Intuition

My husband and I were separated for the better part of 2012. During that time I lived about twenty miles away in a different county. When we separated, it was right in the middle of the school year. Not wanting to put my kids through anymore drastic changes, they stayed with my husband during the week for school, and then they would spend the weekends with me. It was difficult being away from them, and I was terribly lonely.

In my new neighborhood, I was the only single woman. There were families and there were single men, but no other single women. The women in the neighborhood had an automatic disdain for me until they learned that I was, in fact, a lovely person. Not only was I lovely, but I had no intentions on having torrid affairs with their husbands.

I was friendly to everyone in the neighborhood (it was something like a cul de sac, but not quite), but I never quite made friends with any of them. I would sometimes stop and have brief conversations, but no one invited into their homes for tea and vice versa.

One day, when my kids weren't there and I was all alone, my next door neighbor, a single man who lived alone with his dog, struck up a conversation with me as I walked to my car. Now this is a guy who had given me the creeps since I moved in. I try not to judge people in general, but the energy signature this guy exuded made me nervous. Up until this moment, he and I had barely spoken a word to each other outside of "hello."

He started to tell me about his aquarium, and all the fish that he had in there. I politely nodded, but really, I just wanted to go to my car and leave. At some point in the conversation, he asked, "You haven't seen it?" Of course, I hadn't seen it and he knew that. Remember, this was the longest conversation we'd had thus far. I said no. "Come on," he said. "I'll show you."

At that moment, every single hair on the back of my neck stood up. I felt an intense sense of fear as I hesitantly said, "OK." I followed him up his walkway toward his home. As I did so, I looked around to see if anyone else was around. This was a neighborhood that was always bustling with activity, but not today. There wasn't one person outside or, as far as I could tell, even looking out a window. Where the hell were the nosy neighbors when you needed them?

Against my better judgement, because I didn't want to hurt his feelings, I followed him into his house. I'll let that sink in for a minute. I followed a man I didn't know or trust into his home when no one was around to witness it. Because I didn't want to appear impolite.

When I walked into his home, my nose was assaulted by the foulest stench you could imagine. To this day, I couldn't tell you what it was. His house was filthy, it smelled horrible, and his fish were swimming around in cloudy water. The water looked like he hadn't ever changed it. Luckily, the fish tank was right off the kitchen area, which wasn't that far from the front door. Even luckier was the fact that he didn't try to hurt me or otherwise take me prisoner in his filthy home.

I said, "Oh, yeah. Those fish are really nice." Then I power walked out of his house. The reasons? Eight percent so I wouldn't get sick from the smell, seven percent because I was still uncomfortable, and 85 percent because I didn't want to take my last breath in a place like that. You know how, in the movies, a person will be close to death and they say, 'it can't end like this, not here?' Yeah...I was having that exact inner dialogue.

I made it out safely, but the moral of this story is to always trust your intuition, even if it means you must be impolite to others. Even if others will think you're a bitch for doing it. Trust your intuition.
Ted Bundy killed many women because he made them feel sorry for him. Even though their intuition was probably screaming at them to walk away, they couldn't say no to an injured man. It cost them their lives. This could have easily been the case for me. Every time I think of this story, I get chills at the thought of what might have happened had this guy been a different person. Think about it with me: I lived alone for the most part, so no one would have noticed my absence for at least a work week. No one was around to see me enter his home, so there would be no clues as to where one might start looking for me. I would have been one of those people who seemingly disappeared from the face of the earth. My family would have spent the last four years wondering where I was and what happened to me. My children might have believed that I abandoned them. And all because I was afraid to be impolite.

Women are taught to be polite to a fault. If we don't, people will label us as bitches. And oh my God, we can't have that, can we? People will think I'm a mean person, so I must risk my safety in order to avoid offending anyone.

We have to stop that. Listen to your inner voice. You instinctively know if something is bad for you. You can sense a bad vibe. Even if you have no evidence to support your instinct, listen to it anyway. For instance, my neighbor didn't do anything to hurt me, but that doesn't mean my intuition was wrong. What if he lost his nerve? What if he wasn't expecting me to turn around and walk back out so fast? I could have thrown him off, or he could have tripped when he turned around to catch me. Maybe I slipped right through his fingers.

I'm not saying you should stop trusting people; I just want you (and me!) to listen to your intuition. It exists for a reason. Humans are the only beings that will ignore their instincts. If a gazelle senses a lion stalking it in the jungle, it doesn't say 'I'm not going to run because I don't want to hurt the lion's feelings.' To the contrary, it runs like hell and doesn't stop until the danger is gone or it gets caught. But at least it tries to save itself.

That's all I'm asking you to do. Save yourself. You're worth saving.

Until next time,

Feed on love; subsist on peace.

Breaking the Pattern

Good day, friends.

It's been awhile since we've spoken. Some of you have, no doubt, moved on to bigger and better things. Congratulations! You absolutely deserve it. Me? Well, I've been doing the same things I'd spoken to you about before I last left you. I'm one course and a dissertation away from getting my doctoral degree in Metaphysical Humanistic Science. That means I'm one step closer to what I believe is my true purpose in this lifetime.

I didn't come here to talk about me, though. Well, not just me.

Today, I found myself in a funk. Something happened in my life that upset me so much that I wanted to revert to some old habits. One of my go-to old habits was emotional eating. The pattern was: let someone upset me > completely disregard any progress I've made > eat everything in sight. I would tell myself, in that moment, that I didn't care whether I got fat or not. Who cares that I feel better when I eat better? Who cares that I don't have bouts of IBS when I don't eat meat? (TMI, I know) Who cares? There I was: all prepared to eat healthy snacks and a healthy lunch, but in that moment, all I wanted... was cake. Or pie. Or Doritos. Or, God help me, McDonald's fries.

If I followed the old pattern, I would be upset in the moment, I would eat everything and then afterward, the next moment, I would feel horrible. In the next moment I would care, but by then, it was too late. On top of being upset by whatever  had triggered my binge-eating, I would then also be upset with myself for the binge-eating I'd done. My self-esteem would dip really low; and the cycle would continue.

Not today, though. Today, I saw that old, ugly pattern breaking through the surface and I recognized it for what it was. I asked myself, why am I letting someone else control how I feel about myself? If you think about it, that's exactly what was happening. I allowed someone to upset me (that was my first mistake), I then internalized that pain as something that I deserved to feel, then I turned that pain against myself, which would have manifested as an eating binge. Sure, I know that people can take you to horrible, emotional places. I recognize that we are human, and we will sometimes not be in a place to handle emotional warfare. I get it. But I also get that once you let someone anger or upset you, you have handed over your power to them. You're essentially saying, "Here, you control me for a little while."

Now, everyone who's read this blog even once, probably knows that I have control issues. Trust me, I'm working on it, but it's an on-going process as you well know. The fact that I have issues giving others control is the very thing that should stop me from handing control of my emotions to anyone, especially people who have no impact on my existence.

So, I came here today to ask you, to implore you to take your power back. Ask yourself if you're letting others control how you feel about you. It's called self- esteem for a reason. The only person impacting it should be you. When someone upsets you, when you're experiencing emotional difficulty, acknowledge your feelings in this moment, then do what you need to do to get to the next moment. And once you get to the next moment, do something to nurture yourself so that you maintain your progress, your sanity, your self-love. What you do in that next moment could change the course of your life. Or it could keep you stagnant in old habits that you wished you'd given up a long time ago.

What did I do? I reached into the fridge for my carrot sticks and hummus. And I didn't hate myself afterward.

Until next time,

Feed on love, subsist on peace.

Happy New Year.

Operation: For the Love of Me

Today I did something that I haven't done in at least ten years. I cut my hair. What's so unique and special about that is what came next. Cutting my hair prompted me to embark on a year-long journey to self-love; Operation: For the Love of Me. It made me think about all of the things that I do out of love for others. I cook because I love my family and I want them to have nutritious meals. I'm active in the PTA because I love my children and I want to ensure they have quality educations. I've been on a quest to find my signature fragrance because I love my husband and I want to smell good for him. I even write this blog because I love my fellow man and I want you to be happy. 

What, though, have I done out of love for me? Don't wait too long for the answer because I'm still thinking. Like many women, I've left myself for last and then, eventually, completely forgotten about myself. I don't remember the last time I laughed until I cried. No, wait. I was watching an episode of Scare Tactics that had tears streaming down my cheeks. Unfortunately, that was about three months ago. At least. So to remedy this, I have decided that for the next 365 days, I will do something to care for and cherish and honor me.

I've started with my hair. I have worn wigs and/or weaves for at least the past ten years. My favorite saying was, "There is no excuse for a bad hair day." If you happened to see me strolling around Lake Montebello, you might have seen my real hair. But only if I didn't happen to have a cute ponytail to clip onto my own. So...twice. After years of gluing, sewing, clipping, drawstring-ing, and braiding, my hair was unhealthy to say the least. It fell out a few times at the top and back, it thinned out considerably, and I had started getting those bald edges that you see when one braids her hair a lot. My hair was shoulder-length with split ends, about two inches long at the top, and as thin as a newborn baby's. So I cut it off.

Here is a picture of me before. 

Note the long, luxurious hair masking the thin, unhealthy hair. Pretty neat trick, wouldn't you say? Oh, and making it worse I might add.

Here's a picture of me today. 

Wait for it...

Just to drive the point home, here are a few more.

  

It's what I call on-my-way-to-healthy. You have no idea how hard it was for me to post these pictures. Nobody but my immediate family has seen my actual hair for years. I wouldn't leave the house unless I had some sort of apparatus on my head. If someone knocked on my door and my hair wasn't all weaved up, I would kill anyone who dared open the door without first giving me time to put on a wig. I didn't care who it was either, my kids' friends, the mailman, the cable guy, my in-laws. Nobody was allowed to see the real me. I wonder why that was? 

Was it because for all my positive talk on this blog, I still didn't think the real me was good enough? Let's explore that over the next year, shall we?

I've made a list of all the things I believe I need in order to be healthy. This is just the jumping off point, so I may see the need in the future to add more.

1. Drink eight glasses of water/day

2. Take Vitamin D pills (my doctor swears by them)

3. Exercise one hour/day

4. Eat more healthy foods than nutritionally-challenged foods

5. Wash my hair twice/week

6. Trim my hair every six weeks

7. Grant myself the time to soak in the tub at least three times/week. 

8. Meditate for 15 minutes/day

9. Write something everyday be it a page, poem, prayer, chant, or grocery list

10. Forgive one person/day

11. Forgive myself for one thing/day and write it down so I won't forget it.

12. Listen to my children's actual voices for 10 minutes/day. This may seem weird, but I realized the other day that the whole day had gone by and I hadn't actually spoken to my oldest son. We had sent several text messages, though. 

13. Hug my family everyday

14. Listen to my husband vent/rant about his job for 10 minutes/day

15. Tell more jokes. I don't think I'm funny, so this won't be an easy one. 

16. Spend less time around vampires. Yes, I said vampires. You know those people who suck all the energy and life right out of you? Vampires.

I'm inviting all of you to join me. Let's make this the biggest movement our generation has seen. OPERATION: FOR THE LOVE OF ME!!!!!!

And in the spirit of keeping my promise to myself, here's a joke:

A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each other the silent treatment. The next week the man realized that he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 a.m. for an early morning business flight to Chicago. Not wanting to be the first to break the silence, he finally wrote on a piece of paper, "Please wake me at 5:00 a.m." 
The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 a.m. and that he had missed his flight. Furious, he was about to go and see why his wife hadn't woken him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed ... it said... "It's 5:00 a.m. Wake up."

Until next week,

Feed on love; subsist on peace.

The Freedom of Independence

On July 4, 1776, the United States officially declared its independence from Great Britain, after having fought for said independence for 13 years. It was then and still is now a huge victory for the United States of America. God bless America.

In that same spirit, I challenge you to not only celebrate independence, but to grant it as well. Grant it to yourself for not finishing college. Grant it to your sister who is genuinely sorry for insulting your mothering skills. Grant it to your father who was never emotionally available to you. Grant it to your mother who criticizes everything you do. Grant it to your child's father who is not as good a dad as you think he should be.

Most of the time people are just trying to do their best. Sometimes we will fall short. It's a simple fact of life.

A couple of years ago, one of my friends was being evicted from her home and I was helping her move some of her things. As you can imagine, the atmosphere was intense and frantic. She was trying in a very short time frame to decide what she would do with each item in her two-story house. In the midst of this frenzied packing/trashing session, she came across an item that she didn't necessarily need. She asked me if I wanted it. I had just purchased the exact item maybe two days ago. So I said, without thinking, "Man, I wish you had offered me this a couple days ago. I just bought one."

Now you and I both know that I in no way meant that I wished my friend had been evicted sooner, but that didn't stop me from sounding and feeling like an ass. I don't know if she caught the inappropriateness of my statement at that moment, or if she thought about it later as she recalled the events of the day, or if she ever caught it at all. But she never once held a grudge or made me feel bad about it. She forgave me and as a consequence, I was able to forgive myself.

"Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself." I heard that on Oprah a long time ago, but I'm pretty sure it was Dr. Phil who said it. It was those words that help me forgive the mother who abandoned me as a child. I still see her sometimes and despite my best efforts, I could not let go of the pain she had caused me. Then I discovered that by forgiving her, I was opening a door to a part of my heart that I didn't even know existed. One can't love with the whole heart, if a part of it closed. Don't kid yourself; if you're harboring hatred and bitterness in your heart, there's less love there to give to your children, your spouse, your friends. Stop denying yourself and your loved ones.  Forgiveness is incredibly freeing. Have you ever felt so good that it was like you were floating on air? That's what forgiveness feels like.

Since we're talking about forgiveness, let's talk about "deadbeat" fathers. I was assaulted by the barrage of bad daddy talk on facebook on Father's Day. It was so prevalent, that it made me turn off my computer just so I wouldn't have to feel all that negative energy on a day that should have been positive. I want to warn you that I'm about to get in your face, step on some toes, and maybe hurt some feelings. But I'm not judging you. Everything I do is out of love to promote healing, even if it hurts at first.

1. Your child's father may be a deadbeat to you, but he's daddy to your child. That means he's important to your child and he is loved with your child's whole heart. You may not think he deserves all that wonderful love, but it's not your place to take it away. When you insult and degrade the man, you hurt your child and you hurt your relationship with your child. Think about how fiercely protective you were of your parents. If anyone said anything bad about them, you immediately hated that person. Do you want to be the object of your baby's hate?

Stop expecting your children to understand an adult situation. They can't. AND they shouldn't have to. You put them in a confusing position when you make them choose one parent over the other. As they get older, they will recognize your hard work and sacrifices and they will love and appreciate you even more, without having been damaged by your resentment of their father.

2. You chose to have a baby with a "deadbeat." Make no mistake, unless you were raped or "tricked" into condom-less sex, you chose to have this man's baby.  That doesn't make you a bad person; it means you made a poor choice of who deserved to father your precious child. Take responsibility for your part in your single parenthood. I suspect that's why so many single mothers are angry. You can't believe you had a baby with this man and now you're struggling and can't have a moment to yourself because of his lack of support. Please forgive yourself. Forgive yourself and realize that this man may not ever do the right thing by his child. Don't let his absence determine the future of you and your child. Don't give him control over your life. I know this will be exceptionally hard, but you have to forgive him. Really. You have to. Forgive him and let him go. It's the only way to regain control over your life.

I wish all of you a safe, happy Independence Day and I congratulate you on grabbing some of that independence for yourself!

Feed on love, subsist on peace.

My First Love

I know it's a little early for my weekly post, but I wanted to pay a special tribute to my first love, Michael Jackson. Today is the anniversary of his death, so I want to use this forum to express my feelings on both his life and his death. Please feel free to do the same. All opinions are welcome and will be respected so long as we avoid downright vulgarity. Thank you in advance.

I think I'm saddened more by Michael's life than his death. Sure, he was the King of Pop, he was worth billions of dollars (don't quote me), and he had billions of  fans all over the world. But what did it all get him? Even with the fame and fortune, even with the loving friends and adoring fans, he was still an unhappy man. He was unhappy because he never thought he was good enough.

I'm sure he knew he was talented, gifted even. I'm sure he knew that others revered him. But I always got the impression that somewhere along the way, someone made him believe he was ugly. And stupid. And useless. And unworthy. Whether or not they spoke those actual words is irrelevant. That's how someone made him feel and he obviously took it to heart.

I recognized those feelings in him because they used to be my own. His story used to be my story. Well, not the fame and fortune part; the I-hate-myself part. When you're abused as a child, be it physically, sexually, or mentally, you believe the feelings that the constant abuse forces you to believe. 

"It's all my fault. I deserved it. I'm so stupid! I'm such a bad girl. Why am I so ugly? It's not happening to other children; so since God is allowing it to happen to me, I must have really pissed God off. God must hate me."

This is the story I told myself everyday. It was like dark poetry floating around in my head; a morbid death march ordering my steps. I imagine this was the song in MJ's head. However, Michael Jackson, over-achiever that he was, took his self-hatred to a level that I could have only imagined. The numerous cosmetic surgeries, the spending addiction, the drugs; these are all examples of what happens when you run from the pain instead of dealing with it.

Look, I know it hurts. That's why it's called pain. I would never presume to make light of anyone's troubles. But it won't always hurt. That is, unless you never deal with it. If you had a bad cut, would you rip the scab off   every time it tries to heal itself, pour salt inside to make it hurt more and prolong the healing process; then when it's open, raw and totally exposed, ignore it and let it fester until infection sets in? 

You're probably thinking that's ridiculous. Who would do that? I know I did and I'm willing to bet that a lot of you do it all time with your emotional scars. Any wound can be healed...if you treat it. It will have to be dealt with eventually. Whether that's now or then is up to you. We're all so afraid of feeling pain that we do anything we can to numb it. We drink, we abuse drugs, we spend all our money, we sleep with people we don't even like much less love. All so we won't have to feel the pain. We forget, though, that you can't numb one emotion without numbing them all. 

I'm so glad that one day, at some time when I wasn't looking, somebody helped me understand that feeling pain wouldn't send my world crashing down. That admitting that I'm hurting doesn't make me weak. I'm a strong, capable woman who's in pain and it's okay because I won't always be. I'll feel it and I'll deal with it and I'll come out on the other side even stronger and still whole. And one day I'll be able to help someone else who faces the same demon I conquered.

If there is one thing I'm sure Michael would want us to learn from his life and subsequent death, I think it would be this: DON'T RUN FROM THE PAIN. Running makes it worse. Dealing makes it heal.

I'm going now to listen to my 25th Anniversary of Thriller CD sent to me by my best friend from childhood last year at this time. Even she knew that my love for Michael would never die. Rest in peace, sweet man. May you find more peace in death than you did in life.

Until next time...feed on love, subsist on peace.