Yesterday was MAHOOSIVELY AWESOME in so many ways, I stopped counting at fifty. I do this thing these days where every time something GOOD happens, I write it down. It's Andrea Schroeder's fault, really. She recommends this in her Creative Dream Incubator, and while I usually REFUSE TO DO HOMEWORK, I was compelled to take this practice up.
I'm so glad I did.
Something is happening. Shifting. My awareness is no longer sucked into the vortext of OMG DOOM as easily as it once was. Shit happens, and more often than not, I find myself shrugging. Okay, well, whatevs. What juicy bit of HAPPY can I find in the next ten minutes?
It's not denial. Denial feels all jaw clenched and taking it. Imagine me dressed in a kilt, wielding a sword, covered in blue woad paint...THAT'S it. Right there. Visual sweet spot. This feels like freedom. FREEDOM! FREEEEEEDOM!
***
Today is NOT one of those days. It's an anxiety day. I'm all "OMG DOOM" despite my best efforts to curb it. I think I need to move my body or something. Move that adrenaline out of the blood stream. Sweat it out. And I will. But I wanted to make note of this:
Change happens in fits and starts.
(Effyone, are you listening?)
It's all ten steps forward and five steps back.
And that's okay. I can be gentle with myself. I can let myself do this dance without self-recrimination because I am unfolding as I meant to. Some of my conditioning is really stubborn. Some of it has taken decades to unravel. I can TRUST that it will unravel in good time, but not if I bludgeon myself over the head about not unraveling it fast enough. It's unraveling as it should. I can trust that.
I know why I'm anxious and I'm doing my best to fix it but it is something that isn't within my control. (I HATE THAT!) I am afraid I upset someone without even knowing when or how. I am filling in the blanks where silence is. I am all "WHAT DID I DO?"
Probably nothing.
But triggery girl is triggery, and I need to roll with it when the anxiety kicks in. No amount of talking myself out of it works. Movement helps. Arting helps. Self-care (of the EXTREME rose absolute in the bath water, candlelight, chocolate and soothing music variety) helps.
This lovely meditation helps to. In the spirit of inviting the flow of goodness and ease and relaxation back into my anxiety addled body, I want to share it with you.
I'm off to soak in rose absolute and then I'm going to art this out. <3
UPDATE
See, Effyone? It was totally nothing. *grins sheepishly and goes about her day*
So, I got an "I'm subbing because I thought this was going to be fun but it's all about how messed up you are" message this morning.
I expected more than one after my raw, blubbery, in your face video of Friday's fame, but truth be told, it was the one and only one I got out of dozens of messages of appreciation and support.
Fences were mended. Healing happened. People I *never* expected to hear from reached out with grace, which was not my intention at all, but felt like a nice little side of gravy on my already deliciously full plate of happy.
It feels like a little test. A little ball thrown by the Universe. So, Effy? You gonna walk that talk?
Because, listen: it was not a necessary message, right? The unsubscribe link is right there. She (and she was a perfect stranger) could have just clicked it and voila! No more 'messed up Effy' in her inbox. I would have been perfectly within my right to hit reply and say something like "Was this necessary? Was it kind? Did you have to rain on my epiphany?"
But that's not how I *felt* about it. How I felt about it came in slow waves through my body as I reflected on how I should respond, and it was something like "Wow...well...obviously I don't work for you. I'm happy you're going to find something that does!"
And I *really* meant it.
Where once I would have shriveled up into a ball of shame and crawl off somewhere to die, this morning all I could think was "bless you".
Messed up or not, I'll tell you this for nothing: I like who I'm becoming and I'm really glad that my way of being filters out the people who don't enjoy, need, or want what I'm doing in the world and draws closer those who do.
I work for you. ♥
Coffee?
:)
In other news, I'm streaming live this afternoon at 1 p.m. EST. I have NO IDEA what I'm doing today. I'm going to let the spirit of Awen have it's way with me, but I bet you dollars to donuts that love and glitter will make it's way into the days program.
Persephone is very much alive for me right now in the dance the earth is doing with the sun. I love her story and her symbols. Seeds. Pomegranates. The descent to the Underworld and the return. The mother (Demeter) who grieves for her and in her grief witholds her gifts from the world until her daughter is returned to her once more.
I went hunting for Persephone poems tonight and found a few that really rocked my world. They were all found in this extraordinarily fine poetry quarterly that I'd never heard of but stumbled across in my search. I believe the title of the quarterly comes from a poem called "The Goblin Market" by Christina Rosetti ~ one of the first poems I read out loud for the sheer joy of the words on my tongue, and the first poem that made me cry the ugly, snotty, red faced cry that one prefers to cry in private.
Serendipity feels spring-like, doesn't it?
Let me explain.
I am a blocked poet. A lot of you have read that in my bio. I started arting because I couldn't write, and prior to the block, writing had been the way I got through *everything*. Having no outlet, no means of creative expression was *killing me* and if you think I'm kidding, I'm not. I was so depressed I could barely get out of bed. It was the winter of my discontent. I was Demeter in those dark days, grieving, only I felt that the gifts associated with Spring ~ inspiration, new beginnings, poems ~ were being denied to me.
In pursuit of a deeper understanding of the divine feminine inspired by my experience in The Red Madonna, I recently went looking for some poems I'd written that I *thought* were about people in my life, but realized were actually about The Mother/Sister/Crone. A few tweaks, and yes. These were poems about longing, about wanting, about women, about sisterhood, about the divine. The *very week* I did this, I got notification about the monthly Red Madonna call in which we were invited to read our own writings.
How do you say no when the Universe comes knocking in such an obvious way?
You don't.
So, I swilled two glasses of CabSauv, and I got on that call, and I lit a candle, and I read.
Here they are. As an aside, I write as 'F. Stuart' and have since 1997.
This Is What It Is To Want
As though it's spring and I hear water lick my lips, prepare my mouth to open wider.
As though sense receives a hint of herbal green in the last white days of dying winter.
As though heat hovers over what is cold; lit match over wick, winged mother over egg or open, wanting beak.
As though there is no water near, winter is new, the match won't flare to life and
the mother bird, fallen, flightless, is silent, empty bone and feather.
As if she always was, went from me and is returning.
Remembering that I once wrote, that I could write, that I may write again brought me into stark awareness of the return of Persephone in my life. She just arrived, holding a pomegranate and offering the juice as ink, beckoning me to take a taste, wiping her mother's grieving eyes.
Here's the video
A thousand thank-yous to JournalArtista who demonstrated the stencil technique I used to create the background, and to Shiloh McCloud who is teaching me oodles about painting stylized, iconic portraits.
Supplies Used (wherever possible, I link to my source for these products)
I had this amazing experience this morning. I got up, got my coffee and sat down to check e-mail. I had a lovely e-mail from Julee Herman about the video I produced for Book of Days on Monday.
She said:
I loved this one, Effy!
I was talking to the screen... looking a bit nutter I'm sure... I love flopportunities! Here's the thing, once you "mess it up" you now have automatic permission to push it as far as you can and wouldn't dare with a piece you were afraid to wreck. You get to GO for it!
I swooned.
Because that sentence there? The one about messing up and the having automatic permission to push it as far as you can?
That's how I have lived, and I couldn't have told you that until I read that letter from the gorgeous Julee.
This is what occurred to me:
For the first thirty plus years of my life, I was in 'clean up the mess' mode. In my childhood, obviously, I was not responsible for the mess, but I was sure made to feel like I was. I spent the first 20 years of my life trying to adapt to my (crazy) surroundings, trying to 'fit in', trying to make the people around me happy. I was a poster child for the story about how abused girls who are raised by addicts (and their codependents) go on to enter abusive relationships with addicts in their adulthood.
I'm aware that some people get stuck in that cycle. I know people who never moved passed victimhood. I know people who, having been abused, perpetuate the cycle of abuse either by living in untenable, abusive relationships or by becoming abusive themselves. I've seen it a thousand times.
But I was lucky. I had Oprah. (Not kidding!) She came into my living room every day and told me what happens to abused girls (and so I woke up). She told me about adult children of alcoholics. She showed me what is possible.
So I didn't settle for where I was at. I marched my ass to therapy in 1992, and though I still made horrible messes of my life by making really bad choices, I was growing in awareness. Ever growing. Ever stretching for that place beyond the limitations I was conditioned to accept.
Even now, my life isn't easy. I'm reactive, socially very awkward, I drink too much sometimes to medicate ennui or anxiety (and sometimes both at the same time). I have a hard time leaving my head in favour of actual, embodied life. I am triggered easily and can go from fine to despair in the time it takes to smell something that takes me back to...
Well, let me be straight with you. (TRIGGER ALERT)
....watching my father beat my mother in drunken rages.
....experiencing neglect and deep loneliness when my father left and my mother checked out emotionally.
....being orally and digitally raped and sodomized, used in child pornography, lent to my abusers friend, and beaten between the legs for a few years after I turned five.
....being blamed for the abuse in covert and overt ways.
....being that kid who dressed funny and was so obviously eager for teachers to like her that she alienated her peers and was bullied (and 'beaten up') throughout her school career.
....being little more than a sexual object to my first spouse, and a punching bag for my second (and third, and so on...the relationship that I'm in now is the *first* relationship in which I have not suffered any kind of physical abuse or sexual violation. The first.)
....living through the suicide of a sibling and the resulting 'survivour's guilt' ~ something I still struggle with to this day...
***
When you come from that, you have a few choices. You can succumb and let life beat you. You can identify with your abuser and become an abuser. You can stuff it all into a tight little space within you and become an automaton ~ someone who plays a role and goes through the motions, but never really lives. You can drink or drug yourself to death or suicide (my sister opted for that route). You can stay in your victimhood and blame every awful thing that happens to you *after you have the power to choose* on everyone else.
Or you can "...push it as far as you can and wouldn't dare with a piece (life) you were afraid to wreck."
I was already a wreck. I was about as wrecked as a person can get. And I saw in that fact *permission* to push. I had to let go of most of my family of origin. I became 'too much' for a lot of people and lost them. I struggled with depression and post traumatic stress disorder and self-loathing and self-mutilation and love addiction (codependence)...
But I kept pushing.
Because, really? What the fuck else was I going to do? Stay where I was? Oprah said I could have a different life, and I *believed her*.
So I kept pushing.
And when Jul described my process in this video in the specific and perfect way she described it, I realized that I had played out how I have lived my life in my art journal. Confront the mess. Do not deny it. Work with what you have. Push. Keep pushing until you're where you want to be.
I may still be a bit googly eyed, a bit wonky, but listen: I am a long way from where I started and I have half my life to keep working on it.
My beloved Teacher tells me clarity comes when we first know what we are saying 'no' to.
I say no to:
~working too much for too little
~giving a crap what other people think of me
~identifying myself ONLY by the roles I have been cast in
~staying 'on the ship' that is my tiny house, my red leather couch, my little life
~being small to make other people comfortable
~denying my worth for fear of what God might call me to do if I'm willing
~remaining unwilling
~refusing to sparkle
~mistaking empathy for being a door mat
~being too scared to try
~refusing my birthright
~rejecting myself/abandoning myself/neglecting my self-care
~being so self-loathing that I don't recognize how lovable I am
~responding to other people's appreciation and love with self-deprecation and invalidating statements
~not planning so nothing will happen
~letting life ride me ragged
~believing old tape
~thinking that since my mother didn't love me, no one can love me
~hiding from the love of my Sisterhood for fear of eventual rejection or abandonment
~being a hermit out of fear
~denying my need for friendship
~being prickly as a mode of self-protection
~remaining unconsciously reactive
~sinking into victimhood/poverty consciousness
(As I type my yes grows and grows and grows...)
This is the kind of work I'm doing in The Red Madonna. It is opening me to the rich, full life I dreamed of but never imagined could be mine. There are shifts happening, people coming into my life that *belong in it*, people who believe in me, love me, support my vision. The smoke has cleared, and I have not just closure but a clear sense of direction forward. I am coming into a knowing that I am the place where God/dess moves, breathes and has her being. I am the place where God/dess shows up. My choices, my actions, my gifts are sacred. I am sacred.
Winter Solstice is officially upon us. Tomorrow at 12:30 a.m. the longest night begins. People everywhere will be holding vigil, staying up through the long dark to welcome the return of the sun.
I'll be lighting a candle and writing in my journal about what I'm releasing.
I've got a lot to release.
Over the last year I've come to embrace a spirituality that requires no labels. In a pinch, I identify as 'pagan' but in practice, I think I'm a secular humanist. I think the tools of ritual and meditation, and even of magic can be very powerful, but these feel to me like psychological tools. They work, definitely, but I'm unconvinced that there is anything even remotely close to a 'personal deity' with whom I can have any kind of connection or relationship. When I consider a 'higher power', I feel like the universe in and of itself is enough. I don't need to look any further than the seedling for the miraculous. While I recognize the power of connecting with an archetype, I'm not a polytheist.
The closest I get to the truth is this: Everything is G_D. (Which, I think, makes me a monist, but whatever...)
Paganism has been good to me, and I appreciate all I've learned through my studies. I still feel a strong resonance with druidry (a la OBOD) and will probably maintain my ties with that organization, but the label 'Bard'? Not so much. The label 'Pagan'? Not so much. The practice of spell making and ritual feel like candy where what my mind and spirit wants is meatier fare. Pagan temples and organizations seem fraught with egotism and a dangerous brand of magical thinking.
I want a deep connection with the tides of life. Seasonal awareness. Stillness. Mindfulness. That's what I choose. It cost me a lot to figure that out, but it was worth the price.
I remain open. I'm still a mystic, because I embrace the mystery and wonder in every tradition, but I'm no longer interested in hanging my spiritual hat on one hook.
Life's a buffet. I want to taste it all.
[caption id="attachment_1993" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="I see you, too. xo"][/caption]
In looking over what I've been writing here over the last few weeks, I realize that you might have the wrong impression. You would not be crazy for assuming that I do a lot of art and then collapse in a heap of introspection and hard stuff and then do a lot more art. You might come away with the impression that I'm a really depressive person, for the most part, and that my life centers around sitting on the red leather couch either doing art or gazing at my innards.
Well, that's partially true. I do a lot of art, and I do a lot of navel gazing. But I'm not necessarily depressive.
See, I'm weird in that I love digging in my stuff. Even though it's really hard stuff to dig around in, I *know* I will find treasure there. I know that once I uncover something, I will reap the benefits in the way I live my life or in my emotional state or overall state of being. It is exciting to me (not exactly happy, but exciting!) when I know I have something to work on because I know the work WORKS. So even though I might seem all glum all the time when I'm working through things, the truth is, I am experiencing a kind of bliss. Not a 'ohhhh! I have chocolate' type bliss, but a 'this is soooo worth it' type bliss.
Think childbirth. It hurts. A lot. But that final push brings you more joy than you could ever possibly imagine experiencing. It's very, very much like that.
You might be asking yourself why anyone would be so invested in poking a sharp pointy stick around in her boo boos. I'll tell you: years of therapy taught me that pain-avoidance is the number one cause of all our collective ills. It is the refusal to look at our wounds, our character defects, the ways we've failed, the shitty things that happened that bring us to our knees before the false gods of addiction. I poke because I'd rather feel the temporary sting of knowing what's true than suffer with the chronic ache of denial and the insidious results of self-medicating (with anything ~ booze, drugs, sex, food, shopping). I'd rather rip the band-aid off in one swift, painful movement than let it rot.
That doesn't mean that I'm immune to denial. I'm as prone to it as anyone else, but I think the way I proactively inquire about the things I'm feeling or thinking help me to get out of denial faster.
So. You may see 'glum artsy girl', but what's really happening is work of the highest order that leads to self-actualization and integration and yes, bliss.
In case you were wondering. :)
xo
Effy
...I didn't meant to leave you all hanging there yesterday. I wanted to finish the post and wrap it up in something shiny and happy so I didn't bum you out, but the truth is that writing what I did completely overwhelmed me. I rarely look at those years as a whole, you know? I have compartmentalized it in my head ~ probably because looking at it all as a whole is really fricken overwhelming.
But what I was getting to was this:
My superpower is being afraid and doing it anyway. I am afraid to trust (as I was sharing in yesterday's post) and for some pretty damned compelling reasons. And often in my life (maybe because I attract these kinds of lessons) I put myself in a position where I fear trusting, yet do it anyway, and this brings heartache. It also brings gifts of such value that it makes the heartache seem worth it.
My husband calls this my 'jihad'. People in contemporary America and in radical terrorist groups have corrupted this word to mean a 'war against infidels' but the actual definition is 'struggle' in the highest sense of the word. Spiritual struggle. The holy war waged within oneself to overcome one's character defects.
My struggle is to be afraid and do it anyway ~ to fear trusting but to trust anyway until it comes to light that my trust is ill-placed. But the work I've done all these years on trust has been extended outward instead of applied where it needed to be applied *first*. Because this is what I'm realizing: if I do not trust *myself*, I will put my trust in the wrong people for the wrong reasons. If I don't trust my spidey senses, I will put myself in situations that I don't have the social graces to get out of without a shit storm.
I've been doing it backwards. I've been trying to trust outside of myself before I trust my own inner knowing. And then when I find I've invested in someone or something that isn't right for me (for whatever reason) I beat myself up for investing foolishly or too soon or without foresight.
All that could be avoided if I did not second guess myself in the first place.
The assumption is always this: I'm wrong. I'm paranoid. My filters are fucked therefore whatever I think I know, I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I'm wrong.
But what reality is teaching me is this: I'm usually right. When my red flags go off and I don't listen, *I* am putting myself in the position I'm in. I *know* better, yet by not trusting my knowing, I might as well be tying myself to the tracks upon which the train wreck will occur. And when I don't trust my instincts? The train wreck comes, I get to rinse and repeat because man, do I ever know how to beat myself bloody over what a failure I am.
You know?
I've been falling into the same hole my whole life and when I look back on the relationships and situations I've entered that did not work out very well, I realize that in every single case, I knew before hand that this was not right for me...that there was something off, some red flag, some indicator that I should not proceed. And I ignored it.
And that's not cool.
So I'm going to stop that.
(How's that for shiny and happy?)
xo
Effy
On December 7th, my baby furgirl had a litter of two brand new little furbabes!
[caption id="attachment_1978" align="aligncenter" width="640" caption="Puck and Blossom"][/caption]
We've decided to that this is going to be Sookie's last litter, and that we're going to keep these babes all to our selves. That will bring our total number of furbabes up to four, but they are wee little things, and we've got plenty of time and love to give. *Happy sigh*
In Other News
It's been very quiet here in Effyland. I took a couple of days off of most on line interaction except for the most pressing things, and I'm much better for it. I want to learn to focus only on the positive, but I'm not built (by nature or nurture) that way. It is an act of will on my part every time I choose to stop focusing on what's wrong and turn my focus on what's right. Is this a common problem? Do you have the same tendency? While I don't need to understand the root to change it, I do think I'd find it a lot easier to change if I knew where it started and what's at the heart of it. Is it conditioning? Childhood or social? Is it nature? Am I just a naturally negative person?
And then I have to pause. Because I don't recognize myself as a negative person. I do recognize myself as someone who can be knocked way off track by negative interactions and occurrences, but I don't consider myself negative as a general rule. What's your experience of me? (It's an honest question. :) Feel free to answer honestly!)
I had a letter from someone I don't know very well, but who experiences me as a blogger and the hostess of WPS. She made some observations (from a place of love and support) about how easily I am impacted by negativity. I heard that, loud and clear. It is one of the most frustrating aspects of my personality! I can have a hundred positive interactions a day, but I will focus on the one that gets under my skin. I can be loved and supported by dozens of people, but my mind is occupied in self-doubt brought on by the half-dozen that dislike me or have nothing positive to say about me. I can see ten new people come in to the studio, but the one that leaves is where my heart lives.
All the positive feedback in the world doesn't seem to touch what I think might be a core of self-loathing. And so far, it's been unacknowledged self-loathing ~ the kind that lives beneath surface awareness and wreaks havoc on the way I live my life and respond to people. The insidious kind that results in all sorts of self-destructive and self-sabotaging behaviour.
I'm bummed out by this. You do twenty plus years of therapy and self-help, and yes, self-awareness is increased, and yes, this helps you to put a stop to the more obvious self-destructive behaviours. I don't self-injure any more. I don't sleep with whoever wants me because I think that's my sole purpose in life. I don't automatically assume (consciously at least) that negative assessments of my character or intentions are correct. Yet, I am, in truth, still the walking wounded; still easily knocked off course; still, if I'm being honest, if I'm interpreting this feeling correctly, a very little girl with a lot of rage and pain and severe abandonment issues. .
Art helps. Positive interactions and solid friendships help. The Studio helps. Writing helps. Doing what I do best and putting it out there whatever the risk might be helps.Spiritual practice helps. Introspection helps.
But I am frustrated to discover how much healing I have left to do.
My deepest fear is that I have no right to offer anything. My deepest fear is that everything I offer is tainted by my early experiences: that every package I wrap up with love and good intentions comes with my baggage, that I'll never get it right, that everything I touch will turn to shit, that I will never feel good in my own skin, that I'll never get over it. My deepest fear is that I have been irredeemably damaged. My deepest fear is that I'm just kidding myself.
And everyone else.
***
I know this is a drag to read, but if you did, I thank you.
xo
Effy
(who will bounce back soon enough, but right now? I'm bummed.)
I got hit with a major case of 'too much information' over the weekend. I found myself totally overwhelmed with all the 'input'. I tried to keep up by matching 'output', but between my unfortunate choice in 'background viewing material' (conspiracy theories about the New World Order, among other scary things) and various bits and bobs of awful news popping up on Facebook, I lost the battle and entered into a 'woe, woe is the world' state of mind.
Last night the spousal unit and I fantasized about what life would be like if we just unplugged altogether. No more news of the kind we can do nothing about that feels like trauma. No more having our heart strings tugged by manipulative videos. No more flame wars. No more stress over having to deal with figuring out who to trust and invest in and who to keep at a distance. No more killed time. More reading of the kind that actually feeds the brain. More walks. More work done on the little house that could. More camping in the summer.
A total rejection of the Internet from our lives is not going to happen. There is, along with the mixed bag of stuff to hate about it, a lot to love about it. Some of my closest friends came to me through this screen, and I'm not willing to give that up. All the beautiful classes I take that inform my art practice come through this screen, too, and I'm sure as hell not giving that up.
When I first discovered internet, there was no 'instant publishing platform' and no social media. We were all little islands in a universe of islands and finding one another wasn't easy. Then Web 2.0 exploded and while it enhanced my life in many ways, it also occupies my time in ways that aren't, in my opinion, all that good for me.
I want to pare down. I want to focus on the simple pleasures that come through the screen ~ one on one interactions with people I care about. Writing without worrying about pleasing an audience. Sharing art. Learning ~ and leave the stressy bits behind.
Can I do it?
I don't know. I have such a virulent addiction to Facebook and that is, bar none, the greatest source of discord AND connection in my life. There's a part of me that is nudging me in the direction of ditching it and focusing on this little spot and the Studio exclusively. There is another part of me that is screaming and kicking about how much less FUN life would be without it.
Fun, though? Is it fun?
Well, sometimes. I like keeping up with what the people I care about are doing, but to be honest, I'd rather read blogs than quick status updates. I like the ease of the messenger system, but I'd rather send a heartfelt e-mail than a drive by smooch.
So...I don't know where this is leading me. I know that the world feels too big, too scary, too heavy for me right now. I know that I'm intensely sensitive to what's happening 'out there' and that it can powerfully impact my 'in here' even when I have control over it.
Melody Ross of Brave Girl Club took a 90 day hiatus from Facebook, and felt better for it. I'm considering the same. I'm also considering one of those computer programs that locks you off social networking during pre-set hours of the day, just as a reminder to be gentler with my brain and eyes and live a little less 'out there' and a little more in my heart of hearts.
Impulse control fail, right? *laughs*
I want a simpler life. I love what I do and I am still in the very early stages of developing it so that it is sustainable. I'm still kind of flailing about trying to discern how best to live this pajama clad mystic den mama life in as healthy and balanced a way possible. It's easy to get lost in the fray (because there is a lot of 'fray' out there!), to forget your mission, to be overwhelmed with a sense of powerlessness over all the information that comes streaming in ~ some of it breathtakingly ugly, some breathtakingly beautiful.
While I'm still up in the air about how to simplify my life, I'm not undecided about this: the best way to rebel against this sense of powerlessness is to expand, not contract. The temptation is to shrink under the weight of things, to go into hiding. And I am very tempted (which is why I have to be so careful about decisions to abandon social networking until I'm certain of my motive).
But my heart is singing a different song. It doesn't want to shrink. It wants to shine. So I plan to shine, even when it seems futile. I plan to bust out all over the place with kindness and glitter, even when the world seems hostile. I plan to attend to what brings me joy and make informed and conscious decisions about what doesn't. I plan to be the change I wish to see.
That doesn't mean I turn the other cheek. It doesn't mean I tolerate bullshit. It doesn't mean I just lay myself out there like a welcome mat for the wiping off of shitty shoes. But it does mean I think before I open my mouth. It does mean I extend myself as often as possible in compassion and kindness and acts of love.
So, I'll try. And we'll see how it goes.
In the meantime, I'm still on Facebook, but lightly so.
