10/8/18—Passing Trauma Along

My mom went to her grave with a secret.

Well, knowing my mom, there might have been many secrets. But this one was big. She never told her children she was sexually abused by their grandfather. She may not have even told my father. If she did, he brought it to his grave, too.

So how do we know? It's really just an educated guess. But to begin with, from time to time she would talk about her younger sister, who was sexually abused by him. She would allude her brothers were abused by him, too. So you gotta wonder—if he abused all of them, how did she get by without it happening to her? As the oldest, it probably happened to her first.

She also hated my grandfather. I never met him. I never even knew his name. He was officially known as "that bastard". We know a lot of her hate comes from him cheating on her mother and leaving her mother alone to care for five children in the midst of WWII England. That makes sense until you realize she really didn't like her mother, either. One of her complaints about her mother is that she didn't respond the way a mother should respond when she found out about "her sister's" abuse. Most of the other complaints had to do with how her mother enabled "the bastard" in various ways.

I remember as a young child of maybe 8 or 9, my mother got a phone call. When she hung up, she walked past me and I heard her say, "Thank god that bastard is finally dead" and then she went about her day.

Beyond that, my sister says she remembers her saying, "If any man touches you, even if it's your father, you tell me and I'll believe you." Which is an odd thing to say, considering that my father wasn't anything like that. There were a lot of little mentions about protecting oneself from men, most of which I found normal. Moms warn children. But there was an energy or vibe behind it that made it a little less normal.

I have blogged about my own sexual assaults before. Not to minimize those episodes, but they were nowhere close to what most women experience. I think I can confidently say that the sexual assault that most marked my life was the never-spoken assault of my mother. It colored so much of my life. It sounds silly to say, but I have often felt my weight issues were much like that of a victim of sexual assault...protection from men. I've asked my older siblings, just in case I don't remember. I wasn't assaulted as a child. I believe I somehow absorbed my mother's trauma to that degree. But if not to that degree, it has certainly impacted my life. I also feel I've absorbed some shame from her, too.

On the other hand, to my knowledge, neither of my sisters have been seriously sexually assaulted either. A lot of women lose their naivete and trust around men through sexual assault. Our naivete and trust, to a certain degree, was bred out of us. So we weren't trusting enough to put ourselves in certain situations with men. Not that it couldn't have happened anyway, but we had a leg up on other girls who weren't impacted by a mother determined to protect us from her own fate.

Lately, we've been talking a lot about how sexual assault impacts a woman's life. But the reason I'm writing this blog today is because it also impacts the lives of her children, too, creating behaviors, attitudes and defenses they pass down to their children. And so on. This probably also works in reverse, too, creating sexual abusers from men who were abused or boys who emulate their abusive father's misogyny.

In the past couple of years, the blatant misogyny and "let's not ruin a good man's life" attitude of our lawmakers has brought a lot out in the open. But don't misunderstand: Men are not the victims here. They created this for themselves and perpetuated it since the first caveman took liberties with the first cavewoman. This legacy is a birthright entitled young men claim without any care of what it does to their sisters, brothers, sons and daughters. Without any sense of what a cancer it is on our world.

I don't have any answers here. I can say, "This has to stop." I can even say it emphatically. But I have clues as to what will stop it. It is bred in. Certainly, consequences for entitled white dudes will help. It feels like we're on the cusp of that actually happening in our society. But then it will still take generations to heal. After 150 years, black people are still healing from the generational impacts of slavery at the hands of racist, sadistic white people. And until the white people stop it with their sadism and racism, the black people can't fully heal. Because it's still happening. Same thing with this.

The answer lies with men. The men who do this crap often find themselves with women who hate women...women who agree they are secondary to a man's wishes. So picketing with our vaginas won't work. Since we can only bring consequences with our vote and voice, we need to come out of the darkness, which we're doing. We need to heal ourselves for ourselves, regardless of whether or not men heal and evolve. We need to stop fearing men. Because the only way to help heal our daughters is to heal ourselves first. And we must raise our voices, as is happening in elections across the country.

One of the things I learned from my mother, who was ahead of her time in this regard, is that equality isn't something you wait on being given. It's something you assume in every move you make. It doesn't matter if men let you. What matters is that they have no choice. We need, as a sex, to stop assuming "the weaker sex" role. Fact is we are not the weaker sex, because the weakest person in any room is the one who doubts himself. That's not a male/female thing. They want it to be a male/female thing. We've been socialized to believe it's a male/female thing. But it's not.

Assault is about domination and control. It's about fearful, insecure, misogynistic men who need to dominate and control women to feel right about themselves. Certainly, most men are physically stronger than most women. That gives them a leg up. But the fact that women don't want to hurt or offend or make too much noise makes it easier for us to be dominated in other ways. The fact that we hope equality will be afforded to us, instead of just being equal, makes it easier for them.

These men need consequences. Women need to stop holding in the pain and shame, thereby protecting their aggressors, whether they speak up 5 minutes or 5 years later. We need to stop enabling them. And we need to stop trying to keep the peace and be nice. Which is not to say it's our fault. It's not. But there is more we can do to make domination and control less worth their while. The roots of their need to dominate and control lie in fear. Let's give them something to fear.

10/1/18—Growing Miracles

Lemon Tree, very pretty and the lemon flower is sweet.

Miracles happen every day on my back deck. 

For the past two weeks, I have been watching in awe as the green "grenades" on my lemon tree have turned to yellow. I have five of them this year, a bumper crop. Way more than I would expect from the rather small potted tree that I drag inside every winter.

I'm assuming it's a normal thing, but it loses its leaves every year and grows them back immediately. It blooms into fragrant flowers. And some of those flowers turn into lemons. The tree itself is pretty much exactly the same size as it was when I bought it 8 years ago. It doesn't seem to grow. It just regenerates over and over again. And, holy crap, I have lemons growing on my back deck! REAL LEMONS!!!

Patchouli smells like patchouli.

I know what you're thinking: "Yes, Tierney. That's what lemon trees do. It's how all lemons are made." I don't care. When you make something like that happen yourself, it seems like a freaking miracle. I buy my food. I don't raise it. But next week I will have the need for a lemon and I'll go and pluck one from my tree and it will be incredibly miraculous and gratifying. It's not something that happens easily and automatically like a chive. It's a freaking lemon!

Stevia, parsley and mint.

My herb garden is pretty nice. I think I counted 25 different herbs out there one time. I have multiple kinds of mint, which always amazes me because it smells and tastes just like mint! In fact, I've had container herbs for 20 years and some things never get old:

Aloe grows so big.

• Patchouli, which I grow for fun and to combine with the white sage I grow in smudge sticks, smells just like patchouli. I don't know what else I expect, but the plant smells exactly like the perfume. It freaks me out every time.
• Stevia is sweet as can be in plant form. Biting into a stevia leaf is like eating candy. There is a huge burst of sweet in your mouth. A green plant! Sweeter than sugar!
• Aloe, which used to be in a tiny seedling container, grows insanely fast and out of proportion to its container when you repot it in something larger. Most plants would die in a small container for so long because of their roots. And they would need very frequent watering. But aloe is "set it and forget it" and it thrives. Each time I look at it, it's larger than the time before.

White sage: DIY smudge

It's not like I'm completely naive. I've had my container garden for a long time. It consists of maybe 50 containers and more than a dozen Buddha heads to pray over them.  Rosemary, thyme, chives, tomatoes, basil and parsley are the items I use most. I grow perennials and annuals. Some of the containers hold flowers. So I'm not new to the phenomenon, but it amazes me every time—nature provides, growth happens, and with only minimal tending, miracles happen. 

That last point is key. Too much attention and tending, then it's not a miracle. It's more like you made it happen regardless of nature's intent. Too little tending, and it goes wild. But when you remove the weeds that crop up, water the plants, prune effectively and respect the natural process, miracles can happen. The same that's true for lavender and strawberries is also true for you.

Look at your life. How many amazing, miraculous things have happened without you even trying? Some may have come in the form of victories and some in the form of lessons. But look at you now. If you're reading this, everything you are is a result of both divine intervention and the pruning and watering you've done thus far to get here. In my experience, the universe doesn't always bring us what we want—my lemon tree wants sun and water every, single day—but it brings us the resources we need. We do this together with nature. And that's pretty cool.

If you just confined yourself to my back deck, you could understand our role in nature and in our own lives. We are here to live cooperatively in nature. We can plant and eat what we grow. We can tend and respect. But forcing and controlling are not natural. They are not part of the universe's ways. Better yet, if you just stand out of the way and let the universe do its thing, exerting minimal control over the processes, life will give you lemons. And lemons, my friend, are miracles.

9/24/18—Dreaming Bigger

I have a secret shame. 

I like to look at the real estate listings that pop up on my social media feeds. In fact, I often go on Zillow and check out homes in cities I will never even visit. I'm not in the market for a home. I just like to look at the pictures and poke my nose into other peoples' houses. 

Is there some feature I envy about the home? Do I like the way the kitchen looks? What does the back yard look like? Is there a big, stone fireplace? Do I suspect it's haunted? Can I imagine living there?

But that is not my secret shame. My secret shame is that I'll only look at houses I can afford. Intellectually, I realize how ridiculous that is. As long as I'm just playing around, why limit myself to a particular price range? But I do. 

I've recognized this before, but basically what this is is restricting my dreams based on a rule or limitation I make up in my head. It's like I'm only allowed to daydream realistically. Which is fine. But if I believe I can only achieve what I'm willing to believe, I'm limiting myself. And while I'm not consciously closing myself off to more, I'm not keeping my mind open to the miracles the universe routinely performs. The "order" I'm placing in the universe through my thoughts is narrow and limiting. So the results I get are narrow and limiting, too. 

And here's the thing...I consider myself a powerful manifester. The life I live now was (more or less) once a conscious or unconscious dream of mine. Twenty years ago I lived in a tiny efficiency apartment and decided I wanted dogs, so I manifested a different home for myself and a different lifestyle fell into place naturally. So why aren't I doing a better job of that now?

Fear. Insecurity. Breeding...haha. Growing up, I somehow learned that if you don't ask for anything too big (such as a pony) you're likey to get it (and by "it", that might mean a bicycle). If I don't want for more than my parents can afford, then I will never be disappointed and I will get everything I want. This was a practicality that was innate in me. I was born fiscally practical, with a dash of impractical purchasing thrown in...but just a dash. My mother was the same way. And since the main breadwinner in the family, my father, was on a fairly limited career path (military) most of my life, we knew our means and kept to them. 

Somehow all of this crept into my daydreaming and placed limitations on me. (It also benefited me in that I believe I can get anything I want. I just have to learn it's ok to want more.) Which makes wonder where else am I limiting myself? Romantically? Socially? Career-wise? Physically? Where else do deeply ingrained beliefs and habits serve to limit what is possible for me in the universe? Maybe it's not such a silly belief as "I can only enjoy dreaming of houses I can afford." Maybe it's not as "obvious" as that.

I know some people believe there are limited resources in the universe and they don't want to take more than their "share". Some women believe all the good men are already taken. Some may believe they're not smart enough or special enough to have the things they want. And some, like me, could just, plain dream bigger. <--- If you follow that link there, you'll see this is not the first time I've gotten this message. 

These things work like the proverbial layers of an onion. Once you learn to dream bigger in one regard, you discover another place where you're holding yourself back. For me, at least, I'm going to start browsing real estate that is beyond my means, but not so opulent it makes me want to barf. And I'm going to envision a maid and caretaker, too, while I'm at it. :D  What simple little change can you make in your life to dream bigger?

9/17/18—Battling Myself

Tonight as I hopped in the shower, I realized I've been feeling frail lately. And, as the hot water poured down upon my head, I questioned myself, "Am I frail or am I stronger than I ever imagined?"

In my moment of fragility, I wanted to answer, "I am frail". But even then I couldn't. I am alive and better than I've been in years. I'm stronger than I ever imagined.

I can't count how many times I came close to death in the 2010s...times I was in significant trauma that I can only now see how serious it was. The first three months of this year was a festival of those moments, with multiple hospital visits and ambulance rides. I slept with the door unlocked in case I couldn't make it to the door in an emergency. Turning over in bed left me breathless. Crying fatigued me, so I couldn't cry. I waited while my heart valve told me I was dying and my doctors told me my valve wasn't as bad as I thought. When they finally looked at it when I was moving, they were literally horrified by what they saw (I know this because my cardiologist told me as much afterward) and scheduled surgery immediately. The horror they saw was the horror I had been living with for years while they considered me everything from a hypochondriac to overly dramatic.

Nobody heard me. Nobody seemed to care. Meanwhile, I was terrified all the time. It was like a waking version of that nightmare where you can't scream. No matter what I said or how bad I looked, nobody heard me screaming.

When you're sick like that, you learn to cope by being frail. By being aware of your frailty, you make choices to protect yourself. You avoid drains on your energy. You sleep a lot. You cocoon. If you refused to acknowledge your frailty, you'd overextend yourself and make yourself sick. It's more than just a state of health, it's a state of mind.

I suppose I have been feeling frail lately because I got some sort of chest cold or something and it's taking a long time to clear up. But I also realized I had become comfortable with frail. That frail had become one of the ways I saw myself. And I also realized it had become outdated.

On the other hand, when you've been defined by your limitation for so long, it's scary to come out of that. You have learned to live with your prison. And you believe in the prison because when you tried to go beyond your limits, your limits stopped you. So, even though I'm well, it intimidates me to go beyond those previous limits. I've done it, of course, but my brain hasn't been reprogrammed to "stronger than I ever knew" yet. 

It's not just the feeling of frailty that I'm confronting lately. I'm confronting a lot of things. My mindsets of feeling unloved, not worth spending time on, and like nobody cares has come into question. So many stepped up to the plate for me once they knew I needed help. And, of course, my dogs understood my situation and took good care of me. So I don't get to go through life thinking that anymore...not without my higher self reminding me it's not true. 

And I also gave my power over to doctors....as we all are trained to do. The fact is, they can perform miracles and can save your life, but if you're feeling horrible and they're telling you you're fine, it's your duty to your body/self to tell them to go to hell until you find one that listens. I have definitely learned to trust myself over doctors through this ordeal. So another fallacy I am challenging is that I have to defer to others who are "smarter than me" about my body. Turns out, even overweight and out of shape, I'm more of knowledgeable about how my body is feeling than they are. 

And beneath these things are other truths I have to come to terms with. The world doesn't think I'm frail and vulnerable. I do. So I see the world through those eyes. And it's not necessarily the world that doesn't care about me or listen to me or see me unworthy (though those people do exist). It's me who does that. And I greet the world through those eyes, so it's no surprise I get that in return. In addition, I'm the one that enabled the doctors to tell me I was fine when I wasn't. They didn't trust my accounts and I didn't trust myself enough to make them. My lack of trust in myself supported their lack of trust in me.

Maybe it's what I've been through the last few years, or maybe it's just my age, but there is a reckoning of sorts going on within me now. I'm battling myself and it can be nothing but good for me, as painful as it is to abide in the short term. 

So consider the things you feel about your world right now. Maybe you feel insignificant. Or unloved. Or betrayed. Less than. Over the hill. Hopeless. Or incapable. Challenge those beliefs. Is it possible you're the one that perpetuates your insignificance? Do you actually betray yourself? Are you the one focusing on your limitations and not your possibilities? 

In all my many years of spiritual exploration and looking inward, I have yet to come across a problem anyone else could fix for me. Except for my heart valve. :D But I'm talking about my beliefs and my issues with others. All of those things can only be fixed and healed by myself. Even when it's clear someone else is to blame, I find that I played a role myself. And when I start to heal the reasons why I believed something or put up with something for so long, the problem disappears...or I move beyond the problem. 

So what's bugging you and what do you need to change to heal it? It may not be a fun process, but at least you can take comfort in knowing that I and many others are going through it alongside you.

9/10/18—Waiting For Fall

I'm fortunate to live in a part of the US that has four distinct seasons each year—beautiful, miserable, breathtaking and reflective.

I have declared summer (aka "miserable") over a number of times in the past month, only to have it return uglier than ever. I hesitate to do so again, but it is cold and rainy outside and I have hope…a NEED…for autumn to be here at last. It’s my favorite time of year and I believe it's especially spectacular in the mid-Atlantic. The temperatures are perfect for being outside, building fires, hiking on trails, leaf peeping. And as the leaves fall, they lay the branches bare, prompting us to do the same within.

For me, spring and summer coax my energy out of my body. Fall and winter lead it within, toward the core of my spirit. As days grow shorter and nights get cooler, the presence of spirit seems to grow stronger in me. To me, that means not just being "in good spirits". But it also means a deepening connection and communion with that energy or source that we are part of, yet is greater than us all, whether you call it God, nature, Buddha or something else.

I can’t deny "waiting" for a spiritual connection to find me, instead of going after it right now. I've been feeling disconnected for a while and nothing seems to "take" lately. While there have been times connection feels effortless, we still have to show up...and show up in the right frame of mind...to receive. We can't expect spirit to beam into us while we're returning emails, running errands or watching TV. In fact, for me, I am most connected when I am fully in the moment, and even more when I am fully in the moment in meditation or prayer.

Autumn has a way of supporting that connection in me. It’s cool. It’s beautiful. I want to be out and about. And the prompt of having those leaves falling off the tree triggers a shedding for me, too. It leads me within. While I’m always led within, there’s a different quality to it…creative, surrendering, safe.

There has been a lot of heavy stuff on my mind. Some of it I’m not ready to tell. Other stuff I can’t speak of to protect the privacy of others. All of it leaves me uneasy because I have dropped my connection and am counting on fall to bring it back to me. It sounds a bit lazy and silly, I know. But fall has a way of bringing healing to these kinds of things for me. It can’t get here soon enough.

8/27/18—Finding My Inspiration

I started doing some writing this week on a book I'm calling The Seeker's Guide to the Spiritual Path. And it was a truly mystical experience.

I was writing the story of how I started on my spiritual path and all the influences that shaped my beliefs. I've told short versions before, centered around how I learned about forgiveness and set out on my spiritual journey in the wake of my father's death.

The story I've never told before was the FULL story that includes a tiny red book my mother kept in her bedside table. Neither of my parents were religious and, if it weren't for this red book, I would claim neither were spiritual, also. But my mother would frequently pull this book out and read it. It seemed to bring her comfort.

At first I thought it was a book of love poems and thought it was odd my mother would refer to it over and over again throughout the years. But what I didn't realize until after she was gone was that the Rubaiyat by Omar Khayyam was a book of devotional poems written about the Divine. 

I was too young and atheistic and, frankly, heartbroken at the time she died to care too much about that little red book. But when I look back over my life, I see that I was always curious about it, just not curious enough. That is, not until I really started on my own spiritual journey. 

So, I was writing about all of this and got very emotional because I felt my mother all around me. I heard her in my ear and felt her in my fingers as I tapped the story out. My mother died when I was 21, so I'll never really know her relationship to that book, but I always thought it was like a Bible to her. And while she would quote from it from time to time, I suspect her relation to those words was something she kept private, as we all do with our most intimate and personal thoughts. 

Part of why I got emotional is because it has been rare in the past 32 years to feel my mother around me. And there have been times I have desperately needed her. Even when I dream about her, I dream about her not communicating with me! It makes no sense because I felt she and I had a deep soul bond in life. We locked horns many times, but underneath we both understood it was because we were too much alike. As she was dying, we were very close. There were times I was the only one allowed to touch her and care for her. I felt there was a deep understanding between us about a lot of things. I thought if she were to come back to anyone, it would be me, if for no other reason than that, with my psychic capabilities, I'd be the easiest to connect to. 

So I have felt hurt and been puzzled over this for years. I told myself it's because she and I have no unfinished business. My father and I had a lot of unfinished business and he came around A LOT during certain times of my life. 

So, as I was embarking on writing this particular book, and as I was insecure about my abilities and qualifications, and as my mother and her little red book were swirling up around me, I decided to randomly choose a quatrain from the Rubaiyat to read for inspiration. The number 28 popped into my head. This is what #28 says:

With them the seed of Wisdom did I sow,
And with mine own hand wrought to make it grow;
And this was all the Harvest that I reap'd--  
"I came like Water, and like Wind I go." 


OK. So. Wow. First, it speaks to the role of a spiritual teacher, walking the talk. And the transcendence that can come from that practice. But then it also speaks to the seed planted within me by my mother's deep connection to the book at her bedside, kind of like she had passed the baton to me. Of all the 101 verses in that book, this one in particular, speaks most to the role of the teacher, the student and the seeker. 

Then, I found my mother's favorite passage. As I read it, I connected to her sense of spirituality. As a child, I misunderstood the "Thou" for a lover. But the "Thou" is god and it speaks to solitary communion with the higher power (it also conjures up the thought of Buddha under the Bodhi tree):

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!


So as I was writing this part of my book, I dove deep into a swirl of my mother's energy for the first time in over 30 years. And I knew she'd be with me in some way as I wrote moving forward. And all of this gave me encouragement and peace on entering the author phase of my life. I'm already an author, I know. But the Deck of 1000 Spreads was more a product than a book to me. Books like the one I'm writing now are what I'm becoming an author to relate.


Another thought has occurred to me over the past week, too. It involves why my mother waited so long to come to me. I was raised in a home that was about as free as you can get from religious or spiritual input. And yet look at me...a blogger with 1200 posts on spirituality and multiple books in progress. A discussion with my mother about that little red book would have been lovely. Her insights on her journey would mean everything to me. She died too soon for us to share this in real time.


So maybe that was our unfinished business. I hadn't even realized how much that book of hers influenced me before I sat down to write about it. In fact, I've been realizing her influence a lot lately. I have zero doubt that if she were alive we would not only be kindred in our beliefs, but she would be my biggest fan in my efforts as an author. I'm feeling now that I am carrying a torch that she lit—a torch she couldn't carry for herself. And whether that's accurate or not, it is just the inspiration I've been looking for.

8/20/18—Eating Boogers and Farting

A couple of weeks ago* I posted that one of my best kept secrets was that I liked to do ceremonies. To that, someone quipped that I have fewer and fewer secrets all the time. It seems as if my evil plot may be working. :D

When I'm not being jibed for over-sharing or sharing the obvious, I hear people say I'm brave to post about my fears, anxieties and inadequacies (as well as more positive stuff) online for everyone to see. You wouldn't know that just a few years ago, the thought of doing that was too scary for me. In fact, for most of my life I felt I had to contain my more negative or weaker aspects, lest people would think differently of me or change the way they saw me. I had a lot of fear around that. I guess I wanted to look like I had things all together. But I also feared that if I ever tried to do anything notable, someone would stand up and expose me in some way...mar some image of myself I had tried to create.

Unlike most issues that people would rather keep hidden, when you're overweight most of your life, one of your biggest issues is right there for everyone to see and judge. So appearing otherwise charming and pulled together was also kind of like damage control for me. It protected me from further hurt. Or so I thought.

But the fact is you can't control what others think of you. Whether you're a mass murderer or Mother Theresa, you will always have people who dislike you for one reason or another. Those people will always whisper behind your back. Some will tell hurtful lies about you. Some will tell painful truths. And most will be doing it in their own effort to make it look like they're more pulled together than you.

Putting it all (well, not ALL) out there has actually proved to be very freeing. I don't have to worry about people saying, "well, did you know she sometimes wears her pajamas all day and into the next?" Or "she acts all happy, but I'll bet she has problems with depression." I don't have to worry about anything like that and, in retrospect, I wish I'd never worried in the first place. It has held me back in some ways. But now if someone were to accuse me of, say, losing my temper with telemarketers, I can just point them to a blog where I've already admitted it to the world. :D It's not news. Coming out as flawed and neurotic is very freeing. :)

But there's another reason why I open up about fears around mammograms, inner conflicts around moving on from friendships, anxieties around writing, sad moments from my past, internal fears and all the other stuff I've written about in over 1000 posts. I write about it because it's not stuff we talk about. It's stuff we keep inside because we're ashamed, have nobody to tell, or think we're the only one or whatever.

Remember when you were a kid and the most horrific thing you could be accused of was farting or eating your boogers? I was never able to understand why that was, because doesn't everyone fart? And doesn't every kid sup on a booger or two? So why all the shame around it? Why all the mockery and meanness around it? Even in kindergarten, I understood the unfairness and hypocrisy of it all. We were all booger-eating farters! And yet some kids got branded with the scarlet B or F, while the accusers (who often went home to a large plate of boogers, followed by a bonfire fueled by nothing but farts, btw) came out looking like they had no adverse bodily functions at all!

So this idea of shame and separation and limitation at the hands of things we all have in common has bothered me for a really long time. We all have dark moments and times when we weren't at our best. We all have self doubts and crap we kick ourselves over. We all have bad habits and blind spots. We all have guilty pleasures. And yes, we all fart. And I'll be the first to admit that some of the things I've talked about on this blog have held me back. In fact, this very thing—the secrets we keep, not because we cherish them, but because we have shame or embarrassment around them—has held me back...kept me in the shadows and contributed to fears around being all I can be.

So I say stuff here and, instead of being judged, people thank me because they no longer feel so alone. They no longer feel like a booger-eating farter. And the thing is, I still have private things. And  you'd think I feel more vulnerable because of all this sharing, but I actually feel less vulnerable. By the time something makes it to the blog, I've come to terms with it. The blogging actually helps me work through it. Pushing "publish" is like getting another stamp on my passport to freedom on the matter. 

Opening up your baggage and placing it on display like this isn't for everyone. But we're all carrying stuff around that imprisons us. Maybe we drink too much. Or our marriage isn't as idyllic as it's portrayed. Maybe we've got a kid who's struggling in some way. Have a lot of debt. Are afraid of the changes ahead of us. Or maybe we're a fully grown adult who doesn't even have the first idea of who we are. There's nothing in any of that that can't be understood and felt by people around us.

So today I just want to say that, whatever it is, you're ok. Your issue is understood and shared in some way by more people than you know. And that it's ok to find someone—or an entire community—you can trust to confide in so you don't have to carry the secret on your shoulders any longer. It's ok to slough that weight and move on.

I suppose there's some value to being more of a woman of mystery. But I'd rather be a woman of truth. Illusion takes a lot of work to maintain and you don't even realize how much until you start letting it drop away. Let's face it, we can't run from ourselves. We know who we are. To hide it from everyone else just keeps people from understanding you, seeing you as you are and loving you regardless. It just makes us feel alone. We're so much more alike than we know. And the fewer and fewer secrets we keep, the thinner the wall is between ourself and the rest of humanity. 

*This is a classic post from 8/6/14.