To Work or to Eat, that is my question! Binge, Binge, Binge!!

Two hours a day is what I am devoting to this blog and my website.

John Chow,  http://www.johnchow.com/  who is a blogging wizard makes millions on ads for his blogs.  He advises two hours a day should be dedicated to your online pursuits if you want to see success.  I am not looking for success in monetary value, but more traffic to my blog is pretty exciting.

Two hours is not over doing it in the addiction category and it gives me something rewarding to fill my time with and not just being busy for the sake of being busy.   The more I study up on workaholism the more I understand that workaholics aren't necessarily good employees.   They stretch themselves too thin with needless tasks.  I seen this in my old boss.  He had a great business plan but wasted so much time on flow charts and things that were not necessary to the daily running of his business.  He wasn't focused because he was still in obsession.

I want to move away from obsession and not just busy myself with useless menial tasks.  Still filling a void so that I am not shoveling my face with chocolate chips or laying in bed fantasizing about the hot playboy that will be my reward after this three months is up... or worse yet getting high because I am bored and have nothing better to do.

Four to five hours of work a day,  six days a week is my focus to keep the bacon on the table and a roof over my families head.  Two hours a day on my blog.  That is seven work hours each day.  I think that's pretty reasonable don't you?

Falling into the pits of depression and not even making these hours has been a struggle. The anorexic side of addiction.  The flip side of more more more.  The purge.  The addict, in my case I have named her Lady Vixen, throwing up her hands in a tantrum.  This is how addicts keep control.  Discipline to not use is part of the cycle.

For me something always falls into step to refocus my addict

 I have been eating my sorrows away and busted the poor zipper in my favorite Etnies hoodie today.   It was a huge eye opener that I am fattening up nice a good, unfortunately I am not a turkey and this is not a good thing.   How can I be heading into a detox when the scale is climbing at a  steady rate?

Whenever I would enter a purge phase of an addiction the week before the infamous Monday start date I would binge the  shit out of whatever I was about to fast off of.  If it was dope I would have one last bender... this is when many addicts overdose, this or a relapse.  This is when the fat girls get the last of their favorite tubs of ice cream in and all those completely forbidden foods.   In large doses.  Its the workaholic working double time before a holiday.

I used to convince myself its because I would become ill with over dosing myself on the addiction and then it makes it easier to purge it.   To some extent this is true... but more in truth for me it actually just spins the addiction tighter making it harder to release.  So this is why many juice cleanses speak about phasing in to prepare your body and mind and as well to wean off the addictions.  Ease the symptoms.

Well I am weaning off all my addictions and its hard not to swing the pendulum into complete purge.  Not working my full hours in a day is easy for me.  I am not monitored in my job.  As long as my list gets done it doesn't matter the hours I put in really.   I have to be very careful here as my negative mind or inner critic as I have spoken about before can start to chew the shit out of my self esteem and then lead me into an addiction to shut her up.

Working my allotted hours is not a joke to be taken lightly.  Its the real deal to keep me on track to this detox.   The two hours here at this blog will be the reward for getting the four hours in.   I am trying to reset my dopamine paths within my brain.  This would be a good reset I think.

Well thats my concern for today.  Keeping my work balance.  This in turn dominoes in a good way my over eating from boredom.   The cycles can spin upwards as well I guess.  I sure hope so I have one hell of a cycle to unspin over the next three months.

Questions for you... Do you struggle with workoholism?  Do you swing the purge pendulum and struggle to get off the couch to go to work??  Here is another great article on the effects of over working and how it compares so closely to that of a crack addiction.

  https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-workaholics/201112/understanding-the-dynamics-workaholism

In my experience sex, food and working have been more detrimental addictions for me then drugs ever were.  At least with drugs they are not accepted by society and therefor help is found easily if you want it and funding in plentiful for those needing to bow out of the rat race in order to get better.  With workaholism... You don't work,  you don't eat.

Refresh

Well this is better.   I have moved my computer to a location I can sit comfortably and write.  I miss writing.  My platform and where I promote it is shifting however.  I used to write for my family and friends on facebook.  However this caused some unease for me as I write some pretty personal stuff about myself and my family in these pages.  But I don't know any other way to market my writing.

I want to share my story in the a way that takes the reader on a journey through the trials and tribulations with me.  But my path keeps shifting and taking on different avenues and down back streets that what once a reader was comfortable with now they are not.  How do I change and keep my support group with me?

When I started this blog it was definitely drug recovery focused.  As that shifted away from my trails I hid all my Narcotics anonymous posts.  But I don't feel right about that because it has been a pivitol part of my journey.  Yet my support group from that time era has moved out of my scope of vision as I no longer adhere to the strict rules that the fellowship holds themselves too.  So I feel like a hypocrite.

Keeping my family in the loop of my recovery was okay until I began to unearth the childhood traumas that brought me to the sick cycles I am looping now in my life.  Its uncomfortable speaking about how much I hate my mother when I know she reads my blog.  Because In truth I don't hate her but in this point of history I really need to hate her to express the feelings that keep finding dope as the only way to release.

So how then do I market this blog?   I have hit over ten thousand reads and have had many personal comments about my journey but that's not what I am looking for.   I want to have more interaction with people in general on this platform.  I need a new support group and finding it in the physical in my small northern city is not an option at this point.   I need to move into this new era of online support.

So I am going to once again revamp my blog.  My focus more on detox and living in the void.  Sharing my experience of what happens when I enter into the void.   A new look and new pages and researching new markets to launch myself from.   Its time for me to enter into a new era of my healing journey and invite new people along with me.

Its a refresh stage!

Please I invite you to comment below.   If you have been reading my posts up till now, let me know I would love to hear from you.

Day One: Phase in Detox. Baby Steps

I need to manifest a better work station for my blogging.  Pulling up my brown leather chair from my sofa set and sitting in front of my 42 in tv is not working or me.  The mouse doesn't reach my right side so I am forever crossing over my body to click the little thing.

All in due time I guess.  This move from my three bedroom town house with a full basement to a two bedroom apartment with a closet for storage is turning out to be a larger adjustment then I anticipated.  Part of the detox process I am in.  Less in rent money affords me a job with less hours so I can focus on self care and reblancing my addictive self.

I always taught my weight loss clients to first visualize where they are going and then take baby steps to get there.  I am taking my own advice today.  I haven't defined where I am going yet, only that I was in too much pain to stay where I was.  I don't think I am ready to define where I am going.  The pain of staying the same is great enough right now to keep me motivated.  Maybe I will remind myself of my vision when my motivation during this detox period fades.

Baby steps is what I am looking at right now.   Part of my addictive cycle is purging.  I get a huge high off the self discipline it takes to completely purge my addictive substance of the moment.  I love food fasts, the spiritual high I get is intense while starving myself.  I feel empowered when I am able to say no to sex or drugs.  I also feel great when I don't spend a dime and put it all in savings.

All of these actions though sacrifice my self care.  Food fasting masked as detoxes have there time and place, for me its too addictive and has no place in my world.  It just keeps me in a sick cycle of bingeing after I come out of it.  I might not binge for a very long time but I always end up back into a binge cycle where the purge after is the sought after high.

So today I need to take baby steps out of my addictions.   Its easy to say no more wine or weed.  Neither I have indulged in, in an unhealthy fashion for a very long time.  To go three months without them doesn't break a sweat on my forehead, even six months would not cause an issue.   I enjoy wine occasionally and have proved to myself its not a substance that spins me out of control, more just a rat Lady Vixen is surviving on.   So this is a detox step that is very easy to take and considered begun yesterday on my day one.

Food is going to be the trickiest at this point because its a daily issue and it has so many layers to it.  I am drawing heavily from my time as a weight loss coach here,  I am starting with cutting the foods out that I know make me sick instantly.  Timmies coffee, pop and chips are easy to go.  I don't like them all that much and they are so toxic for me they hold no benefits.

I will have to look at not having large cakes or sweet treats in my house.  I cannot control myself if they are within my grasp.  Its the same with weed.  I cannot have that in my home or I smoke it till its gone whether I wanna smoke or not.  I eat cake whether I want it or not if its here.  So my goal this week is to get rid of all sweet treats from my apartment.

The romance junkie is working overtime to mess with my mind.  I remember why sleeping with this recent guy was on my off limits list.  Its hard to shut this addiction down once its opened up.  Sex is so good with him its all I can think about for days after.  I wake up to thoughts of it and I fall asleep to thoughts of it.  Which lead to increased libido which needs attention and cause I am not acting out, well I act in the privacy of myself.... if you get what I mean.   Which means I am breaking my no sex rules.

This is an area that will need constant work over the next couple weeks but once I am free from the thoughts I will be able to breath some relief for awhile in this area.   It will be after a couple months where I will start to climb the walls and the true work of this detox will come into play.

Well there you have it my report from day one of my three month total pleasure seekers detox.   Baby steps.  Revised plan.  One month phase into the total detox.  Three months in total detox and then one month transition back into healthy living.   I will devise a list of what is being detoxed within the next month and will have it posted on my home page.

I invite you to detox with me and share in my journey.   We can do together what we could not alone.

A Gift on the Eve of Detox

On the eve of my impending three month detox, I was blessed with a gift to indulge one last time in a behavior that is not so much detrimental to my being as it is unhealthy for the path I want to embark on.  

I am grateful for the call from a man I can trust to take me into my last unhealthy manipulated dopamine spike.

I love how awareness works for me.   Because I knew this was going to be the last time for awhile that I would play in this arena and maybe a forever, I was entirely present for each and every single moment of the process.

 As the inviting texts began my heart rate started to increase.   Having been with this guy several times in that past two years I know fully what to expect.  My body loves what this man draws out of it.  My mind is already replaying every single one of our past interactions.... of course only the highs.

As I let the memories dance in my mind I began to mildly shake.    Like this rippling vibration was taking over my body.    I have never noticed this before.   I compared the feeling to dropping a hit of ecstasy.    If you have ever experienced MDMA before you  might have experienced your body's vibration shift and this flood of excitement followed by peace and intense love.  I am sure its the flood of dopamine pulsing through my veins that cause my eyes balls to shake

I could almost stop the process at this point because I believe this is truly the high I get, the full anticipation of what I know is about to come.  And if it was any other man I would languish in this moment as long as I could.  But its not any other man its the one that has found a way to make love within the context of a booty call.  Intoxicating.

Plus Lady Vixen has already kicked me out of the drivers seat at this point, there is no stopping this bus now.  Nor do any of my inner beings wish for this to end yet.

True to my expectation I was delivered to the stars, around the moon twice and placed so gently back on earth it almost hurts to say goodbye.   Well two days later now.... it actually did hurt to say goodbye.

The high is still seeping through my energy fields but the lows are filtering back in again.  I fell pregnant with creative energy and in the past i used this energy to seek out more of that high.  This is where the addictive cycle would always start for me and the insatiable desire to have another night with this fine specimen of a man.  But alas...... I am in detox today.

So I choose to nurse the high, ride this wave till it naturally crashes into the sand.  What I believe to be what normal people would do in a similar situation.  My belly is still warm with creation and my heart is still flooded with the love induced.

Its my head that I struggle with.  The flipping thoughts of wanting to contact him and the realizations that we are not meant for each other in any other compacity then this.  I feel sad and the loneliness that induces threatens to crush me.  Until I flip it around and feel grateful to have had a moment like this on the eve of my three month detox.

One thing that learning about dopamine has done for me is its removed the shame from my acting out.  We were both consenting adults that talked about what we were doing before and after.  I feel good about that.  Even in a once so unhealthy it was detrimental to my life situation, I have seen tremendous healing and growth in the guilt and shame area.

It is this process that has convinced me I am close to that last level of recovery.  I fully believe that one day I will be free of the pleasures that had once bound me in chains.

Sex and an insatiable desire to be loved without putting the time and energy into making something real has been the heaviest chain to bare.   Food and a slave to eating my feelings away during socially acceptable thanksgivings where gorging one self is a time honored tradition.  Working and making more and more and more money to buy more and more and more stuff is a silly cycle that already cost me my family.  And well of course there are the drugs that stripped me of my humanness.

I have at some point or another already detoxed from each and everyone of these as I have already stated in my post the other day.  But to do it all at once is only acceptable because I am on the last layers of detox.  Its the rats that I feast on that are keeping lady vixen at bay and not destroying her entirely.

I have conquered her demons already.  Its time now to remove the rats from her grasp and let her wither from starvation.

Pleasure seekers guide to Detox

I have been on the recovery journey for a pretty long time.   Hindsight is one of those things that help you to see that you have been on a path that has gone much deeper then you realized.

Its my birthday this weekend.  Coupled with the new moon and the partial solar eclipse.  In my little reality of understanding that's a power house combination.   I always set an intent every year on my birthday for the upcoming year.  I always do a tarot spread laying out the frame work for that intent and pay close attention to the pitfalls heading my way within the intent creation process.

This year as was my intent for last year, is too see recovery wrap up in my life.  I wish to circle the last wrung of this cycle that I have been in for most of my life.   I once believed that I would never get out of this pattern as it is who I am.  A part of me felt that it's a disease that will never be far from my reality.   I no longer believe that.

Through experience I have proved to myself my addictions are not a disease.  I have come to learn my addictions are learned coping behaviors and manipulation of my own chemical reactions to release dopamine on my terms.   I have mastered how to keep my serotonin and dopamine levels spiked.

Not the greatest thing to master if you ask me.

When I came into drug recovery the hindsight for me was understanding my three years working at a weight loss clinic not only afforded me my own weight loss but taught me how controlling food was in my life.  A piece of chocolate cake spikes a dopamine rush.  I was over 200bls because I abused sugar to keep myself in a rush state.

And like dope there was always a crash after the spike thus creating an obsessive pattern.

Working in a job that is rewarding and recognition is cash bonuses, is a toxic environment for me.  This is a much more recent realization for me as I am in a position now where there is no recognition for the work I do and no major thrill for me to do it.  Many benefits to my job yes, but no dopamine spikes that's for sure.  Money is another place I get spikes, getting the paychecks and spending them give me the highs and lows that food did.  If I won the lottery it would probably kill me, it would be like the crack to my weed addiction.

And of course sex and men is the most constant basket I have put all my eggs in.   That dopamine spike has the full range contained within it.  Mild self play to the intense drug accompanied orgasm brought on by the hot guy.   Nothing and I mean nothing compares to that shot of dopamine and serotonin in the same moment in time.   Fantastic.  For a moment.  then the crash hits.   As it does every time with every single one of these toxic poorly motivated avenues of pleasure.

My bad cop of the good cop/bad cop therapists has asked me to abstain from all of the ways I act out on my addictive nature.  I have been in this process of elimination for over ten years now.  Learning to eat properly was my first elimination.  I know exactly when I am eating to stuff a feeling, to control my happy brain drug.   She has asked me to stop that.   Apparently I need to move past awareness again.

I can do that I did it for a few good years.  I had wonderful discipline in the food arena.  Problem was I replaced my food habits with dope.   So she has asked me to quit all drugs including glasses of wine.  Again,  no problem,  I have seen years at a time without these aids.  Not worried, piece of cake..... ahhh, nope scratch the piece of cake, cant go back there.

K cant drug, cant over eat.  Fine lets get busy and work!!

Ya right, the devils therapist says no money over the amount needed to just live on.  No part time jobs, no extra funds to spend, no playing with money, no distracting myself with work.   Fuck.  Now she is starting to dig into places that are getting scary.   She says I keep my addict alive this way.

Its all about the motivation behind things.   Every single one of my addictions is acceptable even down to smoking a little weed to relax.  Problem for me is that I have gotten so good at interchanging them that I am a slave to my addict not the substance.

And lastly all things sex and boys needs to go for the next three months.

Let me repeat that.... all..... things.....male.....and sex...... needs..... to.....be.....abstained.....from.....for.....three...... months!!!

Double fuck with chocolate sauce.   That my friends is asking a lot of me.   It is only now that I am starting to feel the full power lady vixen has had over me and my life.  If its not food over eating it was toxic men and dirty sex.  If it wasn't dope it was over working.  There has always been something that I have been a slave too.

Let me lay this out more clearly.  Eating healthy is a pretty accepted fad these days.  lots of info available for people to understand how to eat well and the effects that has on your body.  People are becoming more aware of the stresses of work and money and the bad behaviors that over working can bring out in people.  Shopaholics are funny little women with a closet full of shoes and a pissed off, broke, over worked husband.  Right?  We have bread acceptable addictions and even healthy ways to get out of them.... but what about sex?

Sex for me folks is never with some one I love.  Romance is never with a guy I am truly attracted to.   Its a cycle of chase and conquer and move on.   Read my blog for the past two years and tell me how many guys I have been in love with, how many guys have been the one.  lol   Huge joke.

Giving up sex is like giving up a food addiction.  You have to learn what is healthy and what is not.  I have learned what is healthy for me with substances and what is not.  I am now learning what is healthy for me in my work field and what is not.  I am learning what I can handle for cash and what triggers the crazy in me.

So to abstain from it all, at the same moments in time.   Fuck.   I will have to learn a whole new way to cope on a way deeper scale then just the one categories I have been dealing with up until now. I am grateful I have worked a full set of the twelve steps and am aware and have accepted my lack of control with my addict and have bared my secrets and am still working through my resentments.  Because now I can go deeper in my understanding.

  My therapist explained to me the purpose of this is to reset my dopamine levels back to normal.   She also included that rewiring the brain to healthy ways to release dopamine in a more natural way where I am not a slave to it.  That coupled with intense counselling around my childhood traumas.... hopefully will enhance my over all reality in the end.

It means I am moving out of the disease of all or nothing thinking.   I will fall in love one day and make amazing love to a super hot guy.  I will work a career again that I am passionate about.  I will be able to have a piece of cake and be able to stick to just one slice again and I will be able to have a fat bank account again one day. And I can go back to enjoying a glass of wine occasionally with my dinner and have a night on the town with the girls without it ending in the random one night stand.

I know this to be true because i have achieved this in all the areas of my life at one point or another recently.  I have just never tried to do them all at the same time before.

But first I must detox Lady vixen out.    Oh goody.  I am looking so forward to this.  I invite you to journey through my discomfort with me... it will be .... joyous.  not.

When is it OK to be Depressed?

The power of positive thought.   You control your reality.  What you see around you is what you have created for yourself.  You choose your feelings each day.  You choose your thoughts each day.

These are all beliefs that I have come to live by.   I have a good life because of these tried and true beliefs.

I am swinging the pendulum back into depression.

For the past few weeks.... hmmm... maybe more stretching into a couple of months.... I have been working over time to counter my negative feelings with positive thoughts.  I have engaged in all the happy activities that pull me out of the slums of my mind.  I have even accepted that I am not really in a truly happy phase of my life today in hopes that this acceptance and action will change the course of these blues.

I have even fell victim to my old ways and sought out distractions.   All the distractions that once worked are no longer holding any power for me any more.  I am not getting the relief I have achieved in the past from my toxic but effective behaviors.

My beautiful therapist, the one I have been walking with the past year, not the devils mistress she has brought on board recently to pick me apart, asked me if I have ever been able to just sit with my feelings.

I realize I have never been able to stay entirely present with the process of my feelings.  I have in the past been able to acknowledge my feelings.  It was fun during the acknowledgement phase to begin to understand and actually meet for the first time many of my feelings.  So when she asked me this I was pretty confident that I had sat with my feelings before.

Staying present with them in their entirety is a totally different ball game I am coming to learn.

I have become a master of manipulating my feelings.   When I came into drug recovery the main focus was not using mind altering drugs to change your feelings.  In that process I became very aware of the replacements I used instead of drugs to change my feelings.  Sex and love relationships of course became very obvious and for me was the chicken before the egg in my already aware reality.

Work was another replacement for me feelings.  In early drug recovery I was advised to try to take a year off work and relationships.  I never understood why then, but I understand that now.  They are pretty great distractions to our feelings.  I can throw myself into my job and into a relationship, thus catapulting myself out of my own energy and into something else.

Another way I get out of my feelings is through fellowship and friends.   Becoming overly involved in service to others is a really great way to get out of yourself....a healthy and honorable way.  Not saying this is a bad thing, just like working a job you love isn't wrong or falling deeply in love and loosing yourself isn't wrong either.  It's the motivation behind these acts.

All in their place and time.

Staying present with the process of my feelings good and bad, but not getting entirely sucked in and stuck is the lesson I am engaging in.    Learning to reach in and not out is where I am at today.  I asked the universe a few months ago to teach me how to be strong within myself.  A friend said to me the other day home isn't a place you go to, its what you carry within you.  

Learning to sit with my hurts and not get back together with the guy to get out of them..... accepting that I am depressed and not sauntering out to get a part time job to fill my time so I don't hurt...... letting the stings of my addictive cycles sink in and not rush out to get loaded.....  Are the only ways through this phase of my healing.

I want to become fully healed.  I believe in full recovery from my addictive nature.  I have the utmost faith in the fact that one day I will look back at my life and be entirely grateful that I moved away from a limiting story that held me trapped in a life that was continually torturing me.

I am not an addict.  I am a woman that was never taught how to cope.   I am not a co-dependent.  I was a woman trapped in a society that breeds dependence.  I am not a Christian, Pagan, Mormon or any other cult like persona.   I have a very strong beautiful goddess within me that guides me through my feelings and thoughts when I am still enough to hear them.

I am staying present with my depression so that I can understand why I create this story I am living.  I stay present with the process so that for the first time I can come through the cycle and not get trapped like I have for decades.

The trick I am finding to staying present and not drowning is to stay in the moment.... every moment. Within the depression are these incredible moments of peace, which when recognized and honored lead to a deep love of self.   ((I am having one of those moments now.))   Finding the beauty in the sadness.  Understanding that there is a purpose behind every feeling when you are surrendered to your higher power and are constant in the moment.

Today.... I am OK being depressed.  I am actually better then okay, I am.... enjoying it????

Good Bye Mr. Beautiful Crazy

Saying good bye is never easy.   But it is easier when you have many distractions surrounding you.

I am in a new apartment.  Moved from my three bedroom townhouse that I originally acquired with bad boy number two, or, was it bad boy number three,    ...well the crack addict anyways,   that I had to kick out after only a month of living there.  My new apartment is free of any tainted memories and much more manageable two bedroom bottom floor apartment.

I am in a new job.  Actually care-taking the new apartment I have just moved into.  I have well over thirty full grown beautiful thriving trees to prune on my property and a football field worth of grass to green up along with four flower beds to create.   Forty six apartments to serve by keeping the halls and laundry rooms cleaned.  This is a stress free job for a great wage and reduced rent.  Heaven in my reality.

My life is perfect for the letting go process I am entering into.

I said good bye to Mr. Beautiful Crazy today.   The man that lifted me up on to a new platform.   The guy that made the most impact on my life by telling me my crazy was what he liked best about me.  The first male that I fully trusted and the first male I allowed to treat me with respect and dignity.

So why am I pushing him away?

Honestly.  I don't really have a solid answer for you.  Other then he doesn't feel right anymore.  Our conversations leave me feeling lonely and less then.  I don't know what switched where, but it did. Do you believe some people come into your life for a season, a reason or a life time?   Yes?  Well I think Mr. Beautiful Crazy was just a reason.  And now unfortunately that reason is over.
http://recoverpower.blogspot.ca/2015/06/a-beautiful-crazy.html


He is not the only one I have had some amazing closer with in the past thirty days.

Bad boy number 2, or 3, maybe 4?  Oh hell, I will call him what he was, the crack addict.... sent me a letter last week.  I never read it.  Ripped it up and let the pieces of paper fly to the wind.  Along with all that was left of him in my heart and head.  There was nothing good that could have came from reading that blast from the past so i didn't bother tormenting myself with it.    I am proud of my decision.     http://recoverpower.blogspot.ca/2013/04/when-pain-of-staying-same-becomes.html


My incredibly sexy, 25 year old, hottie that swooped in and collapsed my world was the third of four goodbyes that I had the pleasure to experience recently.  I was able to do him a favor and left all the hurt and chaos created by my over active hormones on the table as I walked away from him.  Both of us satisfied with the closure.  Seriously happy for the physical amends this brought into my life.
http://recoverpower.blogspot.ca/2015/05/reflection-in-shattered-mirror.html

And lastly the man that brought me into this phase of my healing last summer was given the opportunity in a weakened state of mine to lift me up and place me gently back on my feet a few evenings ago.  With no ripple effect causing any sort of harm or damage.  I will always have a soft spot in my heart for that one.  Even though I know now I will never go there again, I am content knowing I can love and let go and be alright with it.  http://recoverpower.blogspot.ca/2014/01/sexual-healing.html

I am happy and humbled with all four of these incredible opportunities offered to me this past month.  Its a clear sign in my quirky little reality that all is well and I am ready to move forward with the next phase of my healing.

Celibacy.

Ugh just the word itself invokes the gag reflex for me.  Who the fuck in their right mind and in thier freaking prime would want to even play with the idea of swearing off all things men?

After too many years of crashing into the brick wall, I guess I can say.... this girl.

I am ready to embark on a deeper level of healing.  I am ready to invoke a stronger bond of creativity within my life.  I am ready to peel back another layer of the onion to see what I find underneath the layer hidden behind the random parade of men in my life.  Men are a distraction for me.  A toxic excuse to avoid my purpose and to skip merrily off my path.   It wont always be that way for me, but right now there is nothing healthy that comes out of even the best laid intentions with men in my life.

Saying good bye to the last male I had sex with today was like a release from the chains binding me to a person I no longer am and really truly never was.  I am liberated, yet at the very same moment saddened to almost a heart broken place.  I have broken my own heart.

The lack of respect I have shown myself has definitely manifested in all my relationships male and otherwise.  I am growing into this new person and respect has gone to the top of my list.  If I cant respect myself who else will be able too?   This is why I need to take a good step back and look at my relationships with men.  The same way i had to take a step back and look at my relationship with food and dope.    All void fillers.

Celibacy will be all inclusive.   With no definite time frame for completion.  This is not an all or nothing mind set.  This is a massive detox of all things that bring out the obsessive nature in me.  I want to get to know the me underneath the obsession of the void fillers.   I want to begin to create from that place within me.   My expectation is to be able to truly embrace all of myself,  now that I have easily lived and loved my darkness to its full potential.

Its easy to say good bye to the void fillers when the healthy distractions are brilliant.

Follow the White Rabbit....

More of Him:

http://awakened2b.blogspot.ca/2016/01/my-twin.html

.

When Dopamine Fks Up your Life

I have been struggling with coming here to write lately.  So much is shifting in my understanding of my life and who I am within it.

I had a mentor tell me once I had incredible courage.  They were referring to what I wrote here in my blog.  As I grow up and learn more I feel embarrassed sometimes with what I have shared here about myself.   Obviously Lady Vixen is not my real name, its who I refer to as my addictive self.   But I do post these links to my personal facebook page and those who know me well,  read them.

I struggle more then just sharing with my friends who I am and where I am at.  I struggle with looking back over my thoughts and realizing how off I was at certain points and just how crazy I can indeed get.

 It embarrasses me to know that I can swing the pendulum from a fairly intelligent articulate woman, to a bat shit crazy, hormonal, raging teenager.   But again, I am learning why this is and it eases my feelings and invokes the need to come here and share with you why I am the way I am.  In hopes that if you suffer from bat shit crazy too,  you can find peace in your own mind through my public crazy.

Dopamine Spikes.

Thats why I am bat shit crazy.

I have a new Therapist.  After my last post and all the excitement of finally having a therapist that is picking up on my patterns and ready to pounce on them...... she has passed me off to someone more qualified to deal with me.   A therapist that is an expert in the field of addictive personalities.

This whole blog has been about me learning to express my feelings in a healthy.  Thats what Narcotics Anonymous taught me was my problem if I was a drug user.  So learning to cope with my feelings is what I put my focus on.  Which is not entirely wrong I do need to learn to deal with my feelings.  However deeper then that is the cycling of my addictions.

My pattern is this.

Food   (overeating to the point of almost 250 lbs),
Drugs   (starting with weed working my way up to Meth),
Sex     (starting with a single guy who rocks my world working up to strangers in the park)
Love    ( finding the guy that shows me love and draining him until I am begging for a thimble drop                from a man with the look of pity in his eyes.)

Then I get angry at all these patterns and purge all addictions and become a workaholic at the continued neglect of my daughter and self.

Binge, Purge, Binge, Purge.

I get as much high from the Purging as I do the Bingeing.    There is a serious high that comes from doing a food fast.  And there is always an addictive reason behind everything I do.   Even in my purges.

Its nothing but a huge elaborate process to keep my dopamine spiked, once its been triggered to spike.   After a crash, my chemicals return to my normal and I am back to happy, articulate, humbled B,   ( The crash is never pleasant for me or those I take down around me)

So this new therapist is setting me up on a program to help me break this cycle once and for all.  My hopes are that I will be so fully aware of my patterns that I can stop them before they trigger a dopamine response.  But if that spike hits without warning, which it does often, that I will be able to slam on the breaks and crash myself before I need to travel around crazy town firing shit up.

The belief that a relapse starts way before the actual relapse has been wiped out of my mind.  Its not an inaccurate belief,  its just not accurate for me all the time.  Sometimes the most sexy man will walk into the room and my hormones will flare and I will be off and running without any warning or prep time.  This may be the difference between addictive personalities and those people wishing to get out of painful feelings.

I think, As we evolve as humans so do our medical afflictions.   What was once coined as the devils drinking disease and was limited to men and whiskey has now evolved into a bat shit crazy myriad of symptoms infecting us in every corner of our minds.  As people we are getting more sick, committing deeper crimes and we as a society have more diagnoses to create to solve these ills of society.

 My anger at my abuser and all that were involved at that time grows and deminishes at the precisely the same moments of understanding.  Am I part of the problem or solution.... or is the problem itself the solution?

This is why I truly struggle with this blog.  Am I just creating a space in cyber world that is a dumping ground for my ills thus infecting those in the pages close to me.  Or am I processing and healing the illness inflicted upon me when I was too young to defend myself and your on that beautiful journey along side me?

Well whatever may be, it will be.  Today I still find comfort within these pages.  So write I still shall.  Till next time when maybe I have an even deeper awareness of what an addictive personality does to get past the label and on to living a full and complete life free from dictating chemicals.

How many times in therapy before there is a break through?

Have you ever went to Therapy for your Mind and or Emotions before?

I have.  Three different times now.

Once when I was in my early twenties and a young mom of a baby daughter.   I knew even then that I did not want my child carrying on my patterns or the patterns of my parents.  So I decided to get counselling for my childhood abuse right away before it ever became a problem for me in my later years.

That didn't work.

I seen my counselor for two years and we never got past a timeline assessment.  Thats a chart they draw out with you outlining ever single attack and experience you had from birth to now.  Dreadfully painful and personally to me a waste of energy.   But, She was a social worker for Catholic family services.  Nice lady.  I liked her.

The second time I hit the counselling button.

 Was just after I came into drug abuse recovery.   Again,  another two years and we never got past teaching me about my feelings and proper use of them.   Great lessons,  Still grateful today.

 Yet still nothing was discovered in my patterns repeating problem. A problem that was now plaguing my life.  The life I didn't want at twenty and tried to fix then.          ....... And now!    I have two daughters and a son to live the patterns with me.   Great.

So I quit my second counselor.

Then last summer.   Holy shit balls hit the fan,  and my world was smothered in shit.

Thats when I met my new counselor.  After a deeply sobbing phone conversation with her, she agreed to take me on as her client.  This past year she has watched me.  I recognize when she is observing me and when she is having light fun and truly friendly conversations with me.  (If I met her outside the psychology realm I am certain we would be great friends.  She is close to my age and similar life situations.  Thats a plus in a counselor I think.)

While I have been observing her, observing me.  She has been tracking my patterns.

Finally!   After all these years of wanting an issue I knew was there but didn't have the vocabulary or understanding to know how to identify it, is going to be resolved.   Twenty years later!!

I have blogged lots in this last year about mental illness.  I have seen a psychiatrist that was so bloody quick to prescribe me bi-polar love.  I get he probably seen a pattern and was sure to fix that through a couple of pills.  But he didn't look deeper.

Another,  walk in mental health counselor showed me a diagram once.  Of normal ranges of feelings and the range of feeling in a person with ADD.   My body LIT up when she explained it to me.  Its the same as bi-polar but a person with ADD gets stuck in the high or low.  Once they cross the boundary line they are trapped there until the crash.

That seems more fitting of me.  But waite.

Yesterdays session with my now deeply respected and completely trusted therapist, was all about addictive personalities.  No secret I have some addictions, two for sure.  I remember a very respected guy I tried to latch on too just after I left my ex, who was a non practicing psychologist, used that label with me a couple times.  His exact words were..."your gonna to exhaust your kids with that addictive personality".

I wasn't just LIT up as she showed me a picture of a wheel on the addiction cycle,  I was off my seat too.  This was it, that was my life.  It was like looking at my time line with new eyes, phases and stages of not the substance or action i was addicted to.... but the Dopamine spikes and drops that spun my cycles for the past thirty years of my life.

She was laughing.   I was laughing.   This was it.  Or if its not what it is then its the next level of my understanding.   Because let me tell you, my patterns over the past year have changed my therapists belief that sex addiction can and will destroy your life if you get to,.... High.

Everyone Needs a Community.

Connections.

What we cant do alone,  we can do together.

I am so grateful for my understanding of the power community holds.    If it wasn't for my one friend that completely scooped me up and flew me to safety, I am not sure of the struggle I would be in right now.   I have some good ideas but not sure I wanna explore them all that much today.

My heart instead is on my love of my support group.  A support group I have worked hard to build.  I have some of the most amazing,  closest friends a girl could ask for.   When I landed in detox last summer if it wasn't for a dear good friend of mine from NA, I am not sure I would have even made it into detox.  She just took control of my life when I no longer had any strength too.   I will forever be grateful to her.  She is a solid support I have put in to place.

A male friend of mine.... which is the largest oxy moron this blog has ever seen.  Yes, I did say male friend.  And I gotta say, its not at all what I expected being a friend with the opposite sex to be like. ....but,  I think that might be for another post though, I need to stay focused on my point...

Connections.

If the newest member of my solid support team didn't fly in like an eagle and rescue my sorry ass from yet another devastating situation I had created, I really don't know where I would be.  Actually, I totally do know and even though I am not gonna explore it, I would be doing myself a disservice by not paying homage to my bottom.

Thank Goddess,  its not where I am at today.  My bottom is much, much higher..... but ....I got screwed outta the feelings get less intense at this bottom, bottom!!!  They might be worse actually now that  I don't have all my old fall backs to get me through.

Learning a new way to deal.... hard.   And going through feelings without the old aids..... hard.

I am grateful however.... bringing it back to connection... .    That I have these amazing supports in my life.   I have built trust and respect with them,  that when they step into my life when I most need them too but don't even have the strength to ask, I willing let them.   Because I know they will make my life easier, peaceful and return balance to me now that I have truly lost my way.

Humbling being taken care of so fully by another human being.

My light is on the way up and I am starting to feel human again.  Being around people that fill up my heart and my spirit with energy is what the saying at the top of the blog is about.   We can do together what we cannot do alone.

 I could not relight my own spirit... isolation keeps me bound in my own head.  My head in that state cannot be positive as there is no energy to do such, I am burnt out, sick.   Being around positive energy filled.....Healthy....people is what fills me back up.   (surprisingly not the 25 year old  250 lb firecracker???)))

I had dinner with my mom last night.   It felt good to reconnect with my own roots.  Whenever my life goes sideways its my mom I cut off of first.  Isn't that like cutting yourself off at the knees??  My mom is a different kind of support that I couldn't acknowledge until recently.  Not until I was forced recently to redesign my belief around men and specifically what love looks like with a male, was I able to look at my relationship with my mom in a new way.

I don't think I can say it enough right now.   I am grateful to the people in my life today that are lifting me back up, even after I was warned repeatedly not to follow that path.   That too me, is unconditional love.  I have ample unconditional love in my life.  I was always just to angry to see it.

I am grateful today that the anger has lifted..... for now.  lol ish.

Messy emotional Suppression!!

**Repost**

Feelings.

Sometimes I forget what this blog is really about.    Suppression to Expression.  

I lose myself in my own crazy way to often.   I get wrapped up in the details and the triggers and miss the real issue.  My feelings and poor expression there of.

When I am angry its always because I am hurt.

 Anger being a secondary emotional and all.  I used to skip the whole being angry part and go right to being hurt and feeling victim.  I missed the Beauty and Power in actually allowing myself to be angry.    In suppressing my anger my life would always take these terrible turns for the toxic.

Emotions really are...... energy in motion....  If I am not willing to allow that energy to flow in the natural way it needs to, it will find a way somehow to release on it;s own.....  Or better yet explode on its own.

Thats when things start to get toxic in my world.  Thats when I quit friends or jobs,  to find a way out of the anger, to run away from it, hoping not to have to deal with it.   Unfortunately,  it doesn't work that way either.  Because even though the in the moment emotion has had its out, the issue that caused it still hasnt been dealt with.  And well I am all to aware now of what happens when the issues are left unresolved.   They come up over and over again in new forms.

So how does one sit in the emotion?  How do you 'work through it'?

My emotions feel so huge to me.   I know that without a doubt I am bi-polar.   A psychiatrist diagnosed me as such last summer.  I refused to accept that diagnoses and still do today.   Only because I refuse to take medication to 'even' me out.   Not because I am against the idea of being evened out....but because I know with proper self care I can keep myself even.

Thats the whole point of this blog,

I lost sight of handling my emotions.  Instead I let them dictate and control my life.    !! Man what I need is an Emotions Anonymous!   (I think there are groups like that in the big cities.)   Because I am telling you, emotions are wreaking more havoc in my world then dope ever did.... I see now it was only self medication.

But I digress a bit, I still don't know how to effectively handle my emotions.   I cant seem to let them just flow, without freaking out and making huge waves in my own life.   I don't know how to just sit with them instead of always being so reactive.    I just quit my job because a douche bag 25 year old rocked my world so hard that what I built, is actually crumbling.

And,  now I know that seems mellow dramatic and I am not looking at all sides of the picture.  There was obviously lots of reasons that I need to move on from there.... but lets be honest that was for sure the emotion that set forth the events.

So I guess that brings me to my next question.   Do you think some emotions or emotional situations occur, just to move you from one place to the next?  Like the emotion it self is welcomed in the end because it produced good results after the shit show settled?

Because,  even though I swing in wild mood swings, and its truly not okay to roll like this, it still has served some purpose in my life.   That for whatever reason, I was to afraid to make that happen on my own.  I know I should have left the landscaping job after my first burn out.  I had four months to look for a job.  But I just couldn't seem to pull myself away from the money.  I made good money working twelve hour days.  So I went back.  

And now I am done, Again.   Lesson learned........ I am looking for new work.

But what about the emotional outburst as a result of a guy?   I am almost embarrassed that I could barely keep my shit together for the last couple weeks before I quit after the douche bag quit.   I was like almost non functioning!  No joke.   I have no idea if other people feel that way and push through it.  There is no pushing through for me sometimes.  I couldn't get out of bed I was so emotional.  Not sick in the body.  Nope totally paralyzed by emotions.   Seriously my feelings are intense.   I really need to work on this.... I feel just to be normal.

Em-path's can feel other peoples energies/emotions.    Your words may be saying one thing, but the feelings vibrating from your body say something totally different.  I struggle with this one and it was only recently that a friend pointed out that not all people can truly feel an others emotions.

Highly sensitive people(borderline personality disorder) can feel everything off everyone and also have heightened personal feelings.  I think this is like em-paths on smack.  cause this is when things get harry scary for me.  I can do okay when I am working and self absorbed in work which for me I can shut my feelings off for.   Then i am only dealing with other peoples energies.  But when I throw romance in there, my over drive goes into hyper and I am overwhelmed with intense feeling.  Making the personal feelings themselves almost unbearable.

Throw in Bi-polar highs and lows.

Man I am telling ya,. My feelings are Whacked out.  Completely out if sync.  No self care.  No time for self care, had to work work work.

Well its time for self care.  I cant be this highly charged, this over sensitive.   I need to settle and calm.  This I know because a doctor told me I was bi polar.  I don't want to crash this time.   I don't wanna slip into a two year depression,   because of the last six month incredible high I was on.

Ahhhh man, and it was high,  C'mon ...... he was 25!!

It was a high for sure.  The low to match it though.... could kill me.   So I am bringing myself back down.

Meditation back on like donkey kong.

I feel reconnected after my recent camping trip.... four days in nature, much time alone. Now I am able to feel at peace during my meditations.  Yoga is way more slow and calming now.  Daily I do the same routine and already two days in,  I can stretch almost where I left off months ago.  I am grateful healthy routine comes back so easily.

I am cooking for Chloe.... and its good.  Omg!  We had bbq chicken last night and it was so so so good.  I even made her a warm breakfast this morning.  Like for real, right!   A warm breakfast... I have never made my kids warm breakfasts.  Like ever.   That is self care, taking good care of my responsibility.

Feels good to me.  A deeper kind of good then the kind I was getting making fast money.

It really is all about self care and doing what is necessary to feel better and get back into life.  ....And actually maintaining that level of self care as best you can when life gets busy again.  Thats the complacency part recovery.  You have to keep up with your self care in order to maintain what you have.

Now that I am evening out.  I feel like I am waiting for a tidal wave to crash on my head unsuspecting now that i am relaxed.  The universe maybe thinking I am ready to face some of those stupid emotions that burst forth like the girl in exorcist spewing green goo.  I am not sure there is anything more to process now that I exploded them forth.

Maybe now its just time to lick my wounds and move forward into something a bit more simple for my over zealous emotional butterfly flitting self!!

Yup,   this blog is about feelings, not dramas.  I am getting to old for dramas.

A Beautiful Crazy

 My Crazy is Beautiful.  Thats what a very good male friend told me this week.  I have a beautiful crazy.  This coming to me after I texted a last text to the guy that just rocked my world asking if my crazy was too much for him.  I got no response.  I guess the answer was yes.

I talk a lot about creating our own realities.  I make many references to our perception of things.  What I see as white,  you might see as off white or even light grey.  Our realities even if co-existing at the same time might be something entirely different to each of us.

I watched two of my coworkers these past couple of months,  have these seriously miss communicated conversations.  They were both saying the exact same thing but in entirely different words and mannerisms.  They couldn't understand each other, yet to an outsider looking in, it was clear they were saying the exact same thing.  Interesting experience for me.

So how does one manage to create and co-exist with others when there is such a clearly divided understanding in perceptions?  How is my crazy beautiful to one person and totally unacceptable to another.  How does one communicate to someone that is obviously on an entirely different level then them?

Am I connecting with those around me?  My crazy definitely isn't.  Am I on the wrong path?

Harmony.  Synchronicity.  Little signs only I would understand, are the life markers I need to know that I am going in the right direction.  Sometimes I need blaring signs to know that I am walking in the right direction.  Even when the situation is ugly to me, sometimes it has an underlying harmony to it.  I am in harmony with it.  Sometimes the signs point me to situations I don't want to experience, just to get me through to where I need to be...

(Sometimes I just get lost.... Sometimes I am trapped)

....That's a path I am walking out of now.  The dark painful path of suffering and low self worth.  The path of punishment and limitations.   The path I fought so hard to create for myself because I thought that's what I wanted.  I married myself to the hypnotic trance many living zombies follow.

Money. Status. The trophy boyfriend.  The perfect kids.

That's what I have been trying to manifest for years.  Ambition being the socially acceptable motivating factor.  Did you know on Plenty of Fish, a dating website, that one of the last questions you can answer to complete your profile is... how ambitious are you?  Why the fuck would one need to know that in a dating partner?

Probably so a person like me can see if the guy is still a society drone, I guess.

  Well maybe I shouldn't say that.  Just because money and status corrupt me it doesn't mean they mess with everyone.  Its just not my path.  I don't value money other then to pay my rent and buy healthy food for my daughter and I.  I used to value status, until I rose up to those people with status.  Then I realized people on the top have the same problems as people on the perceivable bottom.  And truly their problems seem compounded by money not lessened.   Money buys to many excuses and hide-a-ways.

Just a few posts ago I spoke so animated about the promotions I fought for at work.  I had many congratulations and people excited for me, to see my ambitions achieved.  To tell people I was so busy was to gain their approval, their respect.

 How quickly I burnt out.

 Its not me.   One of my last posts spoke about surviving the busiest period of my work year.   Surviving?  Is that all I want out of life, to survive?  What was I thriving on if I was just surviving?  How and why did I get to a place of being proud I survived the black hole that tried to suck me... wait better question, How the fuck was I so close to the black hole in the first place?

That black hole that I spoke about last year in these pages.  Have I not learned yet?

 http://recoverpower.blogspot.ca/2014/04/the-view-from-my-whole.html

That hole always presents itself when I am in risk of losing myself.  In the past its the guy I lose myself in, becoming someone I am not to fit his image of me.  This time it was having to become someone I didn't like to achieve my ambitions.   I lost myself once already in this current job I am in.  But I thought if I took a different approach, took on a different position I could maintain who I was and thrive in the company.

I was wrong.

Admitting we tried and failed at something is so hard.  Changing ones mind after passionately shouting it off the screens of a blog is hard business.  I  feel many times people don't take me seriously because I am so fluid, so changeable all the time.  However I am learning that's the crazy one guy couldn't stand and the crazy another found beautiful.

I need to get out and experience things.  I cant sit on my couch and have a conversation with a friend, play the scenario out and decide it isn't for me.  Nope.  I have to get out and live it.  Sometimes two or three times before I actually side step the hole.  I try different avenues, venues and paths to see if I can find a way around hole.  Most times it doesn't work.

I changed too much to become a project manager of an unstable landscaping company.  I had to drink too much coffee to sustain my energy.  My judgement became clouded and my morals weak when I let the aggressive man child get his way with my heart.  I became much too distracted to see that the company was starting to fall apart with me standing in the eye of the storm.  (well now that's a little mellow dramatic, but its how I love to roll)

When I am creating something that is not in my highest good, it has no staying power.  I have no staying power.  I did this same thing when I worked for the weight loss company and convinced the CEO to promote me.  I got to where I wanted to go and I crashed and burned.  It is not where I belong.

I am a kick ass manager.  I had guys telling me that.  I am good at everything I set my mind to.  I train well and I am a quick study.  I am learning however that there is a price to everything.  An energy exchange to every action you take.  To be manager means to rent a room in your head to a tenant that's always active.  I cant shut off my work when I am in that position.  My addictive nature thrives in situations where adrenaline and thrill out weigh self care and peace.  I become a workaholic at a high cost.

I change when my addictive nature is activated,  I invite drama, I create chaos, I thrive in manipulation.  The price is too high for me to work for and with people that are shady and living lies that pour over into my reality.  My reality becomes melded with theirs and I become trapped in a world of suffering and self punishment.  I don't need dope to activate this nature.  I don't need constant focus on my addict self to keep me out of this nature.

The rose colored glasses came off last weekend.

Three key players left the company on the same day.  The vision I could not let go off all that day and since,  was three men that I had come to love and respect walked away from the yard with three lit wooden matches.  And as they moved away in that slow motion picture kinda way,  they threw the matches over their shoulders and the entire yard went up in flames.  As I stood there left behind to go down in the flames.

Melodramatic?  Absolutely.  Some huge childhood issues of abandonment?  You betchya.  But more then anything came the awareness that once again I was frozen in place.   Caught in my own ambitions and losing everything meaningful in my life because of my addictive nature turning into this raging vixen that loved her games more then her self.

My last post was titled.... I am Done.   I have said that several times to people this week.  I am done.  I am tired of trying to achieve something that is not meant to be mine and becoming someone I hate to get there.  I am to experienced to make poor choices because I am to afraid to look at the truth of a situation and do whats necessary to get out of it.   One of those men to walk away from the yard, did so because he was changing into something he didn't like and he loved himself more then making someone else money.

That hit home like a sucker punch to the stomach.  Have you ever been punched in the stomach and didn't see it coming?  Its like all the air gets violently sucked out of your body and you cant gasp it back in.  Your suspended in this painful place of your own mortality.  As  he walked over the threshold back into himself he looked back at me with eyes that invited me to come back into myself as well.

Its taken me a week and several days hiding under my covers, to acknowledge that invitation.   Its taken some hard thinking as the man child advised me as he drove through the provinces on his way back to his loving family to recover from his ordeal.

To walk away from Vixen and her path means I will lose my large monthly income.  I will lose my

status.  And I will probably lose my new circle of accomplished ambitious status loving friends.

As the tears flowed nonstop for me this week, I washed away all that I have achieved.  I washed away all that I thought I wanted to be.  I washed away all the expectations of what the world around me creates as acceptable.  I washed away my own self judgments.  I washed away all the past hang ups and baggage claims that I am not good enough because I have been abandoned in the past.  I washed away my toxic desires that serve to chain me to a reality that is not of who I am aspiring to be.

So today I begin my shaky steps back on to the path less traveled.  Back through the little path that meanders up the side of the mountain.  That path that is overgrown and hidden from the drones view.  I step off the wide paved path that the zombies bumble down.  Finding peace and freedom by the little babbling stream that is coming off the mountains spring run off.

I am not really there yet.  Just painting a picture for the universe to grasp on to and create for me.  Its time to bring my hippie back and move into something more peaceful and loving for my life.  Its time for a new chapter or my story.   I love my life.... and my beautiful crazy.

Follow the White Rabbit

More of Him:

http://recoverpower.blogspot.ca/2015/08/good-bye-mr-beautiful-crazy.html

.

It is Done.

Do we just see what we want to see?  Is the reality of the situation sometimes much different from our perceptions?

I had to call a friend to come stay with me this weekend.  I don't think my mind can be trusted to be alone even for a minute over the next couple of days.

Huge shift at work.   The 25 year old fling I had has now moved home.  My co-project manager has quit and one of our star crew chief's moved on to new things in his life.  All three of these guys's lasts days were yesterday.   I didn't make it through the morning.

The tears started at seven am and didn't finish until way late in the evening.   My mind on fifteen different tangents desperately trying to find a thought path that would slow the tears.  Nothing worked  Every path lead to a waterfall barricade.

So many things on so many levels were happening with those tears.  I am going to choose to narrow in on the one that is most relevant to this blog.  That of course would be my hang up of all things male.   So 25 year old Douche it is.

A lot of my time and thought has gone into what is love?  What is respect?  What does it look like to have a healthy relationship with a man.  I am certain that this fling was not with a healthy man but how can I be certain it wasn't love on a level him and I both understood it?   Or am I ignoring fifteen red flags and creating something in my mind that is not accurate.  Was he, and was I,  just caught up in each of our fantasies?  Or was it my circus he was visiting?

One thing with learning about the mind.  I learn how powerful and deceiving it can be.  How the mind can lead and trick you into beliefs that are not accurate.  To see situations that are not reality but fantasy in your own mind.  We see what we want to see.

I think the entire relationship I had with this guy was two totally separate scenarios playing out here.  They say communication is key if you want the relationship to grow.  When 25 and I would talk its like we were having two totally different conversations.  I am thinking that was a bad sign and perceptions were entirely off.   Or at least mine was.

Or maybe it was his.   I own every part of a failed relationship all the time in every situation.  The friend I have on thought management this weekend reminded me that some people are just douches and that's the end of it.   Did I really just hook up with a douche and I am trying to make it into some grande life altering lesson so that I can cover the fact I choose shitty once again??

This is where I don't need dope to escape reality and create my own scenarios anymore.  I can do it at will now.

Coming back to owning some stuff.  Its hard for me to think someone is that unkind just by nature.  I question if I hurt him really bad by sneaking out of his bed one morning and booking it home calling it quits on him later that day.  Because I couldn't take responsibility for my bad behaviour the night before.

 I am sure it was part of it.   However I think my bad behaviour stemmed from feeling him back off first.  That was the vicious circle I have been looping for over a month now.  I have beat this situation to death and I am exhausted.

But what was done was done and it doesn't matter cause he has moved back to Ontario and my life is now going to settle back into peaceful.   After I pick up the pieces and mend my work relationships.  I want to say it was a crazy fun ride but it wasn't.  It was just heart breaking.  from day one on.

This is why I beg the question,  Did I just see what I wanted to see?  Each time it didn't play out as I seen fit, well then I threw a fit.  When the relationship just kept disappointing me my heart cracked a bit more each time.   Do I create these relationships because I am still feeling like I need to be hurt?

Do I cause pain in them first so that they can retaliate and feed me what I know and understand? Betrayal?

I am tired.  Drained.  Done.

I have been here before.  In other areas of my life.  A bottom if you will.  A breaking point or a crossing of the line of what is acceptable and what is not.  A finish line we cross when enough is enough.

I am there.    Enough.  I am good.  Content.  All drained of angers and resentments.  All played out in the hurting arena.   I don't wanna play the game anymore.   I am ready to settle into peace again.  To regain my sense of balance and purpose.  To move forward back on my path free of my recent distraction.  Pit stop into pity lane is over.

Its funny because I am starting to blog on my work website.  I love to create words on the screen.  Its much different to write about landscape construction projects then it is to talk about the affairs and failings of the heart and mind.  Yet I tell our web designer all the time that I need a new writing outlet because creating these crazy dramas to have something to write about is getting a bit insane.

So I am thinking its time to give this blog a nice put to bed and start up a new blog on my very own website instead.    I think it is time to move into that arena.  I am tired and finally content.  I don't wish to hurt anyone anymore.  I don't wish to hurt unnecessarily anymore.

The defiantion of insantiy is doing the same thing and expecting different results.   Its time to change that now.

This is done.

Life After CHANGE

Coming back into myself.

What a process life is.  I love the process of life.  In my spiritual belief system there are ebbs and flows in the river of life.  Seasons change.   I just went through the birth of spring in all its glory and destruction.

I survived.

The witches calender Stops at Halloween.  That is the time of year that the harvest has all been pulled up and the ground freezes and everything dies back.  I like to look at it as the snow puts everything to sleep, slows everything down.  Winter is a time for contemplation.  A time to go within and asses what worked the last year and what didn't.  Its a time to make plans for the next year.

Spring is the time of year that everything wakes up and all the planning and assessing from the winter takes place.  Seeds are planted and the painful birthing through the soil occurs.   That my friends is where I am at.  Finally busted through the tough shell, through the cold earth up into the bright sun and refreshing air.

But let me tell ya, as with any growth period in my life it was not a pretty transition.  And I just about didn't make it, as many seeds don't.

Over the winter I was off work due to Burn out.  Last summer I didn't make it through.  My seed failed.   I fell into old patterns of coping with change, which is drugging and hiding out with toxic guys.  This year the same pattern emerged.

I planned all winter.  I brought my bosses on board with the promotion I was seeking and I received it.  I trained hard and I prepared myself to the best of my ability at the time.  I don't fully believe one can be entirely ready for anything in ones life no matter how much prep work and grounding they put into themselves before hand.  That's what is challenging about growth and change.  The seed still has to push through the shell on its own naturally no matter how perfect the conditions are.  Some people just don't have the Ego strength to push through.  I didn't last year.  I wasn't ready

When spring hit and my position at work went from making hundreds of calls a day to actually leading 12 guys through the delivery of the services I sold over the phone..... The shell burst wide open alright.  And chaos hit the fan!!

When one goes from what is comfortable, dark and cozy... to something totally different it feels like an exhilarating death.  Every single thing you once knew as your truth,  as your comfort,   as your stability..... gets ripped away from you violently.  With more preparation and plenty of guidance of course,  this can be a smoother transition.  For a girl like me,  that is obviously not the greatest with complete change,  its a bit of a dramatic affair.

And affair is what I am gonna have to get me through the change.  Affair with Dope, Affair with my rebellious teenage self.  Affair with the 25 year old hottie at work.

This is where I am learning about old fall backs that come into play for me.  I am comfortable with the toxic, highly emotionally charged Guy.  I am comfortable with the green ganga and the white powder.  Those are things I am familiar with in the world of complete chaos that I am experiencing.  I am okay with turning over the reins to my little Vixen.   I see why now when people get away from there chosen fall backs or bad behaviours they choose to stay seated exactly where they are and perfectly content with no more growth in life.  Its easier.  Its safer.

Its not easy to move through the cold, moist, even darker, almost suffocating soil.   Actually its down right fearful.  For me it is anyways.  I have no idea what I am gonna break through into.  Am I growing up into a beautiful well tended to garden or am I gonna burst through a pot hole on a busy city street??   That poor little seedling cannot know these things.

Preparation, intention and solid grounding before hand can definitely situate you in a better spot then a concrete pad however.  Thank the Goddess I did my prep work.  Hail fully to the Twelve steps!

However I did not come out of the dark soil without some challenges to over come.  I did get caught up in a toxic guy.  Probably the most energetically draining man I have ever come into contact with yet.  When ever I am in his energy field I can feel myself sinking way to comfortably into him.  With just one look from this guy, I am melting into a puddle on the ground, not a single resemblance of who I am left to identify.  Not good, Not healthy.  That is the largest obstacle in my path through the earth I have ever encountered in any of my growth experiences before.

Yet here I am blooming and enjoying the sun.

I was offered powder twice through my journey through the earth.  A little something something to get me through the toughest nights.  And I turned down the first time and completely ignored the second time.  That is an old pattern I refuse to fall into today.  Dope doesn't serve any purpose in my life today.  Their are absolutely no rewards I get from putting those drugs into my system.

It took me a bit longer to learn there are no rewards from the toxic guys either.  That instant feeling of attraction just like the first high you get from dope subsides far to quickly and the chasing of the dragon is far to exhausting for me today.  I need to place my energies else where.

Now that the spring is coming to an end the routine of summer is falling into step.  I am over joyed with the realization.... I did it!!!  I made it through!  I survived!   I am a blooming Tulip that worked hard to push through the challenges of growth and I have arrived in my glory.

Does it look like what I expected?

Nope not really.

I have made new friends along the way.  I have lost some dear friends along the way as well.  One thing I am definitely learning, that when one changes and moves into a whole new arena of life, everything changes.  Including people you love and cherish that you have to let go of because they are not ready to go where you are going.  Paths fork and people make different choices.  Its probably the toughest lesson in this life I have had to learn.  Moving from One phase of my life into another and continually moving forward means sevearl times, I will have to make that statement.... "only one thing needs to change, and thats everything".

I am still kinda nose down ass up moving forward so I havent even really had a chance to take in where I am at.  Last weekends camping trip with my daughter was the start of the, enjoy the rewards of hard work but brutal awareness of what I gave up in order to work hard, end for me.  So now its just a matter of allowing my self to adjust to this new life style and these new friends and be okay with feeling good about my hard work.

My new Journey......

I can cry for love.  I can work my ass off to be love.  Yet when love shows up to offer itself to me, I run away screaming.  This is where I am at now folks.  I need to let the plants I worked so hard to create actually be nurtured now.   That will be a whole new journey for me!!

And the process continues........