Wishcasting Wednesday: February 3

What story do you wish to live or let go of?

As Jamie presented this question on her blog my first thought was oh...I am not sure what I will let go now because I just cleaned out my closet of junk. In reality though, do we ever get all the junk out? I am thinking not and how silly of a statement for me to make. Since my decision to carry my new banner of self love and joy, things in my life have taken a different turn and my outlook is one of delight. I will focus on my new life story of creative abundance.

I wish for my creativity to continue to bubble up from the bottomless well that is flowing inside me. I wish for this to radiate my true happiness in who I am, give me the ability to create, provide income with my art, and have flexibility and time with my family.

xo

What do you wish to awaken?

** I just found this today and love it. So a little late but that is ok.

What do you wish to awaken?...is Jamie Ridler question for us on this Wishcasting Wednesday.

I wish for my soul to fully awaken and the true strength, power, and creativeness of whom I am to shine through.

I have been on a journey of self discovery for awhile now and feel closer everyday to becoming my true self. I wish to radiate who I am in all that I do and to feel safe. For my inner self/soul has been gently given air to breath and turned into an ember that is ready to become a flame.

Thanks for wishing with me and joining me on this journey.
much love to you all -
jessica

21 days: the power of intention challenge

Day 1/21= write out your intentions

So I decided to take part of the 21 days: the power of intention challenge. I will be doing this on my blog, everyday, at least I will be trying for everyday. I feel this will be good for me as I am learning to walk, talk, and chew gum in a new way. Whether anyone will see this or not it does not matter, this is all for me. This blog of mine is turning into more of like a daily journal for me, I have never written anything down before now and this feels good to let it out. Being open and not keeping my feelings in but instead learning to let them flow through me and releasing them back into the universe. It feels good.

So here are my intentions for today.

Work
I will be true to myself, my feelings and what I want to do in life for my work. I will be open to see the direction that will be brought to me. I will let go and not control.

Health
I will continue to take care of my body and my soul nourishing it daily with love, affirmations, meditation, walks and being aware in all things.

Spirit
I will spend more time connecting to my source of energy, my walk with God and being centered in him.

Love
I will be patient as I wait for my love Will to move out here. I intent to use this time to further bond with him and connect on a deeper level. I accept this situation.

Relationships
I will grow deeper and be more open in my friendships. I intent to be calm for my girls showing them guidance and love daily.

Creativity
I intend to reconnect with my inner creative well, and no longer hold myself back. I want to work on more creative writing, make my candles and working on some art projects that are floating around in my mind.

Finding my source of strength through my life’s obstacle course

The journey of life, this path that is in front of me is full of twists and turns. I am in a small clearing of some kind, over grown with trees that have no leaves. This is a sad place, overgrown, cold, and dim as there is not much sunlight. I find a small path that leads me away, the gravel trail is narrow and hard to navigate. I am not sure which way I am going as the canopy of trees above me is restricting the sky. I keep walking and find that the trail forks off in two directions. I ask myself which way I should go. They both appear to not change in landscape, but I feel a pull from my inner self to take the path to the left. Learning to navigate by my inner self is a new adventure for me but I openly follow the trail.

That is what I am feeling right now. I am raw with my emotions as I can’t see the path to where I need and want to be. My career has been on hold and I have had to just heal this past two years. One of my lessons right now is patience. Over and over I get the message to be patient. Patience with my kids, patience with my job, my career, and now with the man I am in love with. I ask myself why things can’t be easier but then I quickly answer with...there would be no growth then.

Today I will trust that my inner compass will bring me safely down the right path. This journey…my life has come full circle with my past. For many years I was walking next to the other path but would never see it due to the overgrown trees and thorn bushes that were painful to get past. The paths have crossed at some point briefly and now on that other path across from me I can see my life as I want it; healthy, whole, the love I want. I can see it all clear but the paths have not met again and I am unable to get over there. I will continue to walk to the end and trust that these two trails will meet again.

I have that familiar feeling wash over me that tells me that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. For now, I will embrace this lesson of patience as painful and frustrating it is. The lesson now…here in front of me is to embrace joy and life in every moment. To learn to live in the now is the most powerful tool we can apply to our lives. Happiness does not start tomorrow or when we get to our destination. Abundant joy starts today as we choose to carry it, embrace it with all of our being. We must soak it up like a sponge soaks up the water.

I close my eyes and see the landscape different in my mind and when I reopen my eyes I see a renewed place. I see the trees bold and beautiful in all their glory providing shade on a warm sunny day. The air is clean and the sky is vibrant blue. I smell the flowers fragrant aromas wafting through the air and they are bright and beautiful. I am where I am supposed to be and it is good. My source…my God…my inner guidance system is leading me into a place of abundance and I embrace it now. Tomorrow will come as it should, I will be open to walk this path and see where it leads me trusting in the perfect process. I will again be open and I will again let go.

back to the root | part three -- healing has come

My spiritual journey has evolved over this time. Most of my life I considered myself a Christian and had belonged to many churches and even helped start satellite gatherings. I have always believed in God and that I have had a purpose here in this life. My center today and all that I do and accomplish revolves around my spiritual beliefs. I have come to a place where I focus daily on my walk with my God and being centered through him. I no longer live by what I should do…guilt…judgment. My perspective on religion, being spiritual and God centered are different now and I am continually looking to apply truth and balance to my life.


When you become open in life great things happen. One morning I went for a walk and was meditating on what to do with my career and my personal healing and I had that overwhelming feeling, like words washing over me, which I have had many times, tell me “be open”. I thought wow, what a message. Ok, I kept telling myself to be open; I would focus on it in my quite meditations and prayers and just try and feel open.

The internet is a wonderful tool and has been an amazing conduit to my direct healing. I am a faithful follower of a certain social networking site and I joined a group from my high school. I thought what the heck; I think I am ready to deal with my past. Well, I had someone find me and that opened the door to finding a lot more people from my past. Little by little my friends were growing, conversations were in the works and it felt safe. I thought, hey, this does not hurt too badly. The good memories of my past were flooding in as I did not choose to remember them, only the bad ones. Well, I found that past love that shattered my heart 24 years ago. We started talking and I finally got my closure. All of those feelings that I had for him that I was too scared to tell him at the time rose to the surface. My heart was burning with love and passion. It was like my heart came out into the sun and could feel the warmth again. I was raw with emotion. Things were said that needed to be said and the feelings needed to be felt. In one night, my heart was fully restored, the wall came crashing down and I was reconnected with that part of me that I lost so long ago. That message of “be open” was not job related it was for my life in general. Amazingly….not even a week later I came home to a message on my answering machine from my mother telling me that my daughter from my first marriage found her and wanted to talk to me. Holy crap! I called her that night and it was an evening of restoration, immense love and forgiveness. My precious daughter whom never left my mind and heart wanted me in her life after almost 18 years. I was planning a trip the week before to return to AZ to sit, heal and open up that chapter of my life. I knew she was my healing, the last piece. At this time I never imagined that she would be calling, out there at the same time and open to have me in her life. I sit back in awe sometimes as to what all has happened and the healing and restoration I have experienced this year and it blows my mind.

It gets better though. So I am building my relationship with my daughter, my other daughters are excited and open to her. No more fear, no feelings like I am going to be judged anymore for my decision. Just love, abundant love and joy. My life is centered; I am happy with being by myself and I finally feel complete. I have been opening myself to the thought of a relationship again. I have dated and I have wanted to share my life with someone. I loved being married, this time it is for the right reasons; companionship, heart nurturing, and friendship. I know what I want and I am not willing to settle anymore. I want that relationship that is right from the start, no changing, and no controlling, honest and pure. I went for a walk in the morning as I always do and I had that feeling wash over me again. This time it was “let go”. I was trying to control finding that person and whomever I would meet I would think that maybe that was the man and try to make the pieces fit into the mold I had imagined as my ideal mate. I sat down a while back and imagined who that ideal person for me was. Everything from hair color, a little edgy, a builder or creative type of some sort, emotionally available, funny, and so on. I was not waiting for him to find me, instead I was controling the situation and trying to find him. I thought him up and honestly believed that he was out there for me, we just had not met yet.

I was becoming friends with all sorts of people from my past during this time and whammo! I got a message from a man that I grew up with and was one of my brothers close friends. He was a rebel and off limits. He was always around and I knew him very well. Now you probably know what I am going to say next….yes, he is the guy. The one I have been holding onto in my brain, heart and soul. He came to me through a little message ….hey Jessica; it’s been a long time…you look amazing. That message opened a door to non-stop talking, reconnecting and in a week he was flying across the country to see me to see if this connection was for real. I am deeply in love with him and we are starting our new life together. We are at the same place emotionally, both been through a hard life and all the ups and downs it brings. We are both entering the best part of our lives because we know who we are and what we want. Be open….restoration and healing so I could love myself and him when he came. Let go to wait and watch for him.

Again…I am left in awe, sometimes I say pinch me cause this is so good. Life is a journey and if you are open to it you can embrace the faults, mini or big tragedies and turn them around to build a strong foundation for you to stand on. It is hard, there will be a lot of crying and pain but it can be done, it is temporary and you will be on the other side amazed at the power of you and what you are capable of. You will replace your victim banner with one of love and empowerment.

My desire is that my story here will touch, amaze and encourage you. This life I have found is a series of lessons to learn and to share with others. We are women that are strong. Our strengths are love, patience, understanding and support. We are rocks and we need to first learn to love ourselves. We are great in few and many -- always remember that and who you are. Find that little girl in you and go give her a hug and have some ice cream under a tree. Tell her that you love her and that she is special and that you adore her. You make it safe for her to come out and grow. It is up to you….no one else. I know you can do it because I did.

My love to you all –
Jess

Embrace your incredible uniqueness

This morning was the same as any other of my mornings. Get up, scramble getting ready, making sure the girls are getting dressed and ready for school, breakfast and then flying out the door to drop them off. I then make my journey into work with the start of a stop off at my neighborhood coffee place. I get out of the car and what I saw in front of me just brought a smile and a great inner joy to my soul. These funny birds that were looking for scraps on the pavement were there many times before. This time it was different, there was an oddball in the pack. To the small family of crows there was now a seagull. It stood out like a sore thumb but was acting like the others and following them around. I found myself standing there watching them for a moment in sheer delight.

This vision continued to play in my head while I went in and got my nice cup of hot steamy coffee. I am that seagull. I am unique in a world where many things are common. I tried to act and fit in with the system for a long time and now I have embraced my creativeness and love showing my personality. There is a part of us all that is unique but why are we so afraid to show who we are to the world I wondered. The judgment, the ridicule we might feel suppresses us and leave us feeling adequate.

We must…repeat…must get to a place as woman where we feel it is safe to be us. The real us, unique, struggling, transparent, beautiful, a mom, a girlfriend, a friend, whatever you call yourself in this world… know that there is an amazing person inside that should no longer hide away. Scream it from the rooftops that you were made perfect and everything that we go through in life is a lesson so we may find ourselves in a deeper way.

I was encouraged by that seagull today to wave my personal banner and say this is who I am and I love me. I think all of us could use that reminder every day. So dust yourself off if you are having a rough morning, take a deep breath, and give yourself a time out for a moment from the kids or work to appreciate yourself and your uniqueness.

Much love
jess

back to the root | part two

The party years started and it was normal to be out at parties in the middle of the night out in the middle of nowhere with drugs and alcohol. Tried many drugs, smashed at the young age of 15, getting in cars with people that were drinking or on drugs, and it was all normal for me. I watched my mom be physically abused by two different men and she did nothing while they raged and became more and more abusive. Numerous nights would I wake to hear the bed being thrown across the room and hearing her say something like “shhh…don’t wake the kids…calm down…I am sorry.”


When I turned 17 I met a man and fell head over heels in love with him. That did not last long as the age difference was an issue and we were both young, none the less I never recovered from that relationship. The pain was so great, the disappointment, betrayal of a best friend, and the abandonment from another man caused me to close up and start building a wall that would not let anyone hurt me again.

My mom then started to date a drug dealer and he later lived with us and that was the start to the end of her abuse. I left for school one morning to find the car sideways in the driveway with the car door and the front door to the house wide open while she lay passed out on her bed. We finally forced her to go to rehab and start a treatment plan, so she went away for 8 weeks and then never came back to live with us during my young teen years. My brother joined the Air Force and I lived with my grandmother until I was 19 and then went to live with my boyfriend at that time. Two weeks later she died of a massive heart attack and I was the one to find her. That was severe traumatic damage that I stuffed really far away. My life as I knew it would never be the same; the rock of the family was gone. I called to tell my mother who was living back east at the time that she had died and she moved back shortly thereafter.

I married my boyfriend I was living with shortly after and that was the start of another chapter in my life. The hurt and issues carried over from my childhood and I graduated to stuffing my issues into a suitcase instead of the backpack I was carrying for years.

See…if you never unload your problems and deal with your feelings they grow and then you need a bigger bag to put them in.

My turbulent relationship with that man lasted 4 years and included his emotional abuse, controlling me, living in fear like a child with a parent, sending him to a drug rehab, and his temper. I was repeating the pattern of what I watched my mother do and that was not acceptable to me. I was so desperately looking for a man to take care of me and I thought because he had money that would do it and I would be happy finally. At the end of this relationship I became pregnant and we both agreed that adoption would be the best route. He wanted me to not have the baby but for me that was not an option. I went through the pregnancy knowing that my daughter was going to be a special gift for someone and that I loved her so much that I wanted her to have a good life, a better life and environment than which I grew up in. That was a torturous year and the outcome left me depleted emotionally, spiritually and physically. I ran from my life and vowed never to visit that part of it again. The pain was so intense; I lost the strained relationship with my dad over it and did not speak to him for 8 years. I was alone, lost and fully cooked. I moved to New Mexico looking for a fresh start and leaving everything behind never looking back. I was making a new life for myself and that life was going to start when I left AZ. Shove down…shove down…all that emotional stuff.

Two years later I met another man at my job. He seemed so different than my past relationships and it intrigued me. We eventually got married, had two beautiful girls and I built a new life. I severed my past and all the memories and who I was and created this new person and did everything opposite. That worked for many years, I was happy for years. We moved around a bit and then found our way out to California. We started having struggles more than not and I started playing the same roles as my past. I took the blame for all of the issues, I was told I was too closed off, my love was not good enough, I would not let him in, and why did I have no deep relationships with friends and so on. The wedge became deeper and deeper as he wanted more from me and I was not willing to let him in. Both of our pasts were coming up to haunt us. His past of rebellion and self sabotaging behavior started to take front and center in our relationship and my needing to have a man take care of me was right there fighting for a position. The relationship blew up and I did not know to the extent of the damage until it was too late. I ignored the warning signs, and put my head in the sand. My life as I knew it was over, almost homeless on more than one occasion, the lies, the betrayal and the girls seeing a relationship that was better as friends than husband and wife. My life was consumed with anxiety; health issues were coming out, nightmares, and yes the drinking to cope with the pain. Wow…this was all feeling familiar…hmmm. I was creating the same pattern in my life as what I witnessed my mom do and what I was familiar with.

The last year of the marriage was an incredibly hard one to deal with. The 14 year marriage failing, my business was tanking due to the Real Estate meltdown and my father died just as we had been restoring our relationship and we were able to actually talk and for the first time he was emotionally available to me. I was able to tell him and my mom all the things I needed to. I realized that they were just trying to deal with life and make the best decisions they could with whatever skills and tools they had. I had a serious expectation problem and I realized I did not expect anyone to do anything wrong and for them to almost be perfect. I would set myself up for emotional and relationship failure! I never told them what I needed; I never had the emotional maturity to. Healing had come with my parents and then he was gone.

When I got that horrible phone call in the morning while I was helping the girls get ready for school…I fell to the floor and started weeping uncontrollably. I decided that I was going to deal with it; I was tired of running from my emotions and the pain. I packed up and drove out to AZ where he lived. I was there to go through his stuff, remember, laugh, cry and hold his ashes when we had him cremated and said good bye. That was the hardest and most wonderful thing in my life. I was dealing with the emotions and it was ok. It hurt like hell but I did not vanish or keel over dead from it. Every day, little by little it got easier. I will never be the same, it is different once you lose a parent but the pain and memory of him is ok now. It has been 3 years this week and I can still get chocked up and I still miss him.

I stayed another year in the marriage because it was just too hard to deal with everything. After another very bad nightmare, this time of deadly snakes that I am convinced was my dad giving me a final message, I was done. I had enough and one day I found the strength to say enough. Enough! Within a month I was moving out with the girls. He left us in a horrible financial situation and I left with two hundred dollars, a failing career and not enough funds to get my own place. I found another mom that was single and raising her son and it worked out for the next 8 months until I was on my feet, found a job and saved money to get my own place. I never looked back; piece by piece I was slowly putting my life back together.

The first year was hard and rewarding at the same time. My life was in a 10 x 10 storage unit and my girls and I shared one room together. It was hard but it was also a great bonding time for us. The three of us talking, watching movies in bed and laughing. The laughing had not happened in a really long time. My ex husband has always been a great dad and very loving to the girls so they would go with him 3 nights a week so that gave me time by myself to figure out who I was, why I did the things I did and how to make better decisions and learn how to unpack my emotional luggage. Every week I was down at the beach, praying, seeking, crying and being still. I went to work and my confidence slowly came back as I was appreciated and my abilities were respected. I was getting stronger and stronger every day. I was able to get myself my own place and the first night in my new place I remember sitting on the ground just crying till I could not cry any more. I did it. I was providing for myself and I did not need another person to take care of me. I grew up in that moment, the empowerment of becoming a strong woman, on her own, caring for two young children. I learned that I could take care of myself just fine. The new and strong foundation of my life was being laid.

That year was one of my best years of my life. I found myself and I liked who I was. I was flourishing in my personal life, my relationships with my children and girlfriends were getting deeper and I was letting people in.

All of this was possible with me being ok with being open. Open to everything and anything.

To be continued with a part three