A Bushel and a Peck

Shame doesn't work. It just doesn't. Stop trying to fix yourself with shame. It's bullshit. Surrender. Let yourself be where you are. Let yourself feel what you feel. You don't need shame and it won't do a damn thing for you. You don't owe "functioning" to anyone. Screw people who say you do. Your worth does not depend on what you can do for others. Love yourself in spite of what you can do for anyone else. Be a rebel. Shame keeps you rooted to the spot. And this spot is hell. Get yourself out of here. ---------------------------------------------- I wanted to add... I wonder if my vehemence in times like this confuses people. I'm generally a pretty gentle, patient person. But shame is a huge problem for me, and if I try to be gentle as I fight it, I will continue to lose. Shame is one of my most fearsome enemies. It's kept me so small for so long. It keeps me from loving, serving, doing good. I need to be vehement, f...

Some part of my brain tells me that indifference is power. Indifference is power. Interesting concept. I think I came to that conclusion because the people who have hurt me most are people who I cared about deeply and who acted indifferent to me. So in my mind, if I'm hurt or angry, acting like I don't give a shit is the best way to retaliate. I know it's really not, but in the moment, it makes me feel powerful, in control, capable of hurting someone else as much as I've been hurt. Hurt --> Anger --> Attempt at indifference --> Sabotaging relationships --> More hurt Anxious-avoidant attachment style. It's what I do, I guess. I see the pattern. I see how I can start to change it. But fear and pain make me want to stay here. I'll figure it out eventually.

Pain. Struggle. Confusion. These are things I've tried to run from every chance I had. Over the past year, I've opened myself up to pain. Become much more willing (consciously, intellectually) to sit with pain. If I had clarity, a decent understanding of my pain, I could handle it. If I knew exactly where my pain was coming from and/or where it was taking me, I could find power and purpose in the pain. Struggle? I'm starting to become more okay with struggle: with pushing and fighting and moving forward even when things are hard. Again, this is easier if I have a clear purpose and a reasonable hope of success. Confusion...I realized tonight that this has been a really difficult one for me. I can put myself through pain and struggle if I know where I'm going and where I'm coming from. But when I'm unsure of the end result? If I don't know why I'm struggling or in pain? If I'm not positive it'll be worth it? It's agony. I lose my ne...

An interesting thing I've noticed about grief... You get to a point where you count on it. Every day that you wake up feeling good, you automatically start searching your mind for why you shouldn't feel so good. When you finally hit on the thing that hurts, you think, "Ah, there you are." Your stomach sinks a little, your body feels heavier, your heart pinches painfully. This is a stage where you no longer feel like you're constantly drowning in the grief (though you still have those moments), but it's always quietly present - a beautifully dark backdrop to the play of your life. At this point in the grieving process, you see that you've come to count on this heavy, achy feeling to ground you. You don't feel fully real without it. It's not that you necessarily want to be sad forever, but rather that your grief makes you deeper, more connected to the earth and to the rest of the human race. As painful as the grief has been, you also wouldn't...

Maybe all this time, I told myself I couldn't handle my pain Because people around me couldn't seem to handle it. And so I built a fence around it, To keep myself away from it. And I built a fence between me and everyone else. To keep them away from me Away from my pain. As much as I feared getting close to my pain, I didn't want anyone telling me how to handle it. It's my pain, not yours. If you can't handle it, If you can't respect it, Don't even try to touch it. Don't touch me.

Note to self: You have to take a few train rides into Crazy Town to learn the hard lessons. You have to. But you get to decide how much you want to learn from each trip and how soon you'll leave. You get to decide if you'll ride all the way to Main and Center or if you'll stop before you get to downtown and observe what you can without putting yourself in mortal danger. At some point, you'll have learned enough from these trips to Crazy Town that you'll know how to let go of your own crazy and be healthy, emotionally mature, and just...solid. You can hand in your lifetime pass to Crazy Town, smile at the person in the ticket booth, and say, "I'm moving far away and I won't be coming back. Thanks for everything!" And they'll watch you walk away as they grip your worn and tattered pass, bewildered and envious. And you'll ride off into the sunset with your tiny handful of people who have also handed in their lifetime passes. Crazy Town...

Why is the prospect of letting someone love me so terrifying? Because I still believe, at some deep, subconscious level, that I don't deserve it. I see what a mess my life is, I even see the progress I'm making, I even see glimpses of strong me (the me I'm capable of being 90% or more of the time someday), and I am deeply afraid that I am unlovable. Because if I let someone love me, I let them talk me into thinking that all of my mess is secondary to some magical force within me that is lovable. I start to believe that I am lovable despite my mess. But what happens if, at some future point, that person I let love me decides that my mess is too much after all? And they can't handle it and decide that my original assessment of my own unlovability was accurate? It breaks me. It broke me in so many ways, so many times, over the course of my life. I'm afraid to let someone talk me into believing that I'm lovable in spite of my mess. I'm afraid to trust some...

It's a depression day. I'm stuffing my face with junk food, staring at my phone, sleeping whenever I can, all to fill this painful hollow in my chest. It's not filling up at all - it's like a cup with a hole in it. On "good" days, the hole is sealed and the cup easily filled. On depression days, something (I'm not always sure what) has ripped open the hole in the bottom of the cup and I'm scrambling to plug the hole and fill the cup again. I can't seem to do either successfully. "Read your scriptures, Kara. Pray. Look on the bright side. Go for a walk. Blah blah blah." Oh right. I forgot. Those things always work, right? No, they don't always work. They don't always seal the hole. In fact, just contemplating them while in the midst of depression can send a searing pain through my chest and I sometimes physically shudder. My shoulders and chest cave in and I have to resist the urge to curl up in the fetal position. A nast...

In January of this year, I made a New Year's resolution that I would have no romantic relationships in 2017. I knew (in some vague sense) that I wasn't ready and needed to focus on myself. About two weeks later, I started talking to a man I came to care about very much. I also knew, from the beginning, that I wouldn't be able to take this relationship anywhere close to marriage (which is sort of a deal-breaker for Mormons), though I was afraid to tell him that until we'd been talking for almost two months. I finally told him what I felt and it was over. In a lot of ways, that break was more painful than the split from my ex-husband, likely because my divorce was coming on for a long time and I'd numbed myself to the pain long before we actually separated. This new break, however, happened when I was opening my heart back up. The new pain burned like fire through my heart and veins, rekindling the old pain and doubling my suffering. Ouch. Almost four months later...

Last night, I drove past the hospital where I gave birth to both of my babies. My heart jumped, a bit painfully, as the emotions I remember experiencing during labor swept through me again. "That's interesting," I thought. "The emotions that strike me most about the times I gave birth to my children occurred just before they were born, not after. Why is that?" Aside from feeling slightly guilty that my most meaningful memories related to giving birth to my children weren't the moments I met them, I was curious. I realized that the hours and minutes before giving birth contained probably the most intense physical experiences of my life. It makes sense that I would remember those emotions best. I thought to myself, "Those moments when I was overwhelmed by intense sensations almost completely beyond my control allowed (perhaps forced) me to connect to something beyond the physical to ground myself. I needed to connect to something spiritual to get th...

I'm feeling triggered today. I've been working full time for about 6 weeks. I enjoy my job. I miss my kids while I'm gone, but it's been good for me to work.  Weekends can be hard. When my kids are with their dad, I often feel lonely and unfocused. When my kids are with me, I tend to feel overwhelmed, triggered, anxious. I've heard so many single parents say, "We weren't meant to do this alone..." and I'm realizing more and more what that really means.  I'm also recognizing more and more why being a parent is so hard for me. I've experienced unhealthy relationships with multiple individuals in my life and so many of my kids' behaviors remind me of those relationships. How interesting that relationships with adults have been so similar to relationships with children. But all the more frustrating because adults aren't supposed to act that way. I've recognized the following things people do that sometimes trigger me...

It's a grief day.  Or maybe a depression day. Or an "everything is just harder" kind of day.  When I get like this, the loneliness weighs me down It feels like the air is being pushed out of my lungs  A little at a time.  It's so easy to tell myself I'm tired So easy to lie down and sleep And tell myself that'll make me feel better.  It's so easy to feel defeated and overwhelmed,  Like a child lost in the woods,  Afraid of everything around her.  I know God is my safe place.  I know He loves me and I can trust Him.   But it's so easy to feel like that's not enough.  At least on grief days,  Depression days, It's so easy to get lost again. 

It's interesting how certain events can shove me back into superficial mode, codependent mode, "forget everything I've been learning and turn back into a teenager" mode. It can be fun, but it's mostly frustrating. I don't want to lose myself again. I don't want to get so wrapped up in any other human being that I forget myself and God. I don't want to turn into a completely different person to try to "fit" someone else. I've been working really hard at uncovering the real me and I love that beautiful soul. I can tell it's going to take a lot of work to keep her uncovered as I continue to open up to others. It's going to require that I overcome fear of rejection, fear of humiliation, fear of loneliness - all of which I've overcome on a general level, but now I'm working on overcoming those things on the next level down. I have to identify the places where I'm weak, insecure, uncertain in relationships that are more ...

I sit, perched on the back steps, staring up at the blackness of the night sky, the misty clouds that drift between my body and the stars, the deepness of space, the potential of the universe. I'm overwhelmed, contemplating the endlessness I can see from my tiny piece of earth. I gaze at the twinkling pinpricks of light, traveling to me from lightyears away, considering how huge the universe really is, how insignificant my body, heart, mind, and soul are in comparison. I glance at the few stars I can see from my perch and compare them to experiences I've had, experiences I've yet to have. How many pinpricks of pain, heartbreak, confusion, fear will I experience in my lifetime? More or less than the stars I see before me now? How many pinpricks of pain will I need to experience before I can form a beautiful but imperfect constellation? How many heartbreaks before I find my joy, my rest? I consider the pain that so many before me have experienced and realize that my t...

Feeling the loneliness tonight. Often when I feel lonely, it's tinged with anger, resentment, or fear. Tonight it's just a quiet sadness. I know I'll be just fine. I know I'm loved. I'm not in despair. Sometimes I just miss having a partner. And that's okay. This is a raw, pure human emotion and I don't have to fight it. It's interesting that the way I experience my own emotions is shifting. Being honest with myself about them and accepting them, rather than fighting them, makes it easier to be compassionate with myself and let the emotions pass when it's time. It's a much more peaceful way of existing. So yes, I'm lonely and I'm a little sad. But I'm not angry or desperate, and that is a big change for me. I am grateful.

I came to the conclusion, as a child, that emotional vulnerability (being honest about my deepest emotions - both with myself and with others) just got in the way of relationships. I didn't have anyone to teach me how to deal with the strong emotions I had (including anxiety) - as much as my parents love me, they just didn't have the tools, and I don't blame them! Most of us don't. At any rate, I decided, at a young age, that my deep emotions were problematic and I needed to shut them off. I'd let myself feel the shallow versions of those feelings - I could name and understand those - but I couldn't figure out the deeper emotions that sometimes surfaced and I was afraid to try to explain them to anyone else, for fear of being ostracized, rejected, brushed off, misunderstood. I learned to stay disconnected from those as much as I could. As I got older, I still had anxiety - still had those deep emotions I was sort of giving place for, but not acknowledging or...

Three years ago today, Baby Girl was born. Sweet Boy woke up crying and I went to comfort him. Contractions started at 7 am. At 8, I woke you up to tell you I thought I was in labor. You mumbled a sleepy reply and grabbed your phone to tell your boss you wouldn't be coming into work today. At 9, we said goodbye to Sweet Boy and headed to my midwife appointment. She told me I was in labor and I should head to the hospital. We said we were going to get some snacks first. She looked at us like we were crazy. We laughed. At 10, we went to the grocery store to get some snacks. I stopped every few minutes to relax and breathe through a contraction. We joked around and enjoyed our last little bit of newborn-free time together. At 11, we were in the hospital. I was getting tired. You talked me through Hypnobirthing scripts to help me relax. You told me I was doing great. You asked me if I needed anything. You told me I could do this. You held my hand. I was glad you were there. ...

I think one reason I don't like crying in front of other people is that my tears are evidence of powerful emotions - emotions that are sacred to me. I don't care to share those with just anyone. I don't want to invite people into my soul. But crying seems to make people think they are wanted or needed in my soul. Here's the thing though - there are very, very few people I trust to see my soul. Very few. I can intellectualize all day about what I'm learning and the things that I feel. I can be kind of vulnerable in a lot of ways. But my soul? I share that with hardly anyone. I don't trust anyone with it. I love that beautiful, bright, powerful part of me but I don't feel that anyone else knows how to appreciate it the way it deserves to be appreciated. So I hide it. Even from myself, most of the time. I apologize when I cry in front of other people partly because I've trained myself to believe that other people are uncomfortable with my emotions. But ...

An interesting thought this morning... Satan and his followers whisper to all of us. They whisper that we are not enough, that we are better than someone else, that we shouldn't have to suffer, that we should just give up. They push us to act on our anger and fear. They laugh when we listen. They hate us and want to see us fail. They are not our friends. Depression and anxiety seem to amplify their voices. Depression and anxiety are their microphones in my head. So often I have been overwhelmed by all their phrases going through my mind, "Who would ever listen to someone with a double chin? Who would ever want a woman with acne all over her face? Who would ever respect a person who doesn't know what she's doing? Just sit down and shut up and don't let people see you. If they don't see you, they can't laugh at you. Better to be invisible." Listening to those voices has kept me small. I've had to fight to change the belief they drilled in me ...

God is excited to hear from us. When my kids spontaneously tell me they love me, give me a genuine "thank you" without prompting, or ask nicely for my help, my heart melts. I love to hear things like that from them. It makes all the stress of parenting - all the "bad" moments and "bad" behavior - more than worth it. In fact, hearing things like that from them after they've "messed up" is especially encouraging. Seriously! So it is when we pray. God not only wants to hear from us, but His heart is touched when we speak to Him. It makes Him happy. He wants to connect with us, no matter how "bad" we have been. Just like I get a little thrill of joy and gratitude when my kids reach out to me, so does our Heavenly Father when we reach out to Him. How wonderful it is to be loved like that, no matter what we have done. ❤

I downloaded a dating app the other day. I've talked to a small handful of guys. It's been interesting. I'd been fighting the idea of getting one of those apps for a couple weeks. I even tried it for a day or two and didn't feel right about it. About a week ago, a switch flipped somewhere in my mind, heart, and/or soul: it feels like time to test the water. I'm hesitant, but ready to start dipping my toes into the dating world. I know, deep down in the pit of my stomach, the core of my soul, that no relationship I start right now can go much past friendship. I'm going through a period of explosive growth. My soul, so long chained and kept in the dark, is experimenting with its wings and getting used to the light. I'm learning, I'm expanding, I'm feeling, as if for the first time. I'm starting to figure out who I am. I see that if I start a relationship right now, I'll get stuck again. I'm still too codependent. I'm still healing...

Note to self: Anger is almost always a cover-up for pain or fear. When I'm angry, rather than taking it out on someone else, I should ask myself what hurts or what I'm afraid of. I should listen to and nurture my own heart before lashing out in a somewhat misguided attempt to protect it from outside threats. Once I understand my own heart, I can speak up for it in a healthy way. I am capable of taking care of my own heart. I don't have to try to force others to take care of it.

I remember feeling. A lot. As a child and then as a teenager. I would still cut off plenty of my own emotions, but I know I felt more deeply then than I did in my early twenties. I was like a child in a kiddie pool. I was cautious but reasonably comfortable. My late teens brought severe depression and anxiety. Then I got married, a month before I turned 20. I thought I knew what I was doing. I really, honestly believed I was ready. But it took a lot of convincing. I think the biggest thing was that I had never felt loved like that before and I was afraid to lose it. I was afraid to let go of the love I had for someone else. I wanted to love and be loved that much. Letting go of that seemed like losing a piece of my soul and I didn't know how to live through that kind of loss. So I clung tighter, despite a good handful of red flags. The depression and anxiety prompted a serious distrust of my own feelings. Making the choice to get married, in the midst of confusion and anxiety, ...

I made a video the other day talking about how I "check" my feelings, refuse to allow myself to feel them fully. I minimize, deny, ignore my own emotions constantly. I've gotten so good at it that I almost never notice that I'm doing it. I just do it. Like breathing. Being honest with myself about the fact that I do that feels like slicing open my own skin and tugging on some fundamental part of my body. Ouch. I also said that I didn't know why I do that. And then yesterday I admitted that I do know why - I'm afraid of the immensity and intensity of my own emotions. What if they crush me? Yes, that is part of my fear. But I realized there's another part. Part of me wants to honor the depth and breadth of my true emotions and I feel that any attempt to put those things into words, to experience them fully, to share them at all with anyone else would cheapen them. I don't want to share my deep, intense, huge emotions with someone only to have them br...

Tonight, I'm feeling defeated. By a zit. A lot of zits, actually. I'm 28 and I have cystic acne. The past few days, it's gotten painful. I look awful. I feel like a walking pizza. I gross myself out when I look in the mirror or see myself on camera. This is becoming physically and emotionally unbearable. Of course, I have a million other things running through my mind as well. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the last time I was physically attacked by my abuser. I have a handful of assignments due tonight and I just can't focus. I have bills piling up, people I need to call, decisions to make, things to clean... I've also been allowing myself to open up, emotionally. Instead of trying to force myself to be "productive" and try to fit into the boxes I think other people want me to, I've been sitting back a little, listening, watching, learning, understanding. I'm letting myself be sensitive again: to everything. It's interesting how my...

It's 5:34 am. I'm thinking about letting go. The interesting thing about learning how to let go is that it first requires holding something: hurt, fear, anger... Love. Letting go requires vulnerability because it means acknowledging that I'm trying to remove something from my life that I once clung to. It means opening up my heart, my mind, my soul to find the deepest roots of those emotions so I can gently, perhaps slowly, remove the harmful pieces of them. It hurts. And it leaves a scar. So the question becomes: would I rather experience the sharp, temporary pain of surgery and a corresponding recovery, with the possibility of limited mobility and occasional aches and pains? Or would I rather try to ignore it, leave the emotion there, buried under layers of bandages, and risk infecting and debilitating my entire soul? I've been told that giving myself this spiritual surgery is brave. Perhaps it is. But I feel that I no longer have any other viable option. I ...

I spent 30+ minutes today trying to fix a little measuring tape that belongs to Sweet Boy. Baby Girl broke it this morning. I was pretty sure I could fix it, so today after school I grabbed a screwdriver and started taking the thing apart. Baby Girl was in the garage, asleep in the car, at the time. Sweet Boy was very curious about the whole process and watched closely, giving suggestions and asking questions every once in a while. I figured out what was wrong and did my best to put it all back together. There were some issues that I had to keep resolving over and over. I was determined though. Baby Girl woke up partway through the process so I went and tried to get her out. She was mad and wouldn't have it. I told her to come in when she was ready. Finally, I thought I'd figured it out, so I put it all back together and proudly showed Sweet Boy that it worked. For about two seconds. Then it did the goofy thing again, and when I tried to pull it out further, the whole tap...

Better not to get too close. I seem to have a talent for being "normal" or lovable enough most of the time. But sometimes I get quiet, I get introspective, I get nervous, I get very focused on myself. I get weird, I guess. Apparently, it scares people. Either that, or I behave differently enough or say things differently enough that I do something offensive without even realizing it. People start acting standoffish and I know I've done it again. I've weirded people away. In those moments, I usually do one of two things. I get anxious and try to figure out how to "fix" it. I can't lose another person. I must have done something wrong and I need to make it right or I'll be a terrible person forever. Not to mention alone. Of course, those are very selfish, codependent fears. But some part of me is even more terrified to consider how my actions have hurt someone else. I don't know if I could live with knowing what I've done. Even if it'...

It's quiet. Except for the dog snuffling quietly nearby, And the occasional car cruising in the distance, And quiet laughter and low murmurs from the neighbors. It's dark. Except for the soft porch lights of nearby houses, And the faint glow of the night sky, And the stars twinkling through the rippling clouds. The cool breeze dances over my body. Every inch of exposed skin tingles slightly. Tiny hairs move in a gentle waltz. My mind stirs. I smell earth, trees, The subtle perfume of spring. New life and new potential. My heart smiles. I feel myself connect To the universe. I am alive. My soul awakens. Here, On the ground, In the dark, Surrounded by trees And the sweet smell of life, I find God. I am home.

Learning to detach from everything but God and myself is an interesting process. I'm still not very good at it. I think a lot of people hear the word "detach" and assume a negative connotation - like I'm learning how to not care about anything. And to a degree, that's true. I'm learning how to stop basing my happiness in everything but myself and God. Yes, my happiness will still be somewhat tied to the people and events in my life, but it won't be fully dependent on those things. I'm learning how to be happy, no matter where I am, what is happening, or who is in my life. Codependent Me still clings to old habits, old ways of thinking, old behaviors. There is a sense of comfort and security there. But Strong Me knows that something is missing. I feel empty when I cling to those things now. I know something is missing. I know it, in my soul, because I have tasted the experience of detaching from everything and attaching only to God and myself....

I sit in the car. It smells like rain. And spring. The darkness is comforting, like my favorite childhood blanket. Hiding me from the world. Holding me softly, quietly. Memories flash through my heart. Not my mind; they're not solid enough to be thoughts. And yet, feeling-memories seem to be more real than thought-memories. They seem to be part of the very fabric of my soul. The stars wink at me, peeking out between the clouds. I smile, pleasantly startled by the realization that these are the same stars I've looked up at my whole life. They haven't changed. I have. I've changed so much. But the feeling-memories remind me of who I've been at each stage of my life. Each time I've looked at the stars, smelled the rain, smiled into the darkness, my heart has recorded a feeling-memory. The memories connect my present self to all my past selves, thousands of colorful threads tying me together into a beautiful whole. Letting those memories flow through my ...

**This post was written in the middle of a depressive episode. I was really struggling and it helped to write it out. It's somewhat painful for me to read now but it is part of my process and I want to record it. I want to remember. I want to learn from it.** Knock Knock Knock Please go away. My heart and mind are fragile today. The pounding begins. Please? The door is splintering. To the corner it is. But there is no hiding. Just praying as my mind continues to numb itself. The cutest little monsters you've ever seen come bursting into the room. They swarm me, crying, screaming, tearing off every last bit of emotional flesh they can find. They are so hungry. Wait. Stop, please. My pained cries become barely audible moans. People say I should enjoy these moments. But I don't. I'm already naked, half of my flesh gone, given to the various masters I hoped would keep me safe. And yet I'm alone. Alone with the monsters I try my best to love. But ...

Do you ever have dreams where you know what you want to do, what you should be able to do, and yet you just can't seem to make your mouth move or your legs cooperate? You know that if you could just move or open your mouth or do just the right thing, you could save it all. Some part of you senses that you SHOULD be able to do this. But you can't. Then there's real life. You watch something fall apart and think, "If I could just open my mouth or say the right thing or move my feet in the right direction, maybe this disaster wouldn't happen. Maybe I can still save it." But there's only so much one person, one piece of the puzzle can do. And sometimes you know that trying to save it will most likely just make things worse. So you stand there, watching things collapse, feeling just as paralyzed as your dream self, wishing you could fix it all. Sensing that you SHOULD be able to. Knowing that you can't.

It's a cycle. I know this. I know it. But I keep hoping I've "figured it out" enough that it won't hit me as hard next time. That it'll slowly get better. And in a way, that is happening. I'm learning how to manage it in healthier ways. But the core feelings and experiences are the same. I can't focus. I don't want to. I want to sleep because I feel like I can't intellectually or emotionally do much more than that. It almost feels like there's a big hole in my brain or a haze over the whole of it - my cognitive abilities are impaired. I literally can't function as well as I normally do. And there doesn't seem to be any obvious reason for it. It just happens. I feel numb. It takes a lot of energy to make myself feel things the way I normally would. I have to dig deep to find real sadness, anger, joy, love, and more. On the surface, things just feel...blah. I don't care. I can sense the true emotions sleeping under the surfa...

As a human being, I have a natural instinct to avoid pain. As a child, I learned (both consciously and subconsciously) that this instinct was not only helpful to survival, but also an indication of the morality of a particular course of action. If something hurt, it must be bad or wrong. This conviction was difficult to reconcile with the fact that I would experience discomfort while attempting to complete a task that I "knew" to be good or worth my time. Intellectually, I knew that I wasn't doing something bad, but my subconscious mind has automatically categorized all  discomfort as a sign that something is horribly wrong. This dissonance obviously created more emotional discomfort. Intellectually, I would shame myself for being inexplicably uncomfortable with something " "knew" to be good for me. I didn't understand the source of the discomfort, but I couldn't make it stop. My anxiety would build until I just couldn't handle it, and I would...

Here's a question for you. Are you listening? How are you supposed to let go of someone who has seen your soul and loved you for it? Someone who has allowed you the privilege of seeing and loving their soul? This is heartbreak. Or maybe a better word would be soulbreak. When my soul connects with someone else's and that connection is broken, a piece of my soul is fractured in the process. I'll heal, but the scar will always be there: a beautiful and painful reminder of a broken link to another human soul. Soulbreak.

So many thoughts. So many feelings. Racing, spinning, begging for me to put them on a page and give them a quiet, predictable home. I can't get them all down. I try, but there are always more. I feel alive, but sometimes living feels like a little too much. Sometimes I want to go back to being numb. Numbness is calm, quiet, predictable. Safe. Feeling, thinking, stretching. They're wonderful. I don't want them to stop - not permanently. But they also hurt. They're uncomfortable. They feel scary sometimes. This is hard. Life in color is, all at once, harder and easier than I expected it to be. More painful and more rewarding than I realized. Different than I'd planned. I love it, but sometimes I hate it. Living in full color means being able to accept and appreciate extremes, opposites, contradictions, all the gray areas in between. My soul knows how to do this. My heart and mind still freak out regularly. But I'll get there. Tonight, my soul longs to ...

9 years ago today I had my first kiss. It was awkward (read: I was awkward), and I'm not sure how much a tiny peck on the lips actually counts, but it was still a big moment for me. I'd promised myself I wouldn't kiss someone till I could say that I loved him. I was 18 and I was in love for the first time. A year later on this day, I went through the temple for myself (it's a Mormon thing). I still say that was one of the best days of my life. The temple is incredibly important to me. It feels like home. So March 12th has been a big day for me. In 2008 I knew I loved a man for the first time. In 2009, I learned what heaven on earth really feels like. This year, I find myself "alone" - divorced from that first love, missing another that I can never have, waiting on a third that may or may not actually come. But I don't feel lonely. My relationships with God and myself are better than ever. I have opened myself up to the universe and to others in a...

A while back, I wrote a post about what love isn't. I've been learning more about love and what it should actually look like. I know I have a long way to go still, but I'm getting a much better perspective on it. And I see now that it starts with love for myself. I used to think love was about losing myself in the will of another person. It's not. Love is about being my own strong, capable, intelligent person and choosing to metaphorically take someone else's hand so we can walk our paths together, for however long we're on the same path. Love means loving myself enough to be willing to follow the path that's right for me, even if I walk it alone sometimes. Love also means being willing to say goodbye to those whose paths diverge from mine - not because they're unworthy of me or I'm unworthy of them, but simply because we are heading in different directions. I can let go with love and wish them well. I used to think that love meant hating myself ...

Dear Everyone, I'm not "yours." I never will be. I belong to me. I belong to God. That's it. I don't belong to anyone else. I am fully my own and fully God's. You want to be part of my life? It'll be as my friend, my equal, a partner. I won't give myself away again. I won't lose myself in other people again. This I know. This I promise myself. This I promise you. This I promise God. Love, Me

I've always hated feeling like I was emotionally "needed" by someone else. Growing up, I had some interesting dynamics with important people in my life that either formed or exacerbated my hatred of being needed. But, on some level, I also believed that loving someone meant needing them and letting them need you. I guess you could say I had a love-hate relationship with the concept of love. Because love means mutual needing...right? No. That's not love. If you need me, emotionally, your "love" for me is tainted. In your mind, I exist, on some level, to fill a void. If you need me, it's because part of you is empty and you don't want to fix it - you want me to. But the truth is, I can't. On some level, I thought that being needy meant that I was letting people love me, that love meant letting people swoop in and take care of me. So they could fill their own voids through rescuing me. I thought that letting myself be needy meant that I was al...

I'm learning that Shame is the most consistently present "monster" in my head. She has the loudest voice. She has the sharpest stick. She wins the day most of the time. I've fed her more than I've fed most of my other "monsters." Today, after I've tried to starve her for weeks, she is doing her darnedest to tear me to pieces. It's almost physically painful. My chest and my stomach feel like they're trying to cave in on themselves. Shame is yelling fiercely and slashing at as many tender places as she can. "Why would you say that? You assumed that was about YOU? You're an idiot! They're going to hate you now. You're such a failure and it's only getting worse. You don't deserve anyone's love. Don't even think about trying to love anyone else because you don't deserve love in return. How dare you even consider that? Stay small, shut up, sit down, hide or scare everyone away. You know what? It mi...

One of the things I'm learning lately is all the things love is not ... Love is not codependence. Love is not an exchange of displays of affection. Love is not a competition. Love is not a caretaker-victim relationship. Love is not just a feeling. Love is not infatuation. Love is not belonging to someone. Love is not changing myself for someone. Love is not making myself smaller for someone. Love is not wondering what I can do to make someone else feel a certain way about me. Love is not desperately clinging to someone because I'm afraid to be alone. Love is not making someone the center of my universe. Love is not losing myself in someone else. Love is not letting another person carry me. Love is not choosing someone else over God. As I begin to untangle codependence and love, I'm just barely starting to get an idea of what love really is... Love is knowing who I am and what I want. Love is sharing pieces of my heart with people who are...

My armor is full of cracks. Some are large, some small. Some from blows I dealt myself, some from the blows of others. Some just from the blows of life. I often find myself scooping up pieces of my armor that have fallen, to glue them back in place. It seems the pieces tend to loosen up over time and need some attention. There are some pieces that are more prone to loosening and falling out than others. I'm always on the lookout for those. Sometimes, people come knocking - on the parts of my armor that shield my heart, my mind, my soul, my body. Requests are made of me all the time, especially as a parent. Sometimes, these requests come from many directions, all at once. My fragile armor trembles. Pieces fall. I scramble to pick up the pieces while the knocking continues. My heart races as I contemplate the futility of trying to distract people from seeing the weak parts of my Soul as I glue my armor back together, all while they still knock. Most knocks are gentle. S...

Sweet Boy peed on the floor. Again. Because he was angry with me. He seems to have a sixth sense for what will piss me off and goes right for the jugular when he's upset with me. I know that this is supposedly "just a thing" that kids do, but at times like this, it feels obscenely personal. I had gotten him out of the tub, apparently before he was ready, and he yelled that he was just going to keep getting back in. So I nudged him out the door and locked it so I could finish cleaning up the tub stuff. I was just muttering to myself that he was probably going to start threatening to pee, when I heard liquid hitting the floor outside the door. I lost it. I opened the door, smacked his butt, and yelled, "This is NOT okay!! Never okay!" I took him over to his bed, spanked him again, and yelled some more. I was livid. I am so sick of him peeing whenever he feels like he isn't getting his way. This is so hard for me, because it's about control. From t...