Sweetness in the Storm

11.29.11
Oh my God.  I feel delirious with ...  What is this?  I can't quite grasp the feeling.  The sensations are a bubbling well in my belly - right behind my belly button.  I've just had coffee and I believe the caffeine is coursing enthusiastically in my veins throughout my body.  I feel enthralled and there's a mad desire for me to go sprinting on the beach and there's also a tightening around my chest from gulping shallow breaths.  It's as if I'm excited and the excitement isn't fully felt and gets stuck like I'm somehow holding energy back into my body.  So I'm not quite happy and I'm not quite upset and I'm not quite stuck.  Typical that I get to be multidimensional and dynamic:  “welcome to humanity,” Aurash would say.  I'm in deep appreciation BIG TIME.  For the people in my life who care about me, receiving my reach for them and seeing that I care quite a lot.  I feel seen.

12.02.11
Your body wants me and digests me on some days.  On most days your body isn't listened to and therefore the want of me stays slightly afloat, yellow on the branch.  My body wants yours and can't quite digest you.  My body yearns to be seen and served and given to and the nourishment stems from my loving.  Our bodies sometimes collide in the night and sometimes yours turn from mine and there is a quick pull, the orbit suddenly losing gravitation.  My body tries to follow while yours shut off its penetrable atmosphere and we become two lost bodies in space.  Instead of enjoying the autumn air I seek you out only to find that you are also dying.  There are other bodies trying to pull me in closer; I can only see the dying - I'm consumed by it.  I don't even notice that my body dies digging for what no longer serves me.  My face is turned away from the sun, and I can't even feel the chill of my breath touching your body.

12.05.11
The same returns.  I am insecure.  I question my love, my wanting, my longing.  I have it - why must I understand it or make it wrong?  It's not a part of my identity, it isn't ugly, and I don't have to suffer because of my love.  My love is beautiful.  It is sweet, it is powerful, and it rages and swoons and yells in the wind and whispers images of blue moons.  My love is a white room with white comforters.  My love is home and is foreign to no one.  I yearn to be loved in the same way that I love, and I believe that this is a journey that my life takes - a journey of giving that love to myself.  I accept that I have love and that I can't help but give it.  I don't want to redirect it and I don't want to be ashamed for having it.  I do want it for myself - this is clear.  I love him.  My love for him is water, running, ebbing, the flow altering at the behest of stones and soil, and continue my love goes, pouring stronger and stronger into the galaxies of my woman’s heart.  I love him.  I love him and I hurt when I love him.  I hurt when I open myself to him and he doesn't meet my gaze or respond to my poetry.  I hurt when he gets up in mornings and doesn't feel my body next to his.  I hurt that he is so lost in his own pain, he seems oblivious to me.  I hurt that I change because of him.  That even when I feel good and free, his disconnect cuts me down, and I reach and extend and lean into him to I can be in his darkened waters.  I hurt and I love.  In my system, my love is worth the cost of pain.  In my system, I will stop hurting when I stop.  In our worlds, whole universes collide and I am not afraid.

Shame

Here I am.

The reflections that I receive.

That I am still a girl.
That I can't receive love.

For the most part, these are judgments that I already fester in my thoughts; it is a fear; it perpetuates in my shame, and as I allow it to continue to sit in shame, I become it.

I want to receive love.
I want to receive love in a way that I can love myself and heal through the sewage of feeling undeserving, unworthy, unlovable.
I want to receive love.

I AM
a woman.

I RECEIVE
reflections.

Because -
I LOVE, and I RECEIVE Love.

I can, I do.

I AM
beautiful.

I AM
extraordinarily lucky
to be here
in this time, this space,
making change,
having self revelations,
being in the company of people
who loves me
and holds me in high regard
that I have for myself.

I am whole.
I am healed.
I am love.
I am pain.
They are the same.
They are not extraordinary,
because even though they are mine,
they are also yours.

I don't need to remember this.

I WANT TO KNOW THIS.

I AM ALL.
And -
I AM NOTHING.

I freeze so I can defend.
I open so I can receive.
I close so I can defend.
I open so I can love.

And I believe
that without love,
my life will contain
very little meaning.

And I am committed
to Love -

especially

for myself.

So please,
I want to love ME.

Please, Cindy,
please, PLEASE,
be gentle with me,
love me,
allow me to be
the beautiful, radiant
woman
that
I
Know
that
I
AM.

Acid on My Tongue

When I can see the entire universe converging on my fingertips, how can I not know that I can choose how I impact the world or how I want to perceive myself to be?

Everything is falling into place precisely as I mean to. Especially when I don’t care as much.

Why can't I just claim what I want, and be like, nope, that's it, that's all there is: I. Want. This. No if's, but's, attachments, heart breaks, just plain, pure longing.

I'm currently on an LSD trip... at around 5:22 p.m., I thought of occupying someone else's world. But I think it’s become less of a choosing, and more of a diving. This is so fantastical - after all, I'm choosing isolation for this process, so it's coming out of my imagination, these realizations. I might even venture into the world of assertions. Who knows? Anyways, that was my warning label, which might actually constrict the delivery of the message… And here goes.





Dear Frankly,

For someone like you, who can't help but be the spatial, physical you, that you take on other, deeper, subtler forms of hiding - the kind that is so powerful and discreet that only you know that you're hiding; and even then, it has taken you long, precious years of being that way to realize that you are even hurting. I didn't understand your hurt fully. That there was something in your innate gentle human feeling that didn't get received growing up as this athletic, high-achieving person – and so he simply becomes that. That he was in the centerpiece of perceived achievement, and feeling vulnerable and scared and loving and wanting and needing, God, he wasn't allowed to need someone to hold him. Just to hold him. No, he had to be strong, if not for others, then at least for himself, and that meant no weaknesses, no need or show of love. And the strength looked a particular way, within bounds of what 'norm' can possibly mean in this turn of the millennium society - I mean, how can we possibly, truly know? We are swimming in it, in this instant. - Even his sexual desire has to look a certain way, a distant, inhuman approach to this object --- even then he couldn't let in that soft warmth without judging the supposed weakness that might come out of him. I imagine that the manifestation of him - you - today is that fiercely independent creature who tethers on the edge of living, waiting to let go. I imagine that after years of living in this togetherness - this concrete of supposed achievement and a high standard of living - has you finally reaching out between the bars: I just want to feel!! That even to question that way of living has you judge what you're doing; you feel lost, like there is no path - not the one that you thought your parents wanted you on, what you thought you "should" be on, or these fucking transformational touchy-feely conniving crazies want you on - who is there to trust? You look for yourself, you take what you can take from the world as tools to continue looking in to just yourself. And at some point, it is the very relationship with the world that you were suffering - you couldn't trust the people, and therefore, the relationship itself couldn't be healed. How do you heal trust? How do you heal enough trust in order to let go, and be - healed in yourself and to be fully living in the world that completely encapsulates you. You are a part of this world - does that mean you can't even trust yourself?

And what does not trusting the world look like? Outside of the concrete life you were imprisoned in, there was security. Stepping outside of that, you begin to feel scarcity, a human suffering that isn’t entirely felt by all humans, a blaring loud siren of There is Some Big – BAD – Shit, and you wonder at that, you suffer at that wondering, and why that it wasn’t felt by the rest of humanity. Again that relationship with trust continues to tighten with tension – when it came down to it, it’s not a question of: who will take care of you – who will eventually hold you in all of your feeling, who will care for you in sickness? – It’s a question of Who Can? That is another surrendering, and I imagine that you fight hard to keep that in your control. And that’s totally in the constructs of being a man, I think. There’s a delirious drive for me to survive as a woman, but I am not as withholding and contained as I imagine a strong young man has to be – because, fuck, who’s going to take care of you when you falter? Who’s going to be good enough, strong enough, with enough resources and tenderness and enough feeling and enough consideration? Who can be Enough? I guess as a woman, I just already know that I only have an amount of control – the rest is up to a greater entity – however, my particular practice is ownership, which I don’t think is largely your practice as much as surrendering is. See, I don’t see you needing as faltering. It looks more like a surrendering to a giving that is a receiving that is a giving, and so on. How can I receive as a giver if you won’t receive? How can I give as a receiver if I can’t receive? I see you unable to surrender into that flow, just stoic resistance. You got to be a hard-ass strong motherfucker to have that much resistance. Because, really. Who’s going to be able to hold you? Who Can? Trust. Trust and let go, and let go into trust. It’s fucking hard.

I’m sorry that this is so hard, that your barriers, your cage, your concrete walls are fucking solid, and difficult to pass through – I’m sorry that you’ve been hurt so much that you were almost completely sealed in. I think it would just be better to stay in there most times than to step out into this world that’s not only going to be Not Enough to contain your vast ocean of feeling – you had a lifetime of the feminine wanting to be heard and felt – but ALSO, fuck, this world blows, it bites and it hurts and it doesn’t feel all too good sometimes. It’s better inside – at least there’s a measure of trust that you can give yourself in just being able to contain You in all the ways that you know how. I’m sorry that you’re suffering in a place where you can’t even feel all your years of hurt – and joy – and LOVE; even that is barred away from you, and the only reason why you can’t claim it is because you are afraid you won’t be held. I’m so fucking sorry that this is so hard for you. You are so much more than this. You’re so amazing and gifted with an intensity that can only sit with someone so physically loud, except a trillion times more, and more than that. I feel the pain even louder because I’ve seen that part inside of you that just loves: you are a fucking loving human being, and fuck, to let that out – to just let loose, and to love life as it is, how loud and wild and beautiful that is going to be for someone as contained as you for so very long? I’ve only slightly tapped into that deep knowing that I am of the world, and the world is fucking loving and gorgeous – God, how much I want that for you. I’ve felt it with you when you are Here and I can’t help but be here, too. I can imagine how releasing that can be for you. I want you to feel vast and just with Being. To be able to let go of the weight that you bear, the weight that isn’t totally yours; it is ours. I can imagine that if you surrendered into a being that has no burden and that there is no separation of you and the world – and that the only Enough is the enough of right now, right here, right whoever, because, really, the who’s and why’s of it all don’t matter at all – that you will find the freedom that you seek.

And you know what? As much as I hurt feeling your suffering, I’m actually not all that sorry, because you’re going to be brilliant. It’s so simple. You’re going to be a brilliant light when you let go. When everything in you breaks free, and you become a vast source of energy and love and being – what else will matter? You will make it. And this suffering is in the formula of your amazing self. Learning how to love Right Now where you are with your immense capacity to feel is a kitchen that’s going to feed a nation. Boundless. In fact, I’m fucking jealous. Maybe that’s why I’m nurturing such a big stinkers. Because I just want what you have, you big-hearted stinkface. I love you. I love you for you being you. Because you’re you.




Man, I thought about just editing the shit out of this and leaving just the “interesting” parts for you to read, but I can’t separate the experience right now. If that means you digest this as simply, “my trip,” then that’s what’s so.

herenowherenow

Ego message 09/23/11: A couple of things that I'm currently noticing. One is - when I drink caffeine, I get really cranky. I don't want to drink caffeine anymore. After I drink tea or coffee, I just want to smoke, and I think I smoke to slow down and to feel more grounded. But if I really want to get grounded, I should just move and be in my body and to stop drinking tea and smoking cigarettes. Stimulants galore and no physical exertion to make it go away. My mind starts spinning, I begin to disconnect from the outer world and myself, and there I go, running off, like a stag in heat. Secondly, I think I've been avoiding dealing with money. I mean, I think about money. I think about how I'm going to borrow enough money until I can get into grad school and concentrate on school. But that's not sustainable, is it? Of course I have judgments about borrowing money. It's not cool. How will I pay that back? AND - can I allow myself to want what I want while still taking care of myself? Man, money is such a subject of shame - the debts that I owe, the fact that I got none, my pretending that it doesn't mean much when actually I give it so much power, because I think it allows me access to things that I do want, such as more workshops and freedom to travel, do what I want, etc. Money causes that cycle - do what I want to get it, and when I get it, do what I want. Really, I should just do what I want, but then the tree stump on the road of getting what I want is money. What a bitch. And now that I mentioned grad school - why can't I get myself motivated enough to do my applications?? Right now, I want to just want to be immobile and not think, but being immobile and having racing thoughts totally go hand in hand, and I'm avoiding again. I am avoiding putting my focus on the work at hand, because I'm afraid of feeling the shame of being inadequate, of having to ask for what I want (letters of referral), thinking/feeling myself (essay about myself), and claiming what I want with grad school. And I'm sucking, I'm sucking hardcore - like I see people working makes me feel like I'm stuck in something. Unwilling to work? Unwilling to do things that are difficult? What's difficult? I want to do what I want, I want to do what feels good to me, and that actually may or may not include difficult shit. I want to chill out - I want to MAKE IT EASY, Decker said to Bryan. How do I do this?

Why do I have contempt? Why do sarcastic comments escape my lips without control or choice? What's underlying? Jealousy? Self deficiency? What am I truly wanting? To celebrate others - I MUST celebrate myself. Fuck, I really want to celebrate Me, but it's really fucking hard. I need help.

Ego message 10/02/11: - I am on the cusp of loving you. -

These words were difficult for him to say, and difficult for me to hear. I imagine that they are hard for him, because to express the feeling may also be a letting go, the impact of emptying, an annihilation of being. I imagine that he fears hurting me, because he is not available for what I want. And I want isn't even very clear. Partnership? Partnership and love and a lifelong exploration of dynamic intimacy and depth. Better said than done.

Excuse me while I add more wood to this campfire. Right now, I can hear the drums in the distance - in my mind's eye, I see my friends blindfolded, feeling their way through between the trees, feet feeling the earth, noses catching wind, ears prickling for the reverberation of the drumming in the distance.

And he - he isn't there blindfolded, although he is blinded by exhaustion, and he isn't here with me stroking this fire.

Why I am so confronted that he may love me, I can't say. My body yearns for him so much, sometimes I become him: I begin feeling his pain, his boyish longing and joy, his well of feeling that rattles in his bones and heart crying, 'let me out! I am here!'

I don't wish to be him, but I have romanticized his struggles, idealized his desire to be with all that is in his heart and all that is in the world and to participate fully in it. I want to witness that as much as I want to be witnessed in my aspirations to be with softness and nurturing and fierceness and to wield my sharp mind in service of love. He isn't in a place to witness, I'm not even sure if he wants to be witnessed - but I like to to think that he does - it is less lonely to be loved on such a journey. His Inhibitor is strong, and he bars his heart from feeling, from being, from me.

He told me that he would never be pushed away by me. His space is sometimes needed, he said, he will own that, but he will never leave my life. My heart hurts as I write this. A man who will never leave me! Why does this hurt?

I don't know what I want with him. When I imagine partnership with him, I see an intensified suffering. I think I'd suffer because of my attachment, or our natural push-pull, to which we will both suffer; it's so natural between us. I want to understand my attachment. DO I LOVE HIM AT THE EXPENSE OF LOVING MYSELF? I keep coming back to this question, because I'm understanding that I'm not fully taking care of myself. I don't see my boundaries really clearly - I've had shame saying, 'no,' and had used willingness as a tool for connection and experience far more often than listening to the 'yes' that is purely for myself. There are strong yeses. I want to be good to my body. To take care of myself, to ground, loving my belly, my skin, my breasts, I want to feel my body fully, so I can celebrate when I feel good, and notice when I don't. Embodiment. Then I want to celebrate my heart, when I feel truely, for all of its feeling and wanting and being with it, for right now, I am tender. I feel resistence when I write about loving myself. Wanting that is newfound, a concept for some time, and a practice only recently. Gentle compassion, she wants. I am a friend, one who knows and feels you more than you - please take care of me. I am again with the child Cindy, and I feel all the ways that she had thought she was alone and uncared for. The very belief I held that my mother and father didn't love me (or didn't love me the way I wanted love) has me shut down from receiving and givin myself that love, even though I find myself wanting and giving that to others, especially my brothers, because I don't want them suffering like I did. I get that my victimhood was of magnitude as a child; chaotic households, I guess, are detrimental to the development of a young child; and I am no longer a child. I am a woman, carrying around the sadness of a child, and I know that I can be truly capable of giving myself the love that I have always wanted - including surrendering myself with people who can give that love, and for me to practice receiving it, instead of rejecting it out of fear that it will be taken away. I think I don't trust external love all that often, and that's okay. I am finally trusting that the people around me have good hearts, and that they don't always have intentions to hurt me.

I think that I have been okay with Andrew for so long because he wasn't giving me love that could be acknowledged or celebrated. I am afraid taht I will allow it to be okay, and I will not be able to let it go. I am afraid of losing love.

He just now sat next to me, feeling this fire by my side.

When I feel into Me, there is a voice that is expressing that I love being Alone.

We went hiking in the woods, and for several times he reached out to me, inviting me to be with him. I feel this pain - I am having a hard time being with his love! I don't know how to receive this without feeling pain of loss, pain of being, just receiving such intense love FOR MYSELF. That HE loves ME. That I can be loved.

Pain. No, not pain. Feeling. Being with myself.

Ego message 10/03/11: Jealousy - a conglomerate of feelings converging to a point.

Let me tell you - I don't like feeling this 'conglomerate.' This is a place in me that I do not love; a place in me that I struggle to accept. What is my conglomerate? A part of it is hurt. I'm hurt that I'm not being seen. I'm hurt because I'm too scared to bring it. I'm hurt becaue i can be so vindictive and unloving and closed. The desires underneath: I want to be the Only One; I want us to celebrate each other, non-exclusively; I want to be acknowledged and loved; I want to be special; I want to be seen.

This conglomerate leads me to being Alone. Sometimes I choose it, sometimes I find myself here, and I crave not to be. Right now, I crave feeling more me, and has me be a little more alone. I want more physical presence - although I am in the Round House with thirty other individuals, I specifically want Andrew to hold me as I try to feel more myself. I have been taking and giving all day - I want to give to him and to take to him now, but he is distant in his thoughts, and there, he wants to be alone. I feel the distance. I get sad about it, generally, and now I'm trusting that when he's ready, he'll come. He's not my savior. I want him to witness me and be in support of my growth. I want healing for the both of us.

Ego message 10/11/11: Post-Shasta, working a new mindless gig at Brainwash - still grateful and loving of Keli - I wouldn't be surviving without her help, in the middle of rehearsals with WE Players, just did AMP for the second time, and sweating over my college application. I'm scared and wanting more and appreciating and desiring change - this is so difficult to be with!

Ego message 10/14/11: How is it that he is so good to me?

Why am I so ashamed?

Ego message 10/17/11: How do I be with jealousy, I asked. She replied, get your needs met?

What am I not getting met? What has me feel insecure, unloved, without?

Today he beckoned me over with is love - he noticed my upset, this pain magnified in my withholding. As soon as I surrendered to his embrace, the pain came bursting through the floodgates of my heart. What a relief. I felt my entire being relax. And he just held all of it, and smiled, and I felt his love. I love him.

Rumi's 20 Small Graves

Lord,
give me more grief.

Tear me to pieces.

Without this great grieving no one can enter the spirit.

Aliveness

Ego message (9/13/10 continue): I know what you mean. Biting the bullet, growing thickened skin. I think that a year ago, I would have have taken the bait, grit my teeth, baring what feels hard because I know I'll come out stronger. A challenge is a challenge, and I would do no wrong in proving that I can do it. Now all I want to do is to take care of myself, be gentle, truly care and love myself. Don't get me wrong. I love that fierce willingness to that on what is difficult. But I haven't been honoring my boundaries. I didn't even know I had boundaries. I didn't know that in order to take on all of these challenges, I was inherently saying no to the part of me that needed to be safe and nurtured - I was self-destructing under the guise that I was going to be made better, stronger. I feel like there's a battle within my integrity. Whether or not I say no initially, and later, when I fall apart in small brutal ways because I'm truly not able to take what I'm doing to myself - I'm not strong enough, or not standing ground to my word or who I'm suppose to be. Working in this economy, in this day and age is wearing me down. I know what my ideal work environment would be. It would look like me creating, planning, collaborating. I lack the marketable skills to do just that, but I've had real live experience creating full shows - I am a stage director, goddammit! My pride is shot; I just want to create, but I have to fucking eat and pay rent. But I know when I'm an extremist in this. For instance - in relationships. I don't want to be with men who coddle me for every tear I shed, but I don't want to be with men who use me and ignore me and emotionally abuse me. I've been with both. And sometimes, they are one and the same. I want a man who is willing to help me strong on my own by being strong. I want a strong man. I want to create a strength in myself to attract that strong man and also create the job that I want. I don't know what this will look like. I knew my integrity was compromised when I was working for Zynga. The waste, the corporate ideals, the brainwashing, the bribing, just waste, waste, waste. It wasn't serving the world, just me, and everyone involved, making their ends meet, making money, being selfish, but we were digging another hole into the earth to pile our meaningless waste in, and I wasn't okay with that, no, but I wanted to pay rent and take road trips and eat good food. So I made excuses for how it was beneficial on a global scale, but those were all lies - only I was receiving benefit. What's wrong with me??? Why won't I let myself be somewhat selfish? I want to be selfish in the sense that I want to serve the world, but what will that look like? I want to impact it. I want to nurture it in the same way that I'm so desperately learning how to nurture myself. Serve myself, serve the world. Create palable nurturing. Or even, just go out and have compassion and love. I just want to love. Myself and others. That's not marketable, isn't it? Especially when I'm still a student of loving. My roadblock is still fear. If I can inspire myself out of fear, I can inspire others out of theirs, maybe. Oh God, the anxiety, the fear. This sucks.
Update, later: Faced some fears. It doesn't quite suck as much as I thought. I'm still living and breathing, fuck yeah Baby.

Ego message (continued): I want to talk about what my body is saying. Most of the time, I'm not listening. But it's been taking over, trying to get heard, causing me, in my estimation, to lose control. The chi nei tsang practioner heals by putting her hands on my belly. Last Tuesday, she touched my pelvic bone, and I felt pain all along my hips, my spine, shooting down to my ankles and up to my head. There were no words, but later I asked if my childhood molestation and abuse might have been relevant. Of course!, she cried. I told her that I didn't know if it was connected; after all, I have no emotional or mental triggers around thinking or addressing my abuse. Just the byproduct of my constant need and withdrawal in relationship and hatred of self. Then she told me to be with what comes up and to be gentle with myself. That my body kept all of that memory and its feeling (rather than the emotion or the naming of it). So I went home, and I sat with it. I sat with how I'm feeling. And you know what my body wanted to say (wow, there's so much resistance - this parenthesis represents my going to the toilet, making tea, getting the cat to purr for ten minutes, and playing around my phone for another 10; THEN putting my hands on the keyboard, realizing what time it is, getting up, washing my face, changing my clothes and now back again - RESISTANCE! My mind goes to familiar anxiety, goals, what am I doing - I would love to shut my masculinity right now, thanks.)? To be continued. Confronted.

Ego message (9/16/11): I think I'm going nuts. He's distant again. I hate it when he won't look at me in the eyes, won't talk to me, won't let me touch him. It hurts, it hurts like hell. Yesterday I asked him if I can just borrow his canteen. It was sitting in the third room, empty. I would fill it, drink from it, and give it back, full, I said. He replied, I'd rather if you use something else. My protest got caught in my mouth. I can't argue with him if he doesn't want to let me borrow his stuff. I don't like it when he's in this place. He's stinging and cold, and I feel so separated from him, like he's a whole 'nother person, someone who doesn't care about anyone else other than himself. It's so painful. I thought I've been doing well, really well. I've been going to yoga, feeling my body, noticing my anxiety around money and craziness around not doing anything that is "productive." Yesterday I was at InGroup (One Taste's Games Night), and it was so good. I shared several things about my sexuality. Most of it was around contraction, a lot of it was around what I desire. I shared for the first time in my life that I think I "check out" during intercourse. That I just melt into the sensation, but I'm not fully there with my body, I'm not there with my partner. "Even though she bled every month, she always had someone to blame; while he noted that each time he touched her, her body was there, which had not always been the case with her predecessors." (Harryette Mullen, A Gene for Music) I think I fantasize or dream that I'm elsewhere. That's so nuts. I've always thought that I love having sex, can't wait to get into bed. But during the actual act, I disappear. There's something too painful to feel. I also shared that I wanted someone who can be with me and touch me as slow and as subtle as I want. Lots of things to think about.

Arjang messaged me, like he has been doing for everyday for the past year. Today, I didn't ignore him. I responded. And immediately this well of sadness arose in me, and I messaged Loomis and told her that I was sorry and that I missed her. Oh God, I miss her. I feel so terrible to have pushed away everyone that have cared about me so far away. Now I understand Schober, and I feel so much empathy, and yet he has to choose to not be alone, he has to hurt as much as I am now hurting.

Ego message 09/19/11: Currently uninspired to be. The nagging Doing keeps coming up. Unwilling to do, too scared to be.

sharp
bold
courageous
loving

Ego message 09/22/11: Women. Women are the teachers of my self-nourishment. Today, Briana looked at me in the eyes and said, you want more women in your life? - you got it. You have the gift of feeling the way that you do, Girl, you don't have to ask or do anything. They'll come to you. I'VE come to you. Just be you, and you're done. Feel you, and you're Nurture itself. Briana fucking opened my heart with blasting energy and held me in a way that I've always imagined a powerful sister can do. I'm blessed. We OM'd in the morning. She was gentle with me, checked for what level of intensity that I wanted. Afterwards, she worshipped me; she was turned on, and so was I. She told me that my pussy was like a blossoming flower, that there were four petals surrounding vagina. There were two beautiful pink inner labias bordering your clit, she said, and the outer is the color of malt chocolate. She was in awe, and wondered aloud why I wasn't proudly being in the world, proud of my beauty. I almost wanted to cry. This woman is celebrating the most painful body part for me to love! In that moment, my shame began to fade, and love took its place.

On Sunday, I went to Pescadero with Becca and Carrie to meet up with some of the Train the Trainer family. After a few minutes of the beach, the attention quickly turned towards me. I expressed my desire to be nurtured, and I wanted that to come from women. Suddenly the circle became a mediation between me and Becca, and for the first time, I learned that my resentment and jealousy and fear of women showed up in relationship, and other women felt it. She cried in front of me, telling me that my unconscious repelling has been so painful, and as much as she wanted to love me and support me the best way she knew how, she hurt too much to come close. It's knowing that you love me, she sobbed, that prevented me from not staying away from you totally at all. It was then that I knew that I really want to love myself in order to be okay with women growing close to me, because I want to heal, goddammit. I want women to hold space for me, and I want healing and self-love and to feel the universe and to hold and reach out to others - I want to be everything, man!

The Unemployed Entries

to be present to what is possible

in my work - I want to encapsulate several world-views in order to create the perspective of multi-faceted humanistic goals to progress society on a global scale. (research more integral - on writing, art)

writing/artistic/traveling grants - endeavors of the passions (follow it!!)

09/02/11: On Monday, I got laid off. That's not the story I told everyone. To those who are my closest friends, I said that I quit. I don't know why. I think they are important to me, and I don't want them to judge me or think less of me.
Revision 09/08/11: I'm starting to tell everyone that I got laid off. Surprisingly enough, I'm not annihilated. (I knew better.)

Ego message 09/03/11: I feel like I've been giving for so long. I'm finally reaching a place where I feel given back - but it's not what I want. If I don't put myself out there in giving and receiving and loving myself, I will never be seen, and I will never be loved.

___

daily nurturing practices:
yoga/stretching (15-90 minutes)
meditate (15 minutes)
journaling (one hour)
baths (15 minutes)
masturbating (ridiculous to set a time limit - enjoy!)

___

collapse
pain body
breaching
of young girl
I breathe deep into this place
and my body knows before I know
that there is a panic
the kind that rivets me to thrust my hips
and thrash wildly about
or else
I would be touched gently
in a way
that would have me
feel taken care of
nourished, nurtured
and that scares me obscenely

what is this fear of being loved?
of subtle touch, gentle being?
why must I be fierce in all of my emotions,
as if without the roar of my cries,
the flood of my tears,
the rage of my laughs,
and the severity of my silences,
I will not be seen

what will happen
if I am simply myself
a feeling
simple
creature
playing from her body
and crying and laughing and being
from a place that is subtle

can I be gentle with myself?
can I nourish myself,
learn to want, to desire,
in such a way that
it will look like
I can finally love myself?

what do you want? he asked.

:to achieve impact
building stories and characters
and lighting and staging
and cameras and bodies in space
so that they all come together
to create awareness, hope, change
for this world

and what will that get you? he asked.

:success, acknowledgment, money, change

and what will that get you? he asked.
what do you really want?

:to travel
to paint, to write, to read
to fall in love
to have children

do you really want that? he asked.

:I guess
maybe I just want to be with people who love me

why? he asked.

:because I want to be loved

she asked to go deeper.

:I don't know

she asked,
will that make you feel whole,
and have choice,
and feel loved,
and safe

:yes!,
I cried

go deeper, she told me.

I will not be afraid to be with what is,
and the work for me is to go deeper.

___

A man and a woman walk out onto their back porch after a film. Silently, she sits on the handrail as he pulls out a cigarette, lights it, hands it to her, and lights another for himself. They smoke, otherwise still. After a moment of studying her face, he says, are your parents split up? She nods and allows herself to swallow a sob; her tears flow freely down her face. She wants to speak, but there are no words. A second woman walks out onto the porch. She asks the man for a cigarette, and he silently pulls it out for her. The first woman begins to speak; the second halts her. Still processing, she murmured, and sat down on a step. The three continue to smoke in silence out in the late night, thinking about the nature of relationships and the proceeding of being that they face in this contained universe.

___

Ego message 09/08/11: My body is still, but my inner self writhes in turmoil. What is this dullness? What is the pain that I cannot feel? Today I felt rejection, disconnection, fear of incompetence, fear of lacking worth, attention, desire. I think I wanted to be seen and heard, to be held. I want a nurturing hand, and I was relying on Andrew or Decker or SOMEONE to give it to me. I wanted to plead, please help me feel this, I don't know how to feel this. But maybe it's not a feeling. I couldn't ground my body, move my body, it is dead to me. In choosing, I can be liberated. But I'm not choosing - I can't even feel myself wanting enough to choose. That's a lie. I want to be held, I want to feel nurtured. Did I need someone to touch me for me to know that I am here? I am here. The only part of me that I am conscious of are my thoughts. My thoughts trying to feel. Without my body, I cannot feel accurately. I am only fearing feeling. I understand now. I am in freeze. The freeze has caused me to be immobile for five hours. I laid. And thought. The beauty of the day was wasted on the destructive gunpowder of my mind trapping me from this feeling that I am afraid to feel. There is a charge in my belly. It cries, let me out! My belly holds the fear. I don't know why yet. At 4:30 this morning it woke me up. It told me that I want to feel something deep, deep inside me. So I entered myself, past my pelvic bone, feeling my wetness, my wanting, my sex, my girl, my woman. I laid exhausted and fell into a deeper, restful sleep. The howling of my body cries louder. No one, no one can save me.

Ego message 09/10/11 (continued): I understand these dynamics in my relationships now. I have romantic relationships in which the interested party reaffirms my self-worth. I want to be witnessed, but I don't want him to be too close, not unless I'm in need. So I laugh, I enjoy myself, using him for my playing, and when I'm sad and feeling separated - alone, I pull him in into the orbit of my self-pity universe. He'll notice the vastness of the pull and the severe void of my attention on him. He begins to doubt his self-worth. I say one thing, but he feels entirely used. Either way, I'm not present to the relationship as a whole. That is painful. I am either not caring for him as much as I would like to make the relationship more reciprocal, or I love him so much that I fear making my feelings be known. I either face guilt or I limit my expression. My relationships begin to creak onto a self-destructive path. When I notice a withdrawal, may it be mine or his, I can't deal with the feeling of aloneness. I sleep with others, continue to reaffirm my existence of being loved. The guilt builds, and eventually, the relationship drives off the road. There are few moments in my life that I had felt the free flow of expression between myself and a lover, a love and want so pure that it was reciprocated in astoninshing beauty. The romantic in me smiles. They were purely fantastical; we would write and charm each other's tears out in chest-explosive symphonies. He would exalt, and I would fawn. This usually happens about 95% of the my relationships, but only in the very beginning. Then lack of presence or lack of expression and communicating leads to the withering of the relationship dynamic. I was listening to Aurash talk about the ever-changing dynamics of his relationship with Marcia as they near their two year anniversary. They had been polyamorous, monogamous, in threesomes, he had been celibate; despite it all, they had been present and in communication as to what they need, staying in connection - AND in relationship. Andrew and I had skipped the romanticism that I experience in my relationships. We started with sexual desire, and when I pushed for relationship, he withdrew. And as he withdrew, he sucked my energy right into him, and I haven't left. As I eyeball the unlabeled relationship I have with Andrew, and notice all the desire that I have for him to want me and be mine, what is the nature of his wanting and what does "be mine" mean? I want him to want me - to choose me. I want him to desire me, to want my body, to be mesmerized by my bright mind, and my romantic devastations, my sore, broken soul. The grounded me wants him to choose me no matter where I am, so I can have him witness me grow, and grow with me. I don't want someone to pity me or have to help me grow. I just want someone to hold my hand and watch me. Having someone by my side loving me feels true. I am ready for that. As for "be mine," I think there is a possessive quality in me that I don't fully wish upon myself if it was reciprocated. I enjoy a freedom of expressing my sensuality, and boyfriends had always stifled that, caused me guilt. There is a healthy medium in this, and I don't know what. I think that if I were to really get into a relationship, especially with Andrew, whose heart is so young and naive and unspokenly broken and pure, I would want there to be a solid boundary and agreement that we are each other's primaries and that we would speak to each other in agreement to see others. I think having him as my primary will build the foundation that I am safe and that he will not abandon me, and the agreement will give me the free range to open myself to others without guilt. Now, on the flipside of this, I know that I will face terrible jealousy. I know this young voice in me that continuously wants to be held, to hold me in regard as special, the only one, the light of his world. My judgement of this is that I am so selfish. That I want an exclusive relationship purely so that my heart can be held. I think I can be held as a primary, however, and I want someone strong enough to process with me when he chooses to be with another. I feel grounded as I write this. I can see myself carrying that over maybe in marriage. To have lifelong relationships that may involve other people, to have breathing room, to be fully expressed, to be loved. This dissertation on my approach to relationships is coming from a place of wanting, I am finally truly wanting. And now, I just want someone to want with me. Truly, I want to access to feeling more whole.

Ego message 09/12/11: It has been two weeks since I got laid off. This morning, Andrew and I left my apartment at 5:30 am to take our Danish friends to the airport. After dropping them off with some fond farewells, we turned back to the Annex to pick up Tate and drop him off at Zynga's Rhode Island location. It's almost as if he's picking up where I left off. I felt a prickle of envy for his security: food when he wants it, structured time via work, financials in order. I look back fondly to the time that I had a surplus of money, working full-time at Zynga, and living almost for free at the Annex. Now I'm unemployed with a year-long lease. I'm terrified. If it were not for the money, I wouldn't have so many negative feelings around my situation. I have been noticing myself much more, aware of my life, my surroundings, developing a cleaner relationship with Andrew, and I feel more awake for some reason! I imagine this has to be because I'm living closer to my edge. I think having an easy job (that I don't care much for) is another method of sleepwalking. This makes sense to me that my workaholism is a check-out from what is present internally. I notice that I can hardly sit still during these last two weeks of unemployment. A desire to work on my photos, look for work, grasp onto structured time. I think what might be more useful for me is self-rituals that can be healing and more clearing for the day. For instance, journaling. I think if I can get up early enough in the morning, I'd have a light breakfast with some protein, keep hydrated, journal, go to yoga class at 9 am, come back, shower, journal, read for an hour or so, and then have a little bit of structured time alternating around doing photo work and looking for work, leaving room for me to play and socialize and eat little snacks and stay active, healthy, noticing, and nurturing myself (so important!). Right now, all I want to do is to get back into bed with Andrew and take a short nap. That might rejuvenate me (or not), but I have some time before yoga since we woke up so early! Loving my universe whenever I think of Andrew. I feel like he's such a blessing, and his company and presence keep me grounded and held in ways that I don't think he realizes. I'm in danger of simply adoring him, but I'm much too in defense of my self-worth for me to let myself adore him. He'd lash out from so much intimacy, I imagine. Must stay grounded in my love.

Ego message (continued): I'm really anxious right now. I don't have a job, I don't know if I'm marketable, and I don't know if I'll have enough money to pay rent and feed myself! I'm so SO scared.

Ego message 09/13/10: Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid to call Joe. Don't be afraid to turn down the job. He will not hurt you. He will just be upset. Cross him and you will not be annihilated. The strain is getting to me. My chest feels tight, even when I try to breathe into my lower belly. My entire body aches, and I can't sleep at night, I think I'm not getting rejuvenated. I'm scared, I feel frozen, I can't seem to get out. I want support, someone gentle, I want someone to have compassion for me, I want compassion for myself. D.K. loved me the other day, and oh God, my heart opened and I felt like I could soar and grieve and be without judgment. If only I can access that for myself. I want to love myself in no matter what place I'm in. When did I learn conditional love for myself? Is it because I took in my parents' conditional love? Do they not have unconditional love for themselves? No, they do not. It is painful. That if I am in a certain mood, displaying a certain behavior, incapable of looking or doing certain things - that I could be unloved. I don't want to pass this down to my children. I want to love myself unconditionally so that I can love them no matter what. I want this for myself and for everyone around me.