​1.
 
Do you remember when you were a little kid and you would be making like an art project or something? I don’t know, with glue and popsicle sticks or pipe cleaners or something, and you’re making this thing and it’s falling over or it’s not sticking and not quite working right and your mom or dad or a teacher come over and they say you know what maybe you should start from scratch.
 
Maybe you should start from scratch.
 
It’s not quitting. It’s not giving up. It’s recognizing that what you were making no matter how hard you try to fix it with extra glue or with tape, you know Band-Aid it together… It just isn’t gonna happen.
 
Our government is like that.
 
2.
 
But let’s talk about being a Jewish student on our College and University campuses these days. 
 
The following took place over FIVE DAYS, from November 18th - November 22nd.
 
So, near Ohio State, pitiful face-covered cowards—who truly believe their outfits are cool—marched down the street with Swastika emblazed flags. 
 
Wanted signs of Jewish faculty were plastered all over the walls at the University of Rochester.  Four students were arrested in connection with these posters, as this act is considered an act of antisemitic vandalism (it should be considered a hate crime), and they are each facing up to 7 years in prison. (Good, finally, there are consequences to your actions)
 
A subgroup of the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers called “Educators for Palestine” hosted a 3-hour event last Friday with speaker Taher Herzallah (He is affiliated with the University of Minnesota), titled “Being an Educator in a Time of War and Genocide."…..  This is his quote: “Anybody who has any relationship or any support or identifies themselves as a Jewish person or as a Christian Zionist, then we shall not be their friend. I will tell you that they are enemy number one and our community needs to recognize that as such.”
 
At UCLA, Students For Justice in Palestine are all in on GLORIFYING THE INTIFADA. They violated the UCLA code of conduct 3 times already this school year! The year started September 23rd.
 
At the University of Virginia, Jewish students are being threatened with guns. By their “activist” peers. In their dorms.
 
There was a pro-Hamas walk-out at the University of Cincinnati.  Pro-Hamas ??!!!??!!
 
At the University of Missouri, they host a weekly anti-Israel protest.  A university Professor, Rasha Abousalem, often participates along with students holding signs that read “Save Hamas.”  
 
Columbia had a campus wide lockdown because of how unsafe it is for Jewish students, as pro-Hamas (pro-Hamas??!!??) students chanted outside the School’s Hillel Chapter.  They are demanding that Hillel be shut down. They are literally protesting the existence of Jews on campus.
 
At the University of Michigan, masked pro-Hamas protestors disrupted a talk about Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement. Masked?!? Like, grow some balls and show your friggin’ faces if you feel so strongly about what you are doing.
 
UC Berkely had a pro-Hamas walk-out.  Pro-Hamas ??!?!!!  WTF.   Participants were heard shouting “we don't want no two states, we want all of '48."  This is a call for genocide of Israelis.
 
Two Jewish students at DePaul University were assaulted while showing support for Israel, by pro-Hamas activist chanting “from the river to the sea.”
 
Hamas supporters (how are these students Hamas supporters, don’t they know Hamas would literally kill them in an instant?) at Sarah Lawrence stormed and occupied the Administration Buildings on campus.  They literally took over the Sarah Lawrence campus. They scrawled graffiti with phrases like “Zionism will fall, revolution until victory.”
 
At Stony Brook, in NY, banners are hung with red handprints. Painted red hands symbolize the “craze to see blood,” signify the emasculation of Jews and the desire for a "bloody defeat.”
 
At Harvard, students continue to gather and chant “from the river to the sea,” in support of the ethnic cleansing of Israel.  Don’t forget… even Claudine Gay (remember Claudine Gay) admitted that the phrase “from the river to the sea” is antisemitic. When Claudine Gay says you’re acting like an antisemite, you’re an antisemite.
 
A Teacher Assistant at San Diego State called Israelis “murderers” and walks around campus, with her face covered (of course) and a bull horn, chanting “from the river to the sea.” 
 
At Cal State University in Sacramento, Students for Justice for Palestine (SJP) writes the following: The Judeo Terrorist Zionist have had 100 years of unfettered time, and over 76 years of the worlds sympathy because of the Holocaust to lay their sickly roots. Zionist are disgusting humans and monsters.
 
Oh, and there’s new organization in town, FJP—Faculty for Justice in Palestine. Schools with an FJP chapter have anti-Israel protest activity that lasted 2.5 times longer and 9.5 times more days those that didn’t have an FJP chapter. In schools with FJP chapters, encampments were likely to last 4.7 times more days. Schools with an FJP group were 7.3 times more likely to have incidents involving physical violence targeting Jews than schools without an FJP group and were also 3.4 times more likely to have incidents involving death threats or threats of physical harm targeting Jews.   Not the most conducive environment for learning when your professor targets you for being Jewish, is it?
 
At Pratt, in Brooklyn, they are calling for the end of Israel.
 
I can keep going…. 
 
Nice, huh.

​Everyone who knows me knows that getting this phone, this is a knife in a trauma wound experience for me. Because I have technology anxiety.
 
I also have form anxiety which anyone who has ever received a (barely) filled out form from me knows. Like, what are all these questions and little boxes and way too many places for check marks? And I have to write clearly?  And in a tiny space? Seriously… my email will not fit on that line. And who asks for a home phone number?  And every friggin’ thing that the form asks for I can just tell you in like thirty seconds. Um, no. Nope. No forms for me. 
 
So this technology anxiety. 
 
You can’t touch my phone. Or my computer. Even if you are doing it to help me. Help me from afar.
 
And don’t lose patience with me even though am a little (a bit, a lot) bitchy about this whole interaction in this helping me bucket we are in.
 
And move slowly.  Like S.L.O.W.L.Y.  Don’t bounce around my screen if I do let you near it. Which I likely won’t. But if I do, move like a snail. But don’t leave that sticky snail track. Don’t fuck up my phone screen.
 
And don’t move things around.  Or change something. You have to tell me EVERYTHING that you are doing before you do it.
 
Better, don’t touch my phone. Just tell me stuff.  And S.L.O.W.L.Y.   Like talk slowly. 
 
But don’t be condescending. And let me ask questions.  In fact, don’t tell me stuff. Just let me ask questions. Even if they don’t make sense to you. 
 
Better yet, just don’t help me. I’ll figure it out on my own. You’re overwhelming me.  This is your fault.
 
And thanks for helping me. 

​I wrote a piece, on January 25, 2015—Own Your Shit—and it popped into my mind the other morning.
 
I was thinking about what to write for today, and a F&%ck You dropped in. Just a general one, though certainly specifics come to mind. But more a general F&%ck You for a ton of stuff.
 
So this F&%ck You dropped in and my mind went to Own Your Shit. Because the F&%ck You is blame, and the Own Your Shit is self-responsibility.  
 
I really want to write about blame.  I kinda really want to blame.  “Why didn’t I do that” and “why can’t they do this” and “why is it this way” and “how come it can’t be that way” and, well you know…all that good and juicy, let’s wallow in victimhood for a bit because if it was all different I would be good, stuff.
 
I kinda wanted to write about this. Like I really do.
 
And, mother F&%cker, Own Your Shit dropped in.  My inner wise woman fairy witness, she just won’t let me have even a friggin minute of this wallowing in the depth of can someone else take responsibility for my discomfort please.  
 
So….
 
Own Your Shit, circa 2015.
 
I had a great therapist for many years.  It only took me like forty years to find her, after lying to pretty much every other therapist I ever had.  I mean, seriously, was I really going to open up and show some stranger with a fifty-minute hour rule that I was not all pretty and smart and capable and God knows what else.  But then I found this incredible counselor.  As I was trying to climb out of a deep hole that had sucked me down and sucked me dry and left me thinking that I better be done this time around because I am so not coming back again in some other life where I have to deal with this shit again.

This therapist I found, she was honest.  Straightforward.  Kind.  And she challenged me.  All the time.  Our sessions were like really great intellectual debates.  Well, not at first. At first they were me huddled in a corner of her couch, arms wrapped around tight, legs crossed over and tears of shame and pain and grief mixed in with fleeting moments of joy and acceptance as I made my way back up and into my life.   

And then, when I was again a functioning member of society (whatever the hell that looks like) she and I got to really spar.  I would come in with my deeply ingrained belief systems and she would raise questions.  Not to make me agree with her.  Never was her intention to convince me I was wrong.  But to make me see my choices, see my beliefs.  See them clearly.  And then mindfully choose what worked for me.  I was retrying everything on.  One item at a time.  Outfitting my internal closet. Keeping the things that still sat in my body beautifully while discarding those things that no longer fit.  

It was a long process.  Many years.  And then one day, I didn’t need her anymore.  We both knew it.  I had a wardrobe that worked for me. I was ready to walk my life on my own. But I can still hear her voice in my mind when I am faced with difficult decisions or challenging situations or tormenting moments.  She is not telling me what to do.  She is telling me to go through that closet I created and pull from it something to put on that will get me though what I am facing at that moment.  I have many different outfits.  For many different occasions. 

From this incredible interaction and truly lifesaving relationship I walked away with a great wardrobe.  Now, I am not saying that my sense of style—my best life practices—are necessarily right for you.  But I do feel blessed that I have created some really great ways to be in the world.  Here are three favorites: 

1.     Life is not fair.  Let me say this again. LIFE IS NOT FAIR.  That crap we were fed, and our kids are being overloaded with, that everyone gets a trophy and we’re all winners and everyone is treated equal and is supposed to be treated equal, this is not true.  Life is not fair.  And it’s not pretty.  It’s messy and complicated and doesn’t go the way we want it to.  And it is a huge disservice that we are perpetuating this myth that we’re supposed to be happy all the time and things will be nice and fun and fair (that word again.)  So what happens is that we have no skills to deal with the hard stuff.  The tough stuff.  The really lousy stuff and the stuff that is just uncomfortable too.  And so one of my favorite outfits - I learned to sit in my discomfort.  To see how it feels.  Feel how it feels.  And be ok with it.  I learned to sit in it rather than trying to numb it or ignore it.  I learned to sit in my discomfort and to honor it. To nurture it. The beauty that is being human often times lives in the struggles and the lessons we are able to learn in the process.  So I try to love the lessons life is teaching me.  And then I learn to move on.  Not to fix it necessarily, but to let it go.  This is not easy and I am not always good at it.  But I practice every day.   

2.     Don’t lay your unhappiness on someone else.  It is no one’s responsibility to make another person happy.  Or to fill up their empty spaces. Yes, I love my kids and they fill me with joy.  And my husband is a wonderful man. And I have deep, good friends and a very full, really lovely life.  And yes, I am happy in these relationships that I have. But being happy is the blessing, not the purpose, of these relationships.   And my responsibility to these relationships is to take care of them. By practicing self-care.  And practicing self-love.  By not needing input from others but rather meeting others in my life as a full, complete, person.  Again, not easy.  But I have learned to feel the difference—when I am engaging because I want to give to a relationship and when I am engaging because I am looking to get something from it.  The latter does not feel good at all. 

And finally, 

3.     Own your shit.  I try very hard to not put blame on other people or circumstances when something bugs me or upsets me or makes me really mad.  Because it’s usually not about them at all.  It is about me.  And the answers are right there, deep within me.  And deep within you too.  Truly, they are. So I ask myself: what am I supposed to learn here; why does my sister’s nasty mood, my kid’s messy room, the neighbor’s flippant stare, effect me?   What is truly going on here?  What are my triggers?  And I become aware.  It is not really about the fact that my daughter does not put her clothes away.  It is about something deep within me.  Maybe I don’t feel respected because I bought those clothes for her.  Maybe I am not able to be my best self when things are messy around me?  I try to figure out what is truly going on, inside me, and then communicate that with those I love and who love me. I do not tell them that they are wrong.  Because usually they are not.  They are doing their own thing just as I am doing mine.  And so I figure out what I am struggling with and then I let them in and share how I feel. And once they understand me, it is then their choice whether to honor me or not.  Chances are the people in my life that love me will honor the feelings that I have.  I am pretty sure the people in your life will do the same. 

So there you have it, three good outfits.  I have many more but these are my favorite. I thought I would loan these three outfits to you.  Feel free to try them on.  In fact, keep what fits.  That’s how it works.

​This is a photo of Nava in fairy wings. Well really bird type wings. I am pretending they are angel wings. This was taken a number of years ago. She was dressing up for Halloween. Notice how happy she is about this.  
 
This writing is not about this. 
 
It is just that I was looking for an image to use in this writing and thought I had this great photograph of clouds that look like an angel but I could not find it and instead found this photo.  Nava, my angel.
 
I met another angel. On Saturday night. At the Ramada by Wyndham at the Denver International Airport.
 
I was a guest here because my flight from Denver to Santa Barbara was cancelled.  Twice.  Well once but twice.
 
I was flying Denver to Santa Barbara and we had to board a new plane because our first plane had, quote, “mechanical difficulties,” end quote.
 
And we had to go from Terminal B gate 71 to Terminal A gate 17 and then, once there, because there was a delay, the fog rolled in on little cat feet (thank you Carl Sandburg) and into Santa Barbara and, no flight.
 
I got booked on an early flight to Santa Barbara, now via, LA.  And was going to just sleep at the airport because on some things I am really cheap. On others (shoes) not so much.
 
And my lovely husband said “nope.” And booked me at the Ramada by Wyndham.
 
So I walk in and, this angel disguised as the front desk person, after I gave my name said, “I was just at this moment on your reservation making sure you had a great room.” And when I said it was a long night, so “thank you so much” and that my flight was cancelled she said, “then it was not meant to be.”
 
And everything shifted.
 
Because this, this flight having been cancelled and my having to stay at the Ramada by Wyndham at the Denver International Airport, was meant to be because I met up with this most amazing woman, recent rendition of my angel. 
 
I had been perseverating for a number of days about something that didn’t happen that I wanted. A spiral of questioning and then letting go and then trying to make sense and then feeling I was until I wasn’t again and heading back into the frustration of the not getting what I wanted and then wanting out of the suffering of the not getting what I wanted to see clarity for just a moment before the next spiral pulled me in.  You get the idea.
 
I was in this.
 
I was in this as I walked into the hotel and up to the counter to this late-night desk angel in disguise.
 
“Then it was not meant to be,”  she said.
 
I took it at face value in the first moment I heard this. “Ah, my flight, yes I guess so” and then it landed in that place where we know. 
 

“I needed to hear this,” I said. “You are my angel this evening,” I said
 
“Have a sweet rest,” she said. “Welcome to the Ramada by Wyndham.”

I wrote a piece a few weeks ago about a piece of the puzzle. I wrote, in the “You’re I, And I Am You, And The Only Map You Need is Love” piece, about this piece of the puzzle that is big while it is small. Big, in that it is dense and full and weighted. Small in that it is just this tiny last piece of a vast and complex whole.
 
A last bit of the whole to fill the hole.  
 
It’s the essential part, the root, the beginning. It’s small in size, like the size when you put your thumb and pointer finger together and make a circle. It’s that size. But it’s big. 
 
It’s the size of a vertebra, yet as big as the all of me.
 
But let’s talk about my back. 
 
I have this thing with my back. It’s called spondylolisthesis. My photo with this writing kinda sums it up. It is the slip of an upper vertebra slipping off a lower one, in my case, L5 and S1.  It happened either when I was 12 and fractured my spine or I was born with a fractured spine. Either Or. The doctors don’t know and it really doesn’t matter when. It matters that it is. This fracture in my spine (the Spondylolysis) that causes the slippage (the Spondylolisthesis).  The fracture creates an instability. And a continued slipping at times over this so many years.
 
Anyway, this spine. One of the reasons why the Drs thought I fractured my spine when I was 12 was because that’s when it started bothering me. But it could have just been that this is when it started bothering me but it happened much earlier. 


I have been managing my spine for 50 years now. Lately it’s been awful.
 
There are other times that it has been awful.  When it’s awful it hurts to stand.  And sleep. Those things mostly. Standing and sleeping. Oh, and walking. Walking fucking kills me.
 
When my spine is bad, I am in pain. Or I can’t feel my legs. Or feet. Mostly my left one. This has happened before. And then I manage it, and often it’s ok, and then it’s not and I manage it again. 
 
But this time, this last rendition of my unstable spine thing that I have, the pain has shifted to the right side. This is new information which means I need more information. 
 
When you have an injury (or spine defect from birth) for your entire life that you discovered 50 years ago, and in all that time the transfer of pain from the spine to the leg went down the left side…and now, at year 50, of my 62 years on this earth, the pain runs right …well…this is new information.
 
And so I need more information.
 
This is going to be a long, and dense, piece. And (just so you know where we’re going here) we will end up back at the missing puzzle piece.  
 
So I had a new Xray taken by my (when I broke my foot and when I tore my meniscus) Orthopedic Surgeon that I love because his goal is always to avoid surgery if we can and he referred me for 12 weeks of PT, which is like the very best thing ever!  And he also referred me to a neurosurgeon because “this is a pretty bad Spondi” and well, you know, this is where my spinal cord lives. 
 
And I called my son, because, well, you know, he is this gifted Postural Alignment Practitioner and Somatic Experiencing Therapist and Healer.  And I went to my most favorite Chiropractor to look at my Xray again and he checked my feet, which I can’t feel, and now I have a program in place to work on nerve regeneration and spinal mobility in that unmovable spot.
 
So…
 
This structural instability that is my spine. This structural instability while certainly a structural trauma, is, I truly believe, the physical manifestation of the lack of safety that I feel.  Both. Because while it is a structural injury (from birth or after), it is also the space/place, where this last, deep and challenging but we’ve got to heal this shit trauma, piece lives. 
 
My trauma settled into this space. This is where it found its home. Or it found a home and my body, in all its infinite and intuitive wisdom, circled round these emotions and formed their home. Either Or. And it really doesn’t matter how. It matters that it is.
 
And I know that this is.  
 
How do I know this? Because every time I do the physical work to help stabilize my spine and alleviate the pain, every time I do these somatic and PT and alignment exercise movements, I cry. 
 
This is Somatic Therapy in its truest form.  Release the physical and the emotions are set free.  But not until I feel them. A lot. 
 
It would be easier if the emotions released quickly through the trauma space in the body out into the air to heal with the universe. But no, first I get to feel them. And process them. Wade through them. Perhaps pick up pieces of information but not always. And heal them. I get to heal them. 
 
This is hard. 
 
Which makes it hard sometimes to do the Somatic and PT and alignment exercise movements because I don’t want to feel the deep feeling emotions that come out. I don’t want to feel them and heal them. 
 
They hurt.
 
And I’m tired.
 
So back to the beginning of this piece and the solving of the last piece of the puzzle piece that is the size of my vertebra but heavy and soupy, dark and concentrated.
 
The Universe, in all her glory coupled with this beautiful sense of (compassionate) humor I know she has, she re-misaligned the misalignment of my spine so that the pain, it is so really bad that I can’t function through it. So I have to heal it . Which means I have to heal the emotional piece, that last piece of the piece that is the size of my vertebra but big.
 
I have to do the physical work because we are not messing around now. I don’t have feeling in my feet. This is bad. And so I can’t escape the physical work which means I can’t escape the feelings. That’s how this work works.
 
So, here I am, with my back that is my Achillis Heal and also my Savings Grace. Because without its pain message, I could choose to ignore this last small piece. That is so fucking big and sits, just the right size, inside my misaligned spine.
 
Without this pain, I could maybe ignore this. But I can’t
 
And so I do it. Because I am brave.

​We had a peaceful day yesterday. The day after the day that we got back home after a two week away trip back east with our kids and grandkids.  
 
We got back home and then on this day, yesterday, we slept in just a bit and then went and got our dog. God, I love our dog.  
 
I am sure you all know about him. I write about him. I don’t believe I write about him as much as I did about Nava.  A constantly wrote about Nava.  I also constantly wrote. Every week. For four years. And constantly wrote about Nava.
 
With Moose, I don’t write about him as much and I also don’t write as much, so perhaps the % of the time that I write about him is about the same % that I wrote about her.
 
I’m not sure.
 
And don’t have the attention span at just this moment to go back and take stock and calculate whether this is true or not. But perhaps it is.  Suffice it to say that it’s possible enough that I will change what I wrote above and not say that I don’t write about him as much to that I may write about him as much.
 
Regardless, this writing is not about him. Though God, I love our dog.
 
This writing is about the moon. I mean, look at this moon. It looks like the sun. It’s the moon being the sun. At least in this picture. In real life, when my eye looked without the lens of an i(eye)phone camera, the moon was the moon. In this photo it could be the sun. But not.
 
I have this theory that this is kinda what the moon is all about.
​
We were talking about our astrological signs on this trip we were on.  Did I say that we were away on a trip with our kids and grandkids. To Maine. On a lake. God, I love my kids and grandkids.
 
And we were away on this trip and were talking about our signs. Our sun signs. Those rising signs. And that moon sign.
 
The moon sign represents our essence. Our ego, that’s the sun. Makes sense, since the sun is surely egoic knowing that without her, the moon would have no light at all.
 
And our rising sign, let’s just say this is the energy we put into the world.
 
But back to the moon. So the moon was rising last night. Slowly up from behind the mountain that sits behind my house. And we caught in on (film) digital with our i(eye)phone camera. And it was so bright. Like the sun.
 
Except it is the moon.
 
The moon is our essence. It governs our emotional nature. It ebbs and flows our selves like the tide. 
 
It accepts the gift of light from the sun and uses this glow to illuminate the darkness of our nights and light up the sky when it reaches its full potential full moon shape each month and also when it is just a sliver surrounded by stars.
 
We dance to the light of the moon.

Mayflower Beach, Dennis, Cape Cod, Massachusetts

I was on the Cape Cod Playa Saturday night. 
 
But first, Burning Man, 2019 with my daughter, Teagan.  I remember getting there and lying on the sand. This was the rite of passage moment for the first burn experience. To lie on the sand before entering the playa. I lay down and I dropped in.
 
This was exactly where I was and where I was, was exactly where I was supposed to be in that moment in that week with my daughter. 
 
It was amazing.  
 
So Cape Cod.
 
Yesterday, we were on Mayflower Beach, in Dennis, Cape Cod. This was the end of the day, of a day that was quite beautiful. 
 
We were on Mayflower Beach to catch the sunset. The clouds were in, in that way that diffuses the light so the rays of pink that mark the end of the beach day were nowhere to be seen. But still.
 
We walk the sand flats. The tidal markings hold ridges beneath our feet as we head to a distant point out in what is the ocean during the hide tide, to a party of sorts with the sound of music steeped in bass.
 
It feels like I am on the Playa. A Cape Cod Playa with music in the distant, a party of sorts, and sand as far as we can see. 
 
When you are on the Burning Man Playa, in the distant, with the heat the way it is and the light the way it is, there is this twinkling that looks like water. The mirage of the desert in the distance that is really just the dance of heat and light against the white of sand.
 
On this, the low tide, Cape Cod Playa, the water though real, is far enough out that sand is what we first see.
 
We walked, more than half an hour, to this distant party. At one point, because the tide, now turned, is heading back in from the sea, the ocean reaches up our legs. I hold my skirt high in my hand.
 
We reach this party of sorts that is a reunion.  A Russian Reunion. How cool is this.  A 25-year Russian reunion. Turns out that this group of people, now 25 years later so with kids in tow and new partners and spouses and friends pulled along, have been coming here to meet. Every year. At Mayflower Beach. At sunset. For 25 years. A Cape Cod Burning Man Playa Russian reunion. 
 
There is music and one woman plays an electric violin. And the sun, hidden behind those clouds, sets without the pink of dusk we hope to see on our excursion to this beach.
 
The sun sets and the tide rises and, in mass, this Russian Playa Party Reunion turns their back to the incoming water and we all make our way back to the beach that stands above the high tide mark.
 
This is the end of our day.
 
The beginning of our day is in Yarmouth. At Dave’s home. Our Chief Marketing Officer for GenRocket, my husband’s company. 
 
We are here for the day, to spend the day at this lovely home that lives along a salt marsh sky. The day is warm, the air moist with that summer humidity as we sit on the deck and eat fruit and shrimp.
 
Then a long kayak excursion through the salt march streams, in boats with battery charged motors that push us along though the tide has turned and the current often pushes us against the mud and reeds that frame the waterways along the way. This makes us laugh. 
 
The depth is not deep and we look for the surface chaos that warns us of the bars of sand that hoped to snag our motors for just a moment. 
 
And, once back on land and because the tide is now low, we walk across the deeper ocean floor, now shallow, to the sand bar before heading back home for a take-out seafood dinner from The Marshside. Swordfish and Haddock and a Lobster Risotto. And Pepper Potatoes, Calamari, and a Beet Salad with Blue Cheese.
 
I eat a ton of Tootsie Rolls that Dave has on the kitchen counter because, how can I not, and we talk about souls and spirits and loss and grief. And we talk about guilt and love. And how do we understand the purpose of it all if there is no one way to understand the purpose of it all.
 
It is a sweet night after a sweet day. Steeped in gratitude. Anchored by appreciation. Easeful and love filled. Oh, and I ate one orange Starburst, too. I love the orange ones best.

Scenes from the Mayflower Playa

Me and Dave on the Mayflower Playa

View from Dave's porch, the sand bar, the Salt Marsh

​A couple of weeks ago I met up with Shame.  I was in a therapy session and remembering something that I don’t really remember and “what emotion lives here” and it was Shame.  I knew she was around. But wow, like she’s big.
 
I met Shame the other day. Her arms are like tentacles.  She sits on a throne. She’s been running the kingdom since, oh God, when has she not been running the kingdom.
 
She is soul eating. (Shame is a soul eating emotion says Carl Jung).
 
This is disjointed.  I’ve been disjointed.
 
I have parts.  We all do. Different parts of ourselves that show up when we need them. Archetypes maybe. Some of them anyway. 
 
So these parts—we all have them in this, we hope, seamless flow of ourselves. The parts that make up the whole. But the question begs (I do love this phrase, who coined this phrase?) the question begs, who’s running the show?
 
Shame is a soul eating emotion. (Says Carl Jung).
 
So these parts, there are a lot of them. And they show up during all the different parts of my life. Each one when I need her. We all have them.  The different parts that serve the whole and serve each moment we are in.
 
It’s the Internal Family Systems model. Do you know about Internal Family Systems? IFS assumes that we all carry multiple parts playing multiple roles. These parts often emulate sub-personalities, and they drive you to act in certain ways.
 
One of the goals, in IFS, is to unfuse our parts from our core self. So that we’re in control. Our parts, they serve a purpose. We just want to choose them. They don’t get to be the leader. They don’t get to run the show.
 
So Shame.  She’s been running the show.  Been. She’s not anymore. 
 
I met up with her. A few weeks ago when I was in a therapy session and remembering something that I don’t really remember and “what emotion lives here” and there she was.  
 
It is interesting to me (curiosity) that she’s been running the show all these years, and never told me. All these years. Like 62 years! I thought it was me running the show. But it was her. All these years.
 
Now don’t get me wrong, I knew she was around a little bit. Well maybe more than a bit but running the show?  No fucking way.  But then, wow, here she is.
 
On her throne with her tentacle arms. 
 
Here she is. So where was I?
 
This is the curiosity part.  (Did you know that moving from shame quickly into curiosity takes you out of the self-shaming of shame?)
 
So this curiosity part. Like where was I if she’s been running the show?
 
This is weird. I know. But not really. 
 
Because when I ran into Shame these few weeks ago, in that instant—it was truly an instant—she was gone and there I was. Well not gone, she’s here, but I’m on the throne now. In an instant.
 
Shine the light on Shame and, man, she bolts from that seat. And I’m on the throne now. In an instant. 
 
When we find ourselves, we know ourselves.
 
And we say “I am so glad I found you.”