Returning to My Creative Roots.

Did you know that I had a super active blog for years and years? And that I deleted it a year or two ago — not took it down, deleted it — because I didn’t want people to confuse older versions of me with Now Me? I deleted the chronicle of my healing process because I was worried what people would think about the ways in which my pain manifested. I feel sad for the me that hit ‘delete’.

She thought she knew things she didn’t know.

:::

I’ve listened to enough true crime podcasts to know that nothing is ever truly, really deleted from the internet. So I asked a friend to help, and, like magic, he did what friends do, and helped.

Many of the posts here are Older Writings, wizened and wrinkled love notes I wrote to myself and the world in the wee baby early days of my Becoming. I wasn’t able to find everything, but it’s quite a bit, and most joyously, my favorite posts where recoverable. What a technological miracle.

I hope you find what you’re looking for here, love.

How To Navigate These Older Writings:

You have a few options:

1). Just start reading! A choose your own adventure, if you will.

2). Search for a key word in the search box below. You might try ‘feelings’ ‘fuck’ ‘sober’ ‘understand’ ‘mother’ — you get the idea.

3). Search for a month or year in the search box.

:::

My old blog ran from about 2013 to about 2016. After that, I got busy with the hard and sometimes-all-consuming work of living what I’d been learning. I lost my way over and over again. I found new ways. I started channeling my creativity into Instagram posts. I tried over and over again to Be Somebody and to fight against needing to Be Somebody.

I miss how I used to do things here. How I used to feel like I was talking to just one person, one reader, one friend on the other side of this screen. I think I might start writing here again.

I’m so glad you’re here. Let’s see what we can discover together.

x.

The Alliteration of the Heart.

Originally posted January 26, 2014

I've said before that 2013 was a year best described as 'uncomfortable'.  The year that preceded it was similar, though it was pocked with higher highs and lower lows; 2013 was steady, enduring discomfort.

And so I'm somewhat surprised to find myself, less than a month into a new year, sensing a true shift, not only within my own physical body, but among my people - the people I see day to day and the people I see online, people like Glennon and Marianne.  Something is shifting.  You feel it, too, I'm betting - this deep, sturdy band of truth that's starting to move up toward the surface.  It's this certain sense that all is not well out there, in the world, but that all might be just perfect in our centers. 

Because that's, of course, where it starts.  With one, and then many, individuals saying, "Wow.  Shit is getting real out there.  I best get right right here right now if I'm to be of useful service to the world."  At least that's how my dialogue is sounding.  Yours might sound different, and that's just fine.  But the sentiment is probably similar.

There are so many words associated with this building movement: truth, desire, miracle, love.  The word I've been leaning into hard is 'feeling'.  It's not as touchy or as feely as it sounds.  Truly feeling our emotions - sitting with them without attempting to change them - is rugged.  I know this because I've lived it.  You probably have, too.  Last year, my marriage, twice, skidded messily into a parking spot we weren't sure we could squeeze out of.  It felt suffocating.  Two years before, if we'd found ourselves in the same place, I'd have poured myself a few glasses of wine and ignored the reality of our life, simply because our life was feeling hard.  And in our culture, 'hard' tends to equal 'fucking it up' and none of us want that to be our lot.  

Instead, when I found myself stuck in a seemingly-hopeless marriage/parking debacle, I just sat there.  I let myself feel the quickening breath of seeming suffocation.  I leaned into the hard that is marital discord and then I leaned in further.  I listened to the sickening whispers.  I whispered back, through tears.  But I didn't run away and I didn't numb myself with wine or food or hurtful words.  (I sometimes numbed myself with Facebook and Scandal, which are, usually, easier-to-manage vices in my world.)  And so, because the feelings were given their due, they moved on.  They were tended to, fed oxygen, given a hug for luck, and sent gently - finally - on their way.

Numbing and fighting isn't how our spirits lift themselves to their highest potential.  

It starts with feeling.  Feeding the feeling instead of fleeing from it.  Feeding it with breath and a quieted mind (even if only temporarily), but coming back to breath and quiet whenever we can bear to remember that that's what we're going for.  

Fleeing keeps the feeling there, like a child with an unanswered question; we try to remain distracted, but we can't ignore the presence or the importance of our reality.  And as we ignore or numb - as we flee - we're forcing our uncomfortable feelings to stick around, nagging us, until we give them the attention they require.

:::

I'm breathing in air lately that tastes like the sea: fresh and crisp.  I'm exhaling, grateful as all get out for the reprieve from the discomfort.  It wasn't until tonight that I truly noticed it had, for now, passed.

I'm thinking about who I need to forgive.  Who needs my compassion.  Who deserves my apology.  Who needs to be heard.  

I am opening, as quickly as I can, to Holiness and all I can do on Its behalf.

I honor the gift of the discomfort as I honor the clear blue of the sky underneath it.

*E

Acorn To Oak Tree.

Originally posted January 28, 2014

I am a searcher. An asker.

Sometimes, a beggar.

I've wanted other people to fix my problems. To give me answers. To tell me which direction was the right direction. Which decision would lead to the other right decisions. I want answers.  I want them quickly.  I want them cleanly.

It's new to be putting as much faith as I can into something else. To be trusting that not knowing the answer is actually the answer. To be ready to believe that I'm the one who can make the right decision that will lead to the next right decision. Or, more correctly, that I'm the one who can put my faith into the thing that will reveal the next right decision. It's a brave, brave new world, this one.

This weekend, I devoured a video of Marianne Williamson speaking at Google. She spoke spirituality in a sometimes-scientific way, which made her ideas so incredibly logical and obvious.  There's an analogy about an acorn becoming an oak tree - the notion that acorn-to-oak-tree equals the acorn's obvious self-actualization, that it knows to become the oak tree in its DNA.  She goes on to state that it's equally written into our DNA for each of us to become our highest-functioning, most fully-realized selves.  Selves who function within the constructs of love, not fear.  Like the acorn knows innately to become the oak tree, we know, underneath all of our layers of story, truth, uncertainty, and fear, that it is possible for us to be destined for - and capable of - transcendent greatness.  The only thing keeping us from going from acorn to oak tree is us.  While we each have doubt and fear and sometimes immense hardship (the facts of life are inescapable), I've been thinking on this theory - of love being the answer to everything - and I truly can't see a hurdle that love can't and wouldn't jump over. 

There are miracles all around us.  

They're inside of us, too.

With a watchful eye for the sprouting of our acorn souls,
*E

Love Is Calling. It's For Us.

Originally posted February 19, 2015

I am being called.

By God?

Back home?

Something is opening and something else is coming in and I have no idea what it is.

I'm being tugged and pushed and prodded.

No.

It's not any of those things.

I'm being cracked open. Someone's shining a flashlight in.

I don't know what God is.

Christians will tell anyone that they are loved by capital-H-Him. Bible verses are quoted to prove it.

But what is all of it?

Is it really anything more than love? Is it really an entity? Is it really this thing with rules and rights and wrongs?

Isn't the only right or wrong that matters: am I doing this with love or not?

Love cannot condemn.

Love cannot ignore.

Love cannot relentlessly center around self.

Love is.

Love does (thank you, Bob Goff.)

Love ask and reaches out hands.

I am woefully, typically selfish. I feel generous when I put a dollar in someone's hat on the street. Sometimes I buy a coffee for the man sitting on the sidewalk.

These acts make me feel redeemed. They make me feel like I've done my piece. They make me feel like "Whew, I've done my good deed, now what was I doing (for myself) again?"

I'm missing the point completely.

The point isn't me and the point isn't you.

The point is us.

The point is we.

The point is only love and nothing else.

Maybe you call that God.

Maybe you call the Spirit.

Maybe you find your answers in the Bible and maybe you find them when you look up at the stars.

I don't know yet where I find my answers.

But I know I'm starting to ask the right questions.

Only love,
*E

On Strangers, Flashcards, and Fights About Forks.

Originally posted January 3, 2017

I can't remember where I was when I heard the loud call back to this space. "It's time to write again."

"Okay," I said silently, surprised.

I don't know what I'm doing back here. I don't know why I've been away. But I'm already tired of speculating, and would much rather explore what can happen when I start to think less about the whys of myself, and more about the things I don't yet know.

Let's start with what's current.

I'm at my highest weight since having babies. This happened quite by accident. Although 'accident' seems like I was oblivious to what was happening, which isn't entirely true. What's really real is that I've been enjoying eating all the things I love, haven't been working out regularly, and have been living in well-crafted denial about the inevitability of the scale ticking higher and higher. And because I love a good bandwagon as much as the next person, I've used the end of the holiday season as the marker for a new beginning.  

I joined Weight Watchers when I needed to lose post-Dad-dying grief weight, and it worked like a charm.  Rather, I worked it like a charm, and so was successful, -- which, it's becoming clear, is perhaps the whole point of this conversation: I gotta work it. And by "it", I mean ALL OF IT. I won't stay sober if I don't work my recovery. I won't get strong if I don't work out.  And I won't ever fit into my jeans again if I keep eating fudge for dinner.  

These things aren't complicated, but man can they be hard.

Oprah convinced me to sign up for Weight Watchers again (WHY IS SHE SO MAGICALLY MAGNETIC AND AMAZE), and this morning, I got up before 5:30 to work out in my living room. I'd slept in my workout clothes to dodge any "But changing into a sports bra is so hard...eh, I'll just go back to sleep," sort of excuses; I am excellent at convincing myself that the Universe is conspiring for me to comfortable and lazy at all times. Here's how things went down:

Me, pre-workout: "Let's kind of do this; I'd rather be in bed."

Me, first circuit: "You are too out of shape to do this. You will never be stronger or leaner. It's okay if you want to quit."

Me, second circuit: "Oh, those burpees were a bit faster than the first set. Maybe you just needed to warm up. Getting stronger takes more than twenty minutes, remember."

Me, third circuit: "That's nice, but YOU SHOULD BE STRONGER AND LEANER RIGHT NOW."

Me, pre-fourth-circuit, on my knees: "Help me. Those voices aren't you. Help me do this. I know I'm not supposed to pray for myself, but..." Maybe you're not getting stronger for yourself. Maybe you're getting stronger so you can better serve others.

Me, fourth and final circuit: *Owns the hell out of it because maybe her mind isn't the best place for Emily to spend her time.*

Me, post-workout: *Smiles and says thank you.*

The mental space I've been in lately feels familiar; just like pain is pain is pain, anxiety is anxiety no matter which way you look at it. My anxiety used to manifest itself as obsession over whether or not I had a drinking problem. Then it switched over into believing I was ruining my children simply by existing as their mother. After that I moved on to how many people followed me on Facebook and how many likes each post got. Now it's me being terrified of what's on the other side of commitment to a sustainably healthy lifestyle. Well, it's fear partnered with my aversion to being out of breath and not getting to eat cake any time I want it. But mostly, it's the fear.

I've been in this place many times before - I'm getting healthy! It's Paleo/vegan/WW time! And exercise time! I'm losing weight and I feel great! I then fall into the trap of thinking I can maintain said great feeling by completely abandoning the practices that brought me there - phew...glad that's over. I've arrived! This is the pattern I'm working to break. I'm digging underneath the self-loathing that so often causes me to diet and sporadically exercise, in search of the root of the thing. 

Which brings me back to fear. Is it fear of failure? Fear of watching the number on the scale continue to grow? Nope. This fear is both more complex and far more basic: I'm scared of meeting the me that's on the other side of this lifestyle change. Because it's not about my pants size or the number on the scale; me sticking to a new routine will signify a major shift in self-perception. It will signify healing. And for a girl who's used to defining herself by her broken parts -- who's long suspected that there's something bright and powerful on the other side of her own healing -- coming face to face with a self-created stranger is an anxiety-provoking prospect.

WHICH IS FUNNY BECAUSE MY ANXIETY IS BEING PROVOKED.

:::

My husband and I once got in a fight about a fork. That's the only detail I remember about that argument - it was precipitated by a fork. I'll give you a moment to get your head around that before asking the obvious question: do you think we were really fighting about a fork? Of course we weren't. The fork was simply the object that provided the illusion, that distracted us from the real issue, whatever it was. And illusions aren't real magic - they're lazy miracles. 

I'm not interested in illusions anymore. Instead, I'd like to meet the stranger I'm working to create.

It's never about the fork, loves.  I repeat: it's never about the fork.

Happy New Trip Around The Calendar,
*E