I'm sitting in a lovely cafe around the corner from my house. They definitely got it right with this one. It's got a Parisian style, beautiful Venice style murals on the walls, lots of plants, lovely light music playing in the background, hardwood floors, quaint little wooden tables, big cozy couches if you're feeling more "loungey" and, of course, free wifi. I made myself come here to do some work and to write because I'm feeling the need to push myself out of my cave. It's very easy, in this post mom era, to hole up in my beautifully feng shui-ed nest every day. I do work, I play with Smokey, work , Smokey , work, Smokey. All good but, it's easier to slip into a little depression when I stay in, by myself too much.
So I researched some of the cafe's in my hood and found this little gem only a few blocks away. I have a performance tonight so it's nice to keep the day kind of light and breezy because I put out so much damn energy on stage.
Sunday was a harder day for me than expected. This is the first year of 911 where I know what it's like to lose a loved one. And to lose them suddenly in one day. Boom, they're just gone.
So this year all I could think about was all the husbands, wives, daughters and sons, mothers and fathers who all lost a dear one on that day. I was overwhelmed with missing my mother and with compassion and sadness for all the other grievers that day. But I got a healthy cry in and then I pushed myself out the door to go shopping for more feng shui stuff.
I tell you, the most recent coolest little feng shui ( and green) addition to my pad is the "SodaStream Jet" machine! It's spectacular! You see, I love fizzy drinks ( carbonated drinks) Diet Hansens from Trader Joes, kombuchas, just plain mineral water, soda and cran, soda and bitters...anything soda. It's so much more interesting than regular water. I love the texture. And I wind up drinking like 3 times the amount of water when it's fizzy which is all for the good. I do much better when I'm well hydrated. But all those cans and bottles can take up lots of room in the fridge not to mention, lots of room in the recycling bin and therefore lots of room on our little planet. But this little device solves all those problems. You just fill up a bottle with regular water, insert it in the machine, press the button a couple of times and bam! your water's fizzy. It's great. There's no plug or battery, just a CO2 bottle in the back that you replace every couple of months. You can buy just about any flavoring of your choice to put in the water. Or just a squeeze of lime or lemon will do the trick too. It's simply spectacular! I highly recommend the Soda Stream to any fizzy drink fans out there. It's just absolutely refreshing!
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The healing journey
This is my first post since April.
For the past few months I've wanted to come back to my blog but my thoughts were so dark and painful that I simply couldn't bring myself to write about it. I went from life changing discoveries to extreme emotional pain. Mainly just trying to keep it together to maintain my life. I've seen 2 individual therapists and attended a 5 week "grief counseling group". All of which have been very helpful moving toward healing.
The hardest time was really from March 7 ( the day my mother died) through early June. The taking care of all the details surrounding an unexpected death such as hers, while intensely grieving. It's amazing how difficult it is to take care of everything while trudging along in the molasses of such heavy emotion. The smallest tasks are somehow labored and stumbled; forget about the big tasks. And everything was up to me.
My parents divorced when I was little, she never remarried and I am an only child, so it was just me handling all of her affairs. The notice to the paper, the memorial, the bureaucracy, the possessions, the notifications, the legal necessities, the house, everything. Overwhelmed is a very small word. I'm very lucky that I had tremendous support from her friends and colleges and that I had my wonderful network of caring and sensitive friends. And most of all, that I had my amazingly supportive mate (my "sweet") with me at every step, and my wonderful father who, even though he lives thousands of miles away from me, was on call for me 24/7. They all were truly a gift. So because of all of them, I was never really alone. But at the end of the day, every day, it was just me, spinning around in my head trying to come to terms with this new reality I found myself in.
Since then, color has begun to come back into my life little by little and I am definitely seeing some blue sky. I'm not just living in a world of desolate grey. Last week, while in yoga, I had the insight that just about everything I'm doing right now is my way to heal myself. To help with the grief and to move on to this next chapter in my life in a healthy way. So I thought that's what I should write about. This journey of healing.
Now, I have my pitfalls for sure, and I'm sure they will be showing up in my blog as well. I didn't stray very far from a glass of white wine for the entire month of March, most of April and definitely over half of May. My mother and I frequently enjoyed white wine together. We had many a sprightly evenings drinking wine, laughing, talking, cooking...just being. Wine was our third buddy at times and so it's not hard to figure out why wine became a loyal companion of mine after her death. But my little liquid pal, when played with too much, very quickly starts taking away more than it's giving. So I began turning to other coping mechanisms that are far more healthy, more interesting, have more variety, are more creative and oddly enough, don't come with the dismal side effects. I'll get into to those new coping mechanisms in a bit. Now I'm sure my little pal will still show up from time to time, but I'm getting many other new pals that are bringing me lots of joy and peace. So now I'll begin the dive into my healing journey.
The Journey Back
It's been treacherous terrain no doubt about it, but some lovely discoveries, hints of magic and little miracles also seem to be dropping into my life that are instrumental in bringing the color back. Instrumental in helping me to regain a sense of who I am, and even transition into a stronger more self-expressed me, more self-actualized me. I am embracing the inevitable rebirth that accompanies death. And now my journey is one of healing. A journey back to me and a journey toward the evolving new me. Uncovering, discovering and recovering the truthful, authentic me.
There have been several specifics changes, behaviors and focuses that have led to the healing and rebuilding of myself. That is what I'd like to focus on for a while in this blog. The Healing Journey, The Journey Back. And probably the inevitable pit falls in the Journey.
Ok, in short the magic healing cocktail seems to be a combination of Feng Shui, Yoga, Meditation, many cozy moments wrapped in a blanket watching a movie, anything that makes me laugh, piano playing, singing, writing, green tea, yerba matte tea, my father, my close friends, my incredibly supportive mate (my "sweet") and the clincher, my kitty "Smokey". "Smokey was my mother's cat but she and I bonded heavily the night she died and have kind of clung to each other ever since. She has added more than I ever could have imagined. To take on "mothering" a pet right after my mother died had a beautiful symmetry to it. All listed are prioritized heavily right now. My meds to heal my pain.
No matter how many times I try to describe the effect of my mother's death on me, it still seems to be hard to really get it across. At times I feel like I'm expected to start my new original music project immediately and I just can't seem to do it. It seems premature. There is this overriding feeling that I have to heal my insides before I'm ready to create some new music. So my focus hasn't necessarily been music. Of course I'm doing lots of shows and gigs because I'm a professional working singer, I still love my acoustic duet "DNA Sings" and we're still playing every Wednesday night, but spearheading my own project has to wait until I feel more put together on the inside. That being said, all of these healing techniques, to me, are all part of my artistic journey as well. Anything that makes me feel invigorated, alive and happy gets more of my attention.
The first big breakthrough and really the most poignant and pivotal moment started when I discovered Feng Shui. Specifically the book Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. Life changing! This all began around the middle of June. I really had no idea how much this would change me. Change my outlook, ease my grief, ignite my hope about the future, empower me, excite me, and reground me into myself. It turned out to be soooo much more than just rearranging furniture and bringing in some flowers. Wow!
For those of you new to Feng Shui, it's essentially creating positive, abundant and flowing energy in your space. Feng Shui is an art and science that's over 3000 years old and it literally translates into "wind-water". Using the energy of the elements is very important in FS. Fire, water, wood, metal are all incorporated. It also asserts that individual sections of your space can be connected to certain parts of your life - creativity, relationship, career...etc. It focuses on making room for and enhancing your space so that the positive chi energy can flow to all the areas. So abundance and prosperity can flow. But before you can create that energy you have to get rid of a bunch of crap! A bunch of crap that's in your space that's probably blocking the energy from flowing. All your clutter. Not to alienate by sounding "new age-y" and stuff, but the change it makes is really powerful. It's like magical spring cleaning! But without getting too far down the rabbit hole I'll explain how it started.
I live in San Francisco and have an amazingly wonderful flat. I LOVE my apartment. It's been my nest, my cave, my safe place. It's one of those hardwood floor high ceiling San Francisco beauties. I've lived in it for 6 years now. I've been incredibly busy touring, performing, working, and just being pulled out of town constantly. In the last few years I've wanted to kind of "face-lift" my apartment but I simply hadn't had time. Hadn't had time to really get it looking and feeling the way I wanted. And I had been feeling more and more stagnant, cluttered and stuck in my apartment for a while. Even before my mom died. But after I tidied up her affairs and closed up her house, I was just left with my apartment. It was all I had left that could be called home so I began a fierce focus on making my space more enjoyable for me. This was late May 2011. I was feeling the need for a serious change.
Well, on June 14 is when it all began to change. It was on that night that I had made a date to go out to dinner with a friend of mine (who I'll call "Amber" to respect her privacy). She's a wonderful woman who lives nearby. She has also just suffered a tremendous loss of a loved one so we became kind of soul connected. Before we went to dinner, we stepped into her apartment for a minute. I'd never seen her apartment and holy crap! It was beautiful! Like a museum. And the energy was so palpably LOVELY. What really struck me is that our apartments are very similar. Similar size, similar layout. But the difference in how her apartment felt and how mine felt was extraordinary. I was effusive in my compliments of her flat and she just humbly said. "I'm really into Feng Shui."
So, as we proceeded to the Thai place around the corner for dinner, we started talking Feng Shui. I told Amber that, oddly enough, another friend of mine had recommend a book to me about a month before my mother died. I had just left a band that I was in and I was ready for some reinventing. My friend said "This book will help. It's exactly what you need right now" As it turns out the book was Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. Too coincidental indeed. Feng Shui was showing up everywhere.
After dinner Amber and I went to my apartment so she could give me some ideas of where to start. She made just a few suggestions and that did it. I was up until 3am scrubbing, moving, clearing and rearranging. It was so exciting! It was the first true feeling of inspiration or excitement I had felt since my mother's death. Smokey was en fuego while I was scrubbing. She was scurrying all around the apartment playing with her toys, picking up on my energy. We were both very excited. This was exciting stuff!
That night is when it all began. Over the next few days I read "Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui" cover to cover. In the last 2 and 1/2 months, I've become a FS maniac. I've turned it into a verb. Anyone calls me and asks what I'm doing and my first answer is ... "I'm Feng Shui-ing." The Salvation Army has come to my house three separate times to haul away crap. I've probably gone to Salvation Army, used clothing stores and used books stores a dozen times with bags and bags and bags of clothes, books, CD's pans, and just random crap to either sell or give away - all unused, hardly used or just taking up space. You'd be AMAZED at how much is in your house or apartment that is unused and taking up space that needs to transition to another home where it will be brought back to life. Or at how much of the stuff that you have has old, negative experiences, energies, and memories attached to it. So that when you see it, whether you know it or not, you're calling up old negative stuff and therefore blocking new cool positive stuff from coming in. The book really lays out the criteria to think about when clearing out your clutter.
The change in me has been dramatic and powerful. I feel lighter and free-er. I feel like I'm taking my life back. That I'm not just the victim of circumstance and grief but that I'm positively and proactively elevating my life. It is truly the first thing that helped me turn the corner from depressed and despondent to excited and hopeful. The difference in the way my apartment feels is extraordinary. Everyone who comes over notices it. My mate couldn't believe it. He marvels at how it doesn't even feel like the same space. It's a small apartment but it feels twice as big as it did. And the energy is peaceful, playful, cozy, comfortable and grounded.
I'm not at all done with the FS. It really never ends. I think once you're bitten by the FS bug you're always looking around seeing how you can improve your space and it's a never ending mystical journey.
So that's it for my first blog back. Thanks all for listening. Soon to come is lots about yoga, meditation, friends, laughter, singing, art, music, living the truth...and anything else that points me in that excited or empowered direction. Or the little bumps in the road that I will inevitably run into. I will be writing much more frequently. It's part of my self-imposed healing journey. And they might not all be as long. I just kind of felt the need to catch up on all the goings-ons since April.
I still miss my mother every day. And wish she was here to see and share all the changes caused by my FS explosion. I pulled out the vacuum that she gave me the other day and completely broke down in tears. You never know when it's going to hit. Certain songs bring me to tears and there are some songs I can't sing all the way through without breaking down. I'm sure I'll be experiencing that for a while. But it's in that tender place that I hold her and will hold her always. Until the next time...
For the past few months I've wanted to come back to my blog but my thoughts were so dark and painful that I simply couldn't bring myself to write about it. I went from life changing discoveries to extreme emotional pain. Mainly just trying to keep it together to maintain my life. I've seen 2 individual therapists and attended a 5 week "grief counseling group". All of which have been very helpful moving toward healing.
The hardest time was really from March 7 ( the day my mother died) through early June. The taking care of all the details surrounding an unexpected death such as hers, while intensely grieving. It's amazing how difficult it is to take care of everything while trudging along in the molasses of such heavy emotion. The smallest tasks are somehow labored and stumbled; forget about the big tasks. And everything was up to me.
My parents divorced when I was little, she never remarried and I am an only child, so it was just me handling all of her affairs. The notice to the paper, the memorial, the bureaucracy, the possessions, the notifications, the legal necessities, the house, everything. Overwhelmed is a very small word. I'm very lucky that I had tremendous support from her friends and colleges and that I had my wonderful network of caring and sensitive friends. And most of all, that I had my amazingly supportive mate (my "sweet") with me at every step, and my wonderful father who, even though he lives thousands of miles away from me, was on call for me 24/7. They all were truly a gift. So because of all of them, I was never really alone. But at the end of the day, every day, it was just me, spinning around in my head trying to come to terms with this new reality I found myself in.
Since then, color has begun to come back into my life little by little and I am definitely seeing some blue sky. I'm not just living in a world of desolate grey. Last week, while in yoga, I had the insight that just about everything I'm doing right now is my way to heal myself. To help with the grief and to move on to this next chapter in my life in a healthy way. So I thought that's what I should write about. This journey of healing.
Now, I have my pitfalls for sure, and I'm sure they will be showing up in my blog as well. I didn't stray very far from a glass of white wine for the entire month of March, most of April and definitely over half of May. My mother and I frequently enjoyed white wine together. We had many a sprightly evenings drinking wine, laughing, talking, cooking...just being. Wine was our third buddy at times and so it's not hard to figure out why wine became a loyal companion of mine after her death. But my little liquid pal, when played with too much, very quickly starts taking away more than it's giving. So I began turning to other coping mechanisms that are far more healthy, more interesting, have more variety, are more creative and oddly enough, don't come with the dismal side effects. I'll get into to those new coping mechanisms in a bit. Now I'm sure my little pal will still show up from time to time, but I'm getting many other new pals that are bringing me lots of joy and peace. So now I'll begin the dive into my healing journey.
The Journey Back
It's been treacherous terrain no doubt about it, but some lovely discoveries, hints of magic and little miracles also seem to be dropping into my life that are instrumental in bringing the color back. Instrumental in helping me to regain a sense of who I am, and even transition into a stronger more self-expressed me, more self-actualized me. I am embracing the inevitable rebirth that accompanies death. And now my journey is one of healing. A journey back to me and a journey toward the evolving new me. Uncovering, discovering and recovering the truthful, authentic me.
There have been several specifics changes, behaviors and focuses that have led to the healing and rebuilding of myself. That is what I'd like to focus on for a while in this blog. The Healing Journey, The Journey Back. And probably the inevitable pit falls in the Journey.
Ok, in short the magic healing cocktail seems to be a combination of Feng Shui, Yoga, Meditation, many cozy moments wrapped in a blanket watching a movie, anything that makes me laugh, piano playing, singing, writing, green tea, yerba matte tea, my father, my close friends, my incredibly supportive mate (my "sweet") and the clincher, my kitty "Smokey". "Smokey was my mother's cat but she and I bonded heavily the night she died and have kind of clung to each other ever since. She has added more than I ever could have imagined. To take on "mothering" a pet right after my mother died had a beautiful symmetry to it. All listed are prioritized heavily right now. My meds to heal my pain.
No matter how many times I try to describe the effect of my mother's death on me, it still seems to be hard to really get it across. At times I feel like I'm expected to start my new original music project immediately and I just can't seem to do it. It seems premature. There is this overriding feeling that I have to heal my insides before I'm ready to create some new music. So my focus hasn't necessarily been music. Of course I'm doing lots of shows and gigs because I'm a professional working singer, I still love my acoustic duet "DNA Sings" and we're still playing every Wednesday night, but spearheading my own project has to wait until I feel more put together on the inside. That being said, all of these healing techniques, to me, are all part of my artistic journey as well. Anything that makes me feel invigorated, alive and happy gets more of my attention.
The first big breakthrough and really the most poignant and pivotal moment started when I discovered Feng Shui. Specifically the book Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. Life changing! This all began around the middle of June. I really had no idea how much this would change me. Change my outlook, ease my grief, ignite my hope about the future, empower me, excite me, and reground me into myself. It turned out to be soooo much more than just rearranging furniture and bringing in some flowers. Wow!
For those of you new to Feng Shui, it's essentially creating positive, abundant and flowing energy in your space. Feng Shui is an art and science that's over 3000 years old and it literally translates into "wind-water". Using the energy of the elements is very important in FS. Fire, water, wood, metal are all incorporated. It also asserts that individual sections of your space can be connected to certain parts of your life - creativity, relationship, career...etc. It focuses on making room for and enhancing your space so that the positive chi energy can flow to all the areas. So abundance and prosperity can flow. But before you can create that energy you have to get rid of a bunch of crap! A bunch of crap that's in your space that's probably blocking the energy from flowing. All your clutter. Not to alienate by sounding "new age-y" and stuff, but the change it makes is really powerful. It's like magical spring cleaning! But without getting too far down the rabbit hole I'll explain how it started.
I live in San Francisco and have an amazingly wonderful flat. I LOVE my apartment. It's been my nest, my cave, my safe place. It's one of those hardwood floor high ceiling San Francisco beauties. I've lived in it for 6 years now. I've been incredibly busy touring, performing, working, and just being pulled out of town constantly. In the last few years I've wanted to kind of "face-lift" my apartment but I simply hadn't had time. Hadn't had time to really get it looking and feeling the way I wanted. And I had been feeling more and more stagnant, cluttered and stuck in my apartment for a while. Even before my mom died. But after I tidied up her affairs and closed up her house, I was just left with my apartment. It was all I had left that could be called home so I began a fierce focus on making my space more enjoyable for me. This was late May 2011. I was feeling the need for a serious change.
Well, on June 14 is when it all began to change. It was on that night that I had made a date to go out to dinner with a friend of mine (who I'll call "Amber" to respect her privacy). She's a wonderful woman who lives nearby. She has also just suffered a tremendous loss of a loved one so we became kind of soul connected. Before we went to dinner, we stepped into her apartment for a minute. I'd never seen her apartment and holy crap! It was beautiful! Like a museum. And the energy was so palpably LOVELY. What really struck me is that our apartments are very similar. Similar size, similar layout. But the difference in how her apartment felt and how mine felt was extraordinary. I was effusive in my compliments of her flat and she just humbly said. "I'm really into Feng Shui."
So, as we proceeded to the Thai place around the corner for dinner, we started talking Feng Shui. I told Amber that, oddly enough, another friend of mine had recommend a book to me about a month before my mother died. I had just left a band that I was in and I was ready for some reinventing. My friend said "This book will help. It's exactly what you need right now" As it turns out the book was Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui. Too coincidental indeed. Feng Shui was showing up everywhere.
After dinner Amber and I went to my apartment so she could give me some ideas of where to start. She made just a few suggestions and that did it. I was up until 3am scrubbing, moving, clearing and rearranging. It was so exciting! It was the first true feeling of inspiration or excitement I had felt since my mother's death. Smokey was en fuego while I was scrubbing. She was scurrying all around the apartment playing with her toys, picking up on my energy. We were both very excited. This was exciting stuff!
That night is when it all began. Over the next few days I read "Clear Your Clutter with Feng Shui" cover to cover. In the last 2 and 1/2 months, I've become a FS maniac. I've turned it into a verb. Anyone calls me and asks what I'm doing and my first answer is ... "I'm Feng Shui-ing." The Salvation Army has come to my house three separate times to haul away crap. I've probably gone to Salvation Army, used clothing stores and used books stores a dozen times with bags and bags and bags of clothes, books, CD's pans, and just random crap to either sell or give away - all unused, hardly used or just taking up space. You'd be AMAZED at how much is in your house or apartment that is unused and taking up space that needs to transition to another home where it will be brought back to life. Or at how much of the stuff that you have has old, negative experiences, energies, and memories attached to it. So that when you see it, whether you know it or not, you're calling up old negative stuff and therefore blocking new cool positive stuff from coming in. The book really lays out the criteria to think about when clearing out your clutter.
The change in me has been dramatic and powerful. I feel lighter and free-er. I feel like I'm taking my life back. That I'm not just the victim of circumstance and grief but that I'm positively and proactively elevating my life. It is truly the first thing that helped me turn the corner from depressed and despondent to excited and hopeful. The difference in the way my apartment feels is extraordinary. Everyone who comes over notices it. My mate couldn't believe it. He marvels at how it doesn't even feel like the same space. It's a small apartment but it feels twice as big as it did. And the energy is peaceful, playful, cozy, comfortable and grounded.
I'm not at all done with the FS. It really never ends. I think once you're bitten by the FS bug you're always looking around seeing how you can improve your space and it's a never ending mystical journey.
So that's it for my first blog back. Thanks all for listening. Soon to come is lots about yoga, meditation, friends, laughter, singing, art, music, living the truth...and anything else that points me in that excited or empowered direction. Or the little bumps in the road that I will inevitably run into. I will be writing much more frequently. It's part of my self-imposed healing journey. And they might not all be as long. I just kind of felt the need to catch up on all the goings-ons since April.
I still miss my mother every day. And wish she was here to see and share all the changes caused by my FS explosion. I pulled out the vacuum that she gave me the other day and completely broke down in tears. You never know when it's going to hit. Certain songs bring me to tears and there are some songs I can't sing all the way through without breaking down. I'm sure I'll be experiencing that for a while. But it's in that tender place that I hold her and will hold her always. Until the next time...
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