Anita,

dare I say it?

the word. Ok I will.

We are lucky. To have that connection. Yes LUCKY!

this word has so many icky connotations. The mother voice saying luck luck!! Oh we have. I luck! Others have the luck. Oh my.

But when I read your last post the first thing that came to my mind intuitively and innately was : we are lucky, that in this world we live in a world of today that we can find a connection like ours across the country, not having even ever met. For this I am grateful, and appreciative, and yes also yes…. lucky.

Dear Anita,

You are right as ever. During this post I felt tenderness for myself, for myself the social being.  Cali Chica social butterfly, I felt a love for it – not a hate for it like I did this morning when I first wrote.

And – more importantly – I felt a true sweet affection and tenderness for you – a genuine smile on myself when I read:

but I go there with my own wine treat, wine with orange slices squeezed in

OH how I love this! How charming, and amazing! Showing up their with your own treat! What a beautiful thing, I commend you.

Oh how I wish I could meet you there on Friday.  Talking about the food or the weather – or talking about the tragedy of our mothers! or anything in between – we would have a great time – of this I am sure.

I hope my response was not inflammatory at all! Or too defensive.  I wanted to show you that the highlight of what I have been “good” at is being real.  But the downside isn’t the “fakeness” its the always being on and doing “well”

I will now respond to your post:

 I was blunt, I said things people don’t say, didn’t follow a socially correct or gracious guidebook, but all through that time I was not authentic either. I was not the fake-nice but I was not authentic either because I wasn’t able to be calm, to sit with my feelings, just like you expressed.

My sister has struggled with being blunt and saying people don’t say.  She has gotten better about it.  I was always more socially graceful and “apt” in that I have always been told I am engaging and charming, that I draw people to me and make them feel good, and comfortable.  I have been told this by friends, colleagues, and patients alike.  I don’t say this to you as a way to brag – but more as a way to share what people have said about me.

I know exactly what you mean – not being fake, but not being authentic either.  Now that I think of this – I think of it as the bird, bobbing back and forth, frenzied.  Frenzied.  Talking engaging, being friend of the year, but not being authentic.

To tie this in to my first post of the day – as it has now looped around –

being blunt, being socially gracious, being WHATEVER – our inner state may still now show…

its this: I may be a good friend, I may be a fake friend, I may be a blunt friend – but I am being a friend…to someone else.

I am not sitting at home sitting in my feelings, taking an hour long shower adn crying it out, sitting in dirty clothes all day if I want – eat unhealthy food if I feel, eat nothing if I feel – do absolutely whatever I am feeling in that moment.

Sure if the above behavior continued forever – it would lead to dysfunction — the opposite of over functioning is dysfunction –and we dont want that either.  to be dysfunctional is not for healing either.

its that in between – honoring yourself feeling how you feel with your heart – not pushing through and functioning at the risk of letting your heart just hurt…

Dear Anita,

Wow what a SPOT ON description!!

Please explain this part more, especially the “fake this way”

 yes, I did imagine you being fake this way. I thought to myself as I imagined a meeting at a NYC restaurant, that it will be a shame to waste that time fake like that, that I wouldn’t want that. Quiet and real, everyone calm and real, that would be what I want

This is what I wrote for my sister (we were discussing the topic yesterday) this morning, I will paste it to you without editing, because I want you to know what came out naturally without analysis:

we always had to perform for mom – like my story you already know being like her savior, I was her chosen “savior”
but lets say you, sister
you weren’t allowed to feel sick for a whole day in africa and just let yourself be and with your thoughts
you would have a parrot poking you – cmon cmon cmon
lets go whats wrong – we came all the way to africa how can you sit around – do you know how much i did to get us here
so you splash water on your face and go
its “putting on your face and showing up” ill call it
performing
performing is detrimental to healing.
performing is pushing through. healing is sitting with.

healing is sitting with.

Dear Anita,

Yes. I entirely resonate with the running away of:

being constantly on the run, not at all sitting with affection for a moment

It takes a certain lightness, a loosening of that intense self control, the uptightness… loosening of the anxiety.

It does. I am far from loosening this, but I can imagine it.  Makes perfect sense.

I love the analogy of soft dust, oh what a beautiful analogy. Soft powdery dust resting on the ground, and whoosh! the Anxiety windstorm swoops in and takes it all a way – never allowing the “dust to settle”

Dear Anita,

Hmm…I never thought about feeling it a little and getting scared and running away. Let’s discuss when you return from the computer.

Dear Anita,

Healing only proceeds if I believe I am a good person.  A person that does not attack, a person that does not pour over distress/uneasiness.

I took your words seriously and practiced this.  It was a practice of doing less, not more.  Doing nothing at times.  How foreign it may feel at times – but I know it is the right thing, the good work.

I am looking forward to a summer this year with far less plans and events than my husband and I have had over the last few years.  This will allow for doing less.  For sitting with myself.

What are some of the best scenarios you can remember where you actually “felt yourself healing?”

One moment from yesterday I can recall is sitting on my balcony (I am lucky to have one in NYC) and soaking in the sun and reading.  It is something I used to do as young Cali Chica.  I did that – and that’s it for a whole hour..