Hypnosis... I think it's working

 In my late forties, a lot of things are coming together for me.  I am very happy in my career.  Well, actually I think that ends the list.  I can't stick to a long term healthy regiment in food or exercise, I am not financially responsible, I am not the most organized, and my romantic life is a mess.  However, I am fairly positive person.  

Some good mindfulness therapy in my mid 30's really helped me to climb out of a lot of my persistent mental health issues stemming from repeated patterns.  I still work on all of that.  I don't think you ever out grow it, but in my 40's, especially now, my issues are different.  I find myself wanting to be better in ways but the mindfulness is not working to help break these cycles of mine, I just don't beat myself up about it as much.  I am compassionate towards myself for my short comings–for the most part.  Kindness aside, something needs to be done for self improvement.  

Romantically, at the moment, things are in a bit of an upheaval.  My partner of almost 13 years and I are just not clicking in a lot of ways.  They are issues and patterns that we both have that have always been there, but maybe now they are not working for us or we are not willing to just let them be.  I am honestly not sure if we are drifting apart or taking a break or working, which is absolutely part of the problem.  There is a lack of communication and a nebulousness to our relationship definition.  But this post isn't about the problems we have, it is how I want to better me.  So, since this romantic situationship I have going on with my partner isn't humming right now, I am looking for ways to feel and be less attached so I can gain some space from this to really reflect.

Last night, I wanted to meditate or calm or something; I was pretty upset just reeling in all of it–the uncertainty, the frustration, the sadness.  I came inside, got ready for bed, and began scrolling through Spotify to find a hypnosis track.  I have used hypnosis recordings in the past.  I have downloaded different ones over the years from LimeWire, purchased them from Audible, and streamed them through Spotify.  Nothing super serious, more a curiosity and certainly with no consistency.  After several minutes of searching for the right one, I landed on an episode from Joseph Clough's podcast Hypnosis called "Relationship Breakup Hypnosis".  

Description from Spotify:

This  FREE Hypnosis/hypnotherapy mp3 was requested by a person who I belief is very special and deserves a lot of happiness. I was sent an email a week ago or so from this person who has recently gone through a marriage break up as asked for help in overcoming hurt, sadness, depression, anxiety and low self esteem because of recent events. So I recorded this tonight especially for this person. And I am sure, you will also have wonderful thoughts to this person so they can re-ignite their passion, confidence and love for self and life once again.

So here it is my gift to you the Overcome Marriage Breakup Hypnosis/Hypnotherapy

 While I am not in a marriage and to be honest I am not 100% sure if I am going through a breakup right now, this podcast felt right. I was pretty upset about the situation and I needed relief. 

Listening to the ambient music and soothing voice of Clough I began to relax.  As I said, I had done hypnosis recordings before, I knew what mostly to expect.  I felt myself getting heavier and slipping into the conscious sleep where I am open to hear and learn.  Before I knew it, I heard Clough's voice thanking me for joining him and welcoming me to come back to listen to further sessions.

I don't know what happened, what was said, or how it all went down.  I can say, I slept like a log and woke up feeling honestly amazing, positive and motivated.  The worries and sadness and anxiety of yesterday is not following me today.

I am not pretending that I am "cured" or "fixed".  First of all, I am not broken or sick.  I know also, that mental health takes time and attention to practice.  I will forever be working on that part of me, on many parts of me, and one night of listening to a hypnosis track isn't going to make it all better.  I am confirming that after listening to this podcast episode my mental clarity is in check, and I believe that whatever advice Joseph Clough gave my unconscious mind, it was worth its weight.

Here we go again...

 I am really glad that I posted the last time stuff got weird with my partner and I.  Well, at least that is how I see it.  There is a lot that happened in a very short period of time tonight, and again, it all started with what I thought was sharing my feelings.  

True, I asked myself if I should bother even sharing, but I thought that I had a pretty good point to make.  Of course I thought so, right.  So, I share my feelings, with my 'partner'–we will get to this word in a minute–and when I did, it became an issue and a battle that he wanted to win it seemed.  Not just listening to me, but wanting to defend.  I didn't know, don't know, how to just ask him to hear me.  Doesn't really needs to be fixed or anything at the time.  I just want the words to sit.  But I also don't have control over how someone will respond to me, right.  Just because I want to be heard, doesn't mean I will be.

So this conversation that we are having devolves in I am not even sure what.  From my angle I was just trying to say what I wanted to say and ask for some kindness from him regarding how much and how late I work, because I don't do that to him (he works a lot).  This was an evening that he asked me to go hang, so maybe I just shouldn't have said anything.  And for him he wanted to defend himself and then point out an "arsenal" of things that he could say about me.  Like he is keeping score.

The next comment from him is really what broke the whole thing down for me.  He told me, after 13 years, that I am his "homie" and that we aren't really in a relationship.  Mind you, I call his children my sons, he refers to my dogs as his daughters, he calls me his kids step mom, we have shared more than many couples do over 13 years, but I am just his homie and "partner in crime" only.  

Having been sitting in the car with him next to my own, trying to salvage the night and still trying to talk him into going for that drink we were going to, I instead ask that maybe we shouldn't speak for a while.  He says how long.  I said, "I don't know.  I have enough homies" and get out of the car.

I want to be ok to just walk away.  I feel like I deserve a man who will claim me.  He doesn't want me for his own. He likes what I can do for him, but wants no part in bearing any heavy lifting in a relationship.  I want to be able to just let him go.  I want to say I am allowed to have a man who loves me and will not deny me.  After 13 years, that is hard to walk away from.  I feel like it is the healthy thing to do, but it is scary.  I have built a lot of my life with this man.  We are intertwined in a lot of ways both personally and professionally.  I don't hate him.  I am not even mad.  I am just sad that I am so ready to give my heart to someone who doesn't really want it.  

I don’t get relationships.

Tonight was an awesome night. I hung out with friends, played trivia, came in third place, had a few glasses of wine, and took my partner home with me.

While we were hanging out, the  wine perhaps has gone to my head and I brought up some relationship questions.

We’ve carried on a Situationship for well over a decade. We’ve had our ups and we’ve had our downs. Tonight, I asked, I thought innocently but poignantly, about our lack of communication. Pointing to a situation over the weekend where are miscommunication or lack of communication almost lead to us not sharing a wonderful family weekend.

 Upon sharing my concerns about our lack of communication, or rather wishing we had better communication. My partner began to point out my faults. Namely that I am not the neatest person in the world. Reminding me of conversations I had with my boyfriend when I was in my 20s who told me “when you become cleaner, when you start to clean the house, when you become the woman I want you to be, then I’ll marry you.“. 

Well I tried to smile through his comments, and let him know that I heard what he was saying, and let him know that I understood that again, I needed to be better, before someone would accept me. And as I said this, through tears, my partner began to get dressed. Putting on the shirt that he had taken off before he climbed into my bed. Putting on the shoes that he had taken off when he first came into my house. I asked, “are you leaving?“

 He said yeah.

Watching him leave, it hurt. It made me feel alone. Very alone. I don’t really know how to confront this lack of conversation. This lack of communication. I know I’m a messy person, but I don’t understand running away from conversations instead of engaging in them. I would hope and think I have good qualities that help balance this lacking I have.  I feel worthless. I feel alone.

A Voice from the Past

So, I found a voice recorder that I had been using a while back.  It was an interesting find.  I listened to myself from 6 years ago as I pondered life, cried over ex lovers, retold stories of new lovers, tried out comedy material, made lists of songs for mix tapes, and so much more.  It was heart felt to hear myself hurt and heal and I can remember this me.  I remember sweetly this time in my life and how I was affected by it all.

I was 34 and searching to find my strength.  I was learning to be mindful-I still am.  I was wondering about my future.  I was driving cross country back to my home in Pennsylvania.  I was wandering, but I was not quite lost.  

I miss that me as I miss all the parts of me through my progression.  Not because I was younger or thinner, but because there is something so sweet about riding the edge of self discovery and awareness.  There is something so great in taking HUGE steps forward in your life and growing as a person.  If that me were here right now, I would hug her-she certainly needed it then.  I cried a lot on that recorder.  I laughed some too.  It was somewhat painful to remember how sad I had been during that time of my life-over a boy who almost broke me.   Looking back, it wasn't a long period of my life, but living it seemed a heartbreaking eternity.   It was definitely beautiful to listen to me as I struggled for strength and dignity.  We are all looking for that.  I hope I never stop.  

Life doesn't happen the way we expect it to, but it does happen the way it should.  It reveals itself to us through chaos and calm and we make our own peace with it.  I have battled with my thoughts and my past, and I cannot say that I have won, because my life is a constant practice, but I can say that I have grown.  Listening to the digital recording of a younger me, I hear myself as I wax philosophical, "When times are hard, when life falls apart, when the unexpected happens, often times our first instinct is to run, move somewhere different, change jobs, get a new lover, call a friend on the phone, but sometimes the universe doesn't allow us the opportunities to run.  And we learn that it's best for us to just take a deep breath and settle in to the uncomfortable newness of an old situation...So in Prescott I stay to settle in, to see what the year ahead has to bring."

I am glad that back in July of 2009 I had to drive back from Pennsylvania to return to a job that I had been laid off from because of budget cuts.  I am glad that I picked up a skinny dog from the pound the day I got back in the 928.  I am glad that I made amazing friends like Paula and Jen and Rhiana.  I am glad that I found a love in Josh that is honest and hard and amazing.  I am glad that I found me, that I stuck it out.  I am a better person for it all.

Feeling Love on a Saturday Morning

Robyn and Josh

11/6/2014 - Lyzzard's Chili Bowl

I don't want to go all off on love for a few lines, but I am going to.  I cannot help it.  I am in love, and it is weird and hard and sometimes I am so frustrated, but it is the trust in the process that makes it so special.  Josh and I grow with each other; it's beautiful.  He gets me and there is no expectation for perfection, no fear of abandonment.

It hasn't always been easy; it isn't always going to be.  We are two very stubborn people, but we don't hold grudges for long.  Disagreements happen, but what is wonderful is the change that takes place within each one of us.  Inch by inch, step by step, we grow because of and with each other.

I have been untrusting of real love for a long time.  It has hurt me so much. Even being with Josh for 4.5 years I haven't spent much of it in that wonderful euphoric love state.  My last breakup broke that part of me I think.  Through those years though, I felt sparks of that feeling.  Little fires would burn in my belly and chest and I swear I blush just a bit.  

More and more though, that warmth radiates from me when we are together-at times even when we are not.  There is an electricity in us and in our home.  Oh sure, we still have disagreements.  That is part of the process.  We are still learning about ourselves and each other.  We both want to be together.  That is apparent.  We grow and love.  There is little more I want from a partner.

I live in the bad part of town...

Ok.  I feel very disappointed in someone... I will have to check with the roommate to make sure he didn't move my item, but I am pretty sure someone has stolen from me.  I am an amateur rock hound.  I love pretty rocks.  Have since a kid.  Called the white ones "lucky stones" and saved them for summer after summer.   Even found a few seashell fossils in the stone driveway of my grandparents summer home.  Now, I have big fossils, geodes, rocks of every color, large ones, small ones, some as big as your head.   Within the past week, I came across a sliver of petrified wood that was beautiful.  It was bright and delicate like stained glass.  It looked like amber had seeped into the wood; the thin growth rings were preserved in a rich honey brown.

   

(not the actual rock, but yeah, this is what it looked like)

I placed it with my other geological treasures.  I keep my rocks outside around my front porch area; so, I placed the amber there.  I actually did think for a second that someone may try to boost it.  What do I get for not going with my gut?  Someone did take the rock.  Someone who has visited my home in the past week took it right off my front porch.  Only lived here two weeks and already there is a crime spree :) I am sure I am deserving-Karma getting me back for my former klepto days; yet, I still feel sad.  I really liked it.  I hope that whoever has it, enjoys it.  I will work on letting go.  Que sera sera.

**Update:  The fossil has come back to me.  I am stoked.  As it turns out, a tiny friend had borrowed it for Show and Tell.  I told him, "Next time, you have to tell me.  As long as you ask, I will almost always let you borrow something."

I hope he understood.  Children are interesting.  Little people with their own personalities and their own way of doing things-reminding me of the way I used to do things and how I have learned.

Letting Go and Moving Forward...

photo source

Progress is at times more challenging than others.  The path that we should choose is sometimes muddled because of fear or love.  Though the choices maybe difficult, it is good to make a real shake up in life and change.  Change your address, your routine, your lover to seek better balance.

Change can be uncomfortable, painful even, but only because of the expectations that we have placed on ourselves and others.  We can hope that things will go our way, but must be ready to let go and move on when it doesn't.

Today is about letting go.  Today is about making scary decisions and taking a chance...on myself.