What it looks like from here

My birthday is next week.  It's the last one that starts with a  5.....I didn't know what 59 would be all about, but I'm pretty sure I didn't think it was like this... I sort of thought I'd have IT ALL FIGURED OUT...I don't.  At all.  But honestly what would be the fun in all that?

I've made no secret of my personal struggles with life circumstances and where I am with that. I went through a very difficult few years that felt like I was laying on the damp floor of a dark hole and I could not see the way out. I could surface for moments, to be there for my kids and to do my work but truly, I was faking it.  I'm a sensitive girl in a world that I don't understand and I processed my truth as being broken....And broken became where I lived for what felt like too long.  I don't know what I was waiting for, probably some kind of answer, truth, pain relieving change...I didn't know at all. I had some friends who saw the truth of my despair and simply stayed with me. They didn't try to fix or push me, they just stayed, sitting there with me on the ground until I was ready to sit up and there we stayed for a while longer, just sitting in the dark.  And I am grateful for their love, even when I couldn't say so.  I sort of intuitively knew this darkness , the brokenness and the despair, it had an important purpose but goodness I wanted to rush on through and be done with it.  Because pain sucks and pain for along time starts to feel normal. and I didn't want that to be my life. I didn't know how I was going to do it but, I decided to unbreak myself....I decided to invite the pain to sit down and have some real conversations with me.  And it did...So I sat at the table with my pain and what I thought were my shattered pieces because I thought it would be good to put them back together not realizing they didn't fit anymore...I spent a whole lot of time with the pain, trying to learn everything I could in the dark and figure out how to stand up and leave the table.  But not before pain and I had to hash out a whole lot of messy stuff.

Then two things happened..

.1 Pain was there to say to me in no uncertain term, that until I loved me enough to trust myself, listen to myself and BE MYSELF fully and completely, I would allow myself to put my own best interests last and take care of the rest of the world.  It isn't the job of the rest of the world to look out for me.  That was my job. To love and honor myself....in order to love and honor what mattered to me.  Pain told me that my sensitive, intuitive self was just the way I am wired, not wrong, not broken not in need of fixing. That was my greatest gift even though it had never felt that way.  My knowing and feeling and truth telling...it didn't need to be hidden and for sure shouldn't ever be given away.  This world that is hard for me, needs what I bring because I am loved...I am love. I listened to pain and it gave me the greatest bit of knowledge I've ever gotten...Pain did not lie, pain was a teacher. Pain stayed until I got it right....

2.  I started moving my body.  That simple. I started the day after Christmas, thinking it was going to be a simple bit of walking the treadmill a few times a week and my excess pounds would fall off, I would be cuter and thinner and everything would just happen like that. It didn't The first night I fell off the treadmill in an amazing and frightening display of no body awareness at all.   I still have the scar where I deeply skinned my knee.  My sons picked me up and took me  under their very strong arms and told me that they would work with me.  And I started lifting weights.  They went with me to the gym, we are doing this together. They gently guided me   out of my comfort zone so far, I couldn't even see where my comfort zone was. they taught me and let me take on the gaining of strength. My older children became sounding boards for fitness and cheered every single thing I gained rather than asked how much I was losing. I stopped weighing myself and trusted the life long process that is taking care of me, this impatient girl has discovered  patience and how good the hard work feels without expecting anything else. Trusting good changes would come but first I had to surrender to the process and have come to love it..   I cannot say this enough. If you want to change your life, move your body.  This is what I know for certain about that...Mind, Body and Spirit are connected and you CANNOT fix one with out the rest coming along for the ride. . 

The other day a friend said I looked like I was in the middle of becoming who I was meant to be. Maybe because I pierced my nose or maybe because I  committed to doing a hard physical event or maybe because I am excited about  recommitting to the success of my little company. Maybe these are outer signs of what's been inside all along. Maybe it just feels good to to take off the fear of what anyone else will think or say.   I told her that I was just uncovering who I always was. Revealing and becoming.  Because I get a voice in all this, how my story goes and how it all feels to be me.  Because I have sat at the table with pain and lay on the damp ground with despair, I know what they offer.  A chance to be unbroken.  To decide that I am more than what hurts, so much more and the hurt has no power when I love and honor myself so hard that the rest just fades out of focus.  Love is the thing. it's everything.   LOVE changed me, it saved me and gave me myself in a way I have never had.  I am unbroken, I am strong. . I can love what is real and good more than ever and I can walk away without anger from what doesn't serve that love.  This is my story. And that is where fearlessness, strength and peace live....where pain used to hang out. At my table of love...about damned time.......


"Well I have no fear
I have only love"
~Stevie Nicks, Gypsy



BRING IT ON 59.....We are going to be just fine....

<3 Barbara

Speak Now

I've been tormented this weekend....like down to the knot in my stomach and the tears I'm barely keeping at bay.   This is possibly the hardest  truthiesst truth I have ever spoken and this is is about being human.  And started as a text I sent to some people close to me who I trust...It is with their urging and love that I write this post. I'm terrified, my quivering hands are not easy on the keyboard as I type. I know that I may be opening a can of worms I am neither qualified to open or equipped to deal with. I'm a girl with a story and some truths and I have to speak now.

I don't know how to delicately step into this....The lastest bit of Donald Trump has hit me hard in the gut...And I'll tell you why.   Unless you have experienced the full truth of the thoughts and actions of a misogynistic, true narcissist who objectifies, defiles and disrespects women and in the process destroys everything that resembles love and respect, you cannot know the stomach turning, gut wrench reaction that the Trump recording brings to a girl like me. I have had a physical deeply emotional reaction that I cannot ignore.

I know this kind of man.  Who says it's funny, calls it locker room talk or thinks it is  something all men do....The kind of man who truly believes every woman's purpose is to be there for his own needs and wishes.  Who doesn't provide a safe place, protection or consideration to the people he claims to love.  Who truly thinks that it's okay to force kisses or grab a woman in the most personal of places.  Who thinks that it's all another joke and that we should all lighten up. Who apologizes by saying it was years ago (get over it ...)  and justifies their heinous words by saying that someone else has said and done worse.  Who doesn't really feel badly about it but is trying to get us to move on and once again accept the horrific and despicable nature of his true self without questioning his character.  I know this kind of man and once their true self is seen and heard.. that.cannot be unseen or unheard. We cannot unknow. It is despicable and horrifying. 

I know this kind of man and I promise you, under the thin façade that he still has, there is worse lurking...And for me...it's not okay. It's not okay to force anything on anyone that doesn't want that thing. It's not okay to make jokes or belittle anyone for on the basis of sex, race, age, looks, religion or anything else. It's not okay, none of this is okay and as horrified as I am by the words coming from a candidate for the Presidency, I'm terrified by the silence or saying the other is worse for other reasons. Maybe we speak for humanity when we don't allow a victimizer to think we are afraid.  Maybe just maybe we speak now and love each other harder. Maybe just maybe we fix all this with asking for more of ourselves and each other but especially from the people who we trust to lead. Maybe we don't allow it to continue, don't justify or defend. Maybe we demand better....  Monstrous behavior speaks it's own unacceptable truth.

My loved ones have been terrified and worried about me for  years because of such thinking and actions...... and I love them for their fear even when I was hiding in denial....It is hard to understand why anyone would allow such despicable behavior and words into their lives.   It's hard to tell you why and how paralyzing this all can be. I have that same fear and worry about our country.    From my place of experience it's imperative that we don't explain it away, blame the other party, other people or politics. It's not about politics, it's about being a decent person.... it's about doing what is right, and demanding that our leaders ACT RIGHT and that we act right.  It's about expecting more and holding people to a standard of behavior and thought that at the very base doesn't allow for the victimizing or objectifying of anyone. Period.   It's about speaking up and letting our humanity be louder than our anger and frustration.   It's about showing our daughters and sons that this is not okay....It's just not.

I cannot and will not judge anyone for their politics and don't even ask my friends or loved ones who they plan to vote for.  This post is not about that....I hope you understand that. I hope that you do not rain down on me with hard words, I don't think that you will...    I've never been so afraid to hit the post button in my life but I am even more afraid to not hit the button.... I'm shaking but feel strongly that this is worth taking the chance that comes with speaking out....

Love More

Barbara