bag lady chat

hot tears burst from my soul,
leak from my face,
without warning

been crying for days,
over nothing, or something,
feeling
out of control

anger
emotional outrage
flares hot
over nothing
or
something
that it should not

i am so very,
very
tired
of the fight to remain solid

my skin barely contains
the liquid fire
that runs through me,
burning,
electric fire hell
in my neck and shoulders

sparkling bone pain,
broken glass,
in my spine

can’t seem to get out of my own skin
or
my own mind.

missing the little one
who never had a chance,
and
My Sweet Lou
who seemed to know my soul with eyes alone
and walked on four legs
(in this life, anyway).

Now that I am old enough to enjoy thoughts of what I want to do when I grow up – and to effect decisions about how i will live my life as it is now – i can finally feel victorious over those painful memories of the impossibility of living the life i was in at the time . . .

Back then, i was unable to create any life at all, for myself and my daughters. I couldn’t make the break with the past and go forward. I couldn’t find the answer – my life was at checkmate.

The grim Reaper waited, hands reaching toward me, willing me to quit. My daughters needed me to be strong, to take care of them, to make a home for them.

Go forward or die.

If not for my girls, i would have made the other choice. I was lost in the very personal hell of spousal abuse. Self-recriminations were my constant companions. It must be my fault. I must be the problem.

If only I could only be perfect. If only I could change what was happening . . . in the end, we learn that this is the sickness of abuse. The victim is trapped in the sticky web of his lies. She is bad. She is at fault. She is the problem. That is why he hurts her.

Wrong. He hurts her because he is very sick in his soul. She is just the convenient outlet for his sickness.

My relationship with myself was always sacrificed to some “other” who was more important, more valuable. Don’t believe the lies of your church. Don’t believe that you deserve to live your mother’s life. Don’t believe anything it if it makes you feel wrong, or less than, or stupid. Don’t believe the lies of the abuser. And, don’t ever let the Reaper into your bedroom!

Move heaven and Earth to create your own future. You will not regret being alive when the sun rises tomorrow. Your family, and your children, will surely regret your passing if you let him take you into the darkness.

Someone I know had this experience today.

She was in a parking lot. The wind grabbed her car door and popped it open very close a car next to her. She got out and inspected the car. No dents. No damage. No marks. The driver was returning to the car and saw it happen. She explained that the wind had grabbed the door and apologized sincerely and profusely.

He got into his car, started to drive away, rolled down the window and yelled “and that’s why you’re a Fat Pig!”

She said to me that if he had called her a B-word or even that ugly C-word, or a bunch of ugly words together, it would have bounced off of her. But assaulting her body type was just too personal.

He is a Verbal Rapist.

This woman is an intelligent, educated, young, smart and witty person. She was completely without a come-back. She had no response. It hurt her to the core.

There isn’t a woman alive who doesn’t look in the mirror and wish away some pounds or inches somewhere. Or some re-distribution of the wealth. . . Some of us are only mildly neurotic about our bodies, and some of us are severely neurotic.

This fawker figured out one comeback for every woman alive. I suspect he practices in front of his mirror; as he expects some kind of wrong to happen to him daily. He says: You are a Fat Pig, and now he feels superior. Certainly his command of the English language is to be applauded.

Yes, I am trying to be objective, but I want to scream. What are people doing out there? What does he say to his wife? Or his partner? Of course, this is how he deals with every problem. Verbal assault. It is so terribly sad that human beings can’t find a way to speak kindly to one another.

Beam me up Scotty.

There are moments that, rather magically, leave a forever impression in our minds. I remember one such moment that returned to me years later, full force.

As a very young pre-teen, some crazy-man Sunday school teacher told our little group that we should “love our neighbors, as ourselves.” Never the shy one, I spoke up and said something like: What are you talking about? How do you love yourself? That doesn’t make any sense. It didn’t make sense to me, not at all.

I was not unfamiliar with the heavy black book, the pictures with Angels and men with sticks. Our dad had been a Protestant minister for a while when we were very young, and never really stopped preaching to his personal choir. We had been taught that we should love other people, help strangers, and turn the other cheek (whatever that meant). I do remember the teacher stopping the class to answer my question. Unfortunately, the answer did not stick in my head as solidly as the question. I wish it had. It might have saved me years of abuse.

If you are being abused, you have either forgotten to love yourself, or never knew how.

Deep down, do you honestly think that you deserve the beatings, the humiliation, or the ever-increasing emotional turmoil that steals your self-worth and your hope for the future? Think about it. Is this the life you wanted? Does it bear any resemblance to the dreams that you had, when you were dating this charming man? (Yes, they are all charming. Don’t even bother to disagree.)

If you think, even for a moment, that this isn’t what you had in mind, then perhaps you need to get away while you still have a shred of self-confidence. If you are convinced that you deserve this treatment, or, that God is punishing you for whatever reasons, you are already deep into the black hole of helplessness.

How will you ever dig yourself out of this hole if you do not love yourself, and your own life, enough to push the emotional rubbish off of your face and climb out? Self-love, amazingly enough, is simply having a basic sense of self-preservation that is intact and functioning.

Deciding that you are worth something to the universe, to yourself, to your family, is empowering. Realizing, if even for a moment, that you are not the repulsive, useless, sub-human that your abuser makes you out to be, will give you that one, precious ethereal scrap of strength, to pull yourself up and get out of the hellhole you are living in before it kills you. Please use it.

My body is not who I am.

I am not this ugly, fuzzy worm,

I am a beautiful creature,
 with wings, wait, you will see.
I am a soul,
confined within a body. Or, perhaps, a body surrounded by a soul. . .
I am a soul,
 struggling to be free of this captivity.
I am a chrysalis, a worm, hiding in a small curled up space

I am ready
to return to life, with beautiful wings,
to wink at you, and fly away.

Waking up in a wild panic, heart pounding, covered in sweat, that’s a Nightmare. Do you remember it? If you can remember, turn on a light and write it down immediately. Understanding nightmares could help you to get rid of them.

If you are having nightmares on a regular basis, change something! Try filling your brain with beautiful thoughts. Read something inspiring before you go to bed. Listen to soft music. Light some candles if you have them. Dim the lamps. Take a bubble bath. Anything that settles your mind and body before going to bed is helpful.

Set the mood in your home, your living space, your bedroom: make it peaceful and calm. It doesn’t cost money to change the mood. Get anything that is distracting or upsetting out of your living area. Really look around and see into what you are surrounding yourself with. What is the significance of that thing? Why is it in your home, in your private space? Is it something that makes you feel calm, or does it cause some emotional discomfort?

Do not read the newspaper or listen to the t.v. news for a while, I mean weeks, or months, see if it makes a difference. If you must have t.v. turn on the weather channel or watch old b/w movies. Don’t forget . . . garbage in = garbage out.

Some Nightmares are simply about how you ate too much for dinner. However, some can be warnings. Your mind may be trying to protect you from yourself. Think about what you are thinking about… if you are obsessing over what should have been, or what you could have done, get over it, now. Let it go. What is, is. You are here, in your own bed. You are safe. Try not to live in the past. Today is really important too!

I always recommend Women Who Run With the Wolves, by Clarissa Pincola Estes, Ph.D. (the book is available at Amazon). She really digs into those Dark Man dreams and how paying attention to them can help you with important decisions in your life. This book saved my life. Every woman should read it!

Don’t forget the importance of Hydration. If you are dehydrated you are handicapping yourself. Your body and your brain need hydration to function properly. Learning to love yourself starts with taking care of your mind and body. Loving yourself is so important. It changes everything about who you believe you are, and what you attract in your life.

I never wanted to bring children into a world where an idiot with a red button could end every living thing in moments, or, where nuclear fallout could make survival worse than death. What a fool I was. I thought the world was too dangerous for children, but my relationship with their father was the real poison in our lives.

I was not his victim. I realize that now. I could have walked away a thousand times before I became so stuck in my own mind that escape seemed impossible. In the end, I became my own victim. I decided to believe that the things he said about me were true, his estimation of my worth as a human being, and my abilities as a parent.

He said that I would never leave him because I could never make it on my own, that I would never be able to support our children. And I decided to believe that I needed him. I decided to believe that I was helpless without him. I decided that it was my destiny to have that life, and that I deserved my fate.

Today, I am surprised that my children have survived their mother. I am happy that they both decided that they wanted good lives and that they wanted to have children. If they had stayed in the hole I dug for us, it would have been a much different picture. We all had to learn to love ourselves. I had to realize that it wasn’t just me who had a rotten life. I was giving my kids a worse life than I had. They didn’t get to decide. I had to decide to do something to change it, instead of wishing that something would happen to save us.

I am grateful today. I have learned to have faith in myself and to take action when it is necessary. To take control of whatever I am able to control, and to always try, even if it looks hopeless.

As a grandmother, I am now free to love without expectations. I love every moment that I get to spend with my grandchildren. Each child is different, special, and surprising to me. I love every amazed smile, every joyous laugh, every touch, every song, every hug. Nothing can ever match the joy of loving the children of your children.

If you think it is your destiny to be battered, that you deserve the pain you are living with, please, think again. Life can be good. It can be beautiful, if you decide to take control of your own destiny.

I hope that you are well and at peace tonight. I walked outside and breathed in the Universe for a few minutes earlier. Loving the trees, touching leaves with my fingertips. Barefooted, feeling the earth beneath me.

We have a storm coming, and the sky is a misty, leaded grey. Highlighted against the night sky are tall trees, some with bare branches, some still teeming with leaves and noisy critters. The palms tower over the others.

night pulse continued »

Two years ago, I went back to school to learn to be a Hypnotist. This is L.A. after all. We do stuff like that here. 
Fifty-two weeks. Private college tuition. Sixty-one years old.

My brain was yelling at me . . . this does not compute! But the idea was impossible to dismiss from my mind once the seed was planted. I was hooked!

So, along the way I heard about NLP (magical, mystical, secretive….) What is NLP? I wanted to know. Needed to know. So, I bought some books, read some about about frogs and princes, and signed up for the class. Excited!

What is this amazing thing you can do with your mind?
 Here is the bottom line. If you want it, you can have it. If you do not want it, you can make it go away!

True story:
I quit smoking (arrrrrrgh!) because my darling husband woke up one morning and decided he should quit. I wanted to kill him. (no secret) (he knows) (I have never been so angry in my life!)… being a good wife, I KNEW that I would end up smoking in the garage (blech!) or outside, in the rain, or snow, or whatever (aw c’mon, really . . . this is L.A.) in order to be supportive. I know how difficult this decision is! I was mad! Really mad! Really Really mad! 
About three days later I bought a box of nicotine gum…. I chewed the gum. I pasted the gum to my gums. I slept with the gum. I drank coffee with the gum. I begged the gum to get me through the next craving. Finally,
I was free of Cigarettes.
Oops.. Now I was addicted to Nicotine gum… (for the next eight… or was it ten years?) Yeah, nothing like switching one addiction for another.

So, here is where NLP comes in: I took the eighty hour Practitioner class. It was great. I was hooked, but good. I wanted to take the Master Practitioner class. Another eighty hours. (Weekends, of course, since Hypnosis College was still ongoing on weeknights.) The cost… oh, just a few shekels short of a bushel. Here was my reality: Get rid of the nicotine gum and you will have the money for the class… If you can’t get rid of the nicotine gum, then who are you kidding anyway???

I went to the Professor. Will you help me get rid of the gum? Even though I don’t want to? Even though it really makes me angry to have to give it up to take your class? Even though your class means so much to me that I WILL give it up, if you help me. . . because I don’t know how I can do it otherwise…. (sigh) (arrgh!) One hour and fifty minutes later, I dumped about fifty bucks worth of nicotine gum into the trash can in his office, shook his hand, said about a thousand thanks, and never wanted it again. Powerful? It was for me! I took the class, got my Master Certification and nothing has ever been the same for me!

Want NLP? I can hook you up! (No, I do not teach NLP – I just think it is the best thing in the whole world to help you get out of your present garbage and into reality.) If you really want help – I know someone… (no strings attached. No referral fees… no nothing. Just love.) I want you to succeed. I want you to feel the freedom that I feel. The freedom from that drug/thing/whatever that that ruled my/your life for (fill in the blank) number of years. I am lucky to be alive. And even more lucky to be free! I wish the same for you.

p.s. Enjoy some self-love. This is amazing stuff.

old women can be dangerous

we say what we think.
and we often speak
without
even
being spoken to.

fevers,
darkness,
and broken hearts
no longer frighten us.

people are more frightening
than life’s random pains.
those who live in judgment
and
speak sly criticisms.
they make life harder than it has to be.

I remember being young.
what a lot of trouble that was.
dangerous continued »