liveapathofheart.blog

Author: liveapathofheart@gmail.com

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  • Beginning Death

    Beginning Death

    I’ve been building a relationship with death.

    I work as a clinical director at a local hospice. I am an RN.

    I began this work on the heels of a few colleagues and friends dying and also just after my father died in Sep 2023. In the years prior to my father dying I also underwent many personal mini deaths. Deaths of parts of my ego structure, belief systems and emotional pattering that I healed and integrated into myself, thus falling away. All of this set me up to come into this hospice work and begin to build this relationship I am evaluating and exploring with death. 

    There is a way I feel that I close off connection with others when its too taxing or doesn’t serve me. This is the result of recent exploration of boundaries, new boundaries, so they may be getting out of hand. So I am noticing that now that I know I can set boundaries, maybe I need to reengage with others try for more connection knowing I can hold boundaries in place if I need to and keep myself safe. 

    This is coming up right now because I’ve been building this conversation with death, which seems to be at the base of all my of fears and terror: that I’m going to die.

    I’ve also been watching this show called, “Dying for Sex” in which we watch a woman and her best friend navigate the woman’s death from cancer and her desire to self actualize using sex before she does so. It also shows the profound love between two friends. 

    There is an interesting scene where a hospice nurse explains death and dying to them in a really quirky and explicit way. 

    I don’t do this often in hospice with my clients. Even though I perceive myself as being able to hold a lot of vulnerability in my life and profession, maybe I am stunted a bit in my capacity to really support clients in the time before death but not being super open about what is going to happen to them and openly volunteering that information. It made me wonder, does my fear of engulfment from others strong emotions prevent me from going deep with people? Do other hospice nurses do this?

    I was on a date yesterday and the man was a wonderful human, but was physically not compatible for me. We elected to continue our day long date even though there was uncertainty about compatibility. I noticed that once I identified he wasn’t a fit for me I totally shut down and went numb. Severing energetically the connection. 

    He commented on his feelings in his body, and in response to this asked me to connect more. 

    I identified that I had trust issues about men not really wanting to be friends with me but only wanting to keep me around because they like my energy and maybe want to fuck me. So I just was planning on cutting this guy out of my life as extraneous and not being it as an opportunity to lean into the potential connection as friends or colleagues. Underlying this pattern is trust. And fear of engulfment, fear of doing the wrong thing, of moving too fast and of falling in love with someone that is not right for me. And thus having pain and suffering which under that is fear of abandonment and death. 

    When I identified all this and spoke about it with him, the numbness lifted. The weirdness lifted. He said he then was able to feel connected. And we had a really nice time despite not being the right fit as romantic partners. 

    So I am wondering, how do keep myself safe and dive deep into connection without it making me feel engulfed and exhausted and worrying I will die?

    Can I expand my capacity with my clients and hold more vulnerability with them and more openness such as the TV nurse?

    Can men and women be friends? 

    Can I ask the numbness to move aside to enable more connection and thus love in my life?

    Can I stop seeing romantic love as the only love that will fill the hole?

    I feel as if I am asking death to teach me this. I don’t know how to explain that connection but it’s there for me. 

  • Press

    One of those moments

    when all is poignant,

    the whole experience

    presses into my skin.

  • Be.

    Can we have a boho reading nook and an outdoor shower and can we hold hands as we think about it?

    Will you stand with me in the garden and look about?

    Will you sit near as I pull weeds or plant the PLANTIES?

    Maybe we will like the same throws?

    Some of those small round plates?

    Take a bath with me won’t you?

    It’s getting late.

    And I just want to BE… with you.

  • Weekly Planetary Connection Meditation

    I’ve been feeling called to hold in person meditations on holding our whole planet in love.

    Below is the meditation that has come through me for this purpose.

    If you are near Taos, NM please come! I’ll place my IG link in my bio. But if not, please take some time to practice meditation. And share it with friends.

    Thank you 🙏🏼

    Arrive to this place.

    Feel your sits bones on the ground.

    Breathe down into your hips.

    Feel the breath coming in and out of the tip of your nose, whether it’s warm or cool.

    I invite now, our guides and all of our ancestors and the spirits and energies of this land, past and present to come be with us now for our and the planet’s highest good.

    I ask for all of our energy to be brought back to us now cutting and clearing ties that no longer need to be there.

    Clearing agreements and belief systems and patterns that no longer serve us, clearing that energy as it comes back to us, so that we can be here now in our fullest divinity in service to our planet and to each other.

    Now I’d like you to imagine a great golden orb, up above your head. This giant golden orbs originates from whatever divine source it is that you identify with.

    On your in breath, I’d like to see this light filling you, washing through all of your cells, filling you up until you’re positively plump with this divine healing light.

    If there are any particular areas of disease in your body, go ahead and place a hand there and see more of that light filling that area and some curiosity and some compassion and some love to those areas to bring them back into balance.

    See yourself well, see yourself in balance. See yourself happy and able to provide love to this planet and its inhabitants.

    Breathe into your heart

    Now imagine and see this light swelling your heart, feel this, feel your heart.

    What do you notice?

    On the in breath, please see your heart expand bigger and bigger, and the out breath bring it back down into your chest, bigger and smaller with the in breath and out breath, bringing it in and out.

    How big can you make it?

    Now start allowing it to stay big and to get bigger.

    Imagine your beautiful heart is holding your neighbor next to you.

    Imagine you can hold all the people around you.

    Imagine the whole town, the county, New Mexico.

    Do you have someone out of state? You can include them now.

    Let’s keep expanding.

    Think about those populations across the globe, about the mothers, the children in war torn regions.

    Gaza, Ukraine, Africa.

    Notice, does it hurt?

    Your heart can contain that too.

    Don’t look away, your heart has the capacity to hold and transmute the hurt.

    Can you include the aggressors?

    Can you include the ones, the groups, who are not in touch with their souls divinity? With their hearts?

    Can you hold that as well?

    Breathe in and out.

    Hold your heart.

    Hold all these populations of struggling humans.

    Let’s include the planet.

    We are still breathing in divine light and love from our giant golden orb, from divine source.

    We are not creating this light, we are connected to all that is.

    See this light filling you and then also see you are also connected to the grid of the planet.

    To all that is.

    Feel our amazing mother, this pulsing, living entity.

    Feel it under you, around you.

    Feel that your heart is connected to all things and hold the whole planet and all those humans.

    Send your love.

    Breathe with us

    Send your love.

    See Israel, see Palestine. s

    See that the ground beneath them is the same.

    Send your love.

    See the love of the planet reaching these hearts, see them waking up to their own divinity.

    Our whole planet.

    You can.

    You can do this.

    Your heart was made for this.

    Send your wish for our connectedness.

    Now begin to bring yourself back, knowing that you are always connected to all that is.

    In your highest good, bring yourself back.

    Breathe this golden light and love in through the top of your head and down through your crown, your third eye, your throat, make some noise on your out breath if you’d like to.

    Breathe this light down into your heart.

    See congruency, see healing for yourself.

    Breathe down into your solar plexus,

    Your womb, whether you are male or female breathe light into this space.

    And breathe down into your root.

    Feel yourself rooted into the Earth while you are simultaneously connected to the divine and all that is.

    Breathing through the top of your head and into the Earth, feel your sit bones.

    Feel your feet.

    Flex your ankles.

    We will make the sounds of three ohms with the intention that we are clearing and elevating the vibration of all.

    Breathe in Gathering the light : Ohmmm

    Breathe in Gathering the light : ohmmm

    Breathe in gathering the light: ohmmm

    So it is.

    Thank you for your service to humanity and our planet

  • Heart Gold

    It’s really odd knowing that this is the year my Dad is going to die.
    He’s in the throes of an alcoholic death from which my sisters and I cannot save him from, and from which he won’t let me save him from.
    I feel I’m it doing wrong… I should be there more, be doing more. But… I can’t. My life lately is preventing it. Its kind of a blessing because the man won’t stop drinking, won’t shower, won’t let us help him anyway. And we have been unable to get the healthcare system to help either. So we are just sort of, horribly, angrily at times, numb at times, waiting for him to die.
    And I know how bad that sounds.
    Do your best not to judge us. There’s a lot of ins and outs and family dynamics in play, and the fact that he just WONT stop drinking, so healthcare people won’t touch him.

    I was so fucking mad at him tonight.
    My sister called to say that he’s been drinking more, hasn’t showered STILL, it’s been literally months since I found him in bed in his house surround by vodka bottles and human shit and dog shit, food as well. And he still hasn’t showered. After we cleaned all his shit stained clothes and got him out of there to my little sisters house and now it sounds like he’s created the same situation in that location.
    So mad.
    He’s like a drunk, caged, child-age, dirty animal and I can’t see how this can change.
    So my older sister had me call him, because now it’s possible he may have either had a stroke or possibly has a blood clot in his left calf.
    So we three way call him. I’m a nurse so I assess the situation. He answers my questions. I give strict instructions on what to do and when to call me but that I can’t come right now as I have the outdoor adventure retreat I’m facilitating next week and I need to get that over with.
    He says, “what are you retreating from?!”
    I calmly explain “I’m not retreating Dad I’m holding a retreat for other women in the woods.” He says “don’t retreat! You gotta call it something else!”
    I say, “well it’s actually called Rebirthing in nature but you probably won’t like that either.”

    He says, hysterically laughing now making me laugh cause he’s just loosing it, “ NO NO! Don’t RETREAT! You gotta ATTACK! ATTACK!”.
    And it may not be funny to you, but shit I busted up and laughed hysterically with him!
    Fuck.
    I forgot how funny he is!
    As I got off I immediately felt like, WHAM. That was a fucking blessing.
    I had a stressful week, month, year… and god, did I need that laugh with my Dad.

    It of course broke me right on down.

    I sobbed sitting there in my truck.


    But I needed that too.

    I got to experience a clear piece of my father out of the shitty experience that we are in at the moment.
    It made it gold for a minute. And reminded me like, this is LIFE! Right here!
    His drinking himself to death IS life.


    And even though I am Super tired of being brave, I’m gonna have to keep being brave.
    And experience this with him as much as I can before he goes.

    I’ve been missing him my whole life and at this time while he’s declining I have felt for the first time that I can be myself with my Dad.
    That I can tell him what’s in my heart. Be myself.

    That I can finally feel his love, as limited as his capabilities are.

    Anyway I just wanted to remember this.


    A moment.

    When his heart seemed to pierce through the veil to my heart in a joyous way.

  • Blue

    Really all it was 

    Was a staring into the sun

    A twirling in ecstatic motion

    A mind spun and a heart undone

    But only for a moment 

    A moment of pure catapult ness into the ethers. 

    And pouf!

    Gone. 

    We must have only been mistaken 

  • Fuck that old man, his bottles piled high

    Corrals are empty

    Barn walls are falling down

    His hands are empty

    His mouth though, is full of magical bullshit still

    And that old dog of his is about to die

    But my heart still surrounds him

    And there is nothing I can do about that

    But watch

    Remembering him riding ahead, breaking branches, breaking trail

    Teaching me to be quiet in the mountains, giving me that gift

    Teaching me his magic

    I hold him now where I can

    And I’ll watch him ride off ahead of me into the sunset

    On a horse called alcoholism

  • Rebirthing 101 Part 1: Lean into Grief

    I have gone through a few large transitions involving varying deep levels of grief in the last 6 months.

    I have been watching my processing around it and wanted to share some about leaning towards our grief and transitioning into acceptance, what that can look like, or at least what it looks like for me from a standpoint of the tools I have been implementing around my own healing in this process.

    I want to start by saying that as with all things human there is a continuum, we have have greater or lesser levels of emotional pain, situations that cause grief, so it is not useful to compare our outward experiences, just take what works for you and leave the rest, we all can share in the inner feelings of pain, loss, loneliness, rage, darkness; as well as the light from our hearts that we can bring ourselves and each other in these hard situations; so let us meet there.

    When things fall apart my tendency is to insulate from the pain. If you think about it it’s a total natural way for our systems to handle things. When something punctures our skin, our natural barriers, thereby putting us on high alert for danger, our body sends blood cell warriors to the site of the puncture, and walls off or encapsulates the site in an effort to prevent system wide infection. 

    My initial tendency is to not experience the pain. To push away from it. Pretend it’s not happening. Use sex, shopping, social media addiction, running (I literally try to run away from it, god bless it!), work, and a new one in the last few years…. meditation, ceremony, spiritual practice. 

    But all these behaviors have in common a way that I am trying to change whatever feeling I am having rather than just being with the feeling and actually experiencing it so that it can naturally move through, transmute, and dissipate the emotions out of my body and field. 

    So what’s the answer?

    Lean towards it. Whatever it is. 

    Rage, sadness, even the excitement of love. 

    What I have found is that if I don’t lean towards the feelings , they lodge in my body and turn into stuck feelings. DEPRESSION. 

    I used to feel depression quite often as I was in the habit of never feeling my feelings, always pushing them away in an inability to experience any emotion. So they always settled into a stuckness I began to know well as depression. 

    I really had no idea this was not normal until very recently when I experienced on a body-feeling level the difference in letting emotions process through and also watching what happens when I don’t and the subsequent feelings of stuckness and depressed feelings that follow. 

    How do we lean towards our feelings?

    When we are having big feelings that feel overwhelming or constant, or cyclical/repetitive: 

    ~Focus in on the sensations in your body when you are having the emotions. 

    ~Where is the sensation located in your body, what’s the quality? 

    ~Are there colors, temperatures, visual representation or auditory accompaniment that go along with the emotions? 

    ~Focus and describe these to yourself or if working with a therapist describe them to them.

    Practice this until you can get familiar with this practice, don’t try to change the emotion! Just BE with it. Be with the sensations and whatever is coming up. Try sending some curiosity, some compassion and kindness. 

    Treat yourself and your emotions you would someone you cherish.

    ❤️☀️ Come to a wonderful backcountry glamping retreat

    July 22nd-25th 2021 in Taos Ski Valley!Rebirthing in Nature in is 4 days/3 nights

    Click the link in my bio! Sign up now!Spots are going quickly…..

    This retreat is all about working with your fear, befriending it and moving through it. We will be glamping in the forest above the base of Taos Ski Valley. Expand yourself through rock climbing on the Via-Ferratta, hike into the high mountains to our basecamp for 2 nights, and jump deeper into nature’s healing. Explore mindfulness practices, deep process, silence, and powerful ceremonies for women moving through major life transition and change.

    Rebirthing in Nature in Taos – July 22-25, 2021

    This retreat will help you break through your fear and onto releasing grief and pain–rebirthing you onto your path to the Transformed New You.

    Experience the IFS Toolbox and self-compassion practices you can take home too. Co-facilitated by Donna Roe Daniell, MSW, LCSW, RYT of Women in Transformation and Jennifer Johnson, RN

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  • In the Spring

    In the spring

    When my heart is hung out to dry

    Birds chirp in the budding lilac trees

    And I crinkle my eyes in the sunshine 

    And feel grateful I can sleep with the windows wide

    Cooling my skin

    I clunk through the house farting around, intermittently happy and intermittently crumpled on the ground or in the leather chair or the bed, wondering if I’ll ever, ever be suitable again for human consumption. 

    There’s no room here for someone else and simultaneously too much fucking freedom and space and nothing to fill it with but me. 

    My heart. 

    Eyes and hands looking in

    Growing… something. 

    It seems more precious than could have been baked before. 

    With you. 

    I am trying so hard here. 

    And trying to stop trying. 

    To let go

    To surrender god dammit!

    But I haven’t yet been able to stop. 

    Sitting in my chair with my bless-Ed broken foot, accidentally falling in love with you over and over again.

    It’s gotta stop. 

    Cause here comes the Sun.