Write about a plate.

This is a story I wrote in my therapeutic writing group in January 2010.

Every week, the group's facilitator presents us with a topic, and we are given one hour to write about it. The earthquake yesterday, and the end of  a different relationship, inspired me to post this....

Write about a plate:

What happens when plates rub, slip or collide? Things shatter, fall down, and there's a whole lot of destruction - even death. Look what's happening in Haiti - case in point. Imagine the world as you know it shaking, rumbling, breaking apart. Imagine your ground not being there anymore. Imagine the terror, anguish, grief, confusion, and anger as your world comes tumbling down around you. Imagine the feelings of helplessness, the denial, the rage, the exhaustion.

I can imagine it all. I'm living through my own personal earthquake at the moment, it's been going on for years, and the aftershocks keep hitting me in waves. I get my footing, feel some solid ground, and then get knocked on my back, again and again. (And the really selfish part of me just wants the world to help me too. I'm such an asshole).

I had a whole stack of plates once, all very fancy and white and new. Just like us:  fancy, new, and partially white. 12 dinner plates, 12 salad plates, and more than half a dozen other platter plates - all matching. That's a lot of plates and that's only counting the 'nice' ones. I'm down to 6 of each now - I lost the others in my earthquake.

Taken after the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake.

 

Strangely fitting to my story don't you think?

So now I'm picking up the pieces. Rebuilding a home, trying to find security, but really just trying to survive. Isn't that all anyone can do? I'm trying, trying so hard to get out of the fog. It feels like I lost my brain somewhere. If you find it please return it to me - I'd give you my address but I can't remember it at the moment. Oh dear!

I'm trying to find my way out of the rubble but it keeps coming down around me. A part of me wants to find a blanket, pull it over my head and just wait for everything to finally come crashing down on me. Then I wouldn't have to worry, to feel anything, I could finally rest, or maybe not, who knows.

Taken after the earthquake in Haiti.

 

My own personal earthquake is hell. There is no place to hide. I'm tired, confused and scared. I crave warmth and safety. I crave a stable ground to sit on, walk on, lay on. I crave a place with minimal friction, a place without all the shaking and drama.

Goodbye's....

I don't like goodbye's. I never have. There is something I put on this 'act of parting' that always makes it unusually sad for me. Somewhere along the way, I made goodbye's feel permanent - an ending - when in reality I know they aren't, not always anyway. I  know goodbye's are an inevitability, a part of daily living, just as much as the 'hello's' are but they hurt me just the same.

 Here's a shot of Ashbridges Bay at dawn....

Hello Sun. Goodbye Sun.

Hello daylilies. Goodbye daylilies.

Hello glass of wine. Goodbye glass of wine.

Hello baby. Goodbye baby....

A healing prayer for the Gulf

This is something that was sent to me today and I wanted to share.... 

  

Blessing the Water - set an intention of love and healing

Dr. Emoto - author scientist, and humanitarian - has shared a brief, yet power prayer and we are passing it along here as a focal point, a space of conscious creation allowing us to move past fear, judgment and retribution into Unity, Harmony and Wholeness. This prayer is structured using Ho'oponopono and is directed initially at WATER - the element connecting ALL Life on the planet. Water ... the carrier of Spirit and the flow-er of Love!!! 

Dr. Masaru Emoto's Healing Prayer for the Gulf:

"I send the energy of love and gratitude to the water and all the living creatures in the Gulf of Mexico and its surroundings.

To the whales, dolphins, pelicans, fish, shellfish, plankton, coral, algae, and all living creatures...

I am sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you."

We are passing this request to people who we believe might be willing to participate in this prayer, to set an intention of love and healing that is so large, so overwhelming that we can perform a miracle in the Gulf of Mexico.

We are not powerless. We are powerful. Our united energy, speaking this prayer daily... multiple times daily... can literally shift the balance of destruction that is happening.

We don't have to know how... we just have to recognize that the power of love is greater than any power active in the Universe today.

Please join us in repeating this healing prayer of Dr. Emoto's. And feel free to copy and paste this to send it around the planet. Let's take charge, and do our own clean up!

Here's a shot of some different water that fills my head with childhood memories....
 

A concept....

I've been doing some thinking around something that was mentioned by a participant in my therapeutic writing group: It is the concept of 'meeting a person where they are.' It is extremely hard to do but (in my own personal experience) it is beneficial to the person in crisis, or distress, or whatever the word may be.

I'll use my depression as an example. When I am feeling really down, or exhausted, or a number of other uncomfortable feelings I am feeling, I often get 'advice' on what I should/could be doing to make myself feel better. It is all very valid,  mostly wise advice, all given with love, but it does nothing for me. As a result, my internal dialogue sounds something like: "they are right, I should (insert advice here) because it should make me feel better. This works for them so why doesn't work for me? I am so fucked up. They have it all figured out and I don't, I don't deserve to be on this planet, etc. etc."

The best of intentions, in reality, usually make me feel worse. I know there are things out there that make people feel better; however, we are all highly individual - well,  individuals - with different backgrounds, experiences, beliefs, etc. 

I completely understand where this need/desire to help other people comes from because I am guilty of offering advice too. I do this because having to 'meet the person where they are' is tricky business. It makes me feel bad and I want to help them, I want to fix them, I want them to feel better and most importantly, I know stuff. I consider myself to be wise in certain areas and I feel like I know what would benefit the person the most, instead of letting them feel what they are feeling, work through it themselves or quite simply, support them. I have suggestions to offer them that they may not know about or have thought about. (I did this for years with my parents concerning their diagnosis with Parkinson's and guess what? Much to my frustration - they didn't do one thing I suggested. Not one.)

It is hard to stand back and watch someone you care for be miserable, or scared, or uncomfortable, and upon reflection, I discovered the real reason I find it hard is because it makes me feel uncomfortable. Yup, you read me right - their distress makes me uncomfortable and because of my feelings... I want to fix them. If I were to offer some words of wisdom and they were to get better, feel better, then I would feel better. I wouldn't have to deal with MY feelings around their pain anymore - and don't kid yourselves because this is what it is really about - our feelings, not theirs, not really. Do you see where it gets tricky?

So what is the solution to this? What if we were to all 'meet each other where we were'? What if we were to let the person feel their feelings without trying to take them away? What then? Would chaos rule the world, and order as we know it, cease to exist? Or would our loved one, feel badly for awhile and work it out for themselves, with us firmly rooted in the ground beside them? What if they never figured it out for themselves? What would this mean? Would it mean we were a bad person for not intervening, or something else? What is this something else?

Broken record....

Tomorrow is a new day.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.