Mindspace

Santa Sabina

The kids are away this weekend, and for the first time i don't have to bend over backwards arranging babysitting for a retreat.  No screaming dramatic children running behind my car as i leave.
For a moment, i actually felt like one of my clients who said about her marriage " Now that i have all the reason to leave, i really wonder if i want to leave"
But i forced myself to "seize the day" and literally typed in this weekend's dates and the word "retreat " in Google and found a Lenten retreat in right in my backyard, San Rafael, Santa Sabina.
I had just visited here last year for a Hildegarde Von Bingen retreat and was really struck by the quietness of the place. It's in the Dominican Order and i have to say, i really feel a different energy from the Franciscan hospitality that has been my home retreat at San Damiano. They are cooler, more reserved. Very committed to silence -- the whole house is silent and it can come across aloof. 
I was laughing because they showed us a picture of St Dominic  and he had his hand to his mouth going " shhhhh". Me and Natalie, we are texting each other chomping down my meal silently in the dining hall going " shhhhhh i'm eating".
But i have to say, something about the whole house being committed to silence is relaxing.
Yesterday, the retreat leader talked about "giving each other the gift of silence" and being "connected by silence" and i am so aware of how i struggle with silence. Somewhere between my childhood friends giving me the "silent treatment", the idea of being "sent to my room", my teenage years when my mother and i barely spoke, i still feel so punished by silence. i remembered being so anxious with my last psychotherapist's silence i ended up in fetal position tied up in knots.
I think about how sad i was the first time enoch and i drove long distance and i realized, he was perfectly content to drive all 5 hours in silence. I remember how hurt i was on 20 hour flights when he would put in ear-plugs under the flight headsets so he could drown out the plane engines. Such precious times to communicate, and he would choose to be silent.
On very good days, God teases me that my marriage is one long silent retreat and if i can survive that, i can survive anything.
On better days, He challenges me with the thought that perhaps my husband is my spiritual challenge, my spiritual practice, that i have to face all the anxiety and panic, isolation and rejection when he chooses not to speak to me. Not because he is punitive or punishing ( mostly ) but because he is content with silence.
Someday, i am going to have to reconcile myself with being able to silent with others that i care about, instead of only with strangers.

Coming into my Own

Beautiful week of clients God, i feel i am coming into my own as a therapist. 
My supervision team is looking up to me, Anne is turning towards me for advice, my clients are responding. i never want to lose that wide eyed awe of how amazing the healing process is, how privileged i am do this work, how nothing short of a miracle it is when a client chooses to trust you.
Humble me God, i want to stay close to you. i can feel a part of me stir with pride as i accept the compliments my clients give me:
" We feel like you know us"
" i feel you know what you're doing"
" You were sneaky today, you haven't been sneaky in a long time"
Lord these comments are so precious and i feel like i should write them down.
55 hours to the end Lord, i haven't felt like they were long at all. Felt like i was doing the work, and showing up and being faithful. You did the rest.
Thank you Lord, giving you the glory for a career that i kind of stumbled upon, that you envisioned for me, that you healed me and nurtured me through every step of the process. Alpha and Omega Lord, you who began a good thing, will be faithful to bring it to completion.

Reflections on the week

Day 4 of a week of no husband and no kids. i've always fantasized about this space. What is it like living in my own house, working my job without the kids.
Things i realized:
• i don't rush to go home from work.
Which is kind of nice, but kind of depressing. It's sad to be at the office past 5 and sit there doing notes realizing that there is no one home waiting for me. Last night for the first night i went home to an empty house early. Other nights i had gone out with girlfriends. i realized, wow, it is lonely being a single person at night.
• i love sleeping alone.
i love my bed, i love knowing i am the only one in it, i love turning on the light in the middle of the night to read, i love blasting music when i wake up. i love bumbling around.
• i am messy by myself.
i don't make my bed, i leave the dishes, i leave the mail out. It brings me back to my days as a freshman college student and how my room mate of 4 years used to tell me i am so messy. You would never believe it when you see me run our home with the family in it. The power of " a good example".
•My family is everything
I had a client yesterday sit in my office and ponder how precious his family and God was to him. At the end of the day, that is his most precious possession. And i thought, i run my life pretty efficiently with my job and my self-care. i can't think of anything better to do with a couple of extra hours a day than to care for my family.
It's neat to come back to that realization after fantasizing about painting and writing and retreating. At the end of the day, the care and feeding of children and a family is worth it's weight in gold.

Gratitude

It's been a lovely week of clients lord.
My practice is full. i know better now to assume it'll be full next week void of cancellations. But what is warming my heart to see and realize is that my client-ale is building. i may not have a full week, but the clients i do have, stay and they internalize me as a resource and they come back.
It's been a week of 3 "returning clients". It never fails to warm my heart. It lets me know that i have been successful with termination. That they have left with a secure connection knowing that i will be always be here for them and they can come back whenever they need.
To me, if there is only one thing i do right in therapy -- it's that. Given my own fears of abandonment and leaving.
But thank you Lord. i finish my hours this month. It's been such a poignant and meaningful journey. i feel so grateful to Christian Counseling Center -- for the opportunity to graduate with a full practice, to feel ownership and pride in working in the field.
This agency that i simply stumbled upon, simply ran into has now become such a core launching pad for my practice. Today as i am 55 hours to the end, i have 15 consistent clients, a referral pool and contacts in the San Jose area.
I remember as a contractor hating the marketing business development part of my own business. Thankful and grateful that getting clients as a therapist has come more naturally.

My Favorite Valentines

Enoch knows better than to pull "You're family needs you" guilt trips on me any more. Year 3 of working 4 days a week, it's been a huge process of processing the already existent maternal guilt of "breaking/ruining" your kids with now the fact that you have 10 more kids and 12 adults you listen to all day.
The kids are more cognizant, it feels like more needy. Aidan talks my ear off the minute i wake up and visit with him at 630 am. He is the early riser in the family as i am. Bing he wakes up ready to go, a story a million miles a minute. Nally is evolving, shifting, her little brain churning as her Sim in " Sim Life" gets married and has kids. i am navigating the sexual space carefully as we approach puberty and laying the groundwork for delicate questions.
On top of that is the inherited role, i got from my mother which is to be the only one who has structure, discipline or parenting skills in the house. As enoch steps up more picking them up and supervising Tuesday and Thursday, i've come so far in letting him figure out how homework works, what is the best place for them to work ( i've only trained them since 2 years old to work at Starbucks ), how many things can you jam into the 3 after-school hours, and the consequences of tired, strung out children. It feels like i am parenting 3 children. It feels like i am doing Love and Logic all the time crafting reality consequences, except now my children are at stake and i have to live with the guilt at 3 am in the morning.
But the most beautiful thing that my son gave me was this inscription he made on his autobiography book he presented yesterday. "This book is dedicated to Tania because she keeps the family on track" and the little picture of a train.
i felt like that was my bouquet from heaven confirming weeks of feeling so weary and tired of balancing out a hyper, adrenaline driven husband running 5-6 events on a Sunday. Parts of me wants to just detach and run away. It's too hard, i feel so unsupported. I am tired of being "bad guy".
But his note, out of the consciousness of a 7 year old's heart, a little boy pushing and testing boundaries everyday, he serves up belligerent  consequences for permissive parenting to his father like vegetables on a plate, he sucks up to me like a pro with opened doors, and getting me breakfast utensils.
Thank you Lord, i feel your reward, your consolation, your confirmation that i am not a bad mother.

Twice a week

It's official. i'm seeing my psychoanalytic therapist twice a week. i am officially in psychoanalysis. i am officially doing attachment work.
It's funny "coming out" with it. I've been seeing her for 7 months now. i think it had the same "denial" quality of going to an Al-anon group. Why am i here? Am i really that sick? i refused to be on the coach flat out. i refused to consider seeing her twice a week.
Seeing someone psychoanalytic was bad enough. It was the closest thing to going to see a psychic ( which i am almost more open to going ). In ten years of therapy,i had seen Humanistic, Rogerian, Solution focussed, Behavioral, Process therapist but the one psychoanalyst i had had me in a fetal position week after week knotted up with anxiety. i realize now she successfully triggered all my fears around a withholding parent. Her silence felt intolerable. Her blankness alienating. i couldn't stomach it. i opted for "warm fuzzes".
A decade later, i must have grown stronger because i can stomach the ambiguity of the space more. It's nothing like how i work. It's sparten and bare and sometimes clinical. It is minimalist and unconscious and stream of conscious. It brings up all my abandonment issues, and fear of silence and my need for contact and constant verbal repartee and reassurance -- all the things that torment me in my marriage.
I guess now i am willing to do the work.
Even before embarking. i feel myself such a different person since i started therapy. I have no more illusions that a therapist is suppose to be perfect, to hold me, to know exactly what to say. i don't expect her to be the be-all end-all.  i don't expect her to be my only resource. i have to say a decade of therapy has "grown me up". 
Yet ironically in psychoanalysis -- we "grow down", we get back in touch with the little girls parts of us, acknowledge the loss, grief and needs we didn't get met and learn to comfort, need and depend. All of which are not my greatest strengths.
So for the sake of my clients, because i am starting to have clients who see me twice a week; because all of my dependency triggers are going off like alarm clocks, i've decided to work on my attachment issues. 
I can see the fruits of it working. And just how after a decade of therapy, i am such a different client. i have less expectations of my therapist. i give her less credit for my success or failure. i move into the space with more trust, or more honesty about my mistrust. i own my own work more and how it's really about my stuff not hers. i can laugh about it. i can tell her that i don't want to work on it. There is just so much more honesty than the fantasy of the perfect caregiver.
If you had told me simply 6 months ago that i would finally see a therapist 2x a week. i would have cringed, told you you were crazy and that that therapist is trying to make a killing off you.
But i am really seeing the benefits of creating a conscious space for the very young, very raw parts of you. Especially for me, who has spent my whole life being super strong, super high functioning. 
Some of my colleagues who have done this work say " Do it, now is the time. Get it down and over with " and a part of me is thrilled at the finiteness of this period. i know that i have spent a decade of my life avoiding this space -- of dependency and need.
WIth my clients, i see the fruits just in weeks. This relaxedness, this settling, this drop in anxiety. It is the power of a secure base, of finally carving out a time for themselves. More than that, it is the acknowledgement of a part of themselves they denied their whole lives.
So yes, i am broken. i have problems attaching and needing and depending. It takes me a long time to trust you. i need you to be double consistent, doubly strong, double reassuring. In the light of that i'll still mistrust you anyway. But hopefully, in time i will learn to attach.

Ways i know therapy is working

Every now and then i have a client who come in and say " I know therapy is working. i feel better. i don't know how, but i am doing better". 
Month 7 of seeing a psychodynamic therapist, i have to say i see the fruits. It's so different from work i've done. It isn't results oriented, it isn't insight, it isn't  a new way of thinking. All the latter, i get from reading books, my girls group, my 12-step group, Father Tom's CDs. It's a different this time. Both of us, is acutely aware that we're doing core-attachment work. It's interpersonal. It's all in the room.
I'm not saying i am attaching. But it's there that we see the parts of me that resist. The parts of me that are so used to deprivation and resilience. i spent probably 4 months going in every week telling her that i don't need her and that i could do it really well on my own. Even yesterday when i relayed all the changes in my life that is happening. A part of me resisted giving her the credit.
But off the record, i do see the changes. And i realized how deep and core those changes are. They show up in the weirdest ways considering we never talk about iti in session.

1.My threshold for social activity is rising.
A core part of my anxiety is settling. This weekend it was the craziest event laden -- a 4 hour fund raiser, the decorating party prior after a full day's work, a dinner party at our house after the fund raiser, a trampoline party on Sunday and a Bible Study later. A part of me would have just flipped over with anxiety prior. A part of me would have just snapped in rage over the demands, guilt over not being able to rise to the occasion and then, shame about why this is so hard for me.
There is a part of me when i am unrested and tired, want to curl up on a ball and recoil. Noises are too loud, lights are too bright. I regard in horror my husband's plan for the day and say NO. i feel persecuted, cornered, intruded on.
But i was able to take a deep breath and hang in there. I was able to breathe and figure out what i needed to get through it. i took a 3 hour nap on Saturday and a 1.5 hour on Sunday and went and exercised. 
i am learning to less ashamed about my introversion and my needs and realize that no one is going to advocate for them but me. When i don't, life gets ugly, everyone suffers. Especially the children.

2. i am enjoying my Family Doctor
I've been in Palo Alto for a decade and have not seen my family doctor. Most of the time when things get bad, i rush in to see an urgent care doctor. But yesterday, my husband made an appointment for me to see my primary care for a physical. And it took me by surprised by how much the visit moved me. It was relaxed, intimate and casual. He told me i wasn't due for a pap-smear till next year, he would have filled it my prescription for oral contraceptives on the phone. He asked me about the kids. I talked to him about my anxiety. It was a really nurturing experience.
And i walked out going -- "Was he here the whole time?" He has been my doctor for 10 years and i never went to see him. Life has always been about urgency, and filling a prescription i thought i needed, not about connection and being taken care of.As i reflected on my need to change pediatricians 3 times, as i talked about my mistrust of physicians, i realized it paralleled the pattern of attachment i had with my therapists.
It's all there. The whole time :)

3. I'm breathing more
Taking deep breaths. Sitting in my skin and standing tall. The other day i caught myself as I gave the talk to the Preschool Coop my kids went to, and as i talked to a new client  coming in for affair recovery. i realize, wow, i am doing so much better in places of not-knowing; of ambiguity, of uncertainty.
I am relaxing in my skin, and i am trusting in the Universe, i am finally letting my guard down and trusting.

Preschool Family Talk

Thank you for being with me at the Preschool Family presentation God. i feel your growth, your presence, how i've changed. i feel myself standing taller, quieter, more comfortable in silence. i feel myself breathing just like how Father Tom used to do in the middle of a talk. 
And yesterday as i gave that talk in a roomful of really educated, intelligent parents stuck in-house for night meeting -- i really felt i could hold my ground, hold the room and the strength of your Being, of these past years of recovery just coming through.
It was such the most amazing feeling. And the cherry on top to hear one of the fathers say that they were going to spend the night reading manuals on the iphone tickled me pink. 
Thank you God

Feeling Loved

I just bought a Lululemon sweater. Not used, not off Ebay, not power sniped, not after having daily emails of advanced searches so i can buy one for the best price. It was on sale, but it was new.
It was the most luxurious, loving experience of feeling like after 8 months of working at Dailey Method, working up from once a week to now four times a week --i deserve it.
I do. It's a glorious shade of pink which you would not catch me wearing for a million years. i feel like it's such a sign of growth for me, that i am now willing to wear a feminine color. After decades of Art-school black, of "i'm afraid i am fat in any other color" black and grey, i am finally willing to embrace the needy, womanly side of myself. Granted it is still tie-dyed, not completely pink and is still dipped in purple from the bottom.
But i am feeling loved in it; especially since it is a special edition Stride Ride Jacket with the inscription " You are beautiful" in it.
I have been feeling beautiful. Especially since i've lost 1 dress size, 8 lbs and seem to have lost it in all the places i care about: my face, my calves and my waist.
i feel lean and i feel like my core is strengthening. i see this tiny little muscle in the between my armpit and my triceps emerge. i think it's hysterical. Who would know there would a muscle there?
It's lovely to go to class with all these Ballerina-esque types. I feel like it's the lost dance lessons i never had. Dailey Method is the perfect blend of ballet, barre exercise,  orthopedic exercises and stretching which i feel if i am going to spend the next 20 years of my life seated in a chair, i need a structured way of making sure my hamstrings don't turn cardboard on me.
Lately, it's been the one way i can concretely show myself that i care about me. On the weekends, it is the one oasis that i fight almost like war to get to amidst the weekend crazies. i drag myself out of bed and push myself to go.
This past weekend, amidst a 4 hour fund raiser, a 6 hour Bible Study/Superbowl party, a dinner party at our house and a trampoline birthday party -- i was so grateful to be go to the Sunday evening 4pm. Stepping out into the brisk evening -- i felt could i do to feel utterly loved and cared for.
The sweater, the feel in the store, the parking spot God gave me, the educational break on my Macbook air that just about covered the sweater was just perfect.
Thank you Lord.

Writing in the morning

I've been struggling to find time to write.
These nights i have been crashing when the kids go to bed. Especially since i have been battling a cold. But i'm waking up early and i realized today that it's been a while since i've used the guest room in the morning since my mother left.
So here i am, this is my favorite room in the house. My son reading and me typing on my new Air. My new quiet time, praying, meditating and writing.

New themes

I'm entering a new phase in my practice -- a new confidence and a new depth. They say our clients symbolize the work we need to do, they are our gifts of healing and wisdom. These day as i am finally wading through deeper work with my therapist, more and more of my clients are confronting their trauma head-on, more and more of them are moving towards object relations work.
It's such a growth edge for me, because these are the two areas that i am skittish about. When one of my clients asked to come twice a week, i bucked and squirmed about it for months. I still saw her, but parts of me struggled with stepping into a space of dependency, reliability and rawness that i knew this client was wanting to do. Twice a week is inevitably the work of attachment. We are officially in psychoanalytic, interpersonal work. And i have to be ok being mommy.
It brought up all the issues of mothering i had when i first had Nally. The fear of engulfment, the fear of her taking over my life, the fear of me losing myself in her. With this client, my fear of me not being there for her, my fear of having to be there for her.
It's so funny -- but after 9 years when the children are more independent now --- my work still confronts me.
But with the help of my supervisors and my therapist, i sat in it. i explored it. i showed up faithfully every week and opened myself to it. But today we are doing fine. Both of us. The client always but me as well. And i am noticing my own ease with dependency in my other relationships, in my marriage, in my practice. The culmination was watching myself offer another client biweekly support as she processed her trauma. It was amazing to feel clean about it.
The other theme that shows up with my work lately is trauma. And when a few of them broached it i could feel this knot in my stomach. i realized that i feel competent with emoting flooding clients but it is ones that are composed, high functioning and non-emoting that i struggle with.
With these, i have to take the lead and "step into the fire" and i find myself going " if you don't want to go there, and i don't want to go there, let's not go there! ". Like my supervisor said once, with these " i protect them from their work".
But more and more, we are moving towards it. I am blessed with a new individual supervisor in my life and she is game and confident in the space. As i move towards it afraid, i am also aware that i am moving towards my own dark, unknown spaces. The spaces that haunt me, the spaces i have glimpses of and i don't know.
The funny thing about trauma is that you don't want to know, yet you know. It's this awful confident blend of blur.
There are so many unexplained emotional realities that i feel that i have no reasons or explanations. And i ask myself what's the point of knowing?
The only way out of the trauma is through it.
As i see my therapist more, i realizing that i am stepping into my own fire. Afraid and determined.

Breakfast routine

We've been fighting about our breakfast routine for months. i wake up in anxiety and i drop them off in this huge, frenzied rage. 
I told the kids at 4 years old, we were able to wake up, get dressed, clean our rooms, eat breakfast, homeschool, practice piano all before getting to school on time.
Now they are 7 and 9 and we are dawdling in our rooms till 7.15, the kitchen is a mess, i am yelling reminders of unmade beds and lights still on. i drop them off in a rage and my day is ruined and of course they are unanimously late for school. This is of course after i wake up at 6 am, do quiet time and meditate for 30 minutes. All the serenity is effectively drained by 8.15am.
So we drew up a schedule, and we bought 2 Star wars alarm clocks. One that went off when they needed to leave their rooms. One that went off when they needed to clean their plates.
Part of it now is that the kid wake up, they read in bed, they play, they make their own breakfast, i make them clean up -- i insist that over my dead body are they leaving dirty dishes on the counter because I AM NOT THE NANNY!
But these days i am trying something between Love and Logic and mindfulness based stress reduction. I am trying to let go of the fact that they might go to school hungry and late. i am trying to decide what i can control, i.e. getting into the car at a certain time. i am taking responsibility for my own schedule and time management. i am letting go of my cognitive distortions that the whole morning routine rests on me, that i am the only one keeping time in the whole family, that i am the "bad guy", the only one that cares that the kids miss the first 15 minutes of school.
Between letting go of the shame and making my rage the issue, we've been having a good couple of days. One day, these calm, leisurely mornings show up in our school weeks, the kids are up, nally and i are reading to the tunes of celtic music at the breakfast table, Aidan gets in a little practice time.
We drive to school, giggling about putting bets on the exact minute we drive to the school curb. The person who is right gets to pick the candy for the weekend.
Somewhere between me letting go of needing to control, the shame of being a parent of children who are perpetually late for school, somewhere between choosing to control what i can control -- we have peace.
And it is nothing short of a miracle.

 

Blogging in the dark

Blogging in the dark to  the tunes of Crickets Sound and Wind Bells for Deep Meditation on my new Macbook Air. It is the wildest experience. 
Recently, i had been incorporating more ambient nature meditations in my practice. I had a client close her eyes and listen to a track, and describe and draw what she saw. She ended up defining a scene in a cave, down to the very distance of how far the water droplets were falling. By the end of it, she said that she has been taking shallow breaths all week and this was the first time she was breathing better.
It's been lovely to incorporate more grounding experiential spaces in our work, since past weeks have been stressful. I am learning that as important as it is to walk our clients through spaces of trauma, it is also our gift to them to craft experiences of centering and relaxation. Their lives are so chaotic and crazed outside our rooms that it is a solace even for one hour a week, if we can create that place of rest.
I had an 8th grader come in that day and he was so worried he would miss his session. I asked why and he said he had a stressful weekend coming up. After we named all the reasons why he was anxious, all he wanted to do the rest of the time was run his fingers through the sandbox and piece together a 50 piece puzzle.
As i sat there, watching this anxious, misunderstood boy struggle to relax, i realize, who am i to make him "work" the whole session. He knew how to use the space. And he did.

New Season

i got a new Macbook Air. It's a hugely symbolic on so many levels.
My last laptop was 4.5 years old. It was bought used. So it probably was 6.  It was lime green and my security blanket all those lonely nights as i pounded out paper after paper for school; as i stared absently hour after hour into consulting jobs late into the night. i had used to it start my blog and my writing practice, during the hours the nanny would watch Aidan. 
It has all the graphics programs of a designer. It has a graphics card, all my fonts from design school. It was a designer's computer. i designed 2 websites on it, and countless others for clients. 
Today i bought an Air. It is my commitment to a new season. This year 2012, my new year's resolution is to return to writing. After 2 years of being out of school, i am out of practice. Gone were the days of at least 2 hours of writing a day and my writing group every Saturday. Now my blog posts are 30 days apart. i am fumbling with words. i am letting life go by undocumented.
But i figured that until i can save up enough for my Phd, i need to keep up my writing habit and practice. i figured i would keep blogging, i would write articles for magazines, for my trade and for newspapers. i would keep writing, so that when i do my dissertation, i won't be out of practice. i would keep writing so that i will finally get it in me to put together that proposal for a book.
I'll never forget the day up in San Damiano when God asked me "What makes a writer ? " i answered " Someone who makes the New York Times bestsellers ? " He said " A writer is someone who writes ".
However, unseen, unheard -- i've read it in a million writing books -- all over the world, writers are waking up in the morning, making a cup of coffee and sitting down to a blank page. It's the loneliest task in the word -- but you write because you're a writer. You're a writer because you write.

Protected

Just finished a book called "My husband's Affair was the best thing that happened to me". It is this sickly sweet version of Pollyanna meets Sexaholic Anonymous. Since i now have hard core sex addiction/abuse textbooks for bedside reading, since our church has survived not one but 2 such casualites --  i was a tad skeptical and a wee bit cynical about embarking on such a read.
But granted, since i also have a startlingly low threshold for fiction, fantasy or fairy tales ( the kids and i are listening to Sonheim's Into the Woods which is this twisted version of the fairy tales )  -- i figured this would be an exercise in "willing suspension of disbelief". i.e. my yearly venture into fictional reading.  
Now you have to know i've been rehearsing said scenario in my head for years. Not that my husband has given me any cause to worry. He is unwaveringly faithful and chronically loyal and a blinding optimist when it comes to our marriage.
Yet something about growing up in a culture where history entails having multiple wives as a sign of wealth; of which's modern day version now translates into a mistress in each country, in a part of the world that deems infidelity as almost an asset to being a competent world leader -- i was almost raised to believe this the fundamental core deficiency in men.
As my dad said when Clinton got caught -- " I don't understand America, everywhere in the world it is understood that world leaders cheat, only Americans object ".
So i ran through the book as fast as i could without throwing up. I have to admit there were a couple of times i wanted to throw the book across the room. But when i finally got to the happily ever after chapter, when i forced myself to choke down this sickeningly sweet letter the cheating spouse wrote to his wife; after i highlighted all the instances of codependency, every feature of pursuer-distancer, after i diagnosed the exact brand of infidelity the couple had, and the process of reconciliation, and the blind spots and the probably DSM diagnosis each spouse had; after i wrote out a treatment plan about how i would do it differently both as a spouse, as the therapist of the author, as the friend of the author -- i heard God whispering to my hardened, jaded heart. 
" What if it didn't have to be so hard ? What if i could protect you from it all ? "
And the word was "protect".
i have to say that when this woman chose to respond the "godly way" and meet with the other woman and extend  compassion and forgiveness towards her, when she decided to make herself more attractive and seduce him back into her bed, those were the moments i had to bite down and clench my very sore jaws. 
Yet as i watch the husband respond with insight, with contrition and with repentance, i notice a part of me really protest that. i notice a part of me geared up for revenge, for his suffering, for him really experiencing the hell she went through.
i noticed myself wanting to tear up that sweet letter that he wrote apologizing for the hell he put her through and wanting to rip those pages out and say " NOTHING NOTHING YOU COULD EVER SAY WILL MAKE UP FOR THIS ! "
Um… a little countertransference : )
But as i drove myself to my Al-anon meeting this morning, i heard God whispering to me:
God:" What if i could protect you from that ?"
Me: " From what, the affair ? You didn't protect her! "
God; " Not the affair, but the hell she went through "
What if when i choose Him, i am choosing not just this Pollyanna blind faith that sticks it's hands or BIble verses in her ears and says " lalalala la Jesus loves me" but i am choosing me. My health, my serenity, my peace, my protection. And that it's not disassociation, or denial or what the psychoanalyst call "the manic defense".
What if it was the huge, meditative, extreme gesture of self care.
And that when i choose His way, i am not absolving the crime, the pain, the hurt, the inconsolable wrongness of infidelity -- i am just choosing to let Him protect me from the consequence, the hell that horrendous sin threatens to put me through.
"What you have meant for evil, God meant for my good".
This morning, God gently confronted me with this idea of protection. "I can do it" i tell Him, i am competent, i am strong, i am cut out for this.
I know, He says quietly. But i can protect you from it.
And i thought about all the serene places my Al-anon group describes exist amidst horrific places of pain their addicts put them through. I thought -- surely this must be the same place.
Protected. Not because i am incompetent and unable, but because i deserve to be protected. i can't prevent the sin, but He can protect me from the effects of the sin. He can shield me, and wage the war of justice and fairness, of healing and recovery.
And i can stand right in the middle of it all and be a sickeningly sweet Pollyanna.

Why do you hate uncle G?

I'm learning this new skill, as i am trying to cultivate with my clients -- this ability to show up and tell the truth. 
So when my little girl asks me why i hate the neighbor 10 doors down, instead of resorting to the usual sarcastic, angry, sardonic remark -- i thought i'd check in and see if i could tell the truth.
And when i did i was really surprised to find the goodness and love in my heart.
" i don't hate uncle G Nally, i think he is a really nice guy"
" I do too"  So much for trying to brainwash my daughter.
" But you know how in school, there are two kids that get always get into trouble when they sit together? And apart, they are pretty nice kids but together they make bad decisions ? "
" Yah "
" It's like that here"
" They just can't sit together."
And when i could express it in the words of a nine year old, i surprised myself at the goodness i felt towards this man. This neighbor whom i've targeted all the rage i should have towards a husband who would hang out with him till 3am in the morning drinking. i was able to own his goodness, his humanity, and own the fact that it's my husband who can't make good decisions. Not him, and that it's not that he's bad.
He's just bad for us.
And for a moment, it was appropriately sad.

Gratitude

i often tell my clients that if we process the awful feelings in our lives, we actually make room for the positive feelings like joy, comfort and gratitude.
One of my newest clients who's had the hardest time over Christmas, reported hating coming into my office every week to cry. Yet, she said this Christmas, she's been laughing the hardest, the deep guttural kind of laugh that comes from inside, instead of the smiles she sticks on her face habitually.
Gratitude has been the one feeling i have been feeling more and more in my recovery. Initially, it's was more like an intravenous infusion of chemotherapy -- because it's good for me.
They say to keep a gratitude journal in 12-step. i started it as a child in the "Thanksgiving" portion of Quiet Time, and have kept it up through the years.
But these days i am catching myself in slivers of moments when i am flooded with gratitude.
The stretch of blue sky, when a parking spot opens up, the smell of my child's hair, the hug and grin from my son. It's almost like it knocks your breath out. And i am realizing, it's there all along, and these moments are only times i pause enough to access it.
Last night at 9pm, in the middle of thousand of lights, my little girl had one of those moments. She said "Mommy i am so grateful. i am so blessed that i have a mommy, i get to come here, i get to have diet coke, and cotton candy and garlic fries and go down the slides ".i could tell, she really got it. She tried to explain it to daddy and he of course attributed each blessing to the appropriate giver but -- i got it. She felt it too. This overwhelming sense of gratitude, of being blessed, of being given to. i loved that she felt it in the hustle and bustle of crowds of people.

And if there was one thing i could leave her with before i die, if there is one remnant of parenting -- it would be the gift of gratitude.

So thank you God for finding me amidst the pain and grief of New Year's Eve
For a beautiful New Year
For helping me forget moment to moment
the past and the future 
and really only be open to today

 

New Years at Al Anon

Spent New Year's Eve at Al Anon. Was all set to go to a karaoke, kid-friendly party, then husband showed up 3 hours after he was suppose to and tried to convince me that he crossed county lines from Costco Monterey to Costco Santa Cruz in search of milk. After repeating what he told me back to him 3 times like a true therapist he finally confessed he went wine tasting.
I don't know what hurts me more -- that he so predictably lies about his whereabouts when he drinks or that he actually expects me to believe him. i call him up these days and instead of asking " Where are you " i ask " where did you stop ? " and he'll repeat his expected whereabouts -- work, an errand, dropping off stuff at the neighbors like " Don't you remember hon, we're homosapians, we live on earth " like i am the one that has amnesia not him.
A part of me is humiliated the whole time that he thinks i am so stupid, so gullible, that i don't get this sinking feeling each time he tells me he's going somewhere -- " Where else is he going? " The few times i am wrong, i am relieved and repentant. i attempt to convince myself that i dreamt this whole thing up to get attention.
The majority of the times i am right -- i fantasize of the day he can just straight up be honest with me. That way i can just deal with the grief instead of this incredulous rage. That way, one part of me can be proud of him.
But "i drove to Santa Cruz for milk."This one has got to top " Sake isn't wine, it's rice". One good days, i know that i am not dreaming. i don't have to take his blood alcohol level to know this is certifiable addict behavior of the purest kind. Even my sponsor who i suspect wonders if i just made this whole alcoholic thing up in my head -- said " Wow, i didn't realize he's gotten worse ". After 2 years in Alanon, i know better than to need others to believe me but  for a minute it was lovely to be finally validated. We're dealing with addict character of the purest kind here.
So i took a deep breath and went through the steps of what i always tell my clients -- what can you control. What do you need. How can you take care of yourself.
i had been reading Dry all day for some reason, and maybe God was preparing me because after finishing it i knew exactly what to do. I decided i wasn't going to the party, i was going to a meeting instead. i took deep breaths. Tried to check in. Did a litmus test for vindictive revengefulness which i am beginning to realize is my hugest character defect.
No, i wasn't rageful now, if i had to put on a smiley face and go to this party i would be at the end of the night.
So i waited until he came home,  told him i felt betrayed, told him that i didn't feel i could trust him. And left.
i haven't gone to Al-anon for 2 weeks now. i was so proud of myself that i was holding up. But yesterday, i realized, i needed to be there.
15 people in a room, reporting sorrowfully how Christmas is such an anxiety producing season, how their qualifier acted out, how their family was crazy. i needed to be there. In fact, if i had been there, i would have probably not been as reactive to my sister and mother this vacation.
But it was comforting to see how others were handling it. That i was in good company. That they were laughing. That it felt like family.
It was wonderful to talk to another guy with 2 kids who's wife is driving while drinking and confess my desire to control him by refusing to be the designated driver. There was both a sorrow and a peace about him, that i told him i really aspire to have.
But i left in such a good place. i came home humming. And i am guarding this serenity with my life. It's not bad, it's not good it just is. And for slivers of moments, i experience the incident shrink to being a speck on the wall. The last night of 2011. It's not about me. It's about his stuff, his issue. And the fact that i wasn't raging, i wasn't self-destructively cursing. That the last words my daughter said to me was " Mommy is smiling, that's not good".
It's progress. And it was a beautiful end to the growth of 2011.

Palm Springs Visit

Here at Palm Springs on an impromptu trip with my parents. It's beautiful. The Marriot Palm Desert Villas are set on artificially constructed rolling hills, against the desert sky of stars twinkling against the heat. We wake up to ducks at our doors steps and 2 ponds in our backyard. The kids have a ball feeding them with bread and crumbs. Aidan wanders around the grounds as we can see him from our window. The kids are at such the perfect age to appreciate this.

Aidan is running around in circle going "It's beautiful! " Nally is enamored with everything from everything from crickets, to ducks to making wreaths out of vine.
We wake up to the desert sun against the palm trees and rolling putting green quality grass.
After 4 trips to Phuket and a couple of exchanges to Newport Beach --- we finally feel the gratitude of buying a time share.
It's always an ordeal to run away and we would never intentionally have chosen this place for ourselves. But having traded this place months ago, just because it was available, presented us with another option to run away for future Christmases.

.

We spent a day taking the tram to the San Jacinto State Park. In 10 minutes, we are up 8500 feet in the mountains with a feet of snow. The kids are ecstatic -- snowballing and sledding; running in from the cold. We are tickled to have the biting winter air against us just hours away from basking in Desert sun.
It was the perfect amount of snow for me. Just enough for the season, just enough to feel Christmasy, just enough for the kids to throw snowballs and just enough for us to come running into the warmth.

The Chias and Chois are grateful for the "enforced rest", me less mindful than my retreats. i notice myself less precccupied with the kids, less mindful of their activities, trusting that they will find solace for their bordom and hours. Tomorrow is our last morning here, perhaps i will finally sit outside the porch and drink in His beauty, sipping coffee and reading the Psalms.

Miffed in Palm Springs

Big clash last night God, and i am almost thrilled at how it sours the whole evening. I don't think he understands, just how self-mutilative i can be. A true ragaholic, i have no qualms about how much i destroy and how much goes down in flames.
These days, i am so struck by the very lack of core that a ragaholic possesses. It's not unlike any addict. Beneath all that rage, there is nothing, no-one worth fighting for. Hence, there really isn't any argument about how much our own destructive behavior hurts us. There isn't anyone to hurt in here. Just lots of people OUT THERE.
Last night, empowered by the presence of my parents, my husband got to be as vocal as he ever was. i got to experience, the joy the sheer joy of being on the other end of illogical rage. Wow, that is what it's like for someone to act completely out of line, have 2 people witness it and me have nothing to do with it. He ranted and raved like a little spoilt child, and then went against everything he blamed me for, and my mother sighed at the sheer illogic of it. Even my parents "punished" him with 30 minutes of silence -- he was completely out of line and i disappeared into a book while he can soak into his non-ra-rahness. It felt good to have an environment that is finally congruent. In his family, someone would change the subject and then everyone would act like nothing is wrong.
But this morning, some part of me is trying to love myself, even if all of me wants to set him in flames. That my kids, my parents, this trip deserves better. That even with 3 bottles of wine, his crazy sleeping habits, and watching my parents bicker, this has to be a trip worth taking for me.
To enjoy the kids and the surroundings, as if there was no one here at all. Just me, just the warm sun and the beautiful trees. Lots to be grateful for: a dissociative husband who is willing to lose himself in the kids -- more time for me. A cuddly college bear, who is providing all the endorphin highs i need when pressing his hard nose against my fingernails, lots of food.
I'm definitely realizing the anesthetic quality of my Kindle, that if i wake up in the middle of the night, and i can't sleep the backlit quality of the Kindle, the grounding texts of my favorite authors, they do the perfect job Melatonin is suppose to do.
Yesterday, i found out that if i drowned myself in a book -- everything around me melts away. i am lost in Pema Chodron, Brene Brown and the others.