Warrior of Self-Love

Barry White and the Love Unlimited Orchestra are in the hooouuuse!

Ok, ok…what I mean is:  those cresendo-ing strings and that syrupy smooth voice is just DRIPPING allllll over my soul this morning.  That sound is so damned nostalgically groovy,  I’m almost convinced a Soul Train micro-chip was inserted into my brain whilst I slept….

Self-Love.  Two teeny, tiny, tiny words that are as elusive as Bigfoot bodysurfing on the Loch Ness monster in Coney Island.  Yet,those words are the anti-dote, the cure-all, the answer, the solution…to so many of life’s conundrums.  Truly, they are.

How does one Love themselves?  First of all, I’m gonna just kick all you sexually oriented Love Nuts outta the class and refer you to your bedrooms and tell you to ‘figure it out’.  Don’t worry, it’ll come.

Nope, the Self-Love I’m talking about is that deep down, in your gut,solid belief in yourself as a vital, essential, delicious,  specimen of a human being.  It’s a wonderful and intoxicating thing to feel empowered in yourself.  It is also tenuous, difficult and, at times, some serious, serious, hard ass work.

I tend to think of my inner life as a garden.  When I first was prompted to look Within, there really wasn’t much too see – it was fairly dark and dank.

I believe we are all born in sheer and utter perfection.   Slowly, as we grow, we begin to attain knocks, dents, kinks and scrapes to our soul.  Example:  The kids decorated the Christmas Tree one year…of course, all the decorations were on the bottom of the tree.  That night, as they slept, I re-decorated the tree.  Miles woke up and noticed first thing: “how come you moved the decorations mama?”    That…would be one of his first “Dings”.   Now he’ll never remember that…and, Miles being Miles…would deny there was any harm in that.  Well, we shall see about that as his life unfolds  However, it certainly was an act of ‘disapproval’ on our part as parents.

By the time most of us reach adolescence, hormones have grabbed ahold of that self-doubt to create a perfect storm of self-loathing.  Hence, your basic teenager is looking for anything to relieve those inner demons.   I mean, OF COURSE…. kids drink, smoke, snort, cut, and slice… they are looking inner peace.  Other kids escape by: behaving correctly, being perfect, studying excessively, and over-achieving – these kids will have, actually, a tougher road, as their demons are ‘socially acceptable’ and will be very difficult to uncover.   The point is, very few of us have learned how to love ourselves…how to care for ourselves in response to those knocks and dings.

It became obvious to both myself and my parents that I wasn’t feeling all that great about myself, I started reading self-help books.  My mom would wonder “why are you soooo dramatic” and my dad would tell me to “Cheer Up”.    None of it worked.  Ya know what worked?  Budweiser…cigarettes….Ganja…cocaine..heroin…lots of promiscuous sex…and saying the word FUCK worked….. for a minute.

How could a garden grow in the dark?

It was only when my coping mechanisms blew up in my face and caused a major reconstruction of my life that I  looked down into my own abysmal garden.  There needed to be some serious weeding.   In that moment, my healing began

That was almost 30 years ago.  It took a looooong time to weed my inner garden.  My only motivation was that I believed that I could, and would, replace all that negativity with Love and Light.  Amazingly, that is exactly what happened.

The job is not ‘finished’...it is ever in flux.  I have a daily responsibility to keep my inner garden weeded so that love and light can prosper and grow.   I have a brilliant, dear, dear friend that is very savvy to the verbiage and methodology of ‘healing’.  She says the ‘healing words” and does some of the ‘healing’ activities.   However, her darkness is screaming to be let out.  She is just too scared to look within… and stay there. This work is NOT for the faint of heart.  Eventually, if she is lucky, she will be brought to her knees in devastation, and in that moment, I am certain, she will not understand “How this happened, I’ve been so positive, I’ve done the right things”…but, also in the moment…she will begin to heal.  I will be there.

The first, and most important step in Self-Love….is to let the darkness out.  Be honest..tell another human about yourself, write it down, cry it out…just let the darkness OUT.  Soon, and it will be soooo much sooner than you ever would have imagined, you will actually FEEL the light take a hold within.

With the ending of a significant professional relationship in my life, I have a chunk of darkness swirling within.   My response?   Cry, cry, cry me a rivah baybeh….that’s been my theme song over the past week. So What…I’m just letting it rip.   I also have a very strong attachment to prayer and meditation – Very Strong…My messy truth gets passed along in hourly prayer in moments like these.  I have a very select group of people that see beyond ME and can see down inside.  Those folks are the ones I can hand my darkness to, and they will promptly dispose of it.  They will never try to ‘fix’ me…they just stand next to me, telling me they love me.   Finally, I move my body – exercise has a funny way of just releasing toxins and jump starting the endorphins.   That…is my excavation process.

I’ve known and loved,  many people who continue to keep themselves at an arms distance.  Self-Love is not An Event.  We do the best we can.  This big ole Life we live is a PROCESS…and we only get as far as we get.  There is no Good…and there is no Bad.  There is only Light and Dark.

In each 24 hour period that we are blessed enough to be alive, we will see BOTH day and night.  Take your cue, and make the best of each day.

Me  ‘n  the Love Light Orchestra are off to go for a bike ride…a visual of Barry White on a bicycle is enough to Lift this girl’s heart and laugh out loud…  and that…is a lil insight into how this warrior is loving herself today.

Peace On Ya!

 

Jeune Fille

The Journey of Women.

Disclaimer:

I hesitate to attach gender to the subject of The Journey. For one, I am absolutely certain men undergo a journey-like process in their quest for a full and rewarding life. I can say that I have encountered men who know of struggle and the work of healing, but, they seem to do it differently. I include my own son in this group…a man that I’ve had a daily influence on for over 18 years. Regardless, he is ‘journeying’ in a way that seems true to his gender.

Therefore, my heart, soul and experience speak to The Journey of a Woman, or more accurately, the Growing of a Girl into a Woman.

The roller coaster starts it’s engine around the age of 10-12. The sweet chubby girl starts to elongate, shift and morph into something that, most assuredly, even the girl does not understand.

If being human is a compilation of Mind,Body and Soul – that Soul begins to be dictated by Moods -that permeate, what WAS, a safe and cozy world. Quite unbeknownst to the young girl who loved her dolls or horses, Life, as she knew it, begins to be threatened.

I speak from two perspectives.

One, being a woman of passion, my journey rocketed out of the canon in pure angst. I begin my self destruction at the age of 15 and did not begin to reconcile until 10 years later. In short, the rise and fall of my personal emotional empire took a decade to manifest. The Journey, for me, still continues.

Two, I have had the honor and privilege of growing a young girl into a woman. This work also still continues. My daughter has, for better or worse, been educated in the ways of womanhood through the eyes of a mother that has been at the bottom and worked her way out of the pit. My hope is NOT that my daughter will live a pain free life….she has already experienced the loss of her family through Divorce. My hope is that she will have the knowledge and tools to handle the onslaught of emotional passion brought by adolescence. She is nearly 16 now and has been hearing about “the challenge” for over 6 years. The challenge, as I refer to it, has been introduced in our family as a difficult, but, necessary houseguest. One that will not go away. Our job? To learn to live with it, as successfully as we can, for the time that it is here.

How do all these big lofty psycho theories play out in day to day living. In short, “You will feel like crap for nearly 10 years…during this time, you must discover in what ‘form’ you want to live (jock, preppie, artsy, hipster, etc. etc….)….you will meet your sexual self, you will entertain ‘love’, you will crave independence, you will miss your simple childhood, you must learn soooo much: just. to. get. through. the. day.

and through it all, you will be constantly, CONSTANTLY, threatened by inner demons of Doubt.

Some of these demons are Life-Inflicted. My demons for example, had to do with having an Artist’s passion, the mind of a Thinker, and the physical appearance that did not fit the social norm. My parent’s marriage was stressed and my father was an alcoholic. My mother, with her own demons, was not connected to her emotions. She had the household and a family to manage. I experienced her as cold and unavailable. My alcoholic father was more ’emotional’ and that, was my framework for ‘normal’.

As I’ve said, my daughter’s demons of Loss are Divorce-related. She also has complex emotions and the mind of a thinker. Her passion and creativity were self-evident as a toddler.

Even young woman who have no OUTWARD afflictions staining the soft fuzzy blanket of childhood, will have to deal with negotiating who and what they want to be.

Just walking out the door, the power of hormones will be an unpredictable, undependable; an ever changing mine field of emotions. If the blankie of childhood wasn’t stained before adolescence, very few, if any, will welcome the third decade of life with a clean and clear sense of personal well being. It, frankly, near impossible.

That, is the power of Estrogen – hormonal levels DIRECTLY impacting emotional reality.

Are you 13 and high? 14 and depressed? 15 and suicidal? 16 and pregnant? 17 and homeless? You are NORMAL.

Alcohol, Weed, Sex, Cutting, Overachieving, Anxiety, Panic, Eating Disorders….are all Normal quick FIXES to inner turmoil. Quick. It needs to be NOW. “My distress must be changed to comfort quickly and immediately” – that is the human expectation. Change. The. Painful. Reality = Human Instinct.

You see, since the moment of your Birth, hunger is met with nourishment, cold replaced with warmth, sickness by care, pain with comfort …. That, is the job of the parent, to teach Safety, Dependability, Warmth and Comfort. The Work of Love.

As we transition into our teenaged years, we must begin to care for ourselves.

But wait, WHY would we want to care for ourselves, when someone else can do it?

Realizing we must care for ourselves, is…to the perfect child, that grew up in the perfect home, with the perfect family, in the perfect circumstances….Devastingly Difficult. Human development may be as natural as the moon’s rotation around the earth….but, the transition from being cared FOR….to Independence…leaves each young woman pissed, sad, worried, frightened, or confused….at best.

Imagine the RELIEF that comes with the first sip of alcohol…the love and attention of a boy…the sharp burn of the cut…the heady numbing of weed, the deep down purge of pain with vomiting, or the false satisfaction of well being that comes only with overachieving.

Each and every one of these methods (and I’m certain there are more) are the quick fixes often used against a very real, very difficult challenge. I am here to say, YES, THEY WORK. They will serve you, and for the here and now, they may serve you well. Until they don’t.

I promise you this, as certain as the sun rises and sets…Quick Fixes will NEVER lead to lasting happiness.

I get it. I get it so deeply and so thoroughly, that I’d be lying to say that even now, as an old woman, I can still recall, and fantasize, with sweet accuracy, the relief of quickly changing a bad emotion. (notes from future lessons – you will ALWAYS have a quick-fix for darkness hidden up your sleeve – the goal is to make is harm-Less)

The Journey from Girl to Woman is one designed to make you FEEL alone….which is a HUGE lie your demons tell you….You are part of a very very big process, one that has been In Process for thousands of years, and you will not make it through this life without confronting it.

If you are a young woman in your early teens and life has served you events and circumstances that have robbed you of your safety…. if you are a young woman who’s life has been seemingly flawless……. You are both on the same journey. It’s a question of Now or Later?

To the young woman in crises: You have been GIFTED by this crises. This crises, this ‘bad time’, this out-of-control-am-I-crazy-how-did-this-happen…..is a Gift. You are passionate enough, strong enough, creative enough and special enough, to have been given this opportunity to begin The Journey Young…Fresh…Directly. You, my sweet brave soul, have Honesty on your side.

To the young woman living the ‘flawless’ life: You are working hard, so very very hard. You, despite all outward appearance, have the more difficult job of the two women. Your emotions will stay far, far, away..just out of your grasp. You will jump social hurdles, do the right thing, obey the rules and may continue to LOOK successful for many many years. However, the emotions of a woman are too powerful to avoid. Your fatigue and emotions WILL manifest as all Roots seek Sun. They will look like tumors, broken relationship, estrangements and a disconnect from Joy. Your job, if you’ve pretended towards perfection, will then have to be to Find and Catch your Truth….and from there, begin to experience Life.

Your crises-laden counterpart, that ‘troubled misfit’ that sat next to you in English…THAT girl – now a woman – long ago learned to master those same emotions that now evade you. Flawless Girl, your perfection is continually threatened because your emotions are dressed in costume, learning long ago, never to show themselves as they really are.

Personally, I could not ‘fake’ happiness, and my adolescence was marred with crises. My biggest gift…. as I am well along life’s path… is, and always has been, my direct access to my emotional reality. A gift which came to me wrapped in pain, doubt, fear and self-hatred.

This, was my starting point at the age of 14 and I am now 53. It’s been an amazing, wonderful, awesome journey….filled with, hell, BEGINNING with, periods of Darkness, Shame and Drama. I hesitate to talk too too much about how wonderful life will turn out to be for you, my sweet one. You have no frame of reference for that. I could just as easily tell you how great life on Mars is. Crazy Talk.

What I hope you WILL understand of my words jeune fille, is right NOW, in this life space, YOU are birthing Your Self and it hurts. You feel lost. You should. You have never done this before.

You can do it Now – sharply, brightly, acutely, sickeningly and frighteningly, but with Certainty ….OR, You can do it later…longer, duller, thicker, harder, vaguer, with not as much Clarity.

Obviously, I recommend Now.

I’ll meet you there, I’ll hold you there. I’ll teach you what I know.

ALL you need to do is this:

Stay Alive. Just. Show. Up.