• a subtle distinction or variation
• a subtle quality
• sensibility to, awareness of, or ability to express delicate shadings (as of meaning, feeling, or value)

My 2nd husband* and I grew up in radically different circumstances. He was the child of millionaires, I once lived in a house that had been condemned and had no running water but for the hose the neighbor ran to our intake pipe.

He had been good looking and privileged, I had been awkward and unpopular. He went to arguably the best private high school in the region with the children of other wealthy and often famous families. I bounced through no less than 9 public schools before 10th grade. He was gifted a brand-new car at 16, I drove my dad’s 25 year old Plymouth without functional reverse and failing brakes.

Aside from the economic differences, there were other considerations. I lived in an urban setting with a radical left anti-capitalist mother, while he was raised on a 40 acre rural property by people so conservative they thought Rush Limbaugh was a pansy.

This is not to say his childhood was without difficulty and trauma, it is merely to say we lived very different lives prior to meeting one another.

Of course one way in which we lived different experiences was through the lens of our opposite genders. He was – like many of his class and age – utterly blind to his white male privilege. This was both passively experienced and culturally reinforced by his family of origin. Their devoted belief that their financial success was a result of their worthiness was deeply ingrained in him; it was part of the fabric of both his identity and how he interpreted the actions and circumstances of other people.

Many of the implications of these differences between us didn’t become clear until we had been together long enough to commit to building a house and life together. We wanted the same things in life, we loved each other passionately, and it just… kinda… didn’t come up. Until it did.

He was a person all but incapable of nuance. He saw the world in extremely clear-cut terms and was all but impossible to sway to a new opinion once one was fixed. I am convinced part of this was due to a degree of neurodivergence, but much of it was also born of having moved through life with a stunning lack of systemic opposition to his ambitions.

He was utterly confounded by my upbringing. He never could quite reconcile how I had emerged from such profound deprivation to become a reasonably successful professional person. He always attributed it – not to the food assistance, college financial aid, subsidized childcare for my daughter and other entitlements I received – to some exceptional quality of mine that allowed this to happen. No matter how I tried to explain that these programs had worked exactly the way they were supposed to, he was never convinced.

After a point, I realized he didn’t really care to understand. That no amount of new information presented would move the needle on his positions and thoughts. So, I gave up. When he said things that were factually or materially incorrect, I simply let him. When he explained my own experiences back to me through his own filter, I didn’t argue. I knew there was no point, and I had tired of trying to get through to him.

Until one night.

He was a heavy drinker. I often couldn’t tell when he was drunk, but very frequently when we had some kind of conflict, he would admit to being “wasted” or “trashed” I understood this as the excuse it was, but it nevertheless surprised me the number of time he was in the bag and I didn’t realize it until later.

One night, while we were being intimate, I set a boundary physically due to some discomfort I was experiencing at the time. At some point, he crossed that boundary. I was so surprised and upset, I didn’t say anything at the time.

When I brought it up in a discussion we had about it soon after, he gave me the “I was super drunk” line, though he did apologize both profusely and sincerely. I tried to explain to him how traumatizing it was. That even though I knew he loved me and hadn’t meant to hurt me, it had damaged the unequivocal trust I had had in our physical relationship up to that point.

He was genuinely confused about why that might be true. How one event in the context of years of respect and trust could be so harmful. And so, despite my better judgement, I tried to explain.

I explained to him the experience of being a woman engaging in any degree of physical intimacy with men. I told him about how many times I had given a pushy guy a blow job rather than risking the possibility of being violently sexually assaulted. I told him about the times when I had pretended to enjoy a sexual encounter in order to get it over with to escape a frightening situation. I told him how many men I had let kiss me when I didn’t want to, because I was afraid that resisting would lead to far worse. To being grabbed, touched, and hurt by people who felt they were entitled to my body, and my response pretending to be a willing participant, lest both the aggressor and I had to admit what was really going on and reckon with that.

Though I knew he believed me – in the sense that he didn’t think I was making it up – he was utterly unable to comprehend that all of this had happened to me; a strong, assertive woman who he had always considered immune to intimidation.

And then I said, “I guarantee you have had women in your past ‘give in’ to you when they didn’t want to.”

His fury and indignation were immediate. He would never force a woman. He had never NEEDED to pressure a woman into sex. This suggestion was a direct threat to both his ego and his image of himself as a “good” guy.

I told him that even if that was true (I believed he believed it was) that it might not have been clear to him at the time that he was being placated. That men his age were not trained to care about or even meaningfully consider what consent really looked like. That they were products of rape culture just like the rest of us.

“I HAVE NEVER RAPED ANYONE!”

When I tried to clarify that I wasn’t calling him a rapist, that I was simply trying to give some cultural context for why he might not see the encounter the same way the person on the other side had, he flatly refused to consider my meaning. To attempt to grasp the distinction between being a rapist and having been raised in rape culture.

He then went on to tell me how offensive he found this idea because of an event that had really haunted him in high school; about how an accusation of sexual impropriety had cemented his belief that women exaggerate or make these things up all the time.

His tone changed when he started to tell the story. It went from one of righteous indignation to a mocking amusement. He detailed how, at a party with a bunch of friends, a girl he had been hooking up with “got more than she bargained for**” once their clothes came off. He said, “I know she had a good time. It was totally obvious” But that for reasons he could never understand and completely unfairly, she had gone to school and complained about the whole encounter. Never explicitly saying he forced her, but complaining about his behavior in vague and indistinct ways.

Even conceding the possibility that he didn’t hear the exact nature of her complaints (she did go to a different school, and he only heard about it indirectly) there was no doubt in my mind that he felt like the wronged party in every sense.

I paused in the wake of this story. I was stunned to realize he had produced this story as evidence in his favor that he was innocent of any kind of sexual coercion. For me, it only underscored how his perception of events was so profoundly informed by rape culture. That to him, the lack of a forceful and explicit “No” in the moment completely absolved him of any sense of wrongdoing. That consent was granted continually by her lack of active opposition in the moment.

I looked at him and said, “I have been that girl. I am telling you, she didn’t want what she got. If she had been happy about what happened between you, she wouldn’t have gone to school and told everyone she wasn’t. Sometimes, women say yes – or, they don’t say no – even when they don’t want to because they are scared, even if you weren’t trying to scare her intentionally. You are a physically imposing person with a very forceful personality. You have no idea what her life experience is like. You don’t know if she’d ever been allowed to say no. You assume you did nothing wrong because that is what you were taught to believe. I am not saying you did something you were consciously aware was wrong, I am saying you didn’t have the full understanding of why the fact she didn’t say ‘no’ wasn’t the same as her being an enthusiastic and completely willing participant.”

I tried everything I could think to say to make him understand. It didn’t work. No matter what tactic I took, he was never able to grasp the nuance I was trying to communicate. It was – unsurprisingly – part of a broader pattern that ultimately contributed to the demise of the relationship.

Seeing this post today brought this conversation back to me in full force:

In the case of my then partner – who I knew had reasonably good intentions – I was looking for ways to help reconcile his lack of understanding with a person I was trying to share my life with. With additional experience I know that regardless of the culture they were exposed to, there is enough information available now to confront those assumptions and accept responsibility for amending their understanding and actions.

What we now understand about the multi-faceted nature of consent should become a gospel that all can commit to. No matter what may have been promoted as “true” and “real” in the past, we now understand enough to know and do better. We used to know the sun moved around the earth, after all. The differences are so enormous that a nuanced view isn’t the least bit necessary.

*We had a wedding, but for administrative reasons, never filed a marriage license.

**He couldn’t resist the chance to emphasize how big his dick was, even in this moment.

: to keep oneself from doing, feeling, or indulging in something and especially from following a passing impulse

noun

: a regularly recurring phrase or verse especially at the end of each stanza or division of a poem or song : chorus

In most songs, as the refrain progresses, it changes; it reflects the evolution of the tune and typically adds complexity or flourish. Allowing the vocalist to warm to their efforts to allow the last to be the most fully expressed of the song.

So too in life do we gain experience and wisdom that enhances our capacity for patience, flexibility, and nuance. We can respond with greater sensitivity and understanding even in the face of novel experiences. If we bring our comprehension forward consciously it can result in an enhanced ability to be present with ourselves and others.

Sometimes, that kind of application of experience doesn’t result in an increased ability to understand or feel greater confidence. Circumstances beyond our control can influence our capacity to remain openhearted and intentional in the face of new or challenging conditions. Forces we may not be aware of can impact our perception of existence in ways both far-reaching and slight. And when that is the case, it can sometimes take a significant shift to recognize the difference.

A new job, a significant move, undertaking a new health regimen could all prompt the kind of perspective shift this describes. But it can just as easily arrive unanticipated. Death, the end of a relationship, pervasive and systemic oppression of marginalized people + the rise of the pedophilic fascist state… for example.

I have been progressing through many* of these changes over the last several months. The shift has been gradual, until it wasn’t anymore. Suddenly, things have fallen into place in a way that feels truly revelatory. I am grateful I had the instinct to begin working toward integrating many of the lessons I have been learning of late, so that I am as prepared for it as I have been.

I feel like myself for the first time in almost a decade. There are a lot of reasons this is true; I have been taking better care of myself, I am doing the work of acknowledging the ways I shut myself down in the face of CPTSD, and I am taking appropriate medication for the first time. All of this together has underpinned a pointed focus on emotional discovery, integration, and openheartedness.

I am experiencing the joy and ache of healing.

It has restored my voice – both literally and figuratively. I feel more able to be radically vulnerable and honest. I am able to cry in a way that helps release my pain even as I stay present in its truth. So much of this was absent for so long, I thought I wasn’t who I am anymore. I believed some fundamental and irrevocable change had occurred in me. I am discovering I was merely lost, not truly gone.

And it hurts, betimes. I reflect with grief and regret over things I could have done differently. Losses are felt more deeply, yes, but finally feel commensurate to their importance. My heart is not muffled, my spirit not silent and I recognize myself again.

So the song is made more poignant by the sorrow it expresses, but also more beautiful with the joy more easily felt.

And even with all of this made clear, it also affords me an uncommon gift; the patience to allow the rest of what is to come to unfold in its own time. The understanding that this effort is the work of all of my life, and that to hurry it is to deprive myself of the full consciousness of the harmony of every day as I live it. The urge to race to a conclusion – to hasten the end of my anguish – has eased. I understand it as a process in a more visceral way. I am able to resist the temptation of the immediate solution.

I am, in fact, able to refrain.

*I still have the same job

One part of me just wants to tell you everything
One part just needs the quiet
And if I’m lonely here, I’m lonely here
And on the telephone, you offer reassurance

I read recently that time is not a loop, it is a spiral.

We do not live through time in a flat circle, we encounter thematic echoes with the advantage of lived experience from a more advanced prospect. Our capacity to recall and employ what we have learned is not a given; we must consciously engage with our lessons and intentionally bring their catalyzing effect to bear. Just because we may know something intellectually does not mean we can realize it’s meaning directly.

It is easy to forget that this exercise may bring with it the emotional and spiritual frequencies that were present when the lesson was first unfolding. That wounds long-closed might reopen under the pressure of revisiting a place where the wound was first inflicted.

Whatever has been learned intellectually, with the benefit of hindsight and objectivity, must be brought into conversation with the emotional tides of the current moment. Lessons in progress can change the alchemy of understanding. Practicing integrated wisdom does not occur in a vacuum; it must endure the forces at play in new circumstances, amending responses to fit present necessity.

And none of this is effortless. It requires attention to the present moment, the capacity for pattern recognition, and the desire to confront difficulty with courage and pliancy. Such is the pitiless nature of life that not only must we learn our lessons, we must learn to employ them at the appropriate moment, often under similar conditions of duress.

So as the spiral winds, we must listen for echoes, capture them with our hearts, and bring their truth forward with each new step.

As quickly as I am prone to charge through life, there are times when I get so far ahead of myself I don’t even realize I have outrun my own feelings.

Until they catch up.

Which, it turns out, they have. In a number of dimensions.

Grief is strange and dynamic and unpredictable. It arises from many sources and usually takes no heed of how well-prepared I may be to greet it. I have been processing a lot of it recently. More intentionally in most cases, but also in ways that I did not plan for.

I realized about a year ago, as a very important relationship was developing what felt like fatal cracks, that I had contributed to the untenable conditions in a number of ways that I needed to address if I ever wanted to have a healthy and mutually supportive partnership.

It wasn’t complicated, on reflection, to identify the source of the impulses that hampered my ability to be present and open-hearted and participate fully in intimate vulnerability. I had endured unhealthy and harmful relationship dynamics from earliest childhood. My strategy for most of my adult life had been to tell myself – firmly – that those things were in the past, and that I couldn’t allow them to interfere with my current need to function. I had simply decided it didn’t affect me anymore.

This was surprisingly effective in some ways. I didn’t dwell on the past, I didn’t believe that the handful of habits I still maintained as the direct result of specific trauma were problematic in any meaningful way. I could and did experience joy and deep connection with others. All healed up!

My most recent long-term relationship was three years behind me and I had spent a large portion of that time reflecting deeply on how I had ended up in it at all, let alone stayed in it so long. I was conscious of the lessons I drew from it and felt sure I would not repeat them in the future. Full of unwarranted confidence, I charged full speed into a romance that would profoundly change my life.

It was only in situ – in amongst the intoxicating process of falling and being in love – that I began to understand I was not as healed as I had believed.

As much as he represented an exemplar in the kind of person I most desired, he also demonstrated a capacity for love I had never been on the receiving end of. One that came with full grasp of who I was from skin to soul. He saw me, understood what he was encountering, and loved me completely in response. I was always giving that kind of love to others, but had never felt it for myself. It was both blissful and occasionally terrifying.

Despite this, we challenged each other in unintentional ways. The default reactions we each had to stress/distress were not only dissimilar, they were frequently in direct conflict. I wanted time and solitude to reflect on my feelings while he wanted to engage in a process together. I would ask for space, he would ask for connection. I would retreat and he would pursue. I felt overwhelmed, he felt abandoned.

It felt like no matter how much I loved him, and tried to demonstrate that in a meaningful way, I was constantly letting him down, hurting him, or failing to meet his needs.

There were other dynamics at play that I won’t discuss here, but these pressures and others resulted in me developing a belief that we were on a core level, deeply incompatible. I ended the relationship in something of a panic, not knowing how to conduct a measured or cooperative process of closure.

This was a source of deep regret for me. I did not love him any less, but I did not know how to communicate my feelings in a conscientious way that would penetrate for him. And, there was also a part of me that hoped some time apart and growth on both sides might create a different result for us.

In retrospect, it was very clear to me that despite all the thinking and processing I had done with regard to my last relationship, that there were still deep-seated issues I needed to address beyond the scope of a romantic partnership. I understood as I had never done before, how the choices I made consciously and my instinctive actions too, were being driven in large part by the ghosts of pain I had denied still haunted me. And, that the only way to change that would be to bring those specters into the light once and for all.

I was able to reconnect with a therapist I had previously had a very successful working relationship with. I identified my therapeutic goals as being expressly interested in exploring and healing my unresolved trauma. I did this with the explicit intent of improving my own relationship with myself, but also in hopes of understanding and learning to cope with the ways that trauma informed how I developed and maintained romantic pair bonds.

And so the work began. I learned to listen to the cues of my body – telling me I was in distress – before responding. I learned how my hyper-vigilance recognized patterns long before my conscious mind, and that my instincts, though usually correct, were incapable of detecting whether there was a genuine threat to my physical and emotional safety, or if I was simply uncomfortable for whatever reason.

I also learned that a profound need for safety was at the root of most of my maladaptive coping mechanisms. Understanding it had never been present in any of my relationships with adults when I was a child, I learned it only came from within. Most meaningfully here, I only experienced it when I was alone.

My stepfather was a dictatorial man with a skewed sense of what discipline truly meant. To him, it meant immediate unquestioning obedience enforced with both violence and isolation. Every moment in his presence was unpredictable and threatening. I was frequently confined to my room for weeks and months at a time, only allowed to come out for school, the bathroom, or at mealtimes. I was always grounded for the summer. He later admitted that when no punishable offense presented itself he made things up to justify confining me. He said he thought it was the best way to “keep me out of trouble.”

The safest – though still not actually safe place in my world was my room where I was alone.

I never meaningfully learned how to regulate my nervous system unless I was by myself. Eventually the presence of others began to feel clamorous and confusing. I began to prefer being on my own; undistracted by the noise of another voice, disappearing into the pages of books where all was quiet apart from my own thoughts.

And so, many years in the future, I began to recognize that my instinct for space – to isolate – wasn’t born of a healthy self-reliance (though it would absolutely appear that way to any observers) but as a trauma response. Being alone, even to the point of painful loneliness, felt safer and more familiar than asking for help and comfort or learning to create a safe space that included anyone else.

Most of the work I have undertaken in the intervening months has been around reminding myself – frequently and often at length – that I am safe That I have taken myself far away from the people and circumstances that were so dangerous for me. That I have curated the conditions of my life such that sudden violence is vanishingly rare. That I have surrounded myself with people who care for me and who only contribute to my well-being and happiness.

When I am nervous and anxious, I remind me I am safe. When I am frightened and unsure, I remind me I am safe. When I experience a sense of overwhelm in a setting where I am surrounded by unfamiliar people and feel the urge to flee, I remind me I am safe.

All of this preparation was brought to bear when my mother died unexpectedly last June. I was more prepared to deal with the deeply conflicting feelings I had toward our relationship. I was more able to sit with my vulnerability and recognize how long I had already been grieving her. Being able to identify myself as safe allowed me to acknowledge deep harms that had been done to me at her hands and bring them into conversation with the healing I was directing toward other wounds.

It does keep sneaking up on me, at various moments. It surprises me anew each time, though it likely shouldn’t. I know intellectually the course of grief is unpredictable and ineffable. I also know that temporally, it hasn’t been that long since she died. Added to which there has been a lot of other upheaval in my life during the time since her passing. None of it is unusual, all of it is strange.

But it is not only that grief that washes over me and away at varying moments. It is heartbreak in retrospect. It is the dawning understanding that my incomplete healing was largely to blame for the end of a connection that felt like soulmates. It is disappointment that I didn’t have the capacity to nurture strategies of integration and repair I now possess, rather than submitting to the urgent need to flee my immediate – though significant – discomfort.

I do believe things happen for a reason. I also know the relationship itself was the primary catalyst toward the self-reflection and healing I am now giving so much effort and attention. The more of it I do, the more I realize I was living my life only partly aware of it. As I return to full consciousness, I am coming awake to all the ways I had closed off avenues of both pain and joy. I am reclaiming parts of myself I abandoned long since in an effort to make my life “work” better.

And so I am embracing my grief as proof of deep and profound love. Processing my anguish through the practice of presence and kind attention to my heart as it opens. That it took so long for it to fully manifest may allow me to do so with a greater degree of objectivity. It is still a gift to my future self to feel this fully, no matter how long it takes.

a) bringing back to a former position or condition: the restoration of peace

b) restoring to an unimpaired or improved condition

I don’t make new year’s resolutions. They have never made sense to me, and have always felt like creating an opportunity to let myself down.

Part of my thinking is that in the cycle of the pagan year, January is not the beginning; it is rounding the corner of winter. Our bodies are not made to be busy in the dark. Winter is a time to nestle in, reflect, and rest. Just as you would not try to sow a seed in the frozen ground, it is not the best time to undertake fresh efforts.

Spring is when the world awakens. When the daylight returns and nourishes both body and mind. In that time, it feels less challenging to begin something new; the energetic momentum is geared toward forward motion.

Apart from the timing of the Gregorian year, I also prefer to focus on manifesting things into my life in less explicit ways. It allows the universe to deliver lessons and bounty in ways it might not occur to me I need.

Recently, I encountered someone referring to a “word of the year” that they had chosen, instead of resolutions. This notion appealed to me and the word leapt to mind almost immediately: restoration.

2025 was an exceptionally difficult year in a variety of ways. There was significant upheaval cognitively, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I didn’t always weather these upsets with skill or grace, but I came to each with the intent to learn and grow beyond the reflexive patterns so heavily influenced by my CPTSD.

I ended an important relationship. Twice. We were not a good fit in a number of ways, but we both had a strong sense of having been fated to come together and usher in a deeper understanding of ourselves by experiencing each other. Despite knowing without a doubt it was the right thing to do (both times) it was still painful and difficult.

I was prompted to move about a year earlier than I had planned. This unfolded in a way that most people would simply adapt to new information and proceed accordingly. In my case it induced a panic that gripped me body and soul. From the time I knew I had to move until I had the keys to my new place was almost exactly a month, but that month was excruciating. Anxiety around housing insecurity is one of my most potent sources of pain. I knew in real time I was overreacting. That everything would be fine. No amount of that intellectual awareness could soothe my body or mind by realizing it fully.

I also made the decision to sue the Department of Education over my student loans. My balance exceeds 6 figures after the current administration back-dated interest accrual. It is also over $30k higher than the original borrowed amount, and they sent me notice that my new calculated payment is over $3k per month. I am only 14 payments away from forgiveness on about 75% of my balance, but the new payment is untenable. After speaking to an attorney, they indicated I have a good case for an undue burden discharge. This had some challenging financial implications and remains unresolved.

In the midst of all of these things, my mother died. We had a complicated relationship and had been estranged – at her behest – for 9 years. The year before, when a friend lost his dad unexpectedly, I wondered to myself how I would even find out if she passed. I had cut off my entire family of origin over ten years ago, nor did she speak to any of them anymore. Through a series of connections, my cousin called my niece, who called her aunt – my sister – who then put her in touch with me. At the time, her condition was such that she was being transferred to hospice. I canceled a planned vacation and prepared to drive to Spokane where she had lived for over 20 years, only to have her die the next morning.

Obviously, of all the difficult things that came up in 2025, this was the hardest. Prior to her, I had never lost anyone a loved. The mechanics and vagaries of grief were known to me, but only in the abstract. Along with that I had begun therapy to address my CPTSD. This work by itself can be grueling. Adding the loss of my mother to the mix created an additional dynamic I wasn’t expecting; I could finally be angry at her.

It has been revelatory, to acknowledge that truth. Some part of me knew that if I ever hoped to reconcile with her – which I always did – I couldn’t bring any anger toward her with me. The reason she stopped talking to me in the first place was a minor confrontation over her communicating personal things to members of the family I had excluded from my life. Any attempt to hold her to account for more significant things would only lead to disaster.

These events, paired with my work in therapy, resulted in a process of excavation. Of uncovering and bringing into the light, things that I had chosen to bury when I didn’t have the time or resources to address them. It was always enlightening and frequently painful. At times it was excruciating. Yet I knew and know that being present with this process of encountering my hurt was the only way I could hope to heal some of the most potent harm I had experienced.

So, now. I am unearthed.

This is not to say there are no more discoveries, or that I may not find the need to delve deeply again at some point. It is to acknowledge that along with uncovering and reckoning with the wounds, there must also be a process of integration and – meaningful here – restoration.

And so I am remembering me to myself. I am dwelling in the parts of me I had discarded or suppressed to please others. I am recalling joys both profound and simple that I denied myself at the behest of those who did not fully see or understand me. I am embracing the whole of myself and nurturing her gently and courageously all at once.

I am creating – with careful intention – the life I want for myself. One where I am authentically present and open-hearted. I am finding the parts of me that need healing, and rebuilding them stronger than they were. I am learning and recalling the wisdom already inside me and harnessing both toward my own restoration.

As I speak, so I create.

I have long had a peculiarity where, when I hear something that I understand to be deeply and profoundly true, my mind and body align completely and resonate together in recognition. I liken it to the tolling of a bell, though there’s no auditory artifact involved. Instead, it is like a vibration – a frequency that reverberates through every layer of my conscious and unconscious self.

I’ve always envied the Bene Gesserit truthsense. The ability to still the mind and capture the essential meaning of words as they are uttered; this feels akin to that, though it is only ever passively experienced in my case.

I recently encountered the phrase “emotional sovereignty” in the course of wandering around the internet like I do. The author of this formulation went on to describe it in detail that I won’t cover here, but even before reading his portrayal, the truth of the words bloomed – full-flower – in my mind.

As a result of exploring the implications of my CPTSD diagnosis in recent months, I have been learning the language of neurodivergence with greater intention. One concept that has felt particularly meaningful is that of “self regulation.” The idea that though we are creatures with innate physical and psychic responses to certain stimuli, we can in various ways, assert attention and effort toward mitigating the most serious negative outcomes of these responses.

Some of these would be familiar to most people: deep breathing, counting to ten, a meditation practice. Others might only be tools at the disposal of those for whom a journey of self-discovery and evolution had been undertaken: grounding practices, trigger awareness, or intentional conscious presence in moments of discomfort.

However many of these devices one may be aware of, their efficacy is entirely dependent on the acknowledgement of emotional sovereignty. The idea that even in the face of extremus, we are each empowered to choose our response to conditions outside our control.

While we cannot control all the conditions of our lives, we can always choose our response to those circumstances. I say this not in the flippant “every cloud has a silver lining” sense. Or to deny the reality of oppression, coercion, and abuse. I mean this to say that no matter what it happening beyond the borders of our skin, we can choose how we cultivate the landscape inside ourselves.

Many people reject this premise on its face. They deny the possibility they can assert such influence over themselves. For some, it is a lack of experience – they have never been taught the strategies that foster emotional mastery. If it is not a natural inclination, if they have never seen this behavior demonstrated, how are they to know it is possible?

Some may even understand it to be possible. May be aware of the concept, and even seen it successfully deployed in their lives by others, but refuse to engage in the work of it – for it is work – for a variety of reasons.

Patriarchy is a tremendous contributor to the rejection of emotional sovereignty. It asserts the work of maintaining peace and equanimity falls to women and children. That they should cede their boundaries, autonomy, and safety to accommodate the men around them. Responsibility for calm relies on anticipating and correctly responding to the changing tides of male feeling at all times. Failure to do so results in punishment and retribution.

However, it is not only men who abdicate their internal autonomy to others. Women too are trained to rely on affirmation and attention from others to validate their experience. To compare their sense of reality against the reflections they receive from outside sources to determine whether they are happy, fulfilled, worthy, sufficient.

It is also true that while some people may understand the concept of such authority over themselves, they reject it in favor of maintaining the ability to blame others for their lot in life. They prefer to be absolved of any responsibility for their circumstances, even if it casts them in the role of eternal victim.

We have been conditioned to believe it is what others think of us that matters most. Our parents, society, an omniscient other. This is by design. True autonomy rejects externally imposed jurisdiction in favor of an internal compass of knowing. This does not a docile populous make. This does not a striving, ever-present, and insatiable consumer base ensure.

So, individual autonomy and a concomitant emotional sovereignty is a direct threat to our capitalist patriarchal culture. The imposed virtue of “self-reliance” is there not to encourage individual strength but to undermine supportive community that allows each member of a collective to thrive as their needs are acknowledged and met. This stands in direct opposition to the goals of those who benefit from our division. Our isolation. Our dependence on the needs they have created to manipulate us.

It is then an act of insurrection to assert emotional sovereignty. To rely not on the opinions of others, or the external conditions present to determine the focus of attention and energy inside. To master the moment between action and response. To recognize the part that comes from within and how it can be directed to encounter what is without.

Long live the rebellion.

Not entirely sure how important exactly… Nor due to lack of developments – meaningful and mundane – there has been a considerable gap between last post and this. 

Indeed, one might argue the last 3 years have been downright action packed! In said time I have:

1. Finally been correctly diagnosed – not with Crohn’s – but with Endometriosis of the small bowel. What’s that you say? You didn’t think a condition typically associated with the uterus could OCCUR in the small bowel? You and me both. This also led to my having an Ileostomy for three months. Doo doo bags are a drag. I’ll just leave it at that.
2. Undergone a complete hysterectomy – who needs estrogen when all it’s gonna do is poison you anyway?
3. Moved away to Vancouver and discovered it is no further afield than any other suburb of Portland. 
4. Discovered the joys of sales tax wherein the price isn’t really the price.
5. Reconnected with my best friend from my first job whom I’d lost some 18 years earlier. 
   
6. Built a house. Well, not myself, but I was definitely in charge of picking the paint colors.
7. Witnessed the successful launch of my offspring into adulthood.
8. Gotten engaged! This list is chronological, not in order of importance, okay?
9. Orchestrated the transition of the employees in my job function to working remotely. This was a considerable personal triumph, and my reward is working in my jam jams.
10. Gotten a puppy! 

More than 10 things have happened between now and then, but these are the highlights, anyway. A lot of these things are sagas in themselves; maybe if I run out of material, I’ll hit the bullet list…

In the meantime, I expect this to be yet another venue for puppy photos and updates. 

Could be worse…

noun

1. temporary inactivity, cessation, or suspension: Let’s hold that problem in abeyance for a while.
2. a state or condition of real property in which title is not as yet vested in a known titleholder: an estate in abeyance.

In the quiet silent seconds

I am not, by nature, a person that enjoys inactivity. Though I have learned to cultivate stillness for its multitude benefits, I am generally too restless to enj0y the experience without considerable preparation. I coax myself toward quiescence by degrees and find it particularly difficult in the face of ambiguity. Unsuited to wait and see, I prefer to get up and look.

Yet sometimes, there is simply naught to be done. I mean this not in the sense of merely staying busy; chores, tasks, and distractions abound. Rather, I suggest that in the face of a looked-for outcome, it is at times impossible to take any action to hasten or influence the desired result.

Irresistible as it feels, thumb-twiddling generally serves only to divert. My chosen distractions of late principally stray toward the benign; writing, running, and friends consume most of my attention; yet they have their own merit, these. Still there linger on the periphery old habits and tendencies that do not necessarily earn with concomitant value the worth of time I spend upon them. Absorbing as they may be, I wonder at the foolish persistence I demonstrate by indulging myself in these ways. That I relinquish precious sleep and scarce energy to the pursuit of such diversion seems almost indecent. And so in reflecting upon it, then it is my love for the obscene that keeps me amused.

What instead, during this interval?If an object at rest and all that; maybe I must merely yield to physics, do what suits me so ill and embrace inertia. I’ll have to get right on that…

1. Expressing or covering much in few words; brief in form but comprehensive in scope; succinct; terse.

I’ve Sprung A Leak

It is a potent theme in my life, the effort to be understood. It is lately occurring how I undermine myself with a penchant for elaboration.

Nuance of language is deeply important to me, and I am much in favor of a flood of ultra-specific details. This turns out not to be true for everyone. It is a frequent occurrence, the glazing over of eyes as I expound into a stretching silence.

No matter how important I believe these gradations of truth to be, if the essential message is lost in superfluity of particulars, Iâ€ve failed my audience and my own purpose.

Practice then, paring down to the bones of meaning, the better to ensure it is conveyed.

1. Having patches of black and white or of other colors; parti-colored.
2. Composed of incongruous parts

noun

3. A piebald animal, especially a horse.

We are none of us promised consistency. In many ways, this is probably for the best. 

The human knack for adaptation being what it is, we pivot at some point between experiencing a comforting reassurance in the face of predictability to a stifling sense of ennui which is the ultimate suffocation and demise of the soul.

So, you know, vive la difference!

Iâ€ve been playing with this notion visually for a while. In the two places I spend the most time I have been creating a graphic representation of outcomes I want to manifest in my life. There is less distinction in the messages, admonitions, and tender reminders I am putting under my notice than I would have predicted.

All The Livelong Day

I see both instances declare happiness is a choice, work is requisite, and compassionate attention most desirable. How they are stitched together, and in what proportion each theme appears differs based on the setting and focus of my visioning, but I find the consistency – with crucial differences – augments my understanding and encourages their integration more thoroughly.

Where The Heart Is

The colors are similar but they ramble and riot each in their own particular way.