Graduation Day

I totally forgot that today, August 12, 2014,  I graduate from group/ my skills class / the torture chamber.  WoW! have I changed through this year.
                                     
Here are some Random Thoughts

1. I didn't get kicked out of group, and with my health and traveling was amazing, they kick you out        after you miss 4 classes.

2. I avoided ramming my head through the wall despite all the urges to escape by any means possible.

3.  as more time passed I became more calm, less anxious, and really began to see how the work I was doing was affecting my life.

4.  I began thinking, "I should write a blog or something to share with others these amazing skills I've learned.  Which I soon after remembered that I pretty much hated group for the first 8-9 months and don't know if I could've been very inspiring then.

5.  I can't wait to wear my fancy Mexican dress that I wore to my cousins ordination.  I will also have fancy hair and fancy jewelry.  I am definitely going to overdo it considering that I've also been contemplating the tiara.

6.  I need to buy some cool stickers.  We get stickers after completing our homework and I find them to be rather dull.  So I thought buying cool stickers would be a nice parting gift.

7.  I enjoyed being a leader.  Once I realized that I was the person that had been there the longest, I reflected on the people that I viewed that way when I was just starting out.  I tried to pull together a thing of lists that they did and emulate the greater good in them along with the greater good in me.
So what I did was

a.  Always show up no matter what

b. Always do your homework no matter what

c.  Show others the parts of you that scare yourself so that they know that they're not alone and they can experience less fear from those similar parts in themselves.

d.  Give advice, but not all the time, only when the person is really struggling and you can phrase it in a positive way.

e. lead by example

f. show others how I cope by specifically wording how I explain my homework so that others can make it more imaginable to pertain to themselves.

g. Validate.  One day in group we were to validate the other person sitting next to us.  She was really struggling with asking for what she wants in life, and it is something that I really struggle with as well. " _____, I know this is really hard right now and I know that asking for what you want when your used to negative things happening afterwards makes it scary.  And it's not as scary. I want you to know that I believe in you, I believe that you will be able to ask for the things that you want, the things that you need, and you will lead a much more happier and fulfilled life as a result.  You will have the things that you desire. Keep plugging away." It was nice to see here body relax, to get a smile, I knew in that moment that she was believing in herself when before she was really scared.

8. I learned to embrace that I am a cryer.  Seriously I cry a lot.  I cry when I am happy, when I am sad, when something is beautiful, I've cried looking at paintings before.  It's been a struggle for me to articulate things that are important to me and be taken seriously all the while I am crying.  I would get really dis-regulated in group when I was trying to describe my homework  and was crying again.  My teachers told me that I need to own that I am a cryer, that I need to embrace that part of myself and love it because it is very special. I remember the next group I began crying and I said "i know that I am crying again but I don't give a damn because it just shows that I care, that I am said, and despite all the bullshit that's been going on, I am a good person and deserve better."  So now, I embrace that I am a crier and the majority of the time.  I don't get embarrassed.

9.  I learned, put me in a small room with no window, no ventilation, and a bunch of individuals who despite the fact that they are really struggling right now, also really want to change even though some of them believe that it's not possible, was really uncomfortable for me.  I expressed my discomfort by becoming really tight in my body language.  I would get anxiety as well, and there was no place for me to go.  This was really hard and it wasn't towards the end that I learned how to acknowledge that emotion and not let it overpower my body.  Crocheting, putting on lotion, putting on a special essential oil, and filing my nails really helps.

10.  I learned that I am going to miss the very thing that I've been trying to get away from this whole year.  In a way we are a small family, everyone is there for different reasons, we all have good days and bad days and we are all there because we want to get better so that we can become better people in our lives.  I will miss knowing that I am surrounded by a group of people that are scared shitless but our doing it anyways.  I now realize though, that there are probably plenty more people like this in my day to day life, there isn't a forum though to put it on display.

11. Being in group for a year, I saw ALOT of people come and go.  I don't know what their story is.  I don't know if they quit, got kicked out, I am sure a lot of people quit, i't was not an easy thing to do.  For the people that compromise my classmates right now.  I hope they stick around through all the hard parts.  I hope the notice the times when they are changing and become excited about the people they are becoming.  I hope they soon learn that their "demons" are not stronger than them.

My Favorite Shinning Star

   I moved a lot this spring (for two months straight as a matter of fact)  and as a result I had a legal box and more full of unattended mail and receipts and anything that was near the desk.  I've been pecking at the pile every now and then.  It's strange to come across receipts from dinner and excursions with the man that is no longer apart of my life any more.  I've made a conscious choice to think about the present and not the past, so to have all these receipts coming up was interesting.  I wasn't sad, maybe a tad, instead they were like flashbacks into a life that no longer is mine.  I'm fine with that, even though it makes me a tad sad, a tad mind you!

     Amongst the to do's, receipts, unopened mail, business cards, unsent holiday cards, unset postcards,  boarding passes, and what not I found,this gem.  I don't remember ever writing it.  It could've been 5 years ago.  The stationary it's written on is quite old.  I wonder who the girl is that wrote this, besides of course me.

     After day dreaming while it took forever to process photos, I remembered! Victory is mine! It was a note that I wrote to myself when I was participating in National Novel Writing Month.  I thought that these actions would help my protagonist grow and would make for interesting writing.  I like how it can apply to real life now. If your holding onto something, what would it look like if you let go? How would your life be different if you just kept going.

Shades of Pacific Sunrise

     Happy Aloha Friday Everyone! Time to chill out a bit :) Not really if your in Hawi'i right now.  I know though that some people are keeping it pretty chill.  Sending everyone there lots of Love, Aloha, and warm wishes for a safe storm passing.

     One of my favorite things to do is to watch the sunrise.  Sometimes I go outside with a cup of tea and bear witness to its full evolution.  Other times, I open one eye, look out my window at a giant pink cloud, or orange sky, or whatever magic is happening, think to myself "Wow! thats beautiful" and then promptly return to slumber land.

     My lovely cousin and I once had the pleasure of watching every sunrise together on kauai for about 2 weeks? one winter.  We were devoted.  My sleepy groggy self cherishes those.

    Its Aloha Friday so here are some sunrise photos over the pacific ocean after a transformation trip to the islands.  Orange is a very special color amongst some of my family members. So here are some transformations of the sky as the morning sun declares its arrival.   I like to thing of them as paintings.

Up on the Roof

eight thirty today

sunset stripes, blue and yellow

stranger slurping soup

Some Subtleties of the Salish Sea

Happy Aloha Friday! I wanted to do an entry to celebrate this, when I do this again, I think I will write the entry either on Thursday or early Friday morning.  I may keep it short and sweet.  I had so many photos on todays muse, photos of water from above, that it was so hard to select.  To my right was dinner and on the screen was 98 photos.  So I just decided to go with a theme, soft tonality shifts, and put up all the photos that go with that.  Water is one of my favorite things to photograph.  I cope with my fear of flying by taking lots of pictures.  I hope these photos add a little bit of soft comfort after a long week.  The Sea loves you and so do I. 

I Arise Today

     When I went to Burning Man for the first time in 2012, my pappi told me to bring something of my mother's to burn at the temple.  I didn't really know what the temple was or it's significance to Burning Man the only thing I knew about it really was that two of my friends had worked on it the year before.  I decided to go to Burning Man about one and a half hours before my ride came to pick me up.  So as hastily as I packed everything, I also hastily grabbed a couple things that I inherited from my mother.  One of which was a blue glass heart in a heart shaped box and a tiny book (my mom had a tiny book collection) of poetry on nature.  My mother and I got along best when we were in nature whether it be hiking, swimming or beach combing.  It was when in fact we didn't argue and we argued a lot.

     I ended up going to the temple every chance I could get.  It was religious.  If you stand facing the entrance I spent all my time laying on a bench in the far front left corner.  I would take the blue glass heart out and place it in-between my breasts and lay there and meditate.  I thought about a recent art collaborator who had passed away that year, I worked on releasing all the pain I had built up surrounding my mothers death, I wrote a letter to my mother, which I then tucked away in-between the temples wall and the bench before it burned and I read form the tiny book of poetry.  I forgot that I left the book there to burn as well.  Before leaving it behind I ripped out one page.  This one page sits, when facing buddha and myself, in the far left corner of one of my altars.  I thought it would be a nice thing to share today.

I arise today
Through the strength of heaven:
Light of sun,
Radiance of moon,
Splendour of fire.
Speed of Lightning,
Switness of wind,
Depth of sea,
Stability of earth,
Firmness of Rock.

-Saint Patrick.

As I embark on a special journey healing a part of my past, I can not help but think of the phoenix that my lovely cousin gave me in one of here recent little mailed gifts to me.  She stuck a pink post-it note on the phoenix "bookmark?" "A phoenix for you as you rise out of the ashes".  As I write this now I think of the synchronicity of my journey to Burning Man in 2012, the poem that I keep on one altar and the phoenix that I keep on the other altar.

Today! I rise Again!

The Year I Loved Myself More.

 
     Tomorrow, July 30 is the first day of my journey to figure out what life would be like sober.  When I stopped drinking I didn't know it would be a year long adventure, I just new that after the death of someone I loved that it may be smart to stay away from the booze for a bit, and my therapist told me to ( I pretty much do whatever my therapist tells me to do, I mean that's what I pay her for right? ) I agreed and figured that it was better this way.

      I wish there was a pretty package that I could write about all of this and wrap it in a bow of a perfect summary, and I don't know if I could do that right now.
What I do know is that I have learned productive and creative ways to deal with stress and anxiety.

  I am more honest with myself and tend to run from the truth less.

 I am facing my demons instead of suppressing them, ignoring them , trying to hide from them.

I love going to bed early and waking up early, especially to the sunrise, I leave my blinds open and my window faces east so it is the first thing that I see during the day.

 It is a lot more important for me to have friendships were we are honest and supportive.

 I like to meditate.

 I know that shame is only a judgement and something that I am not really interested in having in my life.

I know that it is ok that my heart hurts so much that I feel it tense up all the muscles in my back.  That my heart pain is love, sadness, maybe some fear, and all those emotions are totally ok.

I know that I can speak up for myself, ask for what I want and work on cultivating the type of relationships that are important to me.

 I know that there are people who love me exactly the way that I am and if they don't, I know that its fine if our relationship doesn't' continue.

 I know I am more than the sum of my mistakes.

I know that I can say no to countless drink offers when before I would automatically say yes.

 I know that the woman taking her anger out on me is hurt and that it's better that she isn't in my life anymore. Relief.

I learned that there are ALOT of stuff that I feel anxious about and I learned that I couldn't live a life where I tried to hide them from others.

 I learned how to love my body more.

I learned that I could have sex sober and that it was something that I could enjoy.

That sex was a positive thing in my life.

 I learned that making decisions based on my health was my #1 priority and if anybody didn't agree with that, fine, be on your merry way.

I know what my grandmother said was true, that using substances can decrease ones psychic ability.

I know that I am fine being on my own participating in the life that I create.

 I learned that I could have a photo of my mother up and not cry every time I walked by it.

Although I may be "alone" I am not lonely.

 I learned how to stand in front of everyone disrobe, voice my insecurities while standing naeked in front of a room of strangers.

I learned how to be more open more vulnerable.

I learned that there are several things that I could do sober that some (which is fine by me, I don't judge) would do not sober including me, which include and are not limited to: going to burning man, attending the memorial of someone very dear, going abroad with families into situations that reignited my ptsd, attending a wedding, going to family reunions and dealing with the anxieties of that, getting evicted from my art studio because the new owners of the building wanted to turn it into I don't know what, I don't care, that I could be kicked out of the home that I was trying to learn to love by the man that I loved, that I could go through a separation, that I could go through a breakup, that I could handle toxic people trying to load their feelings onto me as a scapegoat for their codependent issues, that I could make it through mothers day and fathers day without having a mother or a father in my life, wooh!

 I know that there are a few people, but they are the ones that really matter, that support me, love the person I am the person I was, view me as a supportive friend, a good listener, a compassionate soul.

I get positive feedback from people all the time that tell me how awesome I am doing and I love it.

 I learned that I play a very important role in the lives of people that I view important to me.

I learned that as time goes by, that list gets longer and longer.  I am sure there is more but that's a good start.
   
     A couple weeks ago while sitting and talking to my therapist I had mentioned that sometimes soon, I didn't know when, that it would mark 1 year of me being sober.  My therapist wanted to know if I could find out when that date was, I know that a dear friend of mine also got sober on the same day and that I could figure it out based on texts.  So I scoured through them and found that it was the 30th.  My therapist said "You should have a party, a celebration, a little get together."  I agreed.  Then my thoughts moved from the clouds into the ground and I remembered that it was sometime around this time that I lost my mother do to an accidental overdose.  I thought to myself "It better not be the day that I got sober." I began feeling nervous, anxious, uncomfortable.  I did what I needed to do and found the file that has the 10+ copies of my mother's death certificate (there was a time and still is where I needed a lot of copies) and found out that my hunches were right.  The very same day that marked the first year of my journey sober was the day that they believed she died.
 
      I began to feel a sort of doom gloom forming over me.  There was no more celebration.  Rather fear, doubt.  "How could I celebrate on the day that my mother died?" What if I decide that I do want to drink again? Will people be worried or concerned because I had a celebration? ( The celebration was really going to be much more than my year of not drinking, kind of also a celebration of wooh, I made it through all that crap and I am stronger, wiser and better.  Lets celebrate!)

     Anyways the party became a no.  Until today.  I am truly excited that tomorrow marks the end of the year where I loved myself more and the beginning of a new dawn.  Though the loss of my mother was tragic and still haunts me.  There isn't anything else that could make her more prouder of me.  That was one awesome thing about my mom, she was always saying how proud of me she was.  I miss having someone be that proud of me.  For the people that say stuff like that to me now, I treasure every word as it comes out of their mouth from their heart.
 
      I don't know how I am going to celebrate.  It's nice that a day that used to be so dreadful now has a new meaning to it.  A transformation.  Whatever I do, I will be bold, I will be brave, and I will continue to love more.