Simplify

To simplify thoughts and emotional responses to things, label experiences as:

a) Pleasurable

b) Unpleasurable

c) Neutral

When the body is free of tension, and the mind is free of fear, peace can fill your heart to overflowing, pour forth from your spirit’s center

Breathe in and release the tension from your body

Can you feel it now?

New Mantra

I’ve had many mantras during my life

I am

Om shanti

So hum

In, out

Breathe, relax

Be Peace

Gentle flow

Here and now

I am safe

I am loved

Let go

Just be

Enough

Unclench

Amor y paz

Etc etc

The latest, born of caregiver burnout:

Stop giving me things to do

I want to take care of me and not you

Though I still stack up requests like a pile of dirty dishes

And wash each one because I grant wishes

I’m beginning to learn that my deepest magic

Lies in my ability to fulfill my own dreams

Replenishing myself with source

Giving to sustain and nurture myself

My outward giving grows infinitely

Hunted

Do not make me feel afraid in my home, where I pay the bills with the earnings from my skills

Where I clean up the spills and cure the ills

Yet I still cannot prevent melt-downs

Despite my walking on eggshells, I set off landmines of drama from time to time

These very words have potential to cause damage, depending on whose eyes find them

My intolerance of conflict is impractical

The physiologic reaction that my body is under threat with every disagreement is not helpful anymore

I take my herbal sedatives and guide my body through relaxation yoga nidra style, yet the pounding in my chest won’t let me rest, even when I visualize it as a drumbeat of peace, rippling outward and keeping rhythm as I soften muscle away from bone, cell from cell and thought from thought

Still I feel hunted in my own home in my own bed in my own head

This is the time that if I had something stronger I’d take it for brief relief. I am curious to try the medications I prescribe for patients with ailments identical to my own.

Instead I write with a smile of gratitude for the fact that I don’t have a prescription because I’d miss out on the therapeutic bliss of this midnight poem if I did.

Float

I tend to scheme for a way out of struggle, but maybe I’ll try a different approach and settle in for a lifetime of learning

Ever adapting, meeting, greeting, innovating

Constantly changing, growing

This life was perfectly imperfect when we arrived

And will remain so after we leave

Work was waiting for us before our birth, and will remain long after our body’s death

So we can relax and float down the river

We don’t have to fight against the current or feel like we are drowning

Floating is what happens when we stop struggling

Off My Chest

I need to get you off my chest

I’ve never felt relaxed in my life because you raised me in the war zone of your wrath

Bombs of panic explode in my mind all day every day

Choking me with your smoke and mirrors even though you are far away

My ears ring with your shouting

You were the biggest little tyrant

Not even two years my senior

Yet always more needy

Mandating, yet begging

I didn’t realize the power I had over you, and still do

You were the one dependent on me for affirmation, not the other way around

I didn’t have a choice then, but I do now-

To live a life without your storms brewing on my horizon

I’ve never slept well in my life because I thought you were going to murder me in my sleep throughout our childhood and adolescence

I used lie in bed wearing a cross around my neck with a note attached to it asking you to think before acting, waiting for dawn to break, dreading another day with you, feeling trapped and hopeless with no end in sight

I never felt protected, respected, seen or heard by our parents

In moments of desperation, I wish you had killed me

Instead you continue to torture me passive aggressively, and I am passive passive aggressive

Silenced, as if buried alive

I toss and turn, tormented between insomnia and nightmares

I’m trying to think before I act

I am upset that I’m even thinking about you now

I am upset about how you get upset ‘at’ me: you throw your rage at me and have me clean up the mess, time and time again, left to calm your ass down as if your reactions were justifiable or somehow my fault

It was never my fault

I am not responsible for how you feel

Leave me alone you evil bitch

I want to scream at you with the force of 35 years of repressed anger and tears

At the same time, I am trying to let go of the hot coal which burns my palm

I am trying to let the rippling waters of my pond be still

I am trying to not be irritated, for only then will you no longer be irritating

I am trying to take responsibility for my thoughts and feelings

I am tired of trying so damn hard

I am ready for ease

I am ready for peace

I am ready to breathe

Please, get off my chest

I don’t need to ask- I am responsible for how I feel

I’m not sure what to do next

I’ll probably meditate and self-medicate with raw emo poetry

Like the note pinned to my cross-necklace, you will probably never read this

But maybe those who matter will

Those who feel they are suffering alone

May find healing in this onion peel

And breathe just one breath more freely

For this I humbly pray

Namaste

Enlightened AF

You can never get to the end of it, you said about The Divine

Your words drew kaleidoscopic visions in my mind

I used to feel oppressed by poverty

Now I know I was only oppressed by the false beliefs within me

All the riches were always inside me

To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders

Beyond the collapsing walls, the sky is open

I am still tormented by the torrent of my thoughts

Then I think, ‘I don’t belong in anyone else’s head, nor do they belong in mine’

I try to let go of unhelpful thought-patterns

Such as my deep disappointment when I deem myself as less than perfect in every way, which happens multiple times each day

I may not be able to unthink a thought, but I can balance a negative with a positive, I can let the cloud float away without latching on all day

Today I was transported back to the time when I’d jerk off men for pennies on the dime

Now in the context of a trained medical professional providing a form of physical therapy to another doctor

Standing next to the massage table, I felt as if I hadn’t come far even after all the struggle and sacrifice to get out of poverty, to give my kids a better life

I remind myself that I have enough and I am enough

In my humble, imperfect way

I am enlightened AF sometimes

Centering

You are safe

You are loved

You are supported

From below and above

You are the love you seek

You are the other cheek

May every breath remind you

That you are blessed in all you do

Puzzle

I like to look at my map of the world and visualize the continents moving back together:
Puzzle pieces whose edges have been worn by time
I see how well they still fit, nook to cranny

Do you remember when you were all one? I ask the colorful curves of our earth
I wonder if the eastern shores of South America ache for the familiar embrace of the west African coast
Or if Cape Horn longs to kiss Antarctica on the lips just one more time

Traveling by map, I island-hop
I stop for a shag on the Shag Rocks and eat a sandwich on the South Sandwich Islands, both of which are east of Argentina and north of Antarctica.
Islands are the delicious crumbs of earth’s picnic

When I observe others struggling because they feel separate from All That Is,
I try to piece us back together
Though the salt water between us is blinding

I relax my gaze and see
That you fit perfectly with me
How we ever parted in the first place
Is the real puzzle

Lullaby

I wink my third eye to passers-by
I delight when I see a shimmer or a glimmer in their eyes

Below this gentle twinkling
My heart beams compassion without blinking                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Like the sun, my compassion beam
Gets periodically blocked by obstacles
Moving around me like clockwork
If the universe stood still it would cease to exist

Playing the game, I lean in to the twist
When my enlightenment gets temporarily eclipsed,
You can still see my unconditional love for you
In the moonshine of these rhymes

I nod in utmost respect to you
Shining for anyone who cares to see
By starlight, I wink, blink and nod
May this lullaby soothe you, for we are all god

The only heaven I know                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Is that which grows
So take a deep breath
And expand all the way down to your toes
How relaxed can you feel?
Only you will know

Triggerfinger

I wish I wasn’t so easily trauma triggered
It doesn’t take much to push me out of touch with feeling safe
A slightly raised voice makes me lose all choice but to
freeze and collapse
The physiology of my stress response takes over
Though I try to stop it, my heart races, my pulse pounds, a heaviness crushes my chest, suffocating me, it feels like I can’t breathe
How long has it been since I last took a breath?
Now I make a conscious effort to unclamp my rusted-shut jaw from my tongue but the battle is not so easily won
Years later the everyday trauma tape continues to play on loop I feel like I’m still in those moments when I didn’t know what to say, the epic fail drags me down into a pit of mental battering and spirit shattering
‘Good enough’ remains just out of reach
I hold the tension in my body and the voices of my aggressors echo between my ears
I’m caught between anger and tears                                                                                Regretting the past and fearing the future
I worry that if I ever get married or have a baby, my ex-partners will come after me in fits of blind jealousy
The ex’s that have expressed ill-will and death-wishes to me,                                                the ones with guns, violent tendencies and criminal histories                                               God, will I live my whole life without ever feeling safe?                                                    Mental abuse is physical abuse: you can see it, feel it, measure it in my body                       It is detrimental to my health and wellbeing                                                                                    I meditate on being held in a sphere of protective light                                                          and pray that I won’t have nightmares again tonight                                                      Healing the mind is not easy                                                                                                               I am humbled at how quickly I slip into depression and anxiety                                           my constant companions of which I am never truly free                                                       The next time my trauma gets triggered, which will happen soon                                      May I relax the grip of my fingers and remember that I am held in safety                      even when it feels impossible to believe                                                                                          I find peace in remembering that not even my trauma,                                                      which seems to be at the very core of me                                                                                      Is mine to keep                                                                                                                                   All things end eventually