My Thorns

What if the only way to heal was to truly walk through the fire of your heart... on a deeper level than you even thought humanly possible where your whole world paradigm begins to shift and shake? How could this be the hidden path to freedom?

Trip out on that. 

We all have thorns in our hearts that burn, burn like crazy. We all have our different and varied ways of relating to these pains. Some of us build protective devices so we can still function in the world and avoid letting people rub up against our wounds. Some of us just avoid getting close to people all together. Some of us, like me, enjoy & try to be close to others, but if they accidentally rub up against a thorn of mine all hell breaks loose like an episode from the exorcist. 

Medicine, therapist, hospitals, rehabs, & 12 step groups have all taught me to be ashamed of the way I relate to these wounds in my heart. I have always believed I am wrong for the intensity of emotions that I experience throughout my life. "Tell yourself & the world your an alcoholic everyday," they would say. "Maybe she has border-line. Wait, no, she's too advanced for borderline." "She's a victim of a violent crime." "She's a troubled youth." "You should feel wronged, Robin, they hurt you. You are suffering from heavy trauma."

At the deepest core level of my human being-ness, I decided & believed I was born flawed & for that I am unlovable. Not only that, I am incapable of love. For that, I deserved everything bad that happened to me & somehow it was my fault. 

I don't believe that anymore. I am responsible for the decisions I made about the bad things that happened, but I am not responsible for the acts themselves. I am responsible for the suffering that I have endured & if I don't do something about it, I will be responsible for the suffering I will allow to occur in my future. 

Taking my power back completely & freeing myself from this paradigm of suffering has been my mission. I just didn't know what it would truly be asking of me. I did not know the level of pain I would have to tap into & for the length of time I would have to endure & explore in order to accomplish this mission. But, there's no turning back. 

We must allow ourselves to notice when someone or something rubs up against our thorns & instead of listening to the world who pathologizes everything, we have to face it. Not to say let someone smack you around. That's obvious... physical danger, run. Emotional danger, get curious, explore, endure, witness because the one who is watching is the one unaffected. There is someone inside ourselves watching this play unfold while our minds & bodies just get swept away in the trauma. This someone is your spirit. The indwelling place of God. The holy spirit inside us who stands in strength & neutrality just watching this human experience.. 

When it rises, you have to notice your breath, notice your fighting thoughts, notice your judgments or yourself & the person... can you, this time, sit in the fire of your own heart & let it burn. Can you recognize the process unfolding?

The only way to take out the thorns is to find them & with courage be willing to let awareness pull them out one by one. 

And for this girl, that's like asking me to walk on shards of glass in a house of horrors... but from my experience so far, it's all just a freaky freak show illusion.

May God be with me and be with you on this journey. May we be blessed with the courage of a fierce warrior as we fight for the ultimate freedom. 

And She Whispered Loudly

I am beautiful… I am free.

If everything is really a lesson working on my behalf to better this life, then my lessons just keep getting sweeter as the years go by. And by sweet, I do not mean easy, just juicier and softer on the eyes of my heart.

Relationships tend to be one of my biggest triggers, and that makes sense for grown children of traumatic upbringings. And for everyone for that matter. No ones had a perfect life. If the people who were “supposed” to love me and teach me the world was safe accidentally created the opposite scenario for me, of course as I grown up I will not trust, I will struggle to let myself be loved, and the way I view myself will fluctuate in the face of human interactions.

 One of the symptoms of borderline personality disorder is a fluctuating sense of self. It’s where one’s self-perceptions and way of viewing the world change from situation to situation based on the level of perceived safety and/or triggered trauma. I dare to say fuck the westernized diagnosis and disorders… is this not the human experience of many? Especially those who have been beaten with the words and the names of things we are not and never were? Whore, thief, liar, bad girl, bad boy, delinquent, F’s, learning disabilities, failure, depression, cancer, not good at math, stupid, bitch…. Etc.

We were taught to go against our innate nature and to create contradiction exasperated by worldly confusion within the deepest parts of our belief systems. 

So then, if we are so lucky, we choose to embrace our hardships and triggers to break free from the bondage of disillusionment. Last night, I was triggered by telling this beautiful and gentle man the details of my recent past. It’s a heavy thing for newbies in my life to process, let stab them in the gut, and then willingly let the pain drift away like a message in a bottle holding my history… for someone else to pick up one day and find the truth in it all.

I read his voice and became fearful that he will not accept me. I became consumed with the feeling that I am tainted, that I am not “normal,” and I can never tell a normal story to someone I love about my past. My stories are outrageous to say the least and shocking. When you think I couldn’t surprise you more, I do. It’s my life… it’s my story. But, who am I without my story? That is the real lesson here.

Last night I sat with the fear and the sorrow I felt for myself. I felt sadness for the things I put myself through, and I felt regret. Then I realized, this man is not judging me. I am judging me, still. Yes, I have grown by leaps and bounds and have moments of true self-love and miraculous earth shattering revelations… but my insides have not let completely go of the story I tell myself. The story of who I believe I am. The story of how I see myself and relate to the world.

 I sat to meditate on my heart space this morning. I knew the work that needed to be done was inside of me. Whether people judge me or not, whether this man stays in my life or not… the way I view myself and my life does not need to fluctuate.  I REPEAT: it does not need to fluctuate. I need no fixing, no undoing… only the letting go of what IS NOT TRUE. Just be Robin. Nameless, faceless, full of fire and energetic magical spiritual stuff… just having a human experience.

As I sat with my eyes closed in dimmed light before the sun came out, I asked my heart how it was inside. Usually I feel pain in my heart or heaviness, but not this time when I checked in. It had been a while since I checked in with my heart in silence. I felt almost nothing, and I thought to myself, “Is this what openness feels like?” And then a voice, my voice, said loud and clear, yet with no warning, and with the gentleness of a sweet confident whisper “I am freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.” Ok heart. I must be doing a good job; We are free.

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I will be doing everything I can to fight the good fight. Help me make a difference. 

What makes a good Mother?

Some of us are naturally drawn to children and mothering leaving the rest of us wondering where this domestic gene came from and why didn't I get it. It's not fun to me to stay home and cook and clean and change diapers. Well at first it was because it felt like playing house and izzy and I were exploring this game together... Until shit got real!

Nights awake crying, college deadlines, welfare deadlines, dating nightmares, lack of sleep, and of the most challenging... Facing childhood trauma when I look into the face of my hysterical child feeling ever ounce of terror I used to feel as a child. I have worked so hard to learn a healthier way to nurture my child especially through difficult times. But when the rubber hits the roAd I gotta tell you, I tend to  fall apart Inside. I sometimes loose my temper and fear I am the monster I've been dedicated to shielding her from, I shame myself for being ill equipped to be a mother, I tell myself I'm damaged and I can't do it. In those moments I feel devastated like I've failed my life's mission by breaking down when she needs me. But this is the dance. The dance through trauma, the dance through life. I pick myself up off the ground, usually after calling a trusted friend or my soul mate, and I do my very best to nurture the after math of a storm. I hold my daughter and validate her feelings, I admit my wrong within minutes, we make a plan of how to support each other better the next time and we express love. That's the best I can do wit this healing heart of mine. I still try to run from the voice that tells me I'm not a good mother and never will be... But as I wrotea one page summary of my life yesterday for a friend who does documentaries, it hit me like a ton of bricks of why everyone says I'm a good mother and how I know it's true. I voice texted this revelation to myself as I cried and it goes like this...

"I'm a good mom not because I'm supposed to be looking good on the outside and well from all my past but I'm a good mom because I love my daughter so much that throughout this pain I never give up on her or myself. I'm a good mom because it hurts so bad and it's so hard but I don't stop. I'm a good mom because I care so much. "

I will hold this revelation close so I'm ready for the next obstacle as a parent and as a warrior. 
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