Hear you breathing me asleep

I always advocate never creating monsters when there are none, Bliss.
Primarily, of course, because there are none.
Boo,
The Universe

The romantic in me has held onto the memory of me lying and listening to JH breathing beside me in his slumber, holding me close to him. The safety I felt being with my Master and my love. And now that is gone. I will practice listening to the Universe breathing me to sleep. Memories don;t have to induce sadness only. I can feel a mix of the loveliness and joy of that feeling with him and sad that it no longer continues. Grieving towards acceptance.

How does this relate to there being no monsters? I am not scared in my home right now. I am scared of aloneness and how I traumatise at times through my emotions. But I am also very pleased that I am much more aware and can seek real support to level out. I successfully survived everything for as long as I can remember so did try and do everything by myself- privately.
Now I take delight in being able to reach out and allow myself all this everything I sense and feel. It is being human and it's the steps towards acceptance.
The monsters can't get me anymore if I don't let them and sometimes I need help

I would like to add to this that monsters can also be the looking for the difficulties only. I think it's important to acknowledge what is difficult and sometimes I focus too much on this because I think a lot of people try to overlook problems and issues. But it is not necessary to hold onto only these things. I think everything is on a continuum - for example stubbornness can be at the other end determination - . I also think the difficulties offer growth as it creates and opportunity for awareness to develop. I also think ease and contentment gives room for rest and soul joy and its a time to consolidate and assimilate. I suppose at some point nothing will seem difficult - it will simply be what it is. I think this is gained by traveling the path - reminds me of the journey of Siddhartha.

Bliss
X

Be careful what you ask for ...

Step 11 - prayer and meditation -
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

I heard this read out on Saturday and this morning the thought of expectation has floated across my mind. Someone shared about the part expectation plays in disappointment.
I am disappointed that things have not turned out the way I had wanted them to with JH. He and I were just not the way I guess we had wanted each other to be.
Yes I know this again! I am sorry for all my friends who hear nothing other than this at the moment. This last 9 months or so has been really big in my life. I met JH without any expectation and then the way in which we interacted after a while tempted me into hope which I think became expectation. And when it was not met I have fallen into a pit.
Step Eleven suggests not to pray for anything for the self - ONLY for knowledge of God's will for us.
I prayed to meet someone. I feel that I would so like to meet a person that I can share living with - experiences and thoughts, emotional responses to situations and events, to laugh with - etc etc etc. I will always remember what ET's grandfather said - well you can if you want ask for anything at all. But what you have to realise is tat there are probably many many factors and people involved in providing what you are asking for. And if anyone person is not quite listening to properly (and probably no one is listening precisely) then what results will not necessarily be what you have asked for. Even if it initially looks like it is the answer to your prayers.
I get this a little today.
I wanted and asked. Everything appeared great but it didn't stay like that because all the things that weren't matching my expectations couldn't be.
I do ave so many people in my life and also so much - yet there is this desire in me that is never met.
I am glad that I always have the fellowship to fall into. I am not a person that stays right in the middle of the boat all the time - but in the same way as a teenager needs somewhere central and safe to fall back to whilst exploring this thing called life - I have it in the fellowship. I had always depended on my mum until she died. The thing is she let me wander off but also enabled and fixed. The fellowship doesn't do that. I can do anything at all and then when I come back fully on my knees yet again there is no judgement or fixing - just stability. More of the same message that I can take and interpret in my own way etc. The fellowship - not one person in particular - the whole process -. So I do not have to always parent myself. The fellowship offers the parenting and the love when I cannot love me.
Gosh I am feeling relieved to recognise this. Intellectually I know this stuff.
Sometimes I can really feel it in my soul. I trust that the more I practice living within all of this the more I will know - it's changed so much already from the day I started so there is even evidence that it is possible.
In this moment I suddenly do not feel the loneliness I have felt since JH and I have become apart.
It seemed so much that we were together and now it seems so distant.
Its strange because actually I can offer my closeness without any demands or needs today.
I trust though - I trust that everything is just how it is meant to be in this moment. Not to punish or teach - it just is and I can take lessons from it if I wish.
I feel the same for JH right now. It is how it is - there are lessons but that's not the primary reason - it has been a life experience for me and for that I am truly grateful.
JH is a wonderful man. I am a wonderful me. I know I have a lot of shortcomings that manifest in many ways when interacting with different people. I thank God for the opportunity to experience life. It is never ever dull

Thank you
Bliss
X

The gift of the present

 Living in the present
The present moment is all we have. Yes, we have plans and goals, a vision for tomorrow. But now is the only time we possess. And it is enough.
We can clear our mind of the residue of yesterday. We can clear our mind of fears of tomorrow. We can be present, now. We can make ourselves available to this moment, this day. It is by being fully present now that we reach the fullness of tomorrow.
Have no fear, child, a voice whispers, Have no regrets. relinquish your resentments. Let Me take your pain. All you have is the present moment. Be still. Be here. Trust.
All you have is now. It is enough.
Today, I will affirm that all is well around me, when all is well within

21st Feb The Language of Letting go
ISBN 13:978-0-89486-637-1

Bliss
x

My Dad's Birthday

I called my dad yesterday! I remained adult whilst talking with him but also I noticed it's as if if I put on a plastic coating so that anything he might say (or not say) slips off me. Off course when the coating comes off after the call I crumble. And the coating can take a few days sometimes to come off.
But I am not crumbling at the moment. It disappoints me about me that I try to provoked an emotional response from him. We talk about nothing deeper than superficial nonsense. There is a format. I ask how he is, he tells me about his hospital visits. Then he asks me if I have heard from anyone and I always try and give the bad news to try and get him to show something like caring. He then comes back with something worse.
He also always has to attribute his ailments to something he picked up whilst in Korea.
He did ask me what I have been doing ... I keep it very vague. I haven't really been doing much it seems of a big nature so that it sounds like big news. That's what I have always been like - needing to have done wild things or large things to make myself interesting. But I have been working hard and preparing to negotiate with my bosses. I had a lovely evening at the theatre, I am feeling better just recently (will be glad when menopause symptoms have left me completely), my boyfriend and I have separated and I am trying to allow myself to heal and at the same time wishing to remain friends (this is really emotionally enormous), I have spent time with friends, I have been investing a lot more time into my studying and to my recovery, I am trying to save money to spend on travels, I have been discovering and being shown some lovely art and finding more and more interest. These are just examples of things that contribute to who I am and my dad doesn't have a clue.
I had mentioned to him, on the last occasion we met, that I have been writing poetry. He then spoke about his poetry writing. His is mainly sarcasm actually. It can be funny but really it is quite mean as it is at the expense of other people.
So the conversation ended with him not being available to meet today. I wish I had sent a card. I thought about it with intention  to send one. But I am so flipping lazy with these things. I always leave it until the last minute and then its too late. I used to be like that with my mum too. I don;t know why it is. I have them in my mind and it matters to me but I just don't do it.

I spoke with JH as well. I had sent a message earlier in the day because I am getting more and more calm as the days go by and my acceptance seeps in. I wrote about how sorry I am for my behaviour in reaction to all that had gone on.
We weren't able to actually talk. That's OK. Perhaps another time. It's less and less important. I am sorry for my part which is separate from my broken heart. I feel the loss and sadness still. But the acceptance of JH as is makes it a little easier. And with distance I can just be how I prefer me to be.
I hope he is able to ask his daughter how things are and have been for her. It would be an ideal opportunity to allow her to express herself in all of what has been going on. I know JH has worked hard and been taking professional support. It would be great if he could hear what his daughter thinks and feels and help her get to some acceptance with clear explanations and stability. I say this as he had mentioned how she withdraws and that he thinks she is saying positive things to her mum to please her. It would be good to know the truth from her rather than assume was my immediate thought. It's lovely that JH is taking time for his kids. I think with his work and probably a lot of online time and interest in women too has perhaps meant he is less available. But I hear in JH how much he wants to be good for everyone and then spreads himself thin.
I also know from JH how his place in the forest is a sanctuary for him. So I hope for him that it's restful time and fun and like breathing clean fresh air in to get rid of the illness he has. Recoup and re-energise.
I hope for only good for JH. I know that if he can use CoDA things can only get better and better.

I did a chair on Friday. I was invited because they have chairs from within the group. But I felt very honoured on the basis that it was only my second visit. I loved the fact that they keep the focus on feelings and when it was said that it's only a 10 minute share and we concentrate on feelings I was relieved and grateful. I have so many BIG emotions and some I just don't really know.
I shared about how I had been talking over lunch about a particular drunken occasion of mine and I was laughing at the memory of it. I noticed though a stony faced look on my lunch time fellows. Not alcoholics they did not really laugh at the past the way I was. And that's what AA has given me the ability to look back and be able to laugh without shame anymore. I have moved away from that. Although things like that were really me finding ways of expressing my adventurous and penned in self. It was like I found freedom but the only way I was able to allow myself was if inebriated. I still have a sort of pride about some antics. It's interesting. I don't want that sort of behaviour anymore but I do relish the freedom to be wild.

Now, I am avoiding starting my studies. A day of cleaning yesterday. Turning the place upside down. Partly it is because I actually cannot abide living here whilst I have these flipping moths. So everything has to be turned out regularly and hoovered. I don;t always turn out cupboards to hoover you see. That seems like too big a job to do on a regular basis. But now I am going to have to. Grrrrr.
I also walked a lot and wrote a lot.
I did not do any studying.

This afternoon LouLou is gong to the vet. I do not trust this vets. But they know her history now - I have to let them know I think that I am feeling anxious about the things that they have seemingly been negligent of in the past. They know about one occasion but I feel I need to remind them as it's such a big practice.
I can see LouLou ageing by the week at the moment. I love her so much. She has been with me through important years. I hope she will be with me for many more to come. 12 and will be 13 in November.

I have just received photos from my cousins birthday. It seems so sad to see her with no hair and so thin. She looks tired and old actually. She is 10 years younger than me. I am told that the chemo and the radiotherapy have not worked at all and the next option is to operate but it's such a  strange Cancer that has wrapped itself around her artery near her kidney. So an operation is very dangerous. No one has actually mentioned the possibility that there is a possibility that she is not going to survive very long. It's the unmentionable and yet there is more communication from Auntie O and Uncle R with a tone in there voice.
It's like a superstition that to mention the word death might bring it on.
I don;t know if its a general rule of thumb but I have noticed that in my mum's family they die shortly after their birthdays. In her photo she look thin and tired and grey but she is still smiling and up and about doing things. I think this is going to be tough year/ Gosh how can this happen so young. I know it does but it seems so close now. It happens to people further away from me usually.
It's odd I feel a sort of numbness about it. I have not been close with my family through anger really and through teaching. I am very negative about my family. I think I picked up the shame that my dad feels about people. I do not like it - it's judgemental and ugly. A lifetime of it seems difficult to shift.

I leave now very thoughtful and sad
Bliss
X