TRANSFORMATION MATTERS – BIZCATALYST 360°: Recent Episodes
BIZCATALYST 360
I’m grateful this experience is rare for me at the Fudge Haus. A couple of days ago a man and woman with very grumpy faces walked into the Fudge Haus. Working solo, I shifted back and forth from the chocolate case to the register to serve customers as efficiently and kindly as I could amid a tiny rush (nothing like a Saturday before Christmas!).
When the man and woman reached the register, the woman barked at me, “You NEED more HELP!” I smiled at her and said, “It usually isn’t this busy.” Her reply, “It Is Today!” I smiled and said, “Yes, and thank you so much for your kind patience. Your kindness and patience make such a beautiful difference. I really appreciate you.” And I meant it from the deepest, most compassionate part of me, from the quiet contentment inside of me. Stunner of stunners, they both actually smiled at me and spoke no more words. I said, “Thank you! I wish you a beautiful day!” as they left the store.
My mind chattered some sassy things Thank God I did not say including:
OMG!! You are in a DELIGHTFUL CANDY STORE on a SUNDAY AFTERNOON!! THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST THING EVER! DO YOU KNOW HOW BLESSED YOUR LIFE IS RIGHT NOW?!?! You are Not in the ER! You are NOT in a courtroom sitting next to your lawyer! You are not on the phone calling the police because some BS has just gone down! You are Not in a house with a Flooded Basement! You are Not at the Vet holding your dog for the last time!! OMG!! YOU ARE SO BLESSED!!”
Then I realized the voice in my head was talking to me–LOL.
Then later in the afternoon, two women purchased some chocolates. The one woman had to leave quickly before her transaction was complete to use the public restroom at the restaurant. The woman still standing at the counter let me know her friend has stage four ovarian cancer. She shared so many harrowing details of her friend’s life-threatening journey with cancer. I listened deeply from my heart and being. I let her know I’d pray for her friend.
When the woman returned and completed her transaction, I wished both of them a beautiful day. They thanked me and left.
I’m learning that most people ache to be deeply seen, heard, valued, cherished, and loved –even the grumpy, mean, scared, entitled ones. I’ve been learning this for a lifetime and gaining an even keener awareness of this yearning while being blessed to work at the Fudge Haus.
I wish you presence in this moment to realize just how beautiful your life actually is even when you are doing all those hard, crazy, brave things that you did not think you would ever have to do like wait in a long line at the Candy Store for your chocolates with a body that can eat chocolates or calling the police because your cat got caught in the sewer or because you Don’t have to be at the Cancer Clinic right at the moment.
Whoever you might encounter today, may you know you are them and they are you. Most of us yearn to be deeply seen, heard, valued, cherished, and loved.
May you be someone who sees, listens, values, cherishes, and loves the people you encounter, especially the grumpy ones. As my son would say, “Mom, they need your love the most!”
You are loved more than you can even imagine. You matter. Your loving kindness matters. Your compassion and mercy for yourself and others matters.
Today I’m grateful to keep walking, bravely running, hiking, moving, dancing, and working even as I experienced and created a magnitude of loss that sometimes takes my breath, and then I breathe again.
Inside the grieving and feeling the many feelings when you leave a place your soul LOVES, people you love, an entire community you Love, belongings you Love, a life you loved living, you get to dig even deeper into what really matters to you, deep into the willingness to create a new life, once again, with your courage, stamina, strength, and deepest commitments. You begin to have an opportunity to see the world with a heart filled with enduring compassion for the suffering of other people, the magnitude of loss others are enduring or have endured.
You deeply appreciate- like never before- the reconnection with beloved ones in your new life, and lovely new cherished friends, the unexpected kindness and generosity of many people. Gratitude floods your entire being every single day. You keep having clear moments of this teary-eyed gratitude. You keep speaking your appreciations daily. How is it I am Still Here on this beautiful planet?!?!, you might ask yourself.
Letting go does not involve just the stuff you do not need, use, or love.
Sometimes letting go involves releasing an entire life you lived and loved and searching for the lifelines-or qualities inside yourSelf that connect the previous life you had to the one you are now creating. The Non-Linear path becomes quite a disruption to the belief that life only progresses in an upward trend of better and better and BEST (an absolute untruth, BTW). Actually, life is very messy and loaded with layers of emotional responses to what Actually Happens– more than 88 of them, way beyond Sad, Glad, and Mad-the names you can give to the three blind mice.
Anchored in your deepest values and an expanding True Self, the silent Witness, the Experiencer of these many, so many different realities and experiences, you become more of the You that watches your life like an unfolding movie, scenes in a movie that sometimes doesn’t seem to make any sense. You have no clue how any of it will turn out. You just keep taking the next tiny, brave, sometimes hard step with love, for love, because of love. You keep learning about this brutiful life one direct experience after the next direct experience. In the flow maybe someday you’ll look at the whole of your life and discover the theme song of your life story and it won’t be “We’re on the Highway to Hell”, but maybe “The Rose” or “Life IS a Highway” or “Imagine” or “How We Love” or “Get Down Tonight” or “Climb Every Mountain” or “Taxi” or “I Was Here” or a whole list of songs that blend together to point to pieces and parts of your life story. Know you are the co-author, always the co-author for Love’s grace will always be the author.
In a time when so many are struggling to experience inner peace, may this be a bit of inspiration that inner peace is possible-especially when we choose mercy and love. “Let me be an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon.
~ St. Francis of Assisi
The following happenings became the soft ground for releasing, discovering layers of love in the roots of things, and creating a non-attached expression of mercy and generosity from the truths in my heart.
Since I left Black Mountain in February, he has come to the main intersection with a Love sign and joined the friends who also hold their Love signs, wave, and smile at pedestrians and motorists who travel through the intersection. The Love signs at the Intersection have been happening since September 2018. I had participated since September of 2018 until I left in February of this year.
This past Wednesday during my visit to Black Mountain, I joined my friends with my Love sign and stood in a different area than he was standing. We saw each other without ever making eye contact as we kept turning in different directions to face oncoming cars, waving, and smiling.
Earlier that same day I received a meaningful, deep healing, restorative massage from a gifted somatic healer, massage therapist, and beautiful soul complete with non-diluted essential oils-“forgiveness” and “higher purpose.” I knew my body was primed for layered release, acceptance of the past, rejuvenation, and the many benefits of a hot stone and firm hands massage. The session organically allowed for an opportunity to speak affirmations including, “I will always love myself.” To have this body in which my soul light can occupy, and personality animate remains such a wondrous gift.
What an experience to have a deep tissue massage of the muscles holding my rib cage which seem to have been working overtime to keep the pieces of my heartbreak from dislodging and forming into a different puzzle shape. I remember, forget, remember that the heart, lungs, rib cage, muscles, and diaphragm work in different, essential ways to allow the blood and breath of life to circulate. And without legs, feet, and a pelvic bowl I would not have a foundation for the breadth and depth of the emotional landscape that is a multifaceted, complicated deeply feeling, beating, loving, braving, grieving heart.
The massage anchored me profoundly in a very calm body and much quieter mind.
As I kept observing him at the intersection, I felt deeply peaceful. I knew I was safe. I even had the thought of walking over and offering him a hug. I know enough by now from lots of practice to ignore the thoughts in my mind and to trust the truth of my feet which remained solidly in my hiking boots and rooted to my spot on the sidewalk.
At 6 pm I noticed he grabbed his sweatshirt from the ground and walked away without ever turning in my direction.
Encounters with a former love can be very ethereal. A person who had been so close to you can become a ghost-like, familiar stranger.
My friend walked with me to my car. She said, “He came up to me and asked me to wish you a happy birthday from him. Lovely.” She smiled. I said, “That was kind.” She said, “Yes, it was.”
During the next two days, I shared so many happy memories of the love relationship with my friend, Ruby. I cried really hard several times. My blathering mind could not keep the ocean wave of feelings from wordlessly wailing out of me.
I cannot think my way out of grief, nor can I talk, talk, talk my way out of grief. I simply must cry, sob, and make all those sounds that despair and anguish make, the sounds of lost and found love.
Together Ruby, and I watched, “Eat, Pray, Love” with Julia Roberts.
I woke up the next morning with clarity in the practice of only sending peace and love both to myself and to my former love from a far distance. I composed these words which I sent in an email:
Good morning,
I received your kind birthday wishes. Thank you. Being here in Black Mountain with time to reflect, I apologize for the state in which we left the house where we both lived, after retrieving the furniture we could move. The mess was not aligned with my deepest values and commitments. I hope you can forgive me.
Please consider all items I left behind as gifts for you to be used with love and care, donated, and/or sold as your heart guides.
I wish you enduring inner peace, joy, love, and goodness. I will always love you and remain grateful for your many expressions of love, joy, affection, and caring.
Love always finds ways to love.
Namaste, Laura
"In our adulthoods, Sam and I seemed to free ourselves in certain ways from the hurt and pain of the primitive wound of being despised and abused by our own mothers." ...
"What will happen next, you might wonder? How will life love you all the way with or without your shaker of salt? What kind of human being are you becoming?" ...
"Are you free to say what you think, feel what you feel, do what fulfills your heart and soul, and be the person your dog loves?" ...
Sat in a coffee shop on a day in May that felt more like a raw, dark, blustery November day in Ohio. I immediately noticed a man slumped over his coffee cup yet within a few moments lifting his body up ever so gently eyes still closed in on his wrinkled, red face. Bushy eyebrow bowed offering homage to a difficult life. Layers of clothes on his body, a gray knit hat on his head, and a stuffed backpack at his feet. I suspect either he’d been traveling through the night, or had arrived in a warm coffee shop, a few dollars in his pocket enough to pay for a cup of coffee which failed miserably in keeping him awake. What did he look like as a little boy, I wondered. I remembered riding the COTA bus years ago wondering what the adult riders were like as children—now subdued, going through the motions of riding downtown to work.
The older man’s head meets his fist, a soft fist. Red face, head lifts in this struggle to stay awake or simply dance in this gentle lifting and lowering of his head and torso. How much he looks like Exhausted America right now fatigued by grief, fears, and violence. Quietly placing his head fully on the table, he snores softly.
Coffee with caffeine will not rouse him, this Santa look alike, a doppelganger of Kris Kringle unable to sleep in a bed at night. Too burdened by the frigid air, the harsh winds of indifference to his plight. He is the human in me wanting to sleep for 30 years in a spell cast by fork-tongued liars about who you are, how lost you’ve been, the Witness you became in the wilderness of courage. His sneakers conceal feet that have walked a million miles in loneliness rather than riding in a sleigh or practicing flying the globe in record time. Wrinkled face lifted now as his bowing and gentle rising dance continues. Does his body not know the comfort of complete surrender to the table, the thick flat surface of support? Shoo Bop music plays here in Stauf’s German Village. Time for me to go to work at the Fudge Haus. Celebrating a swap of a mattress in which I am blessed to rest my body at night.
Will I ever live in a world in which everyone gets to safely sleep at night or on a rainy, cold morning?
Delicate, tiny
Seemingly fragile
Surrounded by green waves
Flowing all
Around you.
Tuck in close to these
Valleys,
Far below mountains of
Majesty,
To catch the
Fragrant scent of
Mystery.
For in your blossoming
You softly perfume breaths
Exhaled
Close to the earth
Near the places
Birthed from sorrow,
Love, and despair.
White bells of
Hope, you
Appear in the springtime,
Awakening the power
Of tenderness,
The importance of
Remaining sturdy
In the swirls
Of sighs.
Letting go of expectations
Frees the soul
For the unexpected
Grace of
Kindness,
Generosity,
Compassion.
For when these
Arrive the body relaxes, the
Heart softens.
Doors open wide for releasing.
A balm of healing tenderness embraces,
Soothes, comforts.
Trained over years by the petrifying,
Uncertain,
Unpredictability of human
Hostility, rage, and violence,
A chronic emotional chaos,
Genuine, human, humane loving
Kindness consistently arrives unexpectedly,
Often quietly
Like a deer grazing, then gently looking up.
Big, brown, dark eyes gazing
With curiosity, wonder,
Offering calm presence.
You trust the
Gentleness, sensitivity, and beauty
Of the deer,
The colorful pink, yellow hues of the clouds during a
Stunning sunrise.
Tortured soul humans wildly primitive
Terrify in contrast to the deer or
A glorious black bear sitting on its
Haunches eating plants, flowers, and seeds.
Mother Earth generously offers unexpected
Grace with each colorful blossoming flower,
Growing blade of grass,
Waddling duck, honking goose,
Chattering squirrel,
Fluttering butterfly,
Buzzing
Carpenter Bee.
When a human being offers
Loving kindness,
Compassion to another human being,
This arrives as
Unexpected grace,
A close, distant cousin of
Amazing grace.
This summer will mark eight years since I signed emancipation papers from a 22-year failed marriage. Yesterday I spoke this thought, I failed to love. Tears welled in my eyes as this statement felt true in my heart even as I knew I wasn’t a failure at loving. I had failed to love and so had my ex.
I then noticed the depth of healthy anger I voiced to a friend about how he had lied, manipulated, and betrayed my trust, how he had used money as a weapon. I remember the moment he called directly when the divorce process was close to being complete. Prior to this moment, most communications had been through email, our attorneys, and a judge during courtroom proceedings. I chose to answer the call.
“What do you want? I asked meekly, tearfully as I slowly curled up in a ball on the floor in a corner of the kitchen. He angrily demanded money from me and for me to create a document indicating the money he believed I owed for the health care costs of our son’s medical care and the amount I would pay to him each month. Terrified and exhausted, I wanted his raging to end. I agreed and created the document. I signed the paper and faxed it to him for his signature. When I thought about the checks I had written to pay for an award-winning lawyer, I fell prey to his direct bullying tactics and his manipulative presentation of our colluding against any more attorney fees. I now cringe at how quickly I capitulated to my ex’s bullying tactics rather than saying I must talk to my lawyer. He knew he had worn me down. I knew how much I wanted this hell experience to end. I wanted out more than I wanted to fight or abruptly end the phone call.
The whole life insurance we purchased happened because of my excellent health. The nurse came to our house to gather all my health data required by the life insurance company. He had not been a good candidate for coverage as the insurance company discovered unpaid speeding tickets and other red flags of concern about his health. I released the whole life insurance policy to be fully in his name. In these instances, I gave away my power.
My reactions became a grown-up less noxious re-enactment of past experiences including when my older sister stole my brand-new birthday gifts, and my mother threw my favorite beloved toys in the trash as punishment for what I still do not know and will never know. And like my powerless, sexually molested toddler self, I felt suffocated, strangled, and became a curled in a corner petrified participant while whispering internal pleading mantras for my life, my escape.
These direct experiences became the latest gateways into untangling myself even further from these past childhood experiences of terror, worthlessness, powerlessness, and victimization.
And when and where I could, I chose new, brave responses. No longer a child, I took many actions for my freedom from this failed marriage. I sold the former family home and placed a down payment on a house. When I sold my house in central Ohio, I paid my ex in full according to the paper I created, and we both had signed regarding our son’s medical expenses. I managed my finances going forward with a great deal of integrity even as I continued to break my pattern of financial capitulation and discerning financial scams from integrous transactions with decent, good people. I have no debt and an excellent credit score.
Challenging life circumstances happen which allow you additional opportunities to see fully your past survival patterns, to continue to heal, to rewire, and ultimately, transform the choices you make in the present even as you understandably react in familiar ways as you had in the past.
Healthy anger happens when your boundaries are violated. When your body is touched or hurt without your consent, underneath the freeze and fawn, you experience healthy anger. When your healthy body is used as the foundation of a purchase of whole life insurance that you never receive any benefits, then this becomes fuel for healthy anger. When a person lies, manipulates, cheats, and steals from you, then healthy anger is a valid reaction. When you allow another to steal from you with your consent, you experience healthy anger simultaneously towards the bully and the part of you that capitulated. You can have a compassionate conversation with this part of you.
Releasing this healthy anger involves allowing yourself to feel it, to express this emotion in ways which do not harm you or any other person. Roaring like a lion while sitting alone in your parked car, screaming into a pillow in your bedroom, smashing coconuts on the ground are some safe ways to release healthy anger. Grieving the loss becomes the next layer which often emerges inside the release of the anger, and then maybe laughter will bubble up from an even deeper, conscious place which can restore you to this present moment. Letting go, processing through the layered impressions of every one of these experiences becomes a pathway to soul liberation and lessons learned.
May you not ever abandon, betray, or reject yourself. May you refrain from bullying yourself and take fresh, brave actions now that you know you can. May you see new possible pathways for growth, learning, and deepening experiences of healthy agency. May you feel the release and connect with your personal power and peace.
I recently released many belongings I love, got in my vehicle, and drove away from the most beautiful place I have ever lived. As Mary Oliver states; “one day you finally knew what you had to do” in her brilliant poem, The Journey. Living my version of this poem, I spent a week packing, driving items to donations, going to the post office to close my post office box, and filling out the change of address form with the address of a willing friend. I knew two friends generously willing to have me stay with them while I reset my life. I drove in tandem with a friend driving his mini-van filled with only the most essential of my belongings. We left in the dark of an early morning with the threat of a winter storm arriving in two hours to the area. I cannot remember the last time I drove in such difficult driving conditions of unrelenting rain, pea soup fog, and near-freezing temperatures. Yet thankfully we crossed into Ohio as sunshine and blue skies showed themselves in all their gloriousness, a lovely welcome, a huge relief. We arrived safely at my friend’s place.
I consciously chose to exit without knowing where I would ultimately land. I surrendered to the intuitive clarity of now is the time!! Trusting myself and the idea that the universe has my back along with kind, loving people, I knew I would be supported. I would not journey alone. Initiating a leap of faith is an act of courage.
Sometimes it takes many small steps, and failed attempts before finally vaulting over the pole or crossing the finish line.
I had two previous experiences of unsuccessful attempts to extricate myself from the unhealthy relationship. The first time, the starry-eyed romantic part of me grabbed a hold of the steering wheel after some kind texts and meaningful, laughter-filled phone calls took place. The second time I felt too much fear yet took many important actions including donating many belongings, transferring the utilities, booking a moving van, and gathering remaining belongings into my bedroom and office. I didn’t like how much fear I felt in my body and how this got fueled by a very protective friend who can be fierce, and angrily directive when she believes I’m in a dangerous situation, which many parts of me didn’t believe I was. Additionally, I felt stubbornly attached to the beauty of the place I lived. Almost five years of living in what I declared as my soul’s home rooted me in the sacredness of the mountains, the lake where I ran, and the friendships I had cultivated. I wasn’t ready and a bit of the honeymoon feeling returned to the relationship during the holiday season, just enough to fool the ever-hopeful, optimistic parts of me. Plus, the thought of breaking up right before the holidays and winter began seemed completely unpalatable.
Hard truths appeared irrefutable in their crystal, fist-slamming clarity immediately after Christmas in episodes that increased in number and intensity. Fresh red flags layered on top of the brittle, dried-up red flags of past episodes. Even as I watched myself become ever gentler and more compassionate in my responses, I also realized I would not ever want my daughter or best friend to endure what I had been enduring. The end had arrived. I knew what I had to do.
Some significant life choices and pivot moments happen because you choose them and fuel them. These moments of upending your life can be unnerving and invigorating.
When you make the conscious choice to go, to leave the job you cannot stand, to leave a relationship that sucks your life energy and fries your nervous system, to exit a restaurant that does not serve any food you can eat, to not wear pencil skirts because they imprison your legs, you hold the steering wheel of your life energy. You become the catalyst for your own growth. You become the cause and source of the change you have taken. Rather than waiting for the cracked wall to come tumbling down and then feeling victimized by a wall falling on your head, you can boldly and bravely exit the building.
Of the three important principles in feng shui, the principle of the energy in everything is changing creates the dynamic fuel for growth, evolution, and transformations. The inner work remains essential to this process for you need strong guts, clarity, and courage to live true to yourself and your passions. When you begin to tell the truth or alternatively stop lying to yourself and others, you initiate a transformative process. People in your life will likely push back and may even loathe your choice to free yourself, to make a significant change in your life. Others will see your light begin to shine brighter and be inspired to climb out of their own darkness and shine.
Our homes are not static spaces but rather living, breathing, dynamic spaces for our lives to be supported by who we are becoming, and how we are growing and evolving. Releasing furniture, artwork, books, and collections of pet rocks you no longer love, need, or use can ultimately transform your experience of being alive. Letting go of relationships, moving away from a place you love, and shedding limiting beliefs that keep you suffering, frees you to live with greater integrity, from your deepest-held values, and newly discovered passions. Feng shui invites you to both embrace change and be a catalyst for change. You are not who you were yesterday or when you were nine years old. Feng shui offers you a bright yellow permission slip to differentiate, mature, reclaim your childlike wonder, and joyfully soar in a world of possibility and creative dynamism. May you know you are brave in your ability to fuel change in your home and life.
Marketing as manipulation And Doing the OppositeLearning about doing the opposite and leaning into one’s own essential nature …
This morning I heard myself say to my life partner-“You’re GRrrreat!” just like Tony the Tiger from the Sugar Smacks cereal marketed to me as a child in television commercials as though this stuff was good for my teeth let alone my growing body. I laughed as I realized the brilliance of those marketers as manipulators because all these years later the “Grrrreat” still remained embedded in my psyche and came bubbling up to the surface in the moment of hugging my Sweet Love who is “Grrrrreat” and quite different than a sugary cereal I did not ever eat.
Thank goodness my parents didn’t get caught up in the sugary beverages, and cereal manipulations–they got caught in other ones-like they purchased a Barbie Doll. I received one as a gift on a birthday, but only remember playing with this doll in a friend’s backyard. We played with her Barbie Dolls and mine with the dolls riding toy horses on exciting outside adventures to exotic places.
I remember as a child talking back to the TV commercials with lots of skepticism as I knew not to ever ask my parents for any of this junk food or other stuff being marketed. I noticed there weren’t ever commercials for broccoli. Talking back to the TV was kind of like learning to do the opposite of what other people might choose to do.
Some of the opposites I have done–
Most every woman I knew drove their infant to daycare and rushed off to a corporate ladder climb, and I chose to be a full-time parent knowing I wanted to be the engine on this “mommy train.” that other women made certain I knew they disdained the “mommy train.” I wasn’t a “good” feminist in the 90s-even though one colleague I worked with during the early months of my first pregnancy let me know feminism was about choices. That was a tiny bit of encouragement because back then women were expected to be domestic engineers, and care for children, the sick, and the elderly. And break glass ceilings- shatter them with their high heels and dodge the glass with their big hair and shoulder-padded blazers…a trifecta of stress I sort of dodged even as I got hit daily by how intensely difficult full-time parenting is if you are simultaneously working diligently to break the cycle of trauma from your own past hell upbringing.
If everyone I knew was drinking beer and alcohol, I drink water and juice. If everyone around me was smoking cigarettes and pot, I would go for a run, or a bicycle ride, a swim in the fresh air, and dance in the moonlight. If everyone around me was shopping and filling their homes with stuff they wouldn’t ever use, love, or need, I decluttered like my house might go up in flames tomorrow. If everyone around me began running around like chickens with their heads cut off, I chose to sing to myself, sit in silence, meditate, and eventually practice yoga poses.
When I felt lonely and bereaved, I learned to reach out, to text people “I love you!” messages and to leave my house to often encounter a stranger who let me know they felt lonelier than I did.
Tenderness
Gentleness
Stillness
Silence
Pause
Catch YourSelf
Breathe Here Now.
You are not the person
You were yesterday,
Last week,
When You were nine years old.
You can think new thoughts
Or better yet settle into that quiet, calm place
Of silence.
You can feel all your feelings even some
Mysterious ones with no names, for a word
Only points to an internal direct experience,
Sensations inside your body,
Sights of the clouds on the mountains,
Sounds of the geese hissing, honking,
Splash landing in lake water,
Cold wind on your skin,
Your breath rhythmically flowing
To a matching beat of your feet
Meeting the sandy, rain-drenched path.
And a voice speaks from where you
Do not know.
I love you. I will never stop loving you.
I love you no matter what.
I love you if people call you names.
I love you when you free yourself from
Unworkable situations.
I love you when you are bravely petrified.
I love you with vertigo.
I love you when you miscue, or even totally
it all up. I love you when you do your
Best to clean yourself up when red sauce
Leaps onto your clean white shirt.
I love you when you have scary thoughts,
Loving thoughts, silly thoughts, sensuous thoughts,
Imaginative, creative, delicious thoughts.
I love you when you believe lies until you don’t believe
Them anymore and refuse to speak those lies anymore.
I love you when you say hurtful words because you
Are hurting. I love you when you are grieving, seeing, and giving everything you’ve got.
I love you forever exactly how you show up or hide under the Covers or creep out into the light of day wondering if the sky will indeed fall onto the ground.
I will love you no matter what.
I will love you and dance with you in heaven and if you are not in heaven then I won’t want to be there. I will find you where you are and be by your side. I love you. I love you wherever you go and wherever you are.
I Love You No Matter What.
Fragile, fractured people
Appear tough
Cannot admit to
Wounding others.
They only want to be
Seen as Good People.
They remain blind, deaf, and unaware
Of the too many ways
They dismiss, demean, and
Pierce others.
These ones need your compassion
The most, maybe from a
Distance as they struggle
To see themselves,
Hear themselves on speaker phone.
Most adults do not want to be seen as
Frightened children,
Yet many masquerade in
Grown-up bodies
With distressed inner pieces,
Desperately demanding to
Be seen as Significant People.
And are not all of us, at one time or another,
Scared children
Becoming whole adult
People in aging bodies
Wanting to be valued as
Good People?
You, too, have masked your
Fears with anger
To appear in control,
Yet, the bluster kept you
Out of control inside an
Illusion.
Loving witnesses remain
Forever present in the
Quiet last breaths before
Death awakens the
First breaths of
New life,
The wondrous
Moments in
Between.
Every person you meet
Remains a mirror
Of your own
Humanity,
Your own
Eternal
Divinity.
We reconnected on Facebook a few years ago after I freed myself from the over two-decade marriage. I knew them in high school. My memory was of a quiet, reserved, and kind person. A gentle presence, they occurred unassuming yet not ever invisible. They remembered me being on stage in the musical, “Bye, Bye, Birdie.” I played the role of Doris McAfee, the mother of a high school senior named Kim. Kim wins a chance to be kissed by Conrad Birdie, an Elvis-like character who is getting ready to leave the country as a member of the military forces. The musical is a fun, lively, romp of music and dances with a storyline not particularly thought-provoking or soul-stirring.
As a thespian in high school, I enjoyed the opportunity to become other characters. Acting occurs like a permission slip to become different personas, especially when you recognize your own unique self was disgraceful and loathed in the eyes of significant people. Summer theater experiences, middle school drama club, and high school Thespians became acceptable expressive outlets, a way to escape the scapegoat experience I endured.
My high school friend reached out through messenger, and we set up a time to meet at Stauf’s Coffee Shop. We hadn’t seen each other in over 30 years.
Our meeting seemed divinely orchestrated as I felt an immediate closeness and emotional rapport with them. We shared many memories of our hometown, friends, families, and teachers we had known. They remembered coming to my parents’ house for letter-stuffing parties during election season. We grew up as children in well-known families in our small town. We shared effortlessly. Though I know I cry easily, I felt very safe to cry openly, to grieve-love the truths of my choice to cordon off my past and heal. They had relatable experiences of difficulties and healing. We shared candid, vulnerable stories of our challenges past and present. I vividly remember when my friend said, “You know I can be with you at your dad’s funeral when that time comes. I can be your protector, a buffer with people from our town with whom you don’t want to interact. Being there might mean a lot to you if you choose this, and it’s your choice to attend or not. Just know I will be at your side if you want to be there.” Tears streamed down my face.
At the time of our conversation, I had no contact with my family of origin. I had relocated to North Carolina and returned to central Ohio for a short visit. I knew no details about my dad’s health. I assumed my dad had declined.
After my divorce and a decade of estrangement, my parents and I reconnected in what I would describe as an unsustainable détente. About once a week for a couple months, I drove to my parents’ house, took them grocery shopping, then we ate lunch at one of the restaurants they liked. Afterward, I chauffeured them back to the house with their groceries, helped unload the bags into their kitchen, and departed.
During these visits, my dad greeted me warmly and afterward remained relatively quiet inside his own world. My mother and I navigated stilted interaction. I felt slightly hopeful, extremely cautious, and remained respectfully cordial. Consistently kind in his demeanor, my dad smiled with genuine warmth and a shadowy gaze. He failed to recall the names of townspeople when they greeted my parents at Bun’s Restaurant or Buehler’s Fresh Market Café. He always asked my mother who the person was after they walked away and said, “I have no idea who that was.” Often the individual was someone my dad had known for decades. Dementia slowly creates a void, heartbreaking for family and friends. More and more of my dad exited the realms of his mind, and eventually, his body.
I have no clear picture of the last time I saw my dad.
When my brother called me to tearfully share the news of our dad’s death, I knew I wanted to attend his celebration of life. I was his second daughter. I loved, still love, and will always love my dad with all my heart. A floodgate of memories and grieflove poured forth in the wake of his death: the years of sane, healthy, heart-wrenching estrangement, his choosing always to love my mother, his exceptional, passionate work for his community.
I contacted my friend. They said, “I will be there for you, my friend.”
Joined by four beloved friends, including my cherished friend I had reconnected with at Stauf’s Coffee Roasters, I attended my dad’s celebration of life. I felt buoyed by the presence of four earth angels. One of whom will forever be a gentle catalyst, a voice of compassionate encouragement for my brave, loving self to rise and show up with grace and dignity. We both know Love can simultaneously be courageous, vulnerable, and kind. This beloved friend remains imbued with God’s Love and many beautiful gifts, including their ability to speak heart-healing words infused with wisdom, kindness, and gentleness. They are a beautiful, shining light of unwavering, deep caring and generosity, a person willing to show up at your side. #KindnessMatters
This time
Finally broke the glass covering
Deepest
Fears.
Turned inside ourselves to
Face frightened, exiled
Parts and shards.
You during, after
Scary bout of Covid.
Me, as I welcomed the
Rebirthing, groovy sixties.
Created space as
Housemates and friends.
Neither took flight.
You and I scribbled kind notes
Placed on
Countertops.
You embraced new ideas,
Podcasts, resources for
Growth as
I continued learning about
Bravery.
As health returned, you scrubbed floors on
Your knees, cleared office, garage of unneeded
Items.
You honored
My need for space boundaries, a huge gift
My young selves never received.
You and I kept turning towards each other with
Gentle kindness.
Learned collaborative
Double solitaire,
High fives, win/win,
Building a bridge
Forward.
Astonishing emotional
Honesty, a conduit to
Our inner worlds.
Renewed curiosity began
Smiling.
Open hearts, soft hands,
Relaxed bellies,
Warm feet,
Twinkling and teary
Eyes listened.
Even though
Beloved belongings exited the
House of Joy
A dress, love notes,
A collage.
A Home of Love still
Held innumerable past moments of
Kind words, warm hugs,
Eyes meeting eyes,
Passionate kisses,
Unfettered laughter,
Playful caressing,
Sensuous lovemaking,
Dancing in the
Dining Room to
Candlelight,
Meals shared with
Thankfulness spoken.
Reparation happened in similar fashion.
Love held Us as
We
Transformed in
Faith, forgiveness, &
Grace.
Love held Us,
Love holds us
Still.
See, younger selves, the
Current stained royal blue
Shingled
House with white trim.
New owner
Rakes leaves.
The large oak tree,
A ghost memory.
The black metal numbers
85
Gone from the white pillar
Gracing a corner of the
Front porch.
Prickly bushes
Vanished,
No longer there to
Scratch thin red lines
Into your bare legs.
Stone walkway
Disappeared,
No path leading
Any of you
Back here.
See, younger selves,
She is gone.
The one who terrified you
For all those too many years.
She could not give away
What she didn’t have to give.
Long shadows of her darkness,
Hurt, pain, a
Mushroom cloud of rage
Escaped into the light,
Heat, and Fire, a
Big Ball of Love.
Purification by flame,
Now ashes in an urn on
Another porch.
Acceptance, compassion,
Grace
Grow.
Embodied peacefulness
Transcends a
Traumatic past.
Grateful for this fuel
Alchemizing petrified shame
Into tears of
Unwept grief,
Unwavering,
Unspoken
Unconditional love.
During the last three months, I have listened closely and channeled gentle ocean waves of unconditional love and compassion to parts of myself-especially Unworthy Ursula and Terrified Tammy. Together they showed up as the Exiled One holding layers of spoken and unspoken traumas I endured and continue to heal/transform.
During a transformative dream I had– a child enthusiastically greeted me at the bottom of the road where I live here in Black Mountain. The child then ran up the curvy mountain road joyously hollering, “Laura’s Here! Laura’s Here! Laura’s Here!” I woke up in tears.
In an astonishing, transformative somatic session with a gifted Somatic Experiencing practitioner, I unburdened my Exiled One of so many of the hurts she had carried and welcomed home Laura of 2022.
In the experience of my boundaries being impeccably honored in the House of Joy and observing new individual actions Paul began taking for his individual growth-especially after his scary bout with Covid, I started to rediscover Paul. We both continue rediscovering Us. Our love for each other which had grown in the five years of being together became the backdrop for deeper healing, growth, and evolution-individually and together. We continue to have astonishing, brave, vulnerable, heartfelt conversations and are currently being graciously supported, affirmed, and guided by a couple who are gifted in hearing, valuing, seeing, and gently guiding us as individuals and in our couple dynamic. We are learning life-enriching skills, fresh, heartfelt ways to connect with emotional consent.
Paul and I also listened to and discussed the Unlocking Us Podcast with Brene Brown and the Gottmans. They offer honest, vulnerable, and practical guidance for turning towards each other with love and caring. To my delight, Paul gifted me a copy of The Love Prescription and he got himself a copy of the book, too. We’ll both dive in separately and engage the practical ideas-which include many we already had been doing! Paul asked for other personal/spiritual growth resources from me-which I happily shared-including Super Soul Sunday episodes on YouTube and the podcast, We Can Do Hard Things.
Experiencing enduring safety, belonging, and worthiness in being- body, mind, heart, and soul inside a home and with other people-especially an intimate partner-remains an unfolding, brave, and vulnerable process. Becoming an emotionally safe person requires tools and practices. Rebuilding trust with an intimate partner who is becoming an even more emotionally safe person takes time and focused commitment. Courage, self-compassion, compassion for another, loving-kindness, and grace-a radiant foundation inside yourself and a bridge to build and nurture with others.
As my daughter stated it, “Mom, being unconditionally loved and accepted by another person can be terrifying.” And may one of those people become You with all your younger selves AND a beloved person (or maybe more!) during your lifetime. And may your experience of receiving love and offering love become less terrifying and over time a magnificent, miraculous pathway, a courageous purpose worthy of your life energy.
What kind of adult did you aspire to be when you were a child? Did you become that adult?I aspired to be a blend of several people and characters from my childhood including and not limited to the following: Mister Rogers from the TV show Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Maria from “The Sound of Music,” Barbara Eden from I Dream of Jennie, Carol Burnett, Cher, Mary Tyler Moore, Mary Poppins, my dad, and my Grandma Hope. I obviously watched much too much television as a child even though I also read many books, ran outside to be in the natural world as much as possible, earned excellent grades in school, and swam in swimming pools. Not surprisingly, I found myself drawn to people who exuded kindness, gentleness, tenderness, sweetness, innocence, joyfulness, courage, and creative hilarity, as well as individuals who seemed mysterious, exotic, and magical.
Female athletes inspired me, too, as I wanted to be athletic. Billie Jean King, many Olympic gymnasts, and figure skaters captured my admiration.
My favorite book authors, even though they seemed even more remote than TV, movie stars, or athletes, also became the kind of adults I aspired to be. Oh, to get to write books children, like me, would enjoy seemed like the best career ever. A dream I kept buried, seemingly unreachable, a secret, like the acorn hats from the yard I collected and placed in a small box on the far back shelf beneath sweaters, and blankets in the small bedroom closet I shared with my sister.
I knew I didn’t want to be cruel, hostile, rageful, jealous, callous, or shape-shifting. I keenly knew the terror, confusion, the bowing, bending, and breaking open this kind of adult created around them.
I knew I wanted to be the kind of adult who would see the person or child in a room who no one else seemed to see or hear. And I wouldn’t place this child or person in a spotlight, but rather approach them quietly, gently so they wouldn’t run with fear from me. Like Scout in the book, To Kill a Mockingbird, when she introduces herself to Boo Radley, I would offer my hand to people in the shadows and not be afraid of those individuals other people ignored or silently feared.
I wanted to be the kind of adult who listened to another person as if they were the only person in the room and every word you heard them speak would be like sipping, savoring warm cocoa with sweet marshmallows bobbing, melting in a mug on a cold, rainy, late autumn day. I imagined my eyes connected with rapture to their whole magnificent self, my heart wide open to whatever they needed to say, my body brave enough to hear their truths and secrets because I would know and have listened deeply to my own.
I wanted to be the kind of adult who told human, hilarious, mishap, self-deprecating stories which made everyone at the dinner table, or a party belly laugh for a long time.
Did I become the kind of multifaceted adult I aspired to be when I was a child? I suppose in some ways I did and in some ways, I have not yet become. In recent years I laugh when I tell people I’m an adult who keeps wanting to wake up as the Buddha or someone’s loveable dog, yet I’m not certain I’m ready to be bald or to sit down to get a treat.
Aren’t many of us amalgams of many things, many kinds of adults we aspired to be when we were children? And did we also become, at times, those kinds of adults we didn’t want to become?
Who have you become? Who are you becoming?
I no longer live bifurcated as I simultaneously grieve the deaths of beloved ones and love deeply, see beauty and suffering almost everywhere I look. I refuse to not see the wholeness of the messy and the magnificent, the malevolent and the benevolent, the miraculous and the merciful in human beings and in our world.
As some of us merge and integrate the full spectrum of emotional realities and direct experiences of life which include all of it– hubris, arrogance, joy, jealousy, anguish, insight, calm, peacefulness, tranquility, transcendence, and more–then we can navigate this life with a breadth and depth of human wholeness and compassion, a richer understanding of the pain and joy of other human beings and of the droughts, fires, floods, natural disasters Mother Earth is showing us.
May we can take heartfelt, grace-filled action from wholeness and a breadth of compassion for the immensity and gravity of what we are facing right now.
You are loved more than you can even imagine. You matter. The inner healing, breathing and pausing you are embodying matters.
The importance of an Indigenous worldview is illuminated by the impacts of climate change, and climate change is exacerbated by the western world’s historic and contemporary reliance on imperialistic endeavors to extract resources in the name of capitalism. But we cannot drink oil, nor can we eat money. Indeed, Elders all over Turtle Island tell stories of a time to come when the world will need our ways in order to heal itself.
–Nazune Menke, MS, JD
Still Here.
Accompanied by
A pink cotton candy cloud,
Yellow, gold, burnt orange, fiery reds,
Autumn mountain diversity
Showing mature colors
Glorious aging into
Vibrancy
Before crumpling to
dirt, dust.
White clouds lifting
Birthing a
Heaven on earth.
Magnificent cycles of
Living long enough
To let go, and be born
Again, and again and
Again
On this miraculous
Morning of
Mourning,
Celebrating
Your exceptional life.
A dig spoken or
A truth
Bluntly spouted?
Taken off guard
Feeling embarrassed
Feels awful.
Like watching two
Lovers having a spat.
When you’d just as
Soon throw some food to
Startle and make them
Chuckle.
A kerfuffle ruffles feathers
Sets a room alight.
Could someone kindly
Pass around some truffles?
For Love walked in the
Door with a mighty sweet
Tooth hankering for the balm
That only chocolate can calm.
In the big scheme of things and
At the end of the day
Don’t you want fluffy
Pillows on a bed to rest your
Head?
So don’t let the sunset on
Your kerfuffles for
Your hearts are bigger
Then a fisherman’s nets
And the catch of the day
Can be the embrace of tomorrow.
See fully the
Point and the gaffe.
Listen deeper…
Now can we laugh?
Set them free Like a Helium balloon Carried by a brisk breeze or A paper kite flying up into the sky.
"I hope all of you are having an amazing day and I wish you a beautiful spring or autumn and ethereal bliss." ...
"Why do so many of us do this? Have we been so beaten down by criticism and cruelty, by our own inner critic, that it seems impossible or improbable that our lives richly infuse other lives with goodness?" ...
As sunlight gently softens into many hues of a sunset, "As an inky black sky twinkles with starlight, and a full moon glows, once again, in honor of your existence." ...
"When is an act of kindness not really an act of kindness but a subtle way to shame or control you, or win you back? How can you respond with compassion for yourself and another?" ...
"Now brave enough to gaze into these windows of the soul Your own streaked and stained like mine. Welcome to This Love, Infinite and Kind."
"Breaking free from unconscionable actions to control, contain, and shame her, she runs emancipated forever in the fresh air filled with the sounds of a chittering kingfisher, honking geese, quacking ducks, squawking herons, splash landings in a lake surrounded by rocks, sensuous, lush, magical mountains." ...
"Death does not steal love; it steals away time for love to be expressed and received. The reality of death expands the urgency to love, to embrace living.' ...
"I believe the most powerful work anyone of us can do right now is reclaim our own internal GPS, our bodies, dignity, and ability to discern for ourselves what is true and what is deception." ...
"From your Raging soul, Breathe. Fire of passionate Burning embers, You are earth’s Molten lava Erupting for Centuries." ...
"“Boundaries give us the space to do the work of loving ourselves. They might be, actually, the first and fundamental expression of self-love. Boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me simultaneously.”...
"A black bear mama and her Cubs appear in our side yard Seemingly from nowhere, Everywhere," ...
"What are you learning about boundaries and your skillset with creating and holding clear boundaries with people? " ...
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