few beers.
Let me tell you this: You will die alone. I pray to God, that I have healed enough, and transcended a rocky childhood existence enough to bring my own children up in a beautiful and loving way. You do not posses the ability to see any of your own faults. It's a fact. Your tendency to place blame, exert control, and manipulate cost you your children. Your children. Those very relationships you yearned so deeply for, have long sipped through your fingers. It has officially been over half my life since we shared a common bond - half my life. My brother and I have our own families now and you missed that. Why didn't I invite you to my wedding, you ask? You didn't travel one state to my brother's wedding, I surely didn't think you'd travel four for mine. Not to mention, we hadn't spoken a single word in five years. He wanted you there; you could have shown up for him.
For karma's sake, for our soul's sake, I hope you have found forgiveness for yourself, for me, for my brother, and for your own father. I hope peace fills your heart, where ache and emptiness once lived. It truly is a shame we couldn't get it together.
Let me tell you this: You will die alone. I pray to God, that I have healed enough, and transcended a rocky childhood existence enough to bring my own children up in a beautiful and loving way. You do not posses the ability to see any of your own faults. It's a fact. Your tendency to place blame, exert control, and manipulate cost you your children. Your children. Those very relationships you yearned so deeply for, have long sipped through your fingers. It has officially been over half my life since we shared a common bond - half my life. My brother and I have our own families now and you missed that. Why didn't I invite you to my wedding, you ask? You didn't travel one state to my brother's wedding, I surely didn't think you'd travel four for mine. Not to mention, we hadn't spoken a single word in five years. He wanted you there; you could have shown up for him.
For karma's sake, for our soul's sake, I hope you have found forgiveness for yourself, for me, for my brother, and for your own father. I hope peace fills your heart, where ache and emptiness once lived. It truly is a shame we couldn't get it together.
Thursday, September 14, 2017
Courage & Force
"Courageously, not forcefully."
Those words have resonated in my psyche for the last few days. Applicable to many things, but for me, right now, in my life, it seems to be pertaining to us having our next child. We started this process last fall knowing it would be a process for us and wanted to be ready when we were ready. This month (if all goes as planned) will be my second insemination.
Courage suggests a grace, a surrendering. An openness to divine interjection. Courage offers true strength in the face of possible failure. Courage is quiet, receptive, strong. It is more in align with God's will for me instead of my own. There is an accepting quality about courage as it insinuates perseverance. I choose to be more courageous; I have been forceful for far too long.
Force has a jaggedness to it and creates an instinctual push back from the goal. The energy around it is so compact, grace and divinity have no room to create or bring opportunities for success. Anger lingers under forceful, a ready alternative to acceptance if failure comes. Constricting and overbearing, forcefulness springs from the ego.
Many times, I have thought force was courageous, pushing hard against things unknown screaming a refusal to give up, or give in. Just as many times, I have found myself still and quiet afterwords contemplating those actions, and either just shy of my goal or feeling as if my obtained goal wasn't enough. Never enough, that is the mantra of the ego.
With mindfully choosing courage I feel lighter, stronger, and more attuned to the guidance the Universe has to offer.
With Grace & Gratitude...
Those words have resonated in my psyche for the last few days. Applicable to many things, but for me, right now, in my life, it seems to be pertaining to us having our next child. We started this process last fall knowing it would be a process for us and wanted to be ready when we were ready. This month (if all goes as planned) will be my second insemination.
Courage suggests a grace, a surrendering. An openness to divine interjection. Courage offers true strength in the face of possible failure. Courage is quiet, receptive, strong. It is more in align with God's will for me instead of my own. There is an accepting quality about courage as it insinuates perseverance. I choose to be more courageous; I have been forceful for far too long.
Force has a jaggedness to it and creates an instinctual push back from the goal. The energy around it is so compact, grace and divinity have no room to create or bring opportunities for success. Anger lingers under forceful, a ready alternative to acceptance if failure comes. Constricting and overbearing, forcefulness springs from the ego.
Many times, I have thought force was courageous, pushing hard against things unknown screaming a refusal to give up, or give in. Just as many times, I have found myself still and quiet afterwords contemplating those actions, and either just shy of my goal or feeling as if my obtained goal wasn't enough. Never enough, that is the mantra of the ego.
With mindfully choosing courage I feel lighter, stronger, and more attuned to the guidance the Universe has to offer.
With Grace & Gratitude...
Sunday, August 27, 2017
Addicts & Addictions
Dear Mothers, Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, Best friends, Best-Men, God-daughters, grand-fathers, and everyone else in between who love an addict in addiction....
You cannot save them. You, despite the history and professed and proven love over years of knowing your person, you do not possess the ingredients to concoct a life of recovery for them. Not alone, not together, not at all. They must, on their own accord, find the desire to get clean, get sober, or get out of their bad situation. Our lesson is in letting go. In trust. In boundaries. In loving them without wavering and always seeing their good, their beauty, their potential, but not allowing all those things to weaken us.
Recovery cannot be hand-crafted and handed to them. They must fund a will inside themselves to seek out the canvas in which to create their new life. They have to want it. Change happens when the pain of where we are surpasses the fear of the unknown -- when desperation turns into surrender, and darkness engulfs us only to thrust us forward into the light. There are times in our life, places we must go inside ourselves were no one else can follow.
I understand that watching the destruction that becomes their life is painful. Physically painful, as in, make you projectile vomit painful - deep fears, deep love, and a different form of desperation, one of martyr-ism and un-asked for sacrifice, explode forward as a last ditch effort to do - something. Our efforts of "trying to help" often enable and elongate their active addiction. One of the best things we can do for them, and ourselves, is to let them hit their bottom. At times, there is a fine line between rock bottom and death, and sometimes, that line is crossed - sometimes purposefully, sometimes accidentally.
They might die. This is a reality we must accept if we are to be able to let go and let them find their way without losing our own footing.
I have been on both sides - the addict and the by-stander. One is not less complicated that the other. Neither is easier. From being on both sides, though, I can tell you, the grips of addiction blinds us and it is typically someone new, un-related, un-involoved that sparks the addicts desire to get clean. Rarely, is it the nagging parent, the enraged significant other, or the heart-broken child. It is a moment of divine intervention, that we most likely will not be present for.
And if by the grace of God, a power greater than themselves, your person finds themselves tired enough to quit, give them a chance. Tell them you believe in them, your proud of them, and they can do it. Embrace them and acknowledge their struggle -- and yours. Because that struggle is a real one. We're all just a handful of poor decisions away from a life-changing catastrophe and landslide.
One day at a time, for all of us.
You cannot save them. You, despite the history and professed and proven love over years of knowing your person, you do not possess the ingredients to concoct a life of recovery for them. Not alone, not together, not at all. They must, on their own accord, find the desire to get clean, get sober, or get out of their bad situation. Our lesson is in letting go. In trust. In boundaries. In loving them without wavering and always seeing their good, their beauty, their potential, but not allowing all those things to weaken us.
Recovery cannot be hand-crafted and handed to them. They must fund a will inside themselves to seek out the canvas in which to create their new life. They have to want it. Change happens when the pain of where we are surpasses the fear of the unknown -- when desperation turns into surrender, and darkness engulfs us only to thrust us forward into the light. There are times in our life, places we must go inside ourselves were no one else can follow.
I understand that watching the destruction that becomes their life is painful. Physically painful, as in, make you projectile vomit painful - deep fears, deep love, and a different form of desperation, one of martyr-ism and un-asked for sacrifice, explode forward as a last ditch effort to do - something. Our efforts of "trying to help" often enable and elongate their active addiction. One of the best things we can do for them, and ourselves, is to let them hit their bottom. At times, there is a fine line between rock bottom and death, and sometimes, that line is crossed - sometimes purposefully, sometimes accidentally.
They might die. This is a reality we must accept if we are to be able to let go and let them find their way without losing our own footing.
I have been on both sides - the addict and the by-stander. One is not less complicated that the other. Neither is easier. From being on both sides, though, I can tell you, the grips of addiction blinds us and it is typically someone new, un-related, un-involoved that sparks the addicts desire to get clean. Rarely, is it the nagging parent, the enraged significant other, or the heart-broken child. It is a moment of divine intervention, that we most likely will not be present for.
And if by the grace of God, a power greater than themselves, your person finds themselves tired enough to quit, give them a chance. Tell them you believe in them, your proud of them, and they can do it. Embrace them and acknowledge their struggle -- and yours. Because that struggle is a real one. We're all just a handful of poor decisions away from a life-changing catastrophe and landslide.
One day at a time, for all of us.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
No Going Back
I create a new life with new rules that totally support me. - Louise L. Hay
Food is hard to quit. Yesterday I wanted ice cream, and I wanted it bad. I asked myself what I really wanted. I stepped back and looked at my life. "Eat whatever you want when your hungry, feel whatever you're feeling when you aren't." I wasn't hungry. But I was being impatient. I was feeling impatient with finding a house, selling this one, getting full-time status, losing weight, and having a baby. I was feeling impatient more than anything, not hungry. I've been spending time listening to my body lately, asking what it needs and giving it that. Honestly, I've been feeling things like yoga, rest, fresh air. I've heard patience, stillness, and quietness. My body needs me right now to be honest, open, and surrender. Nurturing more than ever, not so much pushing or beating. There is still about 10% of anger left there from my relationship with Angie, I'm working to release it. Bitterness and blame to be more specific. I've decided to be free. The nurse at the fertility center called to tell me yesterday I was bordering on hypothyroidism, and said she'd call me in a pill for it to reduce my risk of miscarriage. I looked up the metaphysical source of hypothyroidism in Louise L. Hay's "heal your body" book to find out hypothyroidism has to do with feeling "hopelessly stifled." Now that resonated with me. I've spent a decent amount of time in feelings of hopelessness and stifled-ness the last 5 years, reminding me I still held onto some bitterness.
Years before I ever lost a pound when I began what I often refer to as my weight-loss journey, I was told by an intuitive woman whom I trusted that I would lose a lot of weight one day. It would seem to fall of my body, and never come back. I thought that was a find idea but really didn't think too much about it and took that as a means of doing whatever I wanted because one day the weight would just fall right off! Ridiculous, I know. At my heaviest I weight 319 pounds, at my lightest I weighted 214. It took a lot of work, and some weight has come back.
There is always something beyond the weight. It's never about the weight, actually. The weight-loss is truly a by-product of a spiritual surrender. Letting-go, moving with life and not fighting against it. It's emotional, it's mental. The what's and why's of each piece of food I put in my mouth almost always has a deeper meaning. Geneen Roth says everything we feel about God and life can be found on our plate. You know what's typically on my plate? Easy, fast, of decent quality, lots of variety, and with little effort on my part. That explains a lot of why I was so impatient the other day with the house stuff.
This coupled with my recent focus of releasing judgmental thoughts, continuous angry thoughts, and overall bitchiness has me feeling like I'm moving in the direction I need to go. My past mistakes must remain in the past. Something else I read recently that shifted something inside of me was that you truly can never go back in life. I just doesn't work like that, even the little things. Going back to your favorite dinner 10 years later will not be the same as it was then. Life evolves and everything changes. Sometimes so slowly, it's hard to notice it while it's happening, but it's happening. We can truly never go back, to anything, to any stage of life. We must always be present where we are and move with the changes occurring right now.
With Grace & Gratitude...
Food is hard to quit. Yesterday I wanted ice cream, and I wanted it bad. I asked myself what I really wanted. I stepped back and looked at my life. "Eat whatever you want when your hungry, feel whatever you're feeling when you aren't." I wasn't hungry. But I was being impatient. I was feeling impatient with finding a house, selling this one, getting full-time status, losing weight, and having a baby. I was feeling impatient more than anything, not hungry. I've been spending time listening to my body lately, asking what it needs and giving it that. Honestly, I've been feeling things like yoga, rest, fresh air. I've heard patience, stillness, and quietness. My body needs me right now to be honest, open, and surrender. Nurturing more than ever, not so much pushing or beating. There is still about 10% of anger left there from my relationship with Angie, I'm working to release it. Bitterness and blame to be more specific. I've decided to be free. The nurse at the fertility center called to tell me yesterday I was bordering on hypothyroidism, and said she'd call me in a pill for it to reduce my risk of miscarriage. I looked up the metaphysical source of hypothyroidism in Louise L. Hay's "heal your body" book to find out hypothyroidism has to do with feeling "hopelessly stifled." Now that resonated with me. I've spent a decent amount of time in feelings of hopelessness and stifled-ness the last 5 years, reminding me I still held onto some bitterness.
Years before I ever lost a pound when I began what I often refer to as my weight-loss journey, I was told by an intuitive woman whom I trusted that I would lose a lot of weight one day. It would seem to fall of my body, and never come back. I thought that was a find idea but really didn't think too much about it and took that as a means of doing whatever I wanted because one day the weight would just fall right off! Ridiculous, I know. At my heaviest I weight 319 pounds, at my lightest I weighted 214. It took a lot of work, and some weight has come back.
There is always something beyond the weight. It's never about the weight, actually. The weight-loss is truly a by-product of a spiritual surrender. Letting-go, moving with life and not fighting against it. It's emotional, it's mental. The what's and why's of each piece of food I put in my mouth almost always has a deeper meaning. Geneen Roth says everything we feel about God and life can be found on our plate. You know what's typically on my plate? Easy, fast, of decent quality, lots of variety, and with little effort on my part. That explains a lot of why I was so impatient the other day with the house stuff.
This coupled with my recent focus of releasing judgmental thoughts, continuous angry thoughts, and overall bitchiness has me feeling like I'm moving in the direction I need to go. My past mistakes must remain in the past. Something else I read recently that shifted something inside of me was that you truly can never go back in life. I just doesn't work like that, even the little things. Going back to your favorite dinner 10 years later will not be the same as it was then. Life evolves and everything changes. Sometimes so slowly, it's hard to notice it while it's happening, but it's happening. We can truly never go back, to anything, to any stage of life. We must always be present where we are and move with the changes occurring right now.
With Grace & Gratitude...
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Life Happens Fast
Life happens fast.
I sit here reflecting on the time I've spent here in this home as I stare at the for sale sign in the front yard. It's bittersweet, to say the least. Life happens fast. People say that, but it often doesn't feel like it when your waiting to hear good news, test results or awaiting a new opportunity - school, a pregnancy, whatever it is your "waiting on." Time seems to slow down, but it doesn't really. I suddenly feel this place vanishing from my life, falling through my fingertips as if it suddenly turned to sand. The ceilings are finally painted white, the wicker furniture I've wanted since I bought this place finally fills the porch, all the light switch plates match, there is Mediterranean bronze sprinkled throughout via light fixtures, faucets, and handles. It's been three years. Moving has always happened fast for me. Leaving my Uncle's house, I packed what I could into my 2009 Nitro and headed to a one bedroom apartment with another person over a hundred miles away. Before that, I left my Mother's house, swiftly, with boxes that had been stacked and filled before she ever kicked me out. Neither time, did I grasp the reality of that being the last time I would live in those two places. Two places I called home.
I have loved this place. I picked out every color, painted every wall, scuffed and re-painted every piece of trim. I've buried animals outside my window and created memories with my family.
I'm not sure where we'll end up next. We are still waiting for me to get full-time status so we can get pre-approved for a mortgage in the price range we are searching. We've put in two offers and been denied. It's exciting to know Sabrina and I will pick out our next house together. That every memory will be ours and a new adventure will unfold. The older I get the more I understand about how precious it is to enjoy and be present in each phase of life.
With Grace & Gratitude...
I sit here reflecting on the time I've spent here in this home as I stare at the for sale sign in the front yard. It's bittersweet, to say the least. Life happens fast. People say that, but it often doesn't feel like it when your waiting to hear good news, test results or awaiting a new opportunity - school, a pregnancy, whatever it is your "waiting on." Time seems to slow down, but it doesn't really. I suddenly feel this place vanishing from my life, falling through my fingertips as if it suddenly turned to sand. The ceilings are finally painted white, the wicker furniture I've wanted since I bought this place finally fills the porch, all the light switch plates match, there is Mediterranean bronze sprinkled throughout via light fixtures, faucets, and handles. It's been three years. Moving has always happened fast for me. Leaving my Uncle's house, I packed what I could into my 2009 Nitro and headed to a one bedroom apartment with another person over a hundred miles away. Before that, I left my Mother's house, swiftly, with boxes that had been stacked and filled before she ever kicked me out. Neither time, did I grasp the reality of that being the last time I would live in those two places. Two places I called home.
I have loved this place. I picked out every color, painted every wall, scuffed and re-painted every piece of trim. I've buried animals outside my window and created memories with my family.
I'm not sure where we'll end up next. We are still waiting for me to get full-time status so we can get pre-approved for a mortgage in the price range we are searching. We've put in two offers and been denied. It's exciting to know Sabrina and I will pick out our next house together. That every memory will be ours and a new adventure will unfold. The older I get the more I understand about how precious it is to enjoy and be present in each phase of life.
With Grace & Gratitude...
Friday, July 14, 2017
If Ever I've Made a Mistake, It Was This
My clothes fit tighter than I'd like and two days ago I found myself sobbing to my wife over stir-fry about how "disgusting" I felt standing in front of a mirror. I am tired of weighing 275 lbs. But more than that, I'm tired of being so damn angry so often. I'm tired of being short-tempered and overbearingly opinionated. I'm tired of metaphorically throwing my weight around to get what I want and being afraid of not being in control. I'm tired of being impatient and silently judgmental. I want so much to be free.
I'm not sure when it began. I don't remember all these things being so evident the last time I weighed 275 lbs. As far as I can remember, I remember being angry. A decades worth of self-help books, talk therapy, hypnotherapy, strength-training, yoga, meditation, etc - and anger was what I always came back to. Angry at this person or that person, myself, God, WHOMEVER. A fire of anger always felt like it burned no matter what I did. Like a gas pilot-light, small but present, potentially dangerous if blew out. Who would I be without the anger? Without that fire? Is there another fire? Can the gases be exchanged? It used to be rage, I have come a long way and dimmed it down to anger; it's an offspring I can examine with a little more curiosity and less fear. Had I healed the anger prior to 2012 and fueled another after that time? Maybe. I've never been one to believe in mistakes. Instead, I always seem to find good among the suffering, but after some deep reflection I came to the conclusion a few days ago that I think my moving to Saint Johns in 2012 was a mistake. Maybe the only mistake I feel I've ever made. One that cost me years worth of progress, self-love, and relationships. She was a mistake. My staying was a mistake. The only one good thing I came up with was meeting Sabrina. Some could argue that if I hadn't moved here, I wouldn't have met my the love of my life. I have thought that myself. However, in my gut, I feel I would have met her without moving to Saint Johns, our paths would have crossed somewhere. Our journey always felt destined, as if we were always suppose to be.
It seems no sooner that we feel we've mastered a skill, the Universe always presents a final challenge - a test of our new found acquired skill and resources. I think Angie was a test, and I failed. I know I ran to her as a means of escaping the pain of losing someone else, and the memories that surrounded me there. She always knew that, as did I. One of us should have stopped it. But it took me 3 1/2 years, something like 16 break-ups, countless fights, secret emails and phone calls to ex's, and an all-out affair for me to utter the words "I choose her." It took way to long for us to end that relationship. and apparently, I'm still bitter about the things I lost - pieces of myself, relationships, my community, my connection to God. It's all coming back now, and I'm ready to be done being angry. It's just kind of there and unproductive. I am ready to for joy and gratitude to fill those angry spaces.
I'm getting ready to leave this town (presumably). Today, my wife and I listed the house Angie and I bought together but the home her and I built. Today, we listed the house we came home to as newlyweds; put up-for-sale the walls that saw me fall in love with the most perfect little girl in her cadillac pink bedroom, and made public the yard that will forever hold two of the animals I have loved most in my lifetime (among a couple others.) Our sign will go up Sunday. Parades of people will walk through through these rooms with new aspirations and new dreams. They will step across bare hardwood floors that will never tell the story of how much I loved and fought for them to show their bones. I am ready.
I'm not sure when it began. I don't remember all these things being so evident the last time I weighed 275 lbs. As far as I can remember, I remember being angry. A decades worth of self-help books, talk therapy, hypnotherapy, strength-training, yoga, meditation, etc - and anger was what I always came back to. Angry at this person or that person, myself, God, WHOMEVER. A fire of anger always felt like it burned no matter what I did. Like a gas pilot-light, small but present, potentially dangerous if blew out. Who would I be without the anger? Without that fire? Is there another fire? Can the gases be exchanged? It used to be rage, I have come a long way and dimmed it down to anger; it's an offspring I can examine with a little more curiosity and less fear. Had I healed the anger prior to 2012 and fueled another after that time? Maybe. I've never been one to believe in mistakes. Instead, I always seem to find good among the suffering, but after some deep reflection I came to the conclusion a few days ago that I think my moving to Saint Johns in 2012 was a mistake. Maybe the only mistake I feel I've ever made. One that cost me years worth of progress, self-love, and relationships. She was a mistake. My staying was a mistake. The only one good thing I came up with was meeting Sabrina. Some could argue that if I hadn't moved here, I wouldn't have met my the love of my life. I have thought that myself. However, in my gut, I feel I would have met her without moving to Saint Johns, our paths would have crossed somewhere. Our journey always felt destined, as if we were always suppose to be.
It seems no sooner that we feel we've mastered a skill, the Universe always presents a final challenge - a test of our new found acquired skill and resources. I think Angie was a test, and I failed. I know I ran to her as a means of escaping the pain of losing someone else, and the memories that surrounded me there. She always knew that, as did I. One of us should have stopped it. But it took me 3 1/2 years, something like 16 break-ups, countless fights, secret emails and phone calls to ex's, and an all-out affair for me to utter the words "I choose her." It took way to long for us to end that relationship. and apparently, I'm still bitter about the things I lost - pieces of myself, relationships, my community, my connection to God. It's all coming back now, and I'm ready to be done being angry. It's just kind of there and unproductive. I am ready to for joy and gratitude to fill those angry spaces.
I'm getting ready to leave this town (presumably). Today, my wife and I listed the house Angie and I bought together but the home her and I built. Today, we listed the house we came home to as newlyweds; put up-for-sale the walls that saw me fall in love with the most perfect little girl in her cadillac pink bedroom, and made public the yard that will forever hold two of the animals I have loved most in my lifetime (among a couple others.) Our sign will go up Sunday. Parades of people will walk through through these rooms with new aspirations and new dreams. They will step across bare hardwood floors that will never tell the story of how much I loved and fought for them to show their bones. I am ready.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)