{"id":4942,"date":"2019-05-12T09:39:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-12T13:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/healwritenow.com\/?p=4942"},"modified":"2019-05-12T09:39:13","modified_gmt":"2019-05-12T13:39:13","slug":"back-to-soul-on-mothers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/healwritenow.com\/back-to-soul-on-mothers-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Back to Soul on Mother’s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Mission:<\/strong> Get back\nto soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Method:<\/strong> Writing<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Locations:<\/strong> Time to Tell <\/a>online workshop, writing group, International Women Writer\u2019s Guild.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Date:<\/strong> Spring,\n2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The busier I am, the harder it is for me to still, slow, and\nsimmer with my soul. I can go from being a pan on the back burner I\u2019ve put myself\non to the lids under the oven to the dusty box of stuff for giving away for\nwhen someone, somewhere, gets their first apartment. How often have I thrown\nout what became useless, covered it mold or decay, because I saved it for some\nfuture maybe than claiming it for myself in real time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMend my life,\u201d is the line in the Mary Oliver poem <\/a>that I\u2019ve always loved. It\u2019s about the voices of others clamoring, clutching, insistent and holding on. I\u2019ve always loved this line. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been a mender and the one in need of mending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been the seeker and the one longing to be sought after.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m the one with a million pressing questions and the she\nwho has ached to be another\u2019s answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this time I hear the Mary Oliver poem different. Instead\nof \u201cMend my life,\u201d the words whisper<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTend my life,\u201d \u2013 an instruction\nfrom me to me. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

T<\/em>he 50\u2019s are forgiving.\nThe 50\u2019s are opening me up. Now, I know what I need even if I don\u2019t know how to\ndeliver it to myself. Now, wisdom is in reach even if it is still a dreamy\nthought more than muscle memory. Intuition is still more abstract than the actual\nguiding system I use to follow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I refuse to turn on myself though for being such a slow\nlearner though. I won\u2019t do it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know it took decades to be where and who I am today. It\ntook most of my life to claim my life. It took most of my self to have a self\nthat feels like mine. It took determination and devotion to be a break-the-cycle\nperson. But I\u2019m tired of trying not to be broken. Breaking the cycle is not the\nsame as being whole, healed, and at ease. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What if the work of the next phase isn\u2019t work at all? What if\nthe work of the next phase is play, ease, freedom, and all the things a child\nknows when hijacked my danger and living in survival mode? I will age backward.\nI will stalk joy the way fear has stalked me. Can I work less hard and let\nmyself be? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mending days are finally over this I know. I\u2019m no longer\nabout making an occupation of fixing myself or others. But I\u2019m having trouble\nletting go. I\u2019m so good at fixing, fighting, judging. I\u2019m so good at resentment,\nanger, and willpower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve fought my whole life, and my body quickly assumes fight\nstance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s not a writer\u2019s block I have but something else. My own\nvoice feels forced and unfamiliar. My own body and postures are more like\nstatues and less the fluid, flexible, and breathing human being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The women in my writing group ask:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan you stay in that place where you describe being in your\nbody?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan you stay in that place where you are inhabiting the\nfeelings?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCan you stay in that place where you don\u2019t pull us out and\nrush into the head or into argument?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These are the perfect questions. I nod rather than answer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t know if I know how to do those things. I\u2019m not even\nsure how I learn them. I\u2019m not sure I know how to not work less hard at being\nhuman, to trust myself to be a human with ease and without effort. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure I trust myself to get to where I\u2019m headed by doing\nless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure I know how to tend or be tended rather than to defend\nor be defended but at least I want to find out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So much has left, is leaving or about to leave. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My father, reproduction, fertility, three men I thought I\u2019d\nspend forever with, my identity, and my baby.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My girl is a woman who has suddenly stepped into stunning independence,\nhas her license, and driving herself through the world. Now, it is me who is\nthe passenger who must be invited when she starts the car to drive her own\ndirections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wasn\u2019t I just singing \u201cMama always comes back?\u201d Was I just\nputting red heart stickers on the top of her hand before pre-school to help her\nmanage three hours without me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My house seems too big now. The man I bought my house with\nis building a tiny house in Canada, for one. Turns out, he needed land, quiet,\nand not to be a step-father, a message he delivered last year, on Mother\u2019s Day.\nThe life I worked so hard to build now seems empty. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two hands on each side of my heart, for my daughter, and\nfor my lover, couldn\u2019t meet in my heart. I tried to split myself in half to\nmeet their needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I bought him out of his interest in what\u2019s now just my property,\nthe home I\u2019m helping ready my daughter to leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I do not trust who or what I will meet in my sorrow, grief, and\nloneliness. If I tend mainly to me with myself be enough for me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I tend to tenderness itself?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I make a home where my daughter always feels anchored\nand safe to return and one in which I also feel at ease?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I find out how it feels to free myself of goals, plans, budgets,\nor even the war I\u2019ve waged inside my skin for five decades and figure out what\nI need next for the next phase of my own life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mostly, I have been on a mission, in a movement, and fight\nfor or from a cause. But lately, it feels like less like steel calm, righteous\nfury, or determined clearing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lately, it seems I\u2019m on a class four river in a boat without\noars, a guide or even a life jacket. I\u2019m afraid to be tossed out of the boat and\npummeled on a rock and also afraid I won\u2019t be, that the ride will never end, I\u2019ll\nnever find my ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I stop doing planning, shaping, making, and fighting? I\nwonder what will happen if I slow down and get quiet, if I whispered to myself,\n\u201carrived,\u201d 1000 times and believed it even some of the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I go to more museums? Would I look at art and make\ntime to travel? Would I find more time to sing, play, and dance? Would I host\nmore parties, have more company, if I open myself up to love life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What would happen to my mind if it wasn\u2019t planning an\nargument, working the defense strategy? I\u2019ve needed to be fierce, firm, and\nfeisty, to stay clear so as not to get sucked down into denial. But not now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, I am tired of fighting in a ring I never suited up for.\nI am tired of battling with the past I had so little part in making. I\u2019m tired\nof my life and body being a punching bag for others working out their own pain.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I let the ring be the floor where the war is not won or\nlost but is just over?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I say to myself: Not my fight. Not my gloves. This isn\u2019t\nwhat my hands were made for. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I meet the heroine of my own journey by disrobing entirely?\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I be the heroine of my own journey by stepping out of\nthe ring?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I feel my own skin, hands, heart and fist unfurling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I settle-up, acknowledge the punches that have been thrown\nand landed and say I\u2019m in the wrong place. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I let go of fighting back, knocking out, or simply\nsurviving and retire? Can I get out of the cement building where all are\nscreaming, wagering, and watching and say, \u201cThis isn\u2019t for me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I know I\u2019m on the wrong path even before the right one\nappears? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can. I do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I retire the occupational hazards of childhood as a half\ncentury adult and give myself permission to do little more than explore?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I be done with the fight prep, the hype, the matches, and\nthen the recovery time after knock outs?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Can I find it\u2019s not the end of anything but the chance to be\nsimple, ordinary and at ease in my body, bed, and the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m about to find out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

P.S. Rock art with Margaret Bellafiore on beach.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lately, it seems I\u2019m on a class four river in a boat without
\noars, a guide or even a life jacket. I\u2019m afraid to be tossed out of the boat and
\npummeled on a rock and also afraid I won\u2019t be, that the ride will never end, I\u2019ll
\nnever find my ground.<\/p>\n

Can I stop doing planning, shaping, making, and fighting? I
\nwonder what will happen if I slow down and get quiet, if I whispered to myself,
\n\u201carrived,\u201d 1000 times and believed it even some of the time. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[54],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nBack to Soul on Mother's Day - Heal Write Now for Trauma Survivors & Adults Abused as Children<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/healwritenow.com\/back-to-soul-on-mothers-day\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Back to Soul on Mother's Day - Heal Write Now for Trauma Survivors & Adults Abused as Children\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Lately, it seems I\u2019m on a class four river in a boat without oars, a guide or even a life jacket. 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