Healthy and Unhealthy Vulnerability

You will hear me discuss different words and concepts that have both positive and negative attributes and this blog will address vulnerability. Many words are interpreted by different people in different ways and typically it's with a myopic lens because their frame of reference is just as limited as mine or anyone else's. We all grow up and live in environments that favor a particular view on a word such as vulnerability, judgement, and ego to name a few. The thing is though, these words carry with them a vibration and depending on how big these words have been in your life you can feel an immediate response when hearing or reading them. Read and ponder each word individually and tune in to your breath and body as you do so and then notice your thoughts. Do you feel defensive? Is your mind flooded with opinions or stories around any of the words? Do you feel tension or a release of tension anywhere? I definitely have opinions and tension when I see or hear these words thrown around; mainly because the English language seems to limit a lot of words that are more complex than we give them credit for, 'love' being the biggest example for me.

My parents came to visit me the other day and my mom said something that keeps spinning around and around in my mind. My mother said that for years, as I struggled with my romantic relationships my father would go back to the same observation every time they would visit me and that was that I was so vulnerable. Now that word continues to hang in the center of my mind like a brilliant chandelier covered in dust and I'm trying to reach it to clean it off. Terry Crews hasn't helped with my current fixation. His vulnerable and viral videos about his porn addiction (Dirty Little Secret Series) really got me started before my parents visit and to illustrate my point I'm going to put gender aside (please go with me on this) and use him and myself as an example of the opposite ends of the spectrum / vibration of the word vulnerability.

If you have seen my YouTube channel then you know how I have struggled for years with Love Addiction and that has affected my life in a major way. Recognizing when you are obsessing over an idea of someone or a fantasy of what your romantic life should be can be crippling, especially when the realities of life come in and you feel nothing but terror as your dreams (fantasies) are dashed and there's another human in the room with you, not Cinderella or Prince Charming - not that we are all quite that naive but you get my meaning; there are various levels of delusion we put ourselves through in order to believe we can have "that kind" of love, whatever "that kind" means to each of us. So, when my hopes and dreams feel betrayed I withdraw, I feel sorry for myself and that has either forced the man I'm with to try to reach me, to the point of violence because of his own unaddressed needs, or with other men they choose to abandon me - or it feels that way to me - when in reality they see my imbalanced expectations and run OR they are just plain self-centered and take off until I get my head straight and then they are back again to enjoy only the best parts of me -see Emotionally Unavailable Love Avoidant.  By now I'm hoping you can see how I can become vulnerable in an unhealthy way. From my perspective I continued to feel more and more victimized and used. To be honest, I contributed a great deal to this cycle because I became desperate to feel and see the love I had fixated on in my mind since I was young.

Now to go back to what my parents had brought up about my vulnerability, the observation is a profoundly important one because healthy vulnerability is empowering not only to one's self but to others - back to Terry Crews. Terry Crews is able to share his story as an observer of his former self in a way. He is not attached to the drama but he shares it in a way that helps him to be compassionate and understanding of his former self while recognizing what brought him to that point and how to never again fall back into the cycle that brought him there. It would be safe to say that he is no longer a victim of his addiction and he has emerged a better person for doing the work and facing it. This is an important point too though, it took vulnerability at his lowest point to admit he had a problem at all and that vulnerability is why he has come so far.

Now speaking only as a woman who lived her life in an unhealthy state of vulnerability I attracted and was attracted to men who, whether they realized it or not, felt the desire to "rescue" me. They were struggling with their own unmet needs, their own fantasies and that is what attracted us. When two people meet when they are both in an unhealthy state of vulnerability then that unhealthy state begins to grow and expand just as much as two people in a healthy state of vulnerability can grow and expand together. Sex was often what the men would hide behind to keep from becoming too emotionally intimate and I used sex to try to get them to be emotionally intimate. I have learned that this dynamic or how it shows up isn't exclusive to either gender as many Millennials are confiding in me what they are going through.

Being mindful of how we use the word and show up in vulnerability is key. When I was in an unhealthy state vulnerability, just needing to be loved by a man so bad, I allowed myself to be taken advantage of; I was blind to the cycle I was in and began to wonder if all men where the same when really, all people who are still in that state are the same. And what healthy person is going to risk their own health to step into that? When we grow and become healthier people we take great care in what we expose ourselves to whether it be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. Now I'm working on being the healthy vulnerable; letting go of any attachment to my story or how I have identified myself in any role that made me feel victimized and using what I have experienced and learned in an empowering way for myself first and hopefully others in the future.

A Philosophically Spiritual Question about Emotion

What are your thoughts on observing your emotions and using emotions to empower, inspire and motivate you?

The Goddess in You

Micah - Goddess Photoshoot by SeguraPhotos

Today is September 6, 2015, the day that Venus begins to go direct (it will remain in shadow until October 9th) and coincidentally it's also World Goddess Day. I'm not sure how seriously I would normally take this but today I feel as if someone is screaming at me and I can't hear them. Is it my Higher Self? Is it God? I believe we have aspects of all of these archetypes within us. I relate more to the Goddess archetypes so I created this blog as a sort of exercise for others; a way to step outside of ourselves as observers without attachment to see how we would interpret our current situations, feelings, relationships and goals and what perspective we would offer ourselves through each unique filter.

These are four that help, hinder and haunt me. What they have taught me so far is at the end. If you try this exercise, please share any insights in the comments!

Venus of Urbino by Titian - 1538

Aphrodite (Roman name: Venus) - Goddess of Love, Beauty and Regeneration - protector of sailors. Her and I have had a love / hate relationship for a very long time. As Venus was retrograde many relationships were challenged and a lot of people ended relationships or did things in order to explore love and where they fit in the universal dance that they never imagined themselves doing. The greater the surprises were the more disconnected we were from recognizing how we have been showing up in our relationships, how our love expressions may have been off balance and how open we are to having healthy relationships (in general) with healthy boundaries with like-minded individuals. Whatever we have been avoiding, we have been forced to face. Now what do we do with that?

I have a love / hate relationship with this goddess because on one hand it feels wonderful and powerful to embrace our beauty (internally and externally), to have it recognized, valued, appreciated. It also feels wonderful to be in love but the act of love - doing love - can become a challenge. Words and actions can fail to match up. Expectations increase as do disappointments and resentments. The longing to be accepted for who you are and for exactly where you happen to be, all while being emotionally and spiritually encouraged and supported as you strive to be a better you becomes more and more elusive. It seems the more elusive a thing is the greater the desire for it and the further we push it away.

Athena statue at Parthenos

Athena (Roman name: Minerva) who for years I related to most. Goddess of Wisdom she was skilled in the art of war and negotiation. She was just and always sought peace. She was also Zeus' favorite.

Athena was with me when I did the goddess photoshoot the day after my Grandmother passed away. I felt the strength of this woman who had always faced every perceivable tragedy with a wisdom and soft giggle that could quickly ease the greatest of fears. Athena has been with me as I struggled to find a home to live in, I committed to being the first person in my family to complete a degree against all odds and as I fell in love again after a painful marriage. The shadow was probably becoming overly focused on survival and just getting through each day to the point of closing myself off from my true self, those I loved and others.

Athena and her wisdom are part of who I am but I lose myself and my ability to connect with others when I become overly ruled by my head and my ideals. In her wisdom I believe she is inviting me to connect with the other goddesses now in order to become my own version of a goddess.

Hestia

Hestia (Roman name: Vesta) - The gentlest of the gods she was the goddess of the hearth. Without realizing it I have longed to embody this goddess the most since I was a little girl. In the book, The Alchemist it is referred to as a "Personal Legend". This quiet and gentle goddess finds the greatest value in a warm fireplace that loved ones can gather around and warm their bodies, hearts, minds and spirits. Embodying being-ness and healthy connectedness, this is who I have most longed to be deep down but my excitable nature begins to get distracted by the gifts of the other goddesses instead of embodying all of them simultaneously. This is why the archetype of Hestia continues to elude me.

Hera campana

Hera (Roman name: Juno) - Goddess of Marriage and Queen of the Gods with a serious jealous streak. I have known this archetype. I have known justified jealousy but have known great restraint in these moments (thank you, Athena). I was far from a goddess when married. I did not honor myself and therefore could not honor my household.

Micah - Goddess Shoot by Segura Photos

There are more goddesses and I encourage you to look them up to research them as archetypes, possibly meditate on the ones that resonate with you the most; even use them when creating visualizations or scripts for healing sessions. Here's what I have taken away from my meditations on these four women that have ruled my life with and without my awareness:

1. When you forget your Personal Legend (The Alchemist), that one thing you knew you were put on earth for since your earliest recollection, that one thing that makes you feel whole, you forget yourself. It becomes buried in fear and excuses and digging it out can mean countless loss the more piled up these fears and excuses become.

2. A goddess can show up in many ways without you realizing it. For me, I wanted Hestia to show up a certain way. Each time I get a little closer to realizing that hope it slips further away from my grasp. So redefining that image in your mind can help you feel complete. For me, my home is warm by my own fire. I can invite as few or as many people into my home and make them feel as warm, loved and accepted as possible each time, as little or as often as I'd like without compromising myself.

3. Venus loves love and so do I. Sometimes the love that is most demonstrated for us is by people we least expect it from. What a powerful lesson in detachment from expectations from those we say we love most! Why do the greatest loves come with the greatest expectations? Love ought not be heavy. Love is restorative and regenerates. It may not always look like you hope it could but the less you hang on to that particular expectation the more abundant varieties of love come pouring in. Virtuous, compassionate and accepting love.

4. Only when you can truly commit to yourself, what it is you know you need to be doing and making your well-being a priority, only then will others who treat themselves with the same dignity want to spend time with you. 

5. Be courageous. Risk losing what you fear losing the most. Release attachment to your ideas of how things "should" be or look and celebrate what they are. When you embody all of your archetypal, goddess-like strengths you will be and feel unstoppable and any set backs will feel that much more temporary.

6. NO ONE CAN TAKE ANYTHING FROM YOU THAT YOU AREN'T WILLING TO GIVE!

Become your own god damn goddess!!

Sins of a Mother - What Instagram Doesn't Show You

http://www.elinorcarucci.com/mother - *Nudity

The article on Elephant Journal, Motherhood Uncensored: What We Don't See on Instagram had me thinking about my time as a young mother and as I looked at the uncensored, artistic and raw photos of Elinor Carucci and her family I felt remorse, guilt and even some shame for a number of reasons. I will share two.

First - I was reminded of a discussion that took place on Facebook regarding women being allowed to have the same right to go shirtless as men. I was not part of this discussion, it was actually something my partner had showed me when he decided to defend his friend for her beliefs. His friend is currently a breastfeeding mother who has other children to take care of, (from my understanding anyway). This woman was attacked by many who claim to be religious, god-loving people who would preach about not judging others in one sentence as they judged her for her beliefs and very honest and raw feelings as a mother. My partner reminded those people that the only reason this is even an issue is because our culture has overly sexualized women's breasts and their value as something erotic has surpassed their value as life sustaining and nurturing gifts that only women have the privilege of choosing to experience - or not (in so many words anyway). I immediately imagined a woman having an orgasm strictly through nipple stimulation eons ago and she was meant to feel shamed for it and it quickly became something shameful for a woman while it simultaneously became, for a man preaching wholesomeness and purity, something to secretly long to experience; kind of like early day porn. Of course, this is all just me and my overactive imagination but still, you have to wonder.

If boobies make you uncomfortable, if realness of life in it's purest and rawest forms makes you uncomfortable or if you fear you may twist these images into something sexual, then please save everyone the trouble and don't view them. Read the Elephant Journal version to feel safe. If you want to experience a glimpse into the realness of motherhood and can observe without offense or judgement - including observing your own reaction physically, psychologically, spiritually or emotionally - then click and learn.

Second - As you may have surmised from the first point, society in general (including myself) made me feel remorse, guilt and some shame. Then those feelings hit closer to home as I viewed images of frustration and exhaustion in the mother's face. I only had one son and I have regretted my role as a mother almost his entire life. This is not fair to him or to me but I find myself reflecting often on how unprepared I was to be a mother at such a young age. I had not known life, I did not know how to be married and I especially didn't know how to be ME. I am often flooded with memories of moments that where wrapped in opportunity to connect with my son more, to learn how to be interested in his interests, to help him feel like he mattered to me as much as he really did.

It's so hard to remove one's self from the personal drama and connect with your children when anything in your life is riddled with the bullets of poverty, abuse, trauma, neglect or everyday stresses we bring home creating trauma, and then you realize that your inability to know how to change it only delivers the same toxic bullets to your children. Even now that he's a young man, whenever I see him I can FEEL my old feelings when I was with his father and he was so young and I have to consciously remind myself to be present; present in time and present in mindfulness with my son. I look at these images and the time I have with my son now as an opportunity to not change what's done but to start a new chapter and make new and healthier memories.

Social Media doesn't always share the realness of life, more the idyllic version of life, almost like an online vision board whose reality we feel close to reaching with every post.

What about you? Anything you feel compelled to express when reading the article or viewing the images?

Forgetting Yourself

In exactly three months I will be 40 years old. This has had me in deep reflection on how far I've come and the lessons I've learned.

I have had an obsession with quotes for years. Other people's perspectives have helped stretch me beyond my own limited beliefs and binary ways of thinking. Now I believe it's time for me to share my own personal realizations and awarenesses - truths if you will. I will not number them because I believe in natural flow of things and if I write anything that says "10 personal truths" or "40 awarenesses you get by 40"... No, I don't want to be a modern or new age cliche. I don't believe in limiting anything to a particular number. The universe is a mathematical wonder but growth - to me - can be as vast and limitless as that same universe.

So here is my first truth because I'm going to be hosting my first Qigong class this month.

When I have forgotten my body I have forgotten peace and calm.

When I have forgotten my brain I have forgotten my wit and gumption.

When I have forgotten my heart I have forgotten myself.

When I have forgotten myself I have forgotten everything I value or hold dear, including my loved ones.

All of these things connect me to myself, to others, and to the vastness with love and not fear. 

When I forget anything I fear everything.

Sit in the Uncomfortableness

Looks uncomfortable...by ~Havoc-elite

In one of our final classes for Life Coaching certification we practiced a powerful exercise around helping a client through getting an apology from someone from their past who isn't willing or able to give them the apology the client needs. This exercise was more powerful than I could have imagined and I could understand why it would be necessary for anyone feeling stuck in life. It was surprisingly simple and required little to no detail from the client in order to facilitate the process which was also a pleasant surprise, (not everyone wants to share details).

When we started the exercise we began simply by facing our surrogate (the Coach) and "client" and we were given very few details about how the process would go so after the first portion my partner and I kind of looked at each other like, "What now?" and as I started to ask the instructor the question he stopped me and said, "Just sit in the uncomfortableness, Micah." My internal dialogue was racing because I understood the power of those words and what his intention was when he spoke them and also could hear in my mind how I would rationalize my reason for asking so as to not look foolish.

Ever since that moment I have heard my instructor's voice booming in my head like the voice of God in any and every possible situation that could be uncomfortable for me but necessary for a healing process and I have decided that I may hear his voice in my head in these types of situations for the rest of my life.

This has had me thinking about how much time and energy we spend in avoiding pain and discomfort which is interesting because if we just faced our pain, owned why we were feeling it, took responsibility in our role in it and made the conscious decision to determine how much we were willing to suffer over it, then we would spend less time in pain or discomfort than we do avoiding it. To explain what I mean, let me give you two examples that pop into my head right away:

1. Avoiding Love - I have done video blogs and posted them with blogs on my website about Love Avoidants and how Love Addicts can occasionally behave like a Love Avoidant and as a recovering Love Addict I feel baffled at how much time and energy goes into wanting love but being so afraid of it you push love away once you find it as if it will hurt less for it to end sooner over and over and over again as opposed to diving in and truly exploring what love really is, what it truly feels like, and all the yummy goodness that goes with committing to one person for a while along with what we are willing to live with and compromise when committed to someone else. 

Relationships aren't always pretty but it is in the uncomfortable and painful moments when we have the opportunity to truly connect with another person even more or have any questions about your love (or relationship) answered. Those tough moments prove what a person is truly made of; it's in these moments that we are most raw and exposed and it may not always be pretty but what comes from it can be more beautiful than anything we would've previously imagined, even if it's as simple as a stronger sense of self.

    2. Going to the Doctor - Can you imagine how less frequently people would go to the doctor if they went to the root of why they were feeling the way they felt? Don't get me wrong, I believe that going to the doctor is critical in many circumstances but the more I have learned practiced, and experienced complimentary / alternative medicine the better I feel. I feel more confident, my health is improving, I'm more clear about who I am and what I have to offer and I see countless examples of other people taking responsibility for their health and lives every single day.

Pain in our body is like a weed in our garden, we can trim it, spray it, do whatever we want to in order to avoid looking at these unsightly weeds but without getting to the root the weed will just keep finding other ways to grow. Pain in our body that gets ignored, avoided, buried and covered up will just move to another spot or grow even bigger. When we don't process our emotions, (including pain), in a healthy way it gets stored in our body and stays there until it becomes chronic or even a dis/ease like a heart condition or cancer.

We spend so much time and energy trying to control the outcomes of any given situation that we forget we have more control over ourselves and how we feel than anything else there is and when we ignore that we surrender any and all of our control to circumstances and pain whether it's real, imagined, past, or future. So I ask you, what is more difficult, sitting in the uncomfortableness of pain when it first shows up, being present with it and even asking for help facing it and moving through it at your own pace? Or avoiding it and allowing it to build up until it becomes a regret or a dis/ease?

Sneaking Shoes

red shoesby ~princess-of-dream

As a girl I would love to slide my feet in other people's shoes and imagine I was that person for the few seconds I wore their shoes. I imagined their stories, I felt their heart soar with joy and break when they were in pain. I felt as though I could really feel what it was like to be them if only for a moment. 

Now I'm grown and I hold on to that yearning to honor the people I meet but instead of stealing time with their shoes I have learned the kind of work that not only honors the story their mind and bodies hold but empowers them to heal and become the people they dream of being.

Only sometimes will my toes sneak a peek into someone else's shoes... Only someone near and dear...

When Patterns Become Clear

Patternsby ~Kaeldra-1

     In this moment I am becoming much more confident that I am going in the direction of my dreams. I am also becoming much more clear on what "grace unfolding" actually means and feels like. It's moments like this that inspired this blog because I am not the only person that goes through these feelings and experiences and it is in times like this we can feel most alone... I will explain...

     If you are following my YouTube channel or my Motion and Potion Relationships, Love, and Sex blogs you know that I have had the opportunity to recognize myself as a recovering Love Addict. As I sat in my Psychology of Addiction class and we discussed what different unhealthy family dynamics may look like including the addictive family type, (addiction shows up in many ways, not just in substances), I could see my entire life layed out so clearly like a complex and interweaving pattern and I understood even more the meaning behind Neo seeing the computer code in everything when he was in the Matrix.

     At first it was so exciting! I was excited to know that I recognized my unhealthy patterns and worked to break them and had gotten myself healthy, (as much as I knew how to at the time anyway, being healthy is a lifelong endeavor). I was excited to feel as though I have the opportunity for a fresh start and in understanding I was free! In seeing the ancestral pattern I knew that it would be my job to break it and teach my son the unhealthy patterns he witnessed growing up so maybe he won't have to struggle as much as so many other people do.

     Over the next few weeks however I began to realize the magnitude of the responsibility I have in not only recognizing and changing patterns of behavior that have been literally ingrained in my DNA but start from scratch with a completely clean slate. I had the awareness and power to rewrite the code but realized I had never written code before!

     Now for someone who has gone through Love Addiction and has inadvertently been defined by their relationships and careers try to imagine how frightening this realization is when it means that you have to reframe old patterns, create new and hopefully fresher patterns and do this all by yourself. As this pressure closed in on me my sleeping dreams became more vivid and reminded me of all of the people from my past that I would normally go to in order to work through something this daunting with which made me feel even more alone. So not only do I have to face changing multiple life time's worth of behavior patterns but I have to do it alone in order to not fall back into old behavior patterns that hurt not only me but the people I loved the most. Granted, it is an act of love for me to take this journey alone and not rely on others to carry me through it but that doesn't seem to make it less frightening.

     Last night I went through my own coaching session and realized that I have not been giving myself enough credit for all the work and changes I have already made on myself and in my life. I have spent a lot of time measuring my success more on what I don't have instead of what I do have. Consciously I see and can preach about the obviousness of the problem in this but on a deeper and more unconscious level I still struggle with this. TA-DA!! A new pattern emerges!! As if I didn't already have my work cut out for me, right? I also realized that in my distraction with my own stuff I began to have a convoluted way of demonstrating how much I appreciate having a man in my life willing to work outside in the Phoenix heat from sun up to sun down building his own business and supporting us both financially. My fears of not demonstrating to him how much that means to me have only made things more challenging on our relationship, not easier and once I let go of trying to prove something to me, him, or anyone else along with my idea of what that is supposed to look like and just listened to him tell me what he wants and needs from me and accept it everything was fine. Apparently being an overachiever in a relationship isn't healthy either... Who would've thunk it?!

     Thank goodness for coaching! Coaches need to be coached too! Like anyone else, we have things we need to continue to recognize, learn and grow from. It's part of practicing what we preach. No one has all the answers except YOU. That's right, we all have all the answers we need inside of us and sometimes we just need a little coaching to help dig through the crap and confusion and get straight to it. Life goes so much smoother when we give up excuses and rationalizations and just accept what we know to be true but boy oh boy is it a lot of commitment and work!