Flo

A recent journal writing prompt, “What I let myself yearn for”  lead me in several directions.  What I wondered is “do I really let myself “yearn”?  How would I define it? A longing in my heart?  Any sort of longing, so it could include even clothes I see in catalogs? “Yearn” sounds like something that creates an ache because of its absence, maybe an ache so deep it’s unrecognized as being there at all.

Last week in a class, I told my adoption search story.  It wasn’t a time where everyone was sharing, but I offered to talk of it.  It became personal and not really classroom –focused.  What I mean is, I didn’t try to talk about it and tie it to the information we had just been presented on searching for adoptive parents.  I just sort of laid my story out there, with some of the time-line I’d experienced.  I told how it’s not a “search and reunion story”. It’s just the search.

My birth father lives in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Since 2000, when I turned 40 and did life-cycle-change things like participate in a triathlon, I’ve been trying to contact him.  In my head, I’ve always, honestly always, known I was adopted by my father, Don Barner.  Following his death in 1998 and my brother’s soon after, I was propelled in so many directions due to my emotional upheaval.  One of those was this “search”.  The thing is, after all this time, my birth father doesn’t reply.  I have decided my next step is family members.

Last week in  class it became very clear to me why the serach weighs heavy on me (1) the sense of rejection that is perpetuated because he has never responded (2) the feeling I carry that I’m the “dirty little family secret” (3) the disconnected feelings of attachment that I carry because of the adoption.  It’s engraved in my small child self – the one who at 3 years of age went excitedly to court when she became a ”Barner”.  There  are so many times I wonder “why” about my feelings about things and honestly, I don’t want to ‘wonder why’ any more.  Instead of analyzing I’d just rather do something – analyzing makes me feel stuck; paralyzed and in the “freeze” part of freeze•fight•flight.

“Buck it up – figure it out – take some action – make a decision”.  Can’t say that’s my higher self talking there, but some very determined part of me.

The plan – write a letter to the family:

“Hello, my name is Flo Holt…”

!

Flo

I know I am constantly invited to meditate.  I know that the structure of the room where I meditate intentionally prohibits my meditation practice and that part of me resists changing it.  What do I want?  I really want someone to help me get thru the stuff and create an inviting space.  My spouse and I have both had to hire people to help us with periodic filing issues.   It has helped clear paperwork but it hasn’t help me get a system for organization down.  There is a book out, something related to a year of organizing with week by week tasks.  I like the sound of it – the week by week part. 

Reality – there are many things on my plate and deciding what to prioritize becomes a bit of a job so I act like an ostrich, head in the sand and maybe butt in the air, letting other things take priority.  Hiring someone to clean the house weekly has freed up so much time for me.  Not that I spent hours cleaning, but I did spend hours trying to clean•do office paperwork•make food and all the other stuff that I do.  That was a start – how do I get to the next step? 

I miss meditating; the rush of ideas that land in that space that never truly empties.  That’s a funny part of meditation for me – the way there is never really nothing but there is less interference, less noise of all the busy intrusive thoughts that run races in my head.  So when I sat, facing the bookcase and wall, there were moments I actually settled, noticed my body, felt myself seated and breathing.  At other times the rush of getting in the room, the self-inflicted pressure to do it vs. invitation to do it, created resistance and unwillingness to sit.  I felt like a rebellious teen, drug to do something I didn’t want to do.  Really it’s a gift that I keep pushing away.

Namaste’

Flo

People tell Frank Warren their secrets.  All Frank does is ask for them.  Frank has been collecting secrets for the past four years and to date, has collected more than 200,000.

On April 26, I wrote of going to hear Frank, the author of four PostSecret books. Listening to him speak about PostSecret and meeting him afterward showed me how big his heart is.  It showed me how genuinely serious he is about collecting secrets and “protecting” them.  You might think the word “protecting” doesn’t apply, after all he has published four books and posts 20 postcards on his PostSecret.com website weekly ( 20 of approx. 1,000). By protecting, I mean he doesn’t allow himself to be in situations where the secrets or the process can be ridiculed, for instance he choose not to be interviewed on the David Letterman show, for that very reason.

Think about your secrets.  It can be a difficult thing to do, particularly if you consider yourself to be honest, forthright, honest, direct, and again, honest.  We all carry stories with us, memories of humiliation from grade school, embarrassing moments, and then our more serious and even debilitating secrets.  By simply sending him a postcard, Frank gives everyone an opportunity to voice those secrets, create momentum that moves a person in the direction of healing.

The presentation ended with the lights dimmed and Frank giving audience members the opportunity to share their secrets.  I sat there thinking “there is no way anyone would do that” and was I wrong.  Often heartbreaking and sometimes hysterically humorous, the audience members bravely shared their secrets with us.  While getting my books signed, I tried to thank Frank for all he has done.  My guess is, he hears this all the time.  I think I’ll tell him in a postcard.

Namaste’

Frank Warren, the creator of the PostSecret series of books and the postsecret.com website, is speaking tonight in Fort Collins.

I read the first book when it came out in 2005. Entitled ”PostSecret“, Warren begins his introduction “In November 2004, I printed 3,000 postcards inviting people to share a secret with me: something that was true, something they had never told anyone.”  He left the postcards in art galleries and library books, and the preaddressed postcards started arriving in his mailbox.

The books are full of secrets.  The response has been and continues to be overwhelming.  Checkout the website and I’ll be back after the presentation to tell more.

Flo

On a weekly basis Ted Kooser, U.S. Poet Laureate prints “American Life in Poetry“.  This week’s poem is by Trish Dugger and here it is below:

Spare Parts

We barge out of the womb
with two of them: eyes, ears,

arms, hands, legs, feet.
Only one heart.  Not a good

plan.  God should know we
need at least a dozen,

a baker’s dozen of hearts.
They break like Easter eggs

hidden in the grass,
stepped on and smashed.

My own heart is patched,
bandaged, taped, barely

the same shape it once was
when it beat fast for you.

Enjoy.

Sometimes I find that I am unable to let go of things in my mind.  It’s as if I have some tendency toward obsessing.  In order to resolve that, today I took the time to write a letter to the President.  Don’t get your hopes up.  It’s not particularly appropriate and won’t be printed here.  You see, my nephew has now gone to Iraq and ranting at the President felt like a good thing to do.  It allowed me to express the emotions that I was holding inside, and then move on.

This is a technique I’ve used for years in journaling class and one-on-one with clients - “the unsent letter”.  I’m not sure where I first heard of it (surely a book) and it is highly promoted online .  The idea is to write a letter expressing everything you need to say, knowing you will never send the letter.  There may be many reasons you won’t send the letter, i.e. the content is too hurtful or too painful; the recipient is unreachable (for instance, deceased).  You get the idea. 

Give it a try and then gently, move on.

 Namaste’

I recently had the pleasure of meeting with local Art Therapist/Yoga Instructor Andrea Atherton-Nollet and four other creative souls for a few hours of treasure mapping.

Andrea presented insights from Lynn Siprelle  who discusses the art of treasure mapping and her treasure mapping process.  She writes of its role in her life in creating visual pictures of things she wanted and how after 15 years, it all has come true.

Although we were a small group, we intently focused on the task at Andrea’s art table.  Tearing magazines, drawing with pastels, and cutting with scissors, we searched for pictures of the Eiffel Tower, discussed the recent talk we heard by Caroline Myss and created our 2008 Treasure Maps.

I hung mine up immediately in my office when I got home.  Never one to declare myself an artist, the circular shape is unusual for me, with the outside representing my outer self and the inner part representing my quiet, secret inner self.  Parts of it continue to roll around my head.  Each day I see it inviting me to move, step, even jump in the direction where the pictures and words beckon. I’m sometimes slow to approach things. Maybe that will change this year.

Namaste’

[If you're interested in pursuing this creative method for manifesting, many suggestions are available online.]

It’s Tuesday morning and I am working on cup of tea #2.  The sun is barely peeking up, so the sky is a grey-ish color.  It’s light enough out to be able to see how the leaves have drastically changed color in the last week and are more on the ground than in the trees.

The garden is harvested.  The last part, garlic and potatoes, sitting in a box in the kitchen.  The pumpkins left from the pumpkin party are in the yard, scattered like litter.  They are white, yellow and orange and stacking them together might be a good idea.  Minus their treasures, the pumpkin vines are wilting and it looks like last night might have been our first frost.  The tomato plants continue to give red*yellow*orange tomatoes, however I wander off and quit looking for them.  Isn’t that funny?  At some point, the garden loses its appeal and I’m ready for it to be done, while plans for next year’s garden evolve in my brain.  Looking ahead, I’m missing out on the fact that I can still eat the tomatoes now.  That’s not too unusual and I doubt I’m the only person who misses out on what is right in front of me because I’m looking ahead, past fall (golden, red, brilliant leaves), past winter (hibernation, snow shoes, skiing) to spring when the earth is renewed. 

Excuse me for leaving.  I need to go look for tomatoes to eat with my morning cups of tea.

Reading the July 11-17, 2007 Fort Collins Weekly ,I perused Rob Brezsny’s Free Will Astrology.  I’ve written before on his writings about the Gemini that inhabits my being and enjoyed his latest findings:

The German work selig can mean both “ecstatic” or “blessed”.  It implies that profound bliss can be a devine gift; that deep pleasure may generate or come from spiritual inspiration.  The English language doesn’t have a term comparable to selig, maybe because our culture regards ecstasy with suspicion.  Religious people tend to believe that the blessed are those who are good and kind, certainly not those who are skilled at cultivating esctatic states.  People who worship rationality, on the other hand, like intellectuals and scientists, often think of ecstacy as at best an irrelevant state, and at worst a nonproductive or deluded indulgence.  Personally, I’m in alignment with the values embodied by the word selig.  It happens to be your specialty this week.

May your day be ecstatic or blessed or, in the best case, both!

Saturday, I went with a friend to the Boulder Book Store.  The first book I saw when I walked in was SARK’s new book “FABULOUS FRIENDSHIP FESTIVAL – loving wildly, learning deeply, living fully with our friends”.  You were probably thinking I was done with SARK.  I know I was, however, the cover was so tantilizing, so bright I couldn’t resist buying it and now, sharing it.

As with all of SARK’s books, the writing is creative, colorful and uplifting.  A new addition to this book is actual photographs of SARK and her friends.  The book has three sections:  Celebrations, Challenges, Integration, and 12 chapters, from Self-Friendship to Managing Time and Energy in Friendships (and everything in between!)

Perusing this book will take quite some time and I’ll share insights and thoughts as I go. 

“Friendship with oneself is all-important, because without it, one cannot be freinds with anyone else in the world” –Eleanor Roosevelt