So, here's the thing...

I don't make New Year's resolutions. What for? They're never kept. We mean well though, we want to start again, we stare down at the three hundred and sixty five days spread out before us, and we're either optimistic about the new year, or we're scared. I was scared. Always. The unknown caused my heart to skip a beat, it made me want to pull the covers over my head on New Year's day and fervently pray that I would be spared the trials and tribulations that seemed to find me. There was a large X cut into my front lawn, had to be. Trouble was beating a path to my doorway.....or so it seemed. I set myself up perfectly, you see. The very thing I ran from, found me . Every time. "Surrender Dorothy"! I had the nagging thought that I just needed to give up the fight. And I can truly say that over this last year I finally surrendered, and what a relief! What an absolute relief. The best diet in the world is to rid yourself of baggage, all the old ...

Let the following words express my love for you all.....and may this day bring you a measure of quiet joy and humble expectation. "I salute you. I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not. But there is much, that while I cannot give, you can take. No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven! No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instance. Take peace! The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. Take joy! Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty . . . that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it, that is all! . . . And so I greet you, with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away". "Letter to a Friend" by Fra Giovanni, 1513 Until next time....blessings upon your heart Cindy

How has this holiday season been for you so far? Blue? Anxious? Tumultuous? Been there. Now, take a breath and quiet your heart, if only for a moment. All shall be well. I have used that quote from Julian of Norwich for many years. I can't count how many times I've uttered those words in the dark of night, and especially when I didn't believe it. I've held onto those words as if my very life depended on it. Whatever your circumstances are right now, I wish you solace and a refuge from your personal storm. Let me say this to you.... it will pass . Things change, things get better, people can have a change of heart, even the most ugly among us can turn around. I can't begin to know the personal stories out there happening right this minute. Tales of woe, heartbreaking sadness and despair. But I have a good idea, we can all imagine, we all have hearts, and we're the same at the core. I know you hurt. If you are not religious and this very Christian ...

I intend to have a great life, how about you? If truth be known, I am having a great life....but it was hard won. It took bravery and resolve to not let the events of the last fourteen years sour me to the point of no return. I also intend to have abundance and "enough" to accommodate my lifestyle....an admittedly simple lifestyle...the way I like it, but I intend to live it to the max. I intend to live with creativity, spontaneity, joy, fabulousness, beauty and grace, which I happen to believe are a given for every human being alive at this moment. They are highly achievable and your Divine birthright, in my humble opinion. We have no time for regret, angst, post-traumatic stress or bitterness. This work of letting go, while so worth it, isn't always pretty though, it can be downright exhausting and circular....we let go of this, we acquire that, we let go again, we let God in, then we doubt and recoil and hoard all our negativity around us like a blanket.... beca...

I love the word contentment, it signifies a deep peace, an easy grace, a comfortable state of being. Happiness is fickle. Contentment lasts through the long haul. Happiness is fleeting. Contentment is stable. And I imagine the one thing you want right now is stability, it's what I needed when the shit hit the fan and the rug was yanked out from under me. My wounded self wouldn't believe I could ever be happy again. Happy . What a word! People pay a lot for happiness. We seek it.....no, we doggedly pursue it, and when we grasp it for a fleeting moment in our hot little hand, we squeeze the very life out of it. Then it flees, bolting on its merry way, laughing back at us as we stand there in its wake....broken, desperate, sad....all because we wanted to be "happy". Happy was a dwarf in a Disney cartoon, and that's where it belongs in my book. "I'm so happy"! Yeah, but I'll bet you anything it's was some external thing that happe...

Where does love go when a marriage ends? It disintegrates little-by-little I would venture, especially if it was a long slow death....like mine, like many, until it takes it's last breath and utters one last whimper, or one big SLAM of the door. I can still hear the reverberation from that day, all I have to do is close my eyes...but it's fading now. Something as real and as permanent as Love (with a capital L) doesn't really go away....I am content to think it just changes form. The investment in a marriage that goes south can leave you feeling like you wasted years of your life just to end up out of love, out of luck, broken, angry, and hating the ever lovin' ground your ex walks on. I struggled with this for many months, the unending questions, the guilty feeling that I had somehow squandered my life away......the anger at my child's father. Let the anger go....please, and I'll tell you why: If there are children involved, you need to love the father of...

I've gotten dubious looks when I've said I had a "good divorce"....and yes, ultimately, it has been good on so many levels. My friend the other day who I'd not spoken to for a while gingerly asked me how I was doing. My response kind of shocked her. "What do you mean you had a good divorce? Side note: and she won't mind my saying this, her divorce was from hell. Three years and $30,000.00 down the tube just for her to come out with a permanent crease between her eyes and a broken spirit. As we talked I told her all the bad parts over that last nine months that I had experienced, but the point was not to dwell, it was to say that without the bad you cannot know the good. Without the dark you cannot know light. Trite, I know, but it's the simple truth. I chose to make my divorce good, and since the alternative was hell on earth, I just didn't have that kind of stamina or endurance...nor the will, to come out looking older and angerier...

What are you worth today? Do you value the magnificent person that bears your name and a striking resemblance to someone you used to recogonize in the mirror? You are more then you know....we all are. Now I don't often quote the Bible, but there's that verse about "Seeing through a glass, darkly".......that's at least until we come to know ourselves as the Beloved knows us. What happens along the way that makes us forget about our greatness? As a child did your parents enforce in you the fact that you were magical? Did you believe in things you couldn't see? Imaginary friends? fairies? Was your imagination allowed to run free? Many of us didn't have this kind of conscientious parenting because our parents were not raised that way, and bless them, they did the best they could with who they were and what they knew at the time. For many of us growing up was about making do, not expecting too much, keeping our place , and not allowing us the right t...

You will be happy again . Joy does not abandon us, we abandon joy. We have neglected to learn that joy is a birthright. Joy is a gift from God that never leaves. It's indestructible, immune to all that humans can do to shut it out. And when you feel you have successfully banished all thoughts of happiness from your life, Joy, like a persistent suitor, will stand at your door, hand out, waiting, waiting for your attention. Let us return to Joy. Let us set aside, if only for today, the thoughts that tell us we need this or that to be happy. Set aside thoughts that say you need a man, or a woman in your life to make you complete. You know, as much as I love the movie Jerry McGuire, that line at the end...."You complete me" always, always, makes me cringe. Do you want to be a half person? Do want to be that Siamese twin that can easily be jerked around by what the other half does, or doesn't do? Do you walk around looking for half of a person? Sounds silly, do...

I had decided I would rename my divorce. I didn't go through a "divorce", I went on a spiritual path, and in the State of Kentucky it lasted about nine months. It takes nine months to grow a baby too, and that symbolism is not lost on me here. I birthed a new me in nine months, and it's all relevant. It's about perception here folks. The negativity associated with a divorce doesn't have to apply to everyone. Somehow "divorce" means you're a loser. It somehow means you have lost something crucial to your life...and while losing someone you've loved is a big deal, (that's if you still loved the one who filed on you), I'm just suggesting here that it doesn't have to define who you are. There is nothing like having a wrecking ball take out your life! It gets your attention, it wakes you up, it smacks you up side the head and out of your daze. If you ignored all the warning signs of trouble in your marriage, if you closed ...

Today is Thanksgiving Day 2010 and I am profoundly grateful for this last year. I would not be who I am today if I had not been through a divorce. And as brutal as it was, it was necessary for my growth. Every aching heart that sits alone today, or that sits at a Thanksgiving table surrounded by people, yet feeling desperate and sad while ladling gravy onto every single thing heaped on their plate, I tell you this. You are thought of today. I am sending you love. I know you well.... If I could wrap you up in tender loving arms, I would. If I could ease the pain of separation from your children, because they are with your ex today, I would. If I could convince you that a year from now you could be celebrating a heart so full, so healed, so complete, that joy will just flow out of you, I would. But you will need to come to that realization yourself. Until then..... Thoughts of light and love are sent your way. The struggling hearts of this world are thought of today, and I hol...

...for I am with you". That's a familiar line whether you're religious or not. I think we've all heard it, read it, been comforted by it....or like me....ran like hell from it. What was with me? It didn't feel benevolent, it didn't feel comforting. Fear was with me, and for my entire life I could see I lived in fear of something . The unseen fear, the insidious one that haunts your every step.....that's the gal I ran from...until I decided to hang out with her for a while. Have you ever known someone that just pissed you off for no apparent reason? Someone who made you feel uncomfortable? Did you ever suspect that if you just sat down and got to know this person you might actually find something you like about them, maybe even become friends? So this is a suggestion: befriend that which scares and confuses you. Stop running. Turn on the fear, ask it's name, then ask it out to lunch and get to know it once and for all. There is such relief...

Was there a time during your marriage when you suddenly realized you sold out? Did you have an epiphany one day, an "Aha! moment, or was it a slow burn? However the realization came, it probably left you unsettled, scared and in denial. My day came five years ago when I was making the bed, our bed, the bed that hadn't held a loving couple for years. Just like that, as I smoothed the bedspread out, I felt it....."I don't know who the hell I am anymore". What was I doing? Why did I care if this empty bed looked inviting or not? Why did I care if the pillows looked fluffed and ready? Ready for what? How did this happen to me? I remember the dogs barking at the mailman and I was instantly snapped out of my "selfish indulgence" of daring to feel. The authentic woman that resided deep inside me was screaming. She was screaming . And. I. Shut. Her. Up. But she would not be forever silenced. No way. Thus began my years of profound Divine Disconten...

I haven't written in a couple of weeks because I needed to "process". That's another over used word, isn't it?...."I need to process things"...."It's a process"...."Trust the process". Yeah, yeah, I know. You do need to though. And I did. So here I am again writing this blog that no one reads. It's probably more of how I "process" (Oopps...sorry) what went down in my marriage, my life, and how I came out the other end whole and sane. So be it, here we go... The finality of anything is like hitting a doorstep you didn't see in your path...it trips you up. You think you've got it covered, you think you can handle what's coming. You play out scenarios, you practice reactions, you tell yourself you're "okay" with it. Then the day comes and you pick up the phone and it's the voice of your not-so-friendly lawyer telling you....."It's done, have a nice life". Wow. Ju...

The direction I'd like to go now is this: Regrouping your sanity, rediscovering joy and rebuilding your life. Please know , I am in no way suggesting you shouldn't still be hurting, or seeking answers, or doing whatever it is you need to do for yourself. What I am suggesting is that you begin to focus on your precious heart, that soft place that has undergone a major and life changing event. Focus on where you want to see yourself in a year. Is it back with your spouse? If it's meant to be and it works out that way, then my hope for you is it will be a return to a new and better life. But more times then not, it means a new life on your own...and if there are children, then rejoice! You will not be alone. Your role may be altered to accommodate a new schedule, and there may be grief as you adjust to being without your children when they are with your ex, but your children are your children, and they will be a blessing to you....and you to them. Remember, they are...

There is a Melissa Etheridge song that goes..."If I am to heal, then I must first learn to feel the ruins....I will crawl through my past over stones, blood and glass, in the ruins"....really? Do I need to do that? Well, yes...and no. I don't believe in wallowing, not in pain, anger, cynicism, or mud. Wallowing keeps you stuck, taking responsibility moves you forward. A good cry or two, or several if that's what it takes, is definitely therapeutic...hell, I even had to scream my lungs out in my car until I was hoarse for a week....and I did that twice over the last eight months. But wallowing, no. Understanding the breakdown of your marriage is ideal of course, if you don't want to repeat those things in the next relationship you will have, but some things I discovered I will never understand. Does that mean I am to stay stuck? Am I to forever analyze and process all that went down? For me, the answer was and still is a resounding "NO". In t...

No two ways about it....my very identity was crushed. My carefully guarded, perfectly manicured identity completely fell apart with the slam of a door. Gone in sixty seconds flat, never to return. The facade was finally blown and there I stood, couldn't have been more naked or vulnerable had I tried. I look back now and see the source of the pain and devastation came from the fact that I just didn't know who the hell I was anymore. To become so stagnant in a marriage that you forget you are a living, breathing, passionate woman (or man) is a crime against oneself. When you ignore your inner pleadings....you know, the little whispers that begin politely enough, but when neglected turn into full force gale winds, ....something will occur to get your attention. There really is something within us that knows what we need. Call it what you will based on your own belief system, but quite simply, for me, it was The She. The One who knows. She waited patiently for me through ...

That was my question for months. My equilibrium was severely whacked and I was in a free fall that seemed to rip away any sense of control over my life. Where was I headed? Everything outside of me hurt, everything. Places, people, my home, my own image staring back at me in the bathroom mirror, especially that.....it said "Loser"! With so much outward pain I had no where else to run but inside my own life. I had always closed up when things hurt me before, it was my natural defense mechanism learned long ago from parents who were completely emotionally bankrupt. And I learned well indeed, and I held onto it as part of my identity. But this time when I went inside myself it was to seek asylum, and then once in my own head I wanted back out again. So, I was stuck with me, no way around it. I didn't like myself very much. I had become the woman I had scoffed at for years. The stay-at-home mom, the one who gives up her life, her vision. her ideas, all for the ...

You will not hurt forever. The pain will stop. Time is a gentleman, and what you need is tender loving time. Even though you may not feel like it, now is the time to nurture, nurture, nurture. Take every care, be gentle, eat something delicious....especially when you don't want to....especially when you think you can't possibly eat.... please eat. Your world has been turned upside down, inside out, and you've had the ever lovin' crap stomped out of you. Your body hurts in ways you can't even explain. Every fiber of your being is screaming. I know... My salvation came when I reached out to others. This was not easy for me. Not easy at all. Whatever your personal faith, now is the time to grab onto it like a lifesaver out in the middle of the ocean. Ask for the Grace to make it through the day. Hour by hour, moment by moment, if necessary. It definitely was necessary for me to ask for help on a daily and hourly basis....and I continue to ask. What I wo...

Greetings to the struggling heart.... I've been there, I am still there is some ways (do we ever stop feeling, hurting or wondering why?), but I know there is a bright light at the end of this tunnel called divorce. I've seen it, I've been bathed in it and have followed it through to the other side. It is possible, dear reader, to come out better then you've ever been....more whole, more YOU! And I'm talking about the real you, not the one who has been buried in an unhappy marriage. Not the one who has forgotten his or her passion for life. Enough of that. Throw off the shackles....begin again. The future is wide open to you..... This is my first post on my new blog. May you visit often, may you come away with something to lighten your day. Let this be a community of readers who can gather support...as well as hope and joy. I am with you all in spirit. We can walk this path together if you like. Until tomorrow....blessings upon your heart. Cindy