Starting a New Group Blog: Vortex Surfers

I and a group of women who share a lot of the challenges I talk about here–shame, depression, compulsions, relationship “issues,”. . .–are starting a group blog.  We also share some powerful healing resources–spirituality, therapy work, coping tools, and most importantly, EACH OTHER!
You’ll find us blogging together at Vortex Surfers.
Come visit if you like! I [...]

After the fire. Because survival doesn’t always mean we are intact.

I’ve read a couple people’s blog entries in which they’re talking about being devastated by various experiences, things they just can’t see a way through at the time or have already been through and realize that not all of them made it through.
And at times I get into snippy moods over the ways in which [...]

No way someone like me would be able to run 10 miles. Oh wait, I’ve already been doing it.

WoYoPracMo (yoga 10 minutes+ every day in January) update: I haven’t been organized enough to get to an outright class since Sunday, but hopefully tomorrow morning. But doing this has definitely got me integrating more yoga into my day here and there. My post-running/post-cycling stretching has become a much longer and more [...]

Foundational Shame: What to do with a Self Organized around Shame?

My title need not be a merely rhetorical question; comments are welcome!
Change Therapy’s Isabella Mori asked about connecting shame and Pema Chodron, and so I thought I’d do a post on that. It is a really helpful connection and good way for me think about shame–it’s such an overwhelming force for me that I [...]

Clutching Attachment vs. The Cheerful Contemplation of Mortality

Recently, I’ve read some Pema Chodron for the first time, and one of the (many) things that struck me was that she said we have to have “the courage to die” and not just once but “continually.” I don’t have it in front of me anymore so the context isn’t as sharp in [...]

Let us be Unconsolable, Let us Grieve

Consolation isn’t everything, I was saying in my last post. And I’m feeling relieved by this thought, this awareness. I often put pressure on myself (and sometimes, if we are to be honest, pressure is sometimes put by others or by the larger culture too) to be consoled, to be soothed, to be okay. And [...]

The Perverseness of the Imp

Drawn into the depths, drawn into depth itself.

Seduction.
I know, I’m being perverse. I can’t help it, or rather, I don’t want to. Pleasure reveals itself in strange ways sometimes, and the magnetism of an image like this is in the combination of fear and intrigue that it holds for me. It’s a [...]

My Knickers and My Chakras are in a Twist

I did a yoga workshop a couple days ago that I’ve been thinking of writing a bit about. It was a mind-body type thing, or psychology-spirituality mix type thing. It was powerful for me, literally in terms of yielding some seriously sore muscles (I do a lot of things exercise and yoga wise [...]

Addled Brain

I’ve just finished with a long day and long drive after, and the brain I have feels like scrambled eggs after intense use. It does do intensity well though (too well sometimes, I’m afraid). I like stimulating conversations that deepen my reading and thinking and feeling. My job can be overwhelming, but [...]

Sending my writing out into the world. . .

It feels a little strange. I’ve always written (well, except for some grim patches where I didn’t/couldn’t) to myself, in a way, or for myself, but then I always also felt a little like I was writing to something/someone/somewhere. So here’s a new way to do it.
I don’t know exactly what kinds of [...]