We see things not as they are, but as we are. Because it is the “I” behind the “eye” that does the seeing. — Anaïs Nin

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If we don't learn to mythologize our lives, inevitably we will pathologize them. — Richard Rohr

The hardest posts to read on insta are the ones where I don’t identify as the victim but as the perpetrator.

To take accountability for causing hurt is a sign of ego strength, while narcissism is actually a sickness that comes from weakness of ego.

"We live in a world that says you can't have that, BUT IT'S A NORMAL BRAIN DIFFERENCE. Brains are like faces, they are all different."

-Juliane Taylor Shore on ADHD (shouty emphasis mine)

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how often do you wonder about what you could be not realizing? so many learnings are alive in our bodies.

there's a way in which our humanity fundamentally inhibits our parenting.

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the more we want to be ourselves, unfolding as an entity, the less we are available for self-denial and self-sacrifice.

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and the more we surrender to the totality of nurturing, the easier it is, and yet the more of our space it takes.

Sometimes I grieve that I didn't get my happily ever after marriage, the nuclear family with the white picket fence, my white knight.

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And sometimes I celebrate, that in a world that *still* sees women as possessions, as appendages, as unacknowledged labor, I ended up as free as I did.

Noticing my body wants to be a different shape.

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More and more now, when I feel uncomfortable emotionally, irritated mostly, when I open my chest, raise my chin, open my neck, roll my shoulders back, stretch my spine tall, increasing the space between my vertebrae, I feel better. My body is craving this new shape.

remember to listen before you try to figure it out

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more space between the question and the answer

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ask...and wait

When it becomes hard to parent, more often than not, it's because I have a need for being parented that is not being met.

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It can be very hard to face this unmet need square on, as an adult, as a parent myself. To admit to wanting to be parented and to explore, parented, exactly how? To want to be child, even though I am parent.

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It feels taboo. It feels unspeakable, because it feels unmeetable.

It wouldn't be so hard to keep trying again and anew and afresh, if we didn't keep dredging up the story of how many times in the past we've failed.

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I think it wouldn't be nearly so hard to stay present, if we didn't keep dirtying the cleanness of the present with the past.

So far transiting Pluto conjunct my natal Sun feels like coming into really profound and electric power. Elder power. Changing people's lives power. Magician power.

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Feels like naming truths that feel increasingly more true and taboo.

Things that accelerate change: travel, love, crisis.

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I’m willing to be wrong about what I think love is. I’m willing to experiment with what I think love is. I’m willing to be confused about what I think love is.

I want to talk about Taurean kink.

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Kink as centering sensual (even general) pleasure as opposed to sexual pleasure. Like, just, what feels good. Lazy good, basic good, meeting such a deep and vulnerable need it makes you cry good. All the goods.

The two sets of eyes of love. The set that is infatuated, romanced, prismatic with projection. Enchanted.

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The other set. The one we need to cultivate. The one that shouldn't tear down the pleasure of falling in love. But the one that looks around the edges, through the cracks, seeking to know the Other as they are, not as we hope them to be.

The most peaceful

And the most wise

have enough internal space

to allow all the parts

to coexist

))ht Nathalie Dumont((

I was just doing some work around my "psychological floor" and "emotional knowings" (ht to Juliane Taylor Shore for these phrases) around money.

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One of the fears that came up is that: if I have lots of money, I won't share, and then there will be tangible/irrefutable proof that I'm bad and miserly.

Midlife is not a crisis.

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It's also not nothing.

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It may *not be* the culmination of success, the rest at the end of a long journey of striving, that we're all kind of primed to expect by this culture.

Sometimes truth is paramount.

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And sometimes, when I’m truthful with myself, I see how I can’t know what is objectively true, and then what feels more important is the “helpfulness” metric.

My thoughts on the medicine of Aries:

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Aries is the energy of the brave beginner. Of the naive and clumsy but genuine and bold ATTEMPT.

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With Aries, we focus on the quality of the EFFORT not on the quality of the RESULTS.

I ask it to step aside. I’m not interested in what I learned about sadness in the past.

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My past learning gets in the way of my deepest gentleness.

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I’m interested in this new, now, one of a kind sadness.

One of the trickier things to become conscious of as parents is: where are we afraid of our children? (No one told us parenting would mean fearing our kids. But it does, and we do.)

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Are we afraid of their behaviors? (Society will judge them. AND US. They'll become homeless. An addict.)