The tale of two mothers: the mother load.

Everything has been coming up "mother" lately.  I thought I was through with "mommy, don't leave me stuff" but there seems to be more stuff coming up for release.  Not so much in a painful way but more of a recognition for release- if that makes any sense.

I had two "mothers" and both died in 2012.  Let me explain.  My 18 year old biological mother was pregnant with me when she married a man who was not my father.  When I was one year old, I was given or taken (or a combination of both) to this man's mother, along with my 6 week old half sister,  to raise.  This woman was emotionally abusive and I was a modern day Cinderella (no prince, no fairy godmother, no dress).  I did, however, have a lot of cats.

I had made my peace with my only mother of memory several years ago.  The relationship was almost non existent and was only maintained by guilt.  So, I consciously ended it.  It felt good.  There had not been contact for around 3 or 4 years when she died early in 2012.  I attended the funeral and went as an adult who had made peace with this part of her life.  It was very healing for me.  I had trusted myself to end the relationship and it was the right decision for me.

A year before the death of the woman who raised me, my sister found our biological mother.  She had been searching all her adult life for her and found her.  She had died nine months earlier in July, 2010.

People losing their mothers has come into my experience of late.  I know what it must be like to be loved so completely by a mother because that is how I feel about my own children.  Not only did I miss out on the experience of unconditional mother love but what I got was even worse.  Lack of love was nothing compared to abuse piled on top of lack of love and support.  I would have just taken the no love and ran with it instead of the one-two punch.

So, I lost a mother for two years in a row.  Even though I had cut ties with one and the other one, I had no conscious memory, it was a loss.  What has come up for me of late has been a recognition of all that I took on.  The choice to start my life out this way was a very difficult experience.  I mourned the fact that I never experienced what it feels like to be loved   No wonder I poured all of my energy into looking for someone to love me.   I now know that the love I so desperately sought, I can  give to myself.  Still, what it must feel like to be so completely loved.

I bought my first cast iron skillet.  When I seasoned it, it reminded me of the pans my grandmother-mother used.  She used cast iron all of the time.  It occurred to me she never taught me one thing about cooking.  Nothing and she was a proficient cook.  Not in a gourmet kind of way but a "country" way where everything was fried.  One of the few skills she had and she never brought my sister and I into the kitchen to help with dinner.  I am looking at this cast iron skillet and I can see her pans on her stove cooking fried potatoes.  Today, I am reading up on cast iron because I had no knowledge of using it for cooking.

I was watching a you tube presentation on seasoning cast iron and the presenter says "welcome to love starts in the kitchen."  There is this connection between our mothers and food.  Now as an adult, it is up to me to love myself through preparing healthy meals for myself.  I can nurture and love myself this way.

Since the first of the year, I have made a conscious effort to change my diet.  I think there is a link here between handing over the reins to myself for being my own mother and changing the food imprint I received from childhood.  I have been nurturing myself with good organic live food.  On the one hand, food is not love but it can be.  There is immense love in food in that it nourishes our bodies.  Loving myself now includes starting in the kitchen.

Life as Outcast

Since I can remember, I have been outcast.  Physically there is no reason for this as I look "normal" having no disabilities or other outcast attributes.   I have always been attractive enough which usually allows more easily for social acceptance.  I have more compassion than most anyone I have ever come across.  This is not the martyr fake out compassion which is in ample supply.  I probably relied on my ability to connect with others through compassion because it was the way to be accepted.  When you give others what they need, then they allow you in.  Down side is this type of relationship is usually one sided and they cannot get enough to drink at the well and will drink until the well is dry.

I was born outcast.  Childhood was difficult in that I, as most kids, wanted friends.  While I was never without friends, I had to work at it.  No one was beating down my door.  I gave a lot in my relationships and was paid back in a few close relationships.  Always had a boyfriend containing same imbalance of over giving.

I am odd or weird but not in a way one can name.  My consciousness has never been the same as the mass consciousness.  How I view the world is different than most.  Plus, I have this thing which I do called honestly and it takes people by surprise.  I have the :awesome" ability to go to the heart of what someone is talking about and say it, out loud.  Most are hiding things from themselves, which I find out later by their reactions.  A simple rephrasing of what someone has said will bring to light a denial.  Now, mind you, this is not my agenda.  My agenda has been to connect.  I am not trying to do this.  In fact, I have tried to rein it in as I do not really care to be a denial breaker.  Again, I DO NOT CARE.  Live your life, it is none of my business.

The most joyful experience in life was that of being a mother.  Not the bath giving, feeding and back breaking part, but the nurturing and connection part.  My children love me.   My daughter is weirder than I -pure indigo-and surrounded herself with other indigos.  She was born in 1989 and a hey year for the indigo nation.   My son is weird with that of his high level of intelligence.   Both kids recognized how different I was than the other mothers and as they aged, grew proud of my differentness.  The other moms didn't pan out, so to speak.  Their friends noticed too and extended their approval.

I have never truly been accepted.  People do not "get" me.  And, quite frankly, most other people bore me.  Ugggggg, really?, blah blah blah.  People, in general, love to talk about themselves but rarely ask me about myself.   If they do, they do not mean it and tire of me quickly.  And god forbid I throw in some insight into their personal world by getting real and inadvertently helping them see themselves more clearly.  Jesus.  Can't take me anywhere.

My mind is quick and clear.  I see things that others cannot but I do not realize it until it happens.  Would I trade in this for the soup of regular people.  Not on your life.  It is me and I like who I am, disconnect and all.  As far as I am concerned, I am good to go.  It is about acceptance of who I am and of being more of who I am.  I have been fighting me for-ever, mostly unconsciously.  Fitting in under false pretenses or a "wolf in sheep's clothing".  For, I am anything but a sheep.  This does not make me better or worse it just IS.  No longer am I tricked into thinking I am broken because others do not understand or I am 10 steps ahead of them.  Now, I have learned to bridge the distance if needed.  Like at work when I need to get everybody on board to solve a problem.  BTW, superiors do not take kindly to noticing their own getting up to speed gap.

Bottom line is I have made great effort to connect to others.  I can do it but is is one-sided and is based on me coming to them.  Well, fuck that.  It is not satisfying to be stepping down so I might as well just entertain myself.  And if somehow you are drawn into my energy, then be ready for a treat you won't get with your regular friends.  I'll just say goodbye in advance.

I will end with one of my favorite Story Waters lines:  This is me, unabashedly me.  Love me  or GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY LIFE.

Ruby Slippers

Found myself thinking about the movie Wizard of Oz where The Wicked Witch of the West writes"Surrender Dorothy" in the sky with broomstick smoke.  Dorothy and her 3 companions, Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion have just had a spa day in the Emerald City when the mean and scary witch shows up and ruins it all.  Or does she? Because of the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy is forced to face her fears.

I couldn't help thinking about how this story tells my story. I, too was unhappy with my life and ended up on an unexpected journey.  During my journey I have met my thoughts (brains), heart (feelings), and  fears (courage), especially my fears.  Fear comes in all shapes and sizes.  Our biggest fear is said to be that of death.  I think I am pretty good on that one.  Sometimes, it feels like it would be a relief actually. The fear I have associated with death is that of pain.  I do not want to die a painful death.  There is a point though where pain will make you pass out so there is a threshold to it.  I will not be controlled by the fear of death.  

Survival fears.  These are strong within me and I think probably mostly everyone.  They are biologically programmed into the DNA.  It is difficult to break this encoding.  We are programmed for the flight or flight response.  This is tied into the fear of death.  Survival fears come from all kinds of sources. Not being able to financially support myself is a survival fear.  I may not die but be made to suffer in a life due to lack.  Food and housing are basics we all need.  Fear of the loss of love does not concern me.  I have lost all of the important people whom I have loved.

One of my deepest fears is that of not having a say in my life.  Not being able to manifest my desires.  I was raised in near poverty and I felt stuck as a child.  No matter what I did, I was unable to change my circumstances.  This was my birth choice. I chose this for a reason and it was very real.  I struggled with being able to accept my circumstances but that never stuck, emotionally. I could not free myself from judging myself about not having money, a house, clothes, etc.  I saw that in order to be popular in school, these things mattered and people judged you for your economic status.  I also saw that money brought opportunity and those with money, had it easier.  I judged back.

I don't think I ever dealt with the pain of being poor as a child.  After college, my circumstances did change.  I married and we both had professional jobs and good incomes.  My income continued to increase and I lived a comfortable life.  Fast forward to now, where I have a home in foreclosure.  It is bringing up all of these fears which I thought I put behind me.  It is now my opportunity to face these old buried fears and judgements.  The judgement that my economic circumstance is tied to who I am.  I am god no matter where I live.  Am I gong to believe it that I do not create my reality?  The tricky part is believing that I am creating my reality when it is something I do not want-on the human level.  On the spirit level, there is great wisdom in my choosing but I have to trust that I know what I am doing.  Yes, I do create my reality.  What is in my reality is for a reason and it is showing me something.  I think not being able to change my reality is the belief that I cannot.  I am creating it even though it is what I perceive as a crappy reality.  There is a reason for my crappy reality.  There is a fear here.  The fear is I am not creating.  I accept that i am creating it no matter what.  acceptance of my birth choice plays a part in this too. i accept my birth choice of being poor but it does not mean that I have to remain poor.  I know better now.

Fear of slavery.  Of being controlled by someone else or my circumstance.  I am a sovereign being  and it is time i released the fear of slavery. Of being controlled by someone else just to get your human needs met.  or emotional needs.  that is slavery.  giving someone what they want because you have to - to survive. this is difficult for me to accept.  that we chose slavery for a reason.  I have been a slave in this lifetime.  giving parts of myself away for love when all the love i need is on the inside.

and I see Dorothy in her ruby slippers and being told "You had the power all the time".  The slippers were the keys to her return to home.  she had them with her all along.  And this rang true to me in that I felt I have had the power all along to choose my destiny.  That we all carry that within us-that which we seek is inside of us.  But how to find that which we seek is generally by looking on the outside and thus the journey.  Our lives are mirrors and everything from the inside is reflected to us on the outside in our experiences.  

I truly feel I am ready for this part of my journey to end.  I have explored my thoughts, feelings and fears and quite frankly have seen enough.  It is time to leave Oz 

Fear, the guardian

As I was sitting on my couch, writing in my journal, I was lead down a path where I was able to feel and release some stored shame from childhood.  When we are emotionally wounded and unable to process the pain at the time, we store it in our bodies.  It is walled off until we are able to process it.  Oftentimes it is our fears which are guarding wounds.  The fears are saying "don't go here" it is painful.  For to release a wound, is to go into a wound and re-feel the trauma and pain we were unable to feel at the time.  Wounds which are laid down in childhood are waiting for us to grow into adults so we will be better able to handle the experience of feeling and dealing with the experience.  As adults, we can see things from a bigger and/or wider perspective.  For example, we are able to see our parents as humans who make mistakes and have their own wounds.  As children, we are sponges who just soak up whatever is in our environments.

Especially me.  I am a human emotional sponge.  I am an empath which is having the experience of feeling everyone else's emotions.  It has been a lifelong journey to be able to separate out myself from other people.  I feel emotions intensely and emotions on the lower end of the scale such as anger frighten me.  Combine that with a fear of rejection and you have someone easily emotionally manipulated.

Back to my story.  I was writing about how as  an adolescent and young adulthood, I had no concept of the government, really and how it personally affected my life.  I was attributing that ignorance due to being poor.  First of all, there were no learning opportunities in my environment about our government. Second, I never had things to lose.  We did not own property.  My mother quit her low paying job when I was in the 7th grade.  She never really talked about why.  Somehow we were existing.

During this time frame, we went on food stamps which is a government program.  I had a memory of walking to the grocery store about 1/2 to a mile away and buying groceries.  When it was time to check out, I was absolutely humiliated. I remembered that sometimes my mother would send my sister and  myself to the grocery store with food stamps in hand.  If we wanted to eat, we would have to go through the humiliation of paying with food stamps.  Sat here on my leather, yellow couch, I released a wound tonight form long ago.  Ashamed of myself for having human needs.  The basic human need of food, I was ashamed for needing to eat.  This must be how a homeless person feels when they are seen hunting in a garbage can.  Ashamed for needing to eat.  In fact, I usually fall to pieces when I see a homeless person looking for food.  It is the same thing.  I am no different than the starving homeless person.  They are just a reflection of myself.  Seeing the shame in the homeless person is a reflection of the shame within myself.

Where did I get this shame, I asked myself?  How did I know to be ashamed of using food stamps?  I absorbed it from my mother.  She passed her shame onto me.  It was she that was ashamed which is why she oftentimes sent her children to buy the groceries, so she would not have to experience it herself. She dumped her emotions onto me and I absorbed them.  Not everyone who is on food stamps is ashamed of themselves.  If there would have been discussion about it in our house, that it was presented as not something to be embarrassed and ashamed about, then it would not have been as traumatizing.

Back to fear.   What fears did I have that were protecting this wound?  You know, the fears that say "do not go there, it will be painful."  I believe it is tied into survival needs.  Food and housing which are basic human needs and when my ability to survive is threatened, it is translated into being afraid.  So, for example, the loss of my home in foreclosure was creating all of this fear.  The fear was guarding this wound of being ashamed of myself for needing a house or food.  I have been identifying my being, my beautiful being, with the kind of house I live in. And if the house and food are gone, then there I am again, back to being an ashamed child.

I am working with owning everything I see on the outside as a reflection of myself.  Everything, EVERYTHING that is in my experience, I am creating from the inside.  If we embrace our fears, then the gift on the other side is the release of what it has been guarding.  After the release of a fear, then we will no longer need to create it on the outside in order to see it.  That's the plan, anyway......

The MUSTARD SEED

There is this intangible feeling that I am trying to wrap my arms around and pull out from inside of my being.  The mustard seed.  The seed that is buried deep, deep (did I mention deep) down.

This morning, I had a dream and it was about being robbed on the street.  There was no help around and my screams were met with complete silence.  The feeling was that of powerlessness, of not being able to do anything at all to help myself.  There was no one around to help me.  I had to surrender to the experience.  After being robbed (in my dream) there was this feeling that is difficult to describe.  Of having had something traumatic happen but no marks-no bruises, nothing on the outside for the world to see as evidence.

As I marinated in this feeling today, trying to make sense of it, I followed that feeling of powerlessness.  Where else in my life have I felt like this?  Of being a "victim" where something was stolen from me and then afterwards, it was as if nothing had happened.

My first sexual experience-I was 15 and he was 17 -my first love.  We had been making out in cars mostly and he was pushing to have sex.  I was not ready for intercourse.  I believe it was New Years Eve and there was drinking involved ( I had little experience with alcohol) and he coaxed me into this room full of other couples making out.  We were on a bed, my pants had been taken off and all of a sudden he was on top of me, with his penis inside of me.  It was very quick (and unfulfilling I might add) and he pulled out before he came inside of me.  And then it was over.  There was this feeling of trust I had for him as he always quit when I said no and he knew I had not changed my mind about being ready for sex.  He said he loved me.  And, yet, there I lie half naked on the bed, filled with desire only to be raped.  All that was left to do was to get dressed and walk out with the Queen song "Tie Your Mother Down" playing in the background.  Afterwards, there was no hand holding or loving embraces or expressions of love.  Nothing.  Silence.  We went on as if nothing had happened.  I was betrayed.

I can only imagine that this was the same feeling I had when my  biological mother left me at the age of one.  My step father's grandmother somehow cajoled my 19 year old mother into leaving me and my 6 week old sister to be raised by her.  From silenced relatives who didn't speak out until years later, there seems to have been subterfuge involved.  I was raised as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.   Betrayal by my biological mother who was supposed to protect me and by my step grandmother who would emotionally abuse me.  Who, by the way, always told me how much she loved me while dispensing emotional abuse.

Yes, there is a pattern of betrayal throughout my life.  It has come in all kinds of packages.  All of them telling me they loved me while they betrayed me behind my back.  These two instances are probably the most significant as they occurred early to set the imprint.  The last betrayal was with my second husband.  We were married for only two years.  He ended up being one of those psychopaths.  The kind of person who totally deceives everyone around him.  He is one of those people who will probably end up on the news someday.  As psychopaths are want to do, I was destroyed financially not to mention my health.

The betrayal with a happy face came from my best friend who also happens to be my boss at work.  She was undermining me with people who reported into to me and others in the organization.  She took credit for my work with the higher ups and painted a picture of more than her fair share of importance.  All the while, telling me how much she loved and appreciated me and denying any wrongdoing when confronted.  Until she was caught, red handed and yet, still had the audacity to try and "spin" it.  Again, that feeling of you've just been punked - but we go on as if nothing has happened.

My husband of 20 years who is the father of my children abandoned me emotionally.  After the divorce and remarrying a year later, he decided he wasn't going to pay for our children's college and medical expenses.  This resulted in me having to sue him to honor the divorce agreement.  Needless to say, this was totally unexpected that he would abandon the kids financially.  He lost, of course, and we go on as if nothing happened.

Now this is a story all about how
My life got flipped, turned upside down


Before this dream, a few weeks ago, I had discovered that there is something called betrayal trauma.  Here is the definition:  Betrayal Trauma: The phrase "betrayal trauma" can be used to refer to a kind of trauma independent of the reaction to the trauma. From Freyd (2008): Betrayal trauma occurs when the people or institutions on which a person depends for survival signifi cantly violate that person ’ s trust or well - being: Childhood physical, emotional, or sexual abuse perpetrated by a caregiver are examples of betrayal trauma.

Betrayal Trauma Theory: From Sivers, Schooler, & Freyd (2002): A theory that predicts that the degree to which a negative event represents a betrayal by a trusted needed other will influence the way in which that events is processed and remembered

This is what you call a core trauma.  It is the set up that occurs early in childhood and then is repeated over and over again until the person can see and heal it.  It finally becomes so ridiculous that you cannot NOT see it.  Since the initial trauma occurred at one year old, without conscious memory, it was a nasty little booger I could not get hold of.  It was like a mustard seed that was hidden deep inside of my being which until it bloomed, blended in with all the other bits and pieces of life.  

 It is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and put in his own garden. It grew, and became a large tree, and the birds of the sky lodged in its branches.”

 I believe this dream to be the releasing of my core trauma.  In order to heal, the feelings that are stored inside of the body, have to be felt.  The pain that was too difficult to feel at the time of the wounding will be felt as it is leaving.  Still, hard to describe this feeling of being hurt and then - I think it is like that of going numb or in shock.  Yes, a feeling of shock.  The shock absorbs the pain.  But yet, there is something intangible about the shock.  Maybe it is invalidation-that everything goes on and the pain is never validated or expressed.  If no one else recognizes the pain, then does it exist? Is it real if no one else admits to it?  Can I have my own feelings regardless of someone else's validation?  Can I feel?  Am I permitted to have my own feelings?  

This is where the fear lies for there are consequences to standing up for oneself.  Am I strong enough to weather the storm of owning my own feelings, of standing up to the possible anger and rejection?  Will you leave me if I express my feelings?  Best guess is yes, for the type of person I have been attracting to myself is not the type of person who is usually willing to own their own actions.  Here is the mirror:  I am not taking responsibility for my feelings and am attracting the same.  

What is the gift from all of this bull crap :) ?  Maybe it is to know, that what I am feeling and seeing is valid.  To not look on the outside for approval, validation, and acceptance.  To own my experience and to speak up about it.  If I am not honest about my feelings then  I am going to attract dishonest people.  To not let the fear of anger and rejection stop me from expressing myself.


This has been quite the journey.  As each betrayal presented itself, I learned from it.  It was like a spiral where it just goes around and around with each new betrayal experience being more difficult.  Until now, I have it by the throat-the roots and I am pulling this mutha out.

Betrayal trauma NO MORE!  Next........

ALL for LOVE

Something's been building inside of me for several days now.  A few nights ago, I had a dream that while I lie sleeping, I was surrounded and engulfed by this huge man who was hugging me.  There was a feeling of well being  associated with this encapsulated body hug and I can still see the picture of me lying there in bed spooning with a very large man.  The best I could come up with of who this man reminded me of was John Goodman-from the show Roseanne-he play Dan Conner (had to google it).  Just to be clear, I have never had any crush on John Goodman, Dan Conner or the Roseanne show for that matter.  But it is an interesting translation as I sit here at 5:00 a.m., having had another one of my spiritual epiphanies about an hour ago as I lie wide awake in bed sorting through my stuff.

After a strange surge of energy which had me going through old jewelry tonight and putting it in a bag for good-will (not to be confused with Goodman), I eventually became so tired that I decided not to  read as per my usual routine before going to sleep.  Once I settled into bed, I started sifting through some fears of mine that had crept in again.  And somewhere in there of all the back and forth from feeling fear to embracing my fear-back and forth, back and forth-feeling fear and embracing fear, in my mind-there then emerged this feeling in my solar plexus.  This feeling got stronger so that it became a  defined ball of feeling.  Then the download came, the knowing of what it has all been about.

LOVE

It has all been about LOVE.  My life, all the things I have done, I have done for love.  Love in terms of seeking love from others.  All I wanted, my entire life was to love and be loved.  I know this sounds cliche and the words hardly do the feeling justice.  I have never experienced the feeling of being loved - I came into this world to an 18 year old mother who abandoned me and was emotionally abused by the mother who raised me.  This is the set up I chose to be born into.  So, I did not even experience the love of a mother (but the opposite) which is about the closest thing you can get to unconditional love from the outside.  I had no father to love me either.

Today my daughter texted me to say that she is working on a new story-she is a writer.  This is her text:
Mom tells child "I'll love you no matter what". Child gets mad because she thinks that it is a ridiculous notion.  Then comes to realize the never ending love of a mother.

A correction-I never felt strong love until the birth of my first child.  Having children was the most precious gift I had ever received.  It changed me.  It filled a hole inside of me.  It was the closest thing to  unconditional love that I have ever experienced.

Yes, I had experienced romantic love with men.  I "loved" my husband.  However, I never seemed to get back emotionally what I put into the relationship.  I ended up being the one who gave their guts out emotionally and being taken for granted.  I over gave.  The more I gave, the less I got back.

Eventually this lead me to the ultimate relationship. The relationship where I gave it all, house, finances, health-everything I had, this man took.  If I had not been desperate for someone to love me, he would not have been able to manipulate and use it against me.  He was ruthless.

As I lie in my bed going through the rubble in my mind, I  asked, again,  to understand the wider picture.  I still thought there was a bigger reason that I was yet to see.

And that's when it all fell into place.  This feeling in my solar plexus grew and it felt like LOVE.  I focused on the feeling and began to smile on the inside and tell myself how much I loved me.  I told myself how amazing I am.  I told myself how incredible I am and that I have come so far.  I told myself, I love you, I love you, I love you, and I felt it.  I felt my love for myself.  This was very different than telling myself from my intellect that I love myself.  This was pure, raw feeling.

On this journey, we have all been told to love ourselves. I have even heard that it is the reason we are here.  And, I have thought that I loved myself.  Up until tonight when I experienced this LOVE from the inside out.

Something has been going through my mind this week-a quote I heard from Story Waters about "the courage to stand alone".  I didn't know why it appeared in my mind.  I have been alone for over 2 years now-really physically alone.  No romantic relationship and both kids away in college.  Serious soul searching has transpired in this time.  I could not have done it if I was not alone.  I embraced my alone-ness and let it envelop me.  I fell in love with myself over these 2 years.  All I had was focused on me (and paying tuition so those kids could stay away in college).

Strangely, over the past two days a children's book has come to mind that I used to read to my children.  The book's name is I Like Me by Nancy Carlson.  Here is a review of the book posted on amazon, ""Little ones in need of positive reinforcement will find it here. An exuberant pig proclaims "I like me!" She likes the way she looks, and all her activities....When she makes a mistake she picks herself up and tries again." --Booklist "Wonderful in its simplicity, here's a story that will help kids feel good about themselves." -- Boston GLobe.

In my mind, I caught myself saying to myself, "I like me, piggie".  I believe it is the very last page of the book.  The book which I have not read for over 15 years.

So, to tie a bow around all of this, I came to fall in LOVE with myself tonight.  And I now know, that the searching is over.  All of this time, I have been looking for me (piggie).  The love I was so desperately trying to get from others, I  give to myself.  It truly is an inside job.  I know the law of attraction was bringing me exactly what I was putting out-that I didn't love myself so that is what I was getting back.  To be dependent on anything outside of myself is exactly that, dependence.  I am a sovereign being.  I am God so I am everything.  I give to myself what I need.  I am dependent on no one.  Dobby is a Free Elf.

Then two songs came to mind.  First-I started singing All You Need is Love, by the Beetles.  Which seemed pretty apropos.  After the obvious song, I started getting the melody of a different song.  Here it is- and this one had me in tears as I felt the love flowing through me.

AT the GATES

For 29 years, I was on a normal trajectory of college, marriage and kids.  I remember  turning 30 and being presented with a version of myself I did not know existed.  Who was this SELF.  I started questioning.  All of my life, all of it, I had accepted the mass program.  Even though I never felt satisfied from life, I followed a path that lead to what I considered to be success.  Somehow I had transcended a life of near poverty, a life filled with deprivation of all basic needs. It was a life of bare minimum.  And somehow, I had made it to a good college and out of the hood.  There, I met a guy and we were married a week after I graduated.  He worked as a civil engineer and I as a therapist.  We bought a couple of houses before we had two children a girl  in 1989 and a boy 1991.  It was all dream like and there never seemed to be that many choices along the way.  There just didn't seem to be options to choose from.  

Out of what seemed to be nowhere'sville, things inside of me started to change.  Twenty years later, here I am.

I am at the Gates of Heaven.  I have brought mySELF here.  I have done everything I have known to do.  

JUDGEMENT.  I have worked on releasing all judgment-yes, it is still there and I am not sure if I will ever totally eradicate it but the desire for total release is there.  I will continue to look for it, acknowledge it and when I see it, look for what I am judging inside myself.  

CHOICE.  I know that I am choosing everything in this life.  Everything, without exception.  There are no accidents and no mistakes.  I have released victim consciousness.  I have started to understand the reasons that I went through some of my experiences and I am looking forward to an even wider understanding of past experience.  

FEAR. I consciously look for what creates fear in my life.  I walk into the fear.  I feel the fear and do it anyway.  

PERSPECTIVE. I know that thoughts create reality. You get what you focus upon.   I monitor my thoughts and change them if they are negative.  If there is a feeling which needs to be released, I do not deny it for fear of creating it.  I feel the feeling for it to be released.  Sometimes it may require that I delve into what seems like negativity but it is for the purpose of release.  

APPRECIATION. I know that the highest vibration is that of appreciation.  I look for things in my life to appreciate, daily.  I spent time in the morning and before bed to feel appreciation.  

BOUNDARIES. I set boundaries. I say no when I want to say no.  I do not over give to where I deplete my energies.  I put SELF first knowing if I am happy there is more to share.  The most important person to please is myself.  

COMPASSION. I remember that everyone is choosing their life experience.  I cannot save the world, nor does the world need saving.  I understand that as I have chosen painful experiences, so have others.  I honor and respect their choices.  This does not mean that I cannot help when I am called upon.  

HEALING. I understand that all healing must be requested and for the highest good of all.  Therefore, I do not mettle where I have not been asked to go.   

BRIDGING.  I do not remain quiet.  I will give my opinion from my own experience and perspective allowing others their perspective.  I can meet others at different rungs on the ladder and try to find a common meeting ground so as to create a bridge of understanding. I try to find things we have in common.  

WOUNDING.  I have found the mustard seed of my core level wounding of betrayal.  I see it played out throughout my entire life.  I will continue to search for and release any unknown remaining wounds but it feels as though this phase is complete.  

I have turned my life upside down and inside out.  All I can see to do is to practice these spiritual qualities.  There is no where else to go. If this is what is meant by being at the gates of heaven, then I am here.  I respectfully submit my name and sign into the book of life.  I ask for Grace.