Addiction

“When you have a persistent sense of heartbreak and gutwrench, the physical sensations become intolerable and we will do anything to make those feelings disappear. And that is really the origin of what happens in human pathology. People take drugs to make it disappear, and they cut themselves to make it disappear, and they starve themselves to make it disappear, and they have sex with anyone who comes along to make it disappear and once you have these horrible sensations in your body, you’ll do anything to make it go away.” ~Bessel van der Kolk~

Self-Binding: Like Odysseus having his men bind him to the mast of the ship so he could hear the song of the Sirens without crashing the ship, self-binding allows your current self to “bind” your future self to the course you want, and prevents you from losing your way when your willpower wanes.

It's a Beautiful Morning

“In order to become whole we must try, in a long process, to discover our own personal truth, a truth that may cause pain before giving us a new sphere of freedom." ~Alice Miller~

“As long as you keep secrets and suppress information, you are fundamentally at war with yourself. The critical issue is allowing yourself to know what you know. That takes an enormous amount of courage.” ~Bessel van der Kolk~

Rational

 “You can not make irrational people act rationally." ~Joyce Harrintgon~

I Am Not Weird

"You are not broken and in need of fixing.

You are wounded and in need of healing."

~Danu Morgan~

If you only ask yourself the question, What is Wrong With Me? -- then you will only see the negative in your life.

We must instead ask ourselves, What is Right With Me? -- and put our focus and energy into cultivating those qualities...  Do we need therapy to "fix" and rehash the past or Do we need to reconnect with an activity that we love and put our time and thoughts and energy into learning more about that activity and doing that activity.

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 

Your thoughts become your words, 

Your words become your actions, 

Your actions become your habits, 

Your habits become your values, 

Your values become your destiny.”

~Gandhi~

Also, when we ask What is Wrong With Me we need to really look deeply at the answers. Because most of the things that we think are wrong with us Have Nothing To Do With Us. The answers that we are giving are actually The Things That Happened To US. Therefore the question truly is: 

What Is Wrong With The Person Who Did This To Me?

REMEMBER: You Do Not Have To Be Afraid Of The Things That Are Inside of You. Don't be afraid of yourself, Trust yourself. You can handle it. You are strong enough. Despite what you were told about yourself.

REMEMBER: When CHOOSING the people to have in your life and when CHOOSING to remove the toxic people from your life, ask yourself: Who are Generous Listeners that are worthy of my friendship? And then also remember that you must be a Generous Listener to become worthy of the friendship of others.

Praying Mantis

“You can love someone and still choose to say goodbye to them. You can miss a person every day, and still be glad that they are no longer in your life.”

 ~Tara Westover~

Sometimes I feel the Ache

Sometimes I hear the Booing

Sometimes I simply Wish

And, sometimes I wake up Happy.

Thistle

 

"According to tradition, the white dots on its leaves are due to the milk of the Virgin Mary that dripped while breastfeeding Christ."

The Milk and The Blood

of the host, of the mother.

Given and Withheld.

Condemned before Healed.

The basic nourishment.

ReParenting, ReFeeding.

Soothing the Anger, the bile

Held deep within the body, the liver, the soul.

Trauma Recovery Reading List

“Experience has taught us that we have only one enduring weapon in our struggle against mental illness: the emotional discovery and emotional acceptance of the truth in the individual and unique history of our childhood.” 

~Alice Miller~

The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

The Truth Will Set You Free: Overcoming Emotional Blindness and Finding Your True Adult Self by Alice Miller

Cured: Strengthen Your Immune System and Heal Your Life by Jeffrey Rediger

Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds by Kelly Turner

Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

Perfect Health: The Complete Mind/Body Guide by Deepak Chopra

You're Not Crazy - It's Your Mother: Understanding and Healing for Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers by Danu Morrigan

The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming The Body's Fear Response by Ellen Vora 

The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner

Women Who Run With Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Warrior Goddess Training by Heather Ash Amara

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Mate

In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction by Gabor Mate

What Happened To You: Conversations of Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey

The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You by Elaine Aron

Toxic Parents: Overcoming Their Hurtful Legacy and Reclaiming Your Life by Susan Forward

Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life With Self Help Techniques From EMDR by Francine Shapiro

The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz

Codependent No More by Melody Beattie

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

Let Them by Mel Brooks

More Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

Journey to Awakening: A Meditators Guidebook by Ram Dass

Who Dies? by Stephen and Andrea Levine

Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Wild by Cheryl Strayed

Education by Tara Westover

The Awakening by Kate Chopin

The Fools Progress by Ed Abbey

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

Sit Down and Shut Up by Brad Warner

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self by Alice Miller

Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem by Gloria Steinem

A Gentle Path Through The Twelve Steps by Patrick Carnes

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents by Lindsay C. Gibson

The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollen

How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollen

Chants of a Lifetime by Krishna Das

Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith

The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer

The Book of Boundaries by Melissa Urban

“The truth about our childhood is stored up in our body, and although we can repress it, we can never alter it. Our intellect can be deceived, our feelings manipulated, and conceptions confused, and our body tricked with medication. But someday our body will present its bill, for it is as incorruptible as a child, who, still whole in spirit, will accept no compromises or excuses, and it will not stop tormenting us until we stop evading the truth.”  

~Alice Miller~

Spiritual Abuse

When I was fifteen years old my mother told me that my brother was evil because I made him that way but that I was evil because satan made me that way. I honestly think now that I believed her. 100% 

I believed that I was evil because satan was inside of me. My family made me watch The Exorcist when I was 13 years old. They said it was a classic. I was a 13 year old catholic girl watching The Exorcist and I was told that it was based on true events. Of course I believed it was going to happen to me. I didn’t sleep well after that, not that I slept all that well before. But the nightmares about possession began then. They have continued for my entire life but they have just recently began to change for me. Years ago when I was struggling with the illness of a family member I was unhinged with fear and worry. I was barely sleeping, sweating through the sheets, and having wretched dreams about her every night. One night in particular I was having one of my demonic possession dreams. My dreams always flip-flopped from me being inside of my possessed body and feeling Satan inside of me to me being the person standing over me and performing the exorcism. This dream has haunted me my whole life. And I never won. The best I could do was to wake up from it screaming and then have to spend the rest of the night sleeping with the lights on. But this night is when it started to change for me; I was having the dream and I could see the possessed me sitting on a staircase distorted and evil from having satan inside of me but instead of me leaving myself to become someone else to perform the exorcism I could feel myself struggling from within the possessed body. I was fighting within myself to overpower satan. Then I started chanting, “FUCK YOU - YOU ARE NOT ME!" But satan still had my body so even though it was me saying it from within me, it was coming out of me with his voice. I kept chanting it. I could hear myself saying it and it rattled my ears. My husband later told me that he woke up to a sound that he had only heard in scary movies. A man’s demonic voice in the room with us. He knew that we were not alone and he jumped up to turn on the lights and that is when he saw me struggling with myself under the covers and could still hear the voice but was finally beginning to understand that it was coming from me. However, the lights turning on had woken me up and I stopped. We were both terrified; of me. Since that night though the dreams have changed. They occur less frequently and when they do occur I am winning and I am not as scared. And when I wake up from them I no longer need to turn on the lights; I can simply go back to sleep. I recently dreamt that I was waking up in my own bed. It felt real. I looked out through the bedroom and into the bathroom. There was a big black cat on the counter. I was very mad about that and trying to figure out why it was there. Then I realized... The cat was satan!! And I was not scared at all - I was angry and indignant. How dare you be in my house!? I ripped the covers off of myself and stomped into the bathroom. I started beating the cat with my fist like a hammer coming down on it and screaming exorcism chants, "In Jesus's name I command you to leave this house! God commands you! Jesus compels you!" And on I went. It didn't take long though. It actually all happened very fast. The cat literally shrank under my blows and chants. Then it disappeared completely. I thought to myself, "Look at yourself in the mirror!" So I put my face right next to the mirror, at first it was really hard to focus and to see myself. Then everything came into perfect clarity and I could see my own eyes inches away from me. I pulled in closer to the mirror and I scream-roared, like a lion! I had never felt more powerful in my whole life.

As a child I was constantly in "trouble" for something that I said, thought, or did had upset my mother again. She would rage on in her name calling...

Satan - Whore - Slut - Pricktease - Selfish - Lazy, on and on and on. But always I was a liar. 

And, sometimes I did lie. Usually I didn't though. I didn't lie because I was adamant in my refusal to submit myself to her. I didn't want to be to the person she wanted me to be and I tried hard to convince myself that I wasn't the terrible person that she told me that I was. 

But the lying. The being a liar. She would pull out the Bible and make me swear on it. "...And if I'm lying my Mom will die in her sleep as punishment." That is what she would make me swear. And it didn't matter if I was lying or telling the truth I felt tormented afterwards. She said I needed to tell her the truth in order for her not to die. And she knew what the truth was. So I felt compelled, I would wake her up in a hot panic in the middle of the night and confess the lie that I had told. Or I would wake her up in the middle of the night and confess the lie that I had not told. And tell her what she wanted to hear. But then I would worry because NOW I actually was lying. Or was I? Did she, as she said, "know the truth better than I did". Was I a "compulsive liar who didn't know the difference between a lie and the truth?" I know now that this is called Gaslighting. When someone makes you doubt your own reality. But as an EIGHT year old, no I did not understand. All I knew was that I was BAD and that because I was BAD, God was going to kill my mother in her sleep.

Dragonfly

• 

If I can hold onto this moment 

If I can put the seconds in my hand

Can I hold on to today

And let go of yesterday