toxic breakups over two decades

i'm going through a bad breakup. and it feels SOOOOO HORRIBLE. so horrible that i feel like there's no way i could survive it. then i was like, also, i've been through this before.  

i don't just mean i've been through a breakup before; i don't just mean i've been through a bad breakup before.  actually, i've been through SO MANY bad breakups and almost every breakup with a man i had a significant relationship with has been absolutely horrible.  and by horrible i mean toxic and abusive.

 <<here i would like to insert both a trigger warning and a disclaimer. i feel terrified to write this--anxious about further retribution and simultaneously worried that i will be judged or labeled based on these experiences. and i feel nervous to put it all down in one place, to see the reality of the breakup abuse i've suffered... but that probably just means i need to write about it.>>

i know most of you know about the revenge porn ex--who, as we broke up, posted intimate images and videos of me along with my contact details so that i was harassed by strangers regularly for a year. but he was only one in a long line of men who did not handle the break up process with grace. here is a list of things different men (all that i dated for over a year) have done as we were breaking up: ghosted me as a way of breaking up a several year relationship (no response to text, calls, or emails); moved out of our home and the country without telling me; told me to take plan B days after we were intentionally trying to get pregnant; and THREE different men have stalked me--showing up at my home, showing up while i was on dates, waiting for me to arrive places they knew i would go.

i would say that for the most part these men were well-adjusted and mentally healthy men... until we broke up. but during the breakups, each of these men felt that they could treat me however they wanted--without regard for me as an equal human being.  they showed sexual aggression, entitlement, low empathy, and they attempted to exert control over me.

i'm not writing this for pity or advice or support. i'm writing this so we fucking stop pretending like toxic masculinity is not a real problem that is causing real trauma in people's lives.  a problem that we need to be having big, constant, conversations about. a problem that we need to stand up to.

i feel sad, overwhelmed, and depressed right now.  but, to facilitate change, i hope more of us can share our toxic experiences in safe ways--sharing these experiences takes them out of the shadows and brings light to the problem. and i'd love for us all to emphasize and continue to work to normalize healthy masculinity in our lives.  because i believe that all of our ripples can work together to start to change the tide. and i have to put energy into this, because i can't go through this again.

*OUCH!!*

i'm not sure where i learned to hide all of my hurt from the person who hurt me, but i'm going to go on record as saying that it is a highly maladaptive response. i'm pretty sure i've always done this; i can't remember a time where i fully expressed to someone how much their actions hurt me.  don't get me wrong; i don't totally avoid the topic: i tell people when i'm hurt.  but i don't share to what extent i am hurt nor later communicate to them that i'm still hurting. i was doing what i thought was healthy: i thought i was processing my part of it.

but i wasn't. and it wasn't ok.

which is generally how i operate: do things that i think are working until they are SO NOT WORKING that i cannot continue existing if i do not address them.

so my world crumbled. which was partially my fault, because someone didn't know that they were continuing to hurt me so much. and then, after i was sitting in the rubble, i realized that not communicating the hurt i had been trying to process alone hadn't been working out for me.

with nothing to lose, i decided to tell this person about all of the hurt i had been harboring for so long. and, to be honest, i still don't really know how that landed.  but that isn't the important part of this story, because the future is not something i can control.

what is important is what happened to me after i fully expressed myself (even the things that i thought i would be judged for saying, even the things i thought were so utterly ridiculous to say out loud).  i don't want to exaggerate or anything, but EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE SHIFTED FOR THE BETTER.  it's been four days and the rewards are not yet diminishing.

i feel fully centered; i feel fully in my power.  i have since communicated other difficult things i had been avoiding; i sent emails and checked messages i hadn't wanted to deal with; i haven't gotten annoyed by people on the train; i have been able to be fully present without that hurt constantly running the background story of my mind; i have had several truly genuine and authentic connections with others.

and i had to think to myself: why on earth did i think i couldn't share this hurt with this person? what the hell did i think i was controlling? because, looking back over my adult life, i know that trying to control and protect myself from life's unwanted outcomes has never worked. and, post every earthquake, there is new space for something beautiful and unexpected to grow.

my divorce created room for me to heal from years of eating disorders, a rape created the space for me to abandon alcohol and the depression it fostered, and the continuing trauma of revenge porn has built resilience and given me the ability to stand up for others who are not able to do so for themselves.

so thank god i can't control the outcomes. and thank god i can learn and evolve and grow.  i'm here, watching new greenery sprouting through the cracked foundation, vowing to stay true to my full expression of myself.  the endless worries i had about what cascade of consequences would come after communicating my hurts seem silly now.

earlier tonight the following line was said on the new season of sex education: "you have to let the people you love know that you love them, even if it causes you a great deal of pain." and i heard, "you have to let the people who have caused you pain know that they have caused you pain, because that will allow you to really feel love." otherwise you're just pretending: at life and love.

rose-colored life

i live in new york city, so i've heard a few car horns. ok, i've heard a lot of car horns. this morning i was walking with a friend and he screamed back at a car stuck in traffic "why are you honking? what do you think is going to happen?" i laughed and said that the people honking in the cars were likely very upset about a lot of things, and that they didn't know how to express those emotions in their lives. so? they honk.

"honk" is my new shorthand for "wah wah wah, i don't know how to properly process this!"

we're all guilty of this occasionally, of course.

what's funny about my response to the above story is that i immediately replied with compassion to the people polluting my environment with noise. but when i fail to process something well, i rarely reply with compassion toward myself.

last night a friend told me that they were dealing with some depression/anxiety issues. i replied with compassion. but when i think about my own issues? i reply with the opposite. "why do i feel this way today? what's wrong with me? why can't i feel this way? why can't i act this way?"

mid-blog writing, i paused for dinner. i ran home while listening to a podcast and then over to a friend's to watch a tv show while eating pizza. in those two instances of media mid-writing, i heard two instances referring to the saying "rose-colored glasses." i've never particularly liked that phrase, because i thought that it kind of makes fun of optimists, and i consider myself to be one most of the time.

in the latest freakanomics podcast, they interview dan gilbert (a harvard psychology professor) about some ads he helped prudential with. when he discusses happiness, and people planning for their hopeful futures, he stated the following:

I love the metaphor of rose-colored glasses. That’s the way to view the world. They’re rose-colored, meaning there is a tint. You are seeing a rosier future than we will really experience. But they’re glasses. They’re not opaque, right? They’re not blinders. You actually are seeing the world. And if there’s a train coming, it’s a little bit rose-tinted, but it’s a train.

i really really liked his interpretation of the glasses. it made me feel hopeful.

and then, mid-pizza, i heard another reference to rose-colored glasses on bojack horseman. a character on the show said "when you look at the world through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags." ...and then i felt compassion for that character. it was a potent line, but it didn't dissuade me from wanting to be optimistic about the world. perhaps cautiously optimistic, but still optimistic.

and all of this rose-colored talk reminded me of the compassion i was trying to cultivate toward myself. what if i just slightly altered my perception of myself instead of something more drastic? practicing on others has given me the tools; i just have to reflect the rose-colored tint back inwards.

a rose-colored mirror, if you will.

self-compassion. self-love. hands on heart.

things are just things

my life seems to be all sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows at times. and i guess i am pretty lucky. but i had a hard week last week: friends going through traumatic things, my mother is quite ill, and i was just a bit wrung out from offering love and support back out to the world. so much so that wednesday night when a casual friend asked me how i was doing, i started sobbing. and in art therapy thursday night the only way i could describe my emotional state was this: "my soul feels dehydrated."

i tried to quench the inner thirst through a yoga jam friday evening and by planning catch-ups with friends and a play date with my favorite four-year-old for the long weekend. half way through the long weekend, i was starting to feel a bit more 3D: things were sunny and happy, and i had lots of fun things planned for the rest of the weekend.

and then my friend's car was broken into. while parked behind my house. the back window was smashed and a lot of valuable items were taken.

ok. go ahead. get all the "you live in redfern" jokes out of the way. and then i'll try to refrain from telling you how safe redfern actually is and how i have friends who have had things stolen in every corner of sydney.

so after photoing the car and filing the police reports (yes, i totes snapchatted the forensics guy dusting for prints), i went about the rest of my day. rushing off to a friend's and then getting to the yoga class i had to teach. i was sad for my friend's losses, but i thought i was fine. i was feeling guilty about the robbery happening while he was parked at my house, but i told myself over and over "this is not my fault."

and then, while teaching yoga, i referenced the break-in and started crying.

it wasn't about the stuff. my friend didn't seem that upset about the things either. material items aren't what we're all about. and they aren't what really matter. so what was tugging at my heart?

i couldn't verbalize it at the time, but i think it was mostly about feeling violated. of being afraid to believe that the world isn't always a beautiful place. of realizing that karma doesn't mean everyone is always going to be nice to us. of remembering how unfair things can be.

pic stolen from here

i talked to my friend lisa about this, and she told me about how she had felt that way after her car had been broken into once (not in redfern). she also told me that she quickly returned to feeling "normal" afterward. i grabbed on to that bit of information.

maybe the world isn't perfect. but the more i thought about it today, i realized that my life-view hadn't actually shifted. i have a lot of magic in my life: just this afternoon adi and i practiced being mermaids at the pool. how can you beat that?

things are just things.
not everyone is a unicorn.
but i still believe in miracles.

#charmedlife

choose your own adventure

remember those "choose your own adventure" books? i loved those books like crazy. LIKE. CRAZY. live the version of the story you want? and if you don't like it, you can just read the other version instead? awesome. freaking awesome. give me that. always.

in the real world there aren't re-dos. but there are certainly versions of the story from each person involved. and there are also the various versions of the story we choose to present to the world.

someone that i hurt a while ago, but that i really care about, was talking to me last week about the period of time immediately after "the incident," as well as our friendly relationship now. he said to me: "how was that situation hard for YOU? you ended up getting everything you wanted!"

BAM!
WHACK!
KAPOW!

shot.
straight. through. the. heart.

why did that comment hurt so much: because i felt utterly misunderstood? because i thought we were past it? because i didn't want to relive the hurt? i'm not sure. the truth is, i didn't get everything i wanted out of that situation. in fact, i didn't get the only thing i wanted. sure, i have versions and pieces of it, but i also put a pretty big dent in my friend's trust. and that also hurt me.

so.
much.

it affected my words, thoughts, and actions for weeks. but, at the same time, it was also the catalyst for me starting to make change; for me to examine my words, thoughts, and actions. out of the hell i felt i was in, i found the capacity to start to make shifts. for that, i have immense gratitude.

but it was terrifyingly hard; it was not pretty: it was fucking fiery transformational shit.

and as i keep replaying those words from last week in my head how was that hard for YOU?, i find myself wondering: how many times do we assume something is easy for someone else? how many times do we think we are the only ones hurting in a partnership, friendship, or relationship?

probably a whole fucking lot. when we feel deep pain, we tend to forget about the pain that the other person in the situation is feeling. maybe it's because that person hides it from us. maybe it's because we don't want to admit that they could be hurting too. or maybe it's because we're busy trying to make it look like we aren't hurting.

i certainly spent quite a bit of time posting gorgeous photos of my friends and i doing amazing things during that time.

and then i came home and cried.

hiding our hurt from the world can become a full time job. when my marriage was breaking down, i spent lots of time posting happy things. and when my husband left, my mom said to me, "but you guys looked so happy on facebook!" oh, umm, yeah, i forgot to post "i feel miserable tonight" or "i feel stuck in my relationship and hopeless about changing it" or "here's a photo of us sitting on opposite ends of the couch and not talking as we eat dinner!"

hiding my hurt became second nature. as i think it does for most people.

but why not surrender to it?

being vulnerable, even to those you want to hide it from most, is what this world needs. as i've begun to crack open more, to allow people to see my un-armoured heart, i've found deepened and inspired relationships. i've become happier for real. not facebook-happy: i'm talking happy-happy.

it's hard work, though. letting the masks fall away; showing people genuine pieces of yourself. it's scary. but it is way way way more worth it.

so choose your own adventure.

live the life you really want: tell your mom that thing you didn't wanna tell her; confess your missteps to your partner; call your sister and apologize for that thing you did. ...and tell them how you felt during those costumed times.


show it. live it. and freaking shine on.

to-do: GO. breathe. Go. Breathe. go. BREATHE.

i have a to-do list going constantly: i re-realized this when my facebook status included mention of it this morning. but technically, i have at least three to-do lists going simultaneously: in my head (immediate things), on my phone (kinda immediate things i'm afraid i might forget), and in my planner (for things a bit more long term). why so many lists? well, that'd be the fault of my brain. my brain really really really likes to be constantly active. i've traditionally had quite a hard time allowing myself to have time for play.

the more i practice at meditating and yoga, though, and the more reflective i get, the more i notice my mind letting go of its eternal need for busy-ness. that letting go process is scary though.

recently i started back in marathon training, doing a lot of 20-30 km runs with one of my friends. i've always loved long runs: they quiet my mind, they give me space, and they make me really skinny. (i don't want to like long runs for that last reason, but i know that i not-so-secretly love them purely for that reason.) recently, though, since i've been able to find quiet in other ways, and i've started to love and appreciate my not-scary-skinny body, i've found that I've started to become afraid of running.

now i find myself worried about the real reason for me going out to do a long run; about how my brain will react to my body if i lose any weight.

while i can identify this fear, i can't seem to shake it. i've been talking about it with a few friends, and this is what i've come to: my mind is better at breathing now, and it's starting to let up on the GO GO GO DO DO DO (OR ELSE!) mindset. yesterday on a run with one of my BFFs, i kept stopping to walk. not because i was tired or hurting, but because, well, i just didn't feel like running. and my mind wasn't crazily forcing me into it either.

and that's the part that is a little uncomfortable: me getting used to a mind that's not so demanding. i've lived so long with my self-termed "crazy mind" that living differently is actually scary. sometimes i find myself quite surprised that i'm ok with lounging in bed for the afternoon or going with a friend for a drive instead of crossing off another thing on my list.

"what happened to spring?" i wonder. and then i think, "wait. what was happening to spring for all those years before?!"

last week i went to a yoga class and kelli talked about "leaning into an uncomfortable feeling" rather than avoiding it. and, i sobbed. (yeah, yeah, i know, "but you always cry in yoga class, don't you spring?") i didn't know why i was crying last week though until the end of class. i realized that i was much better at feeling the crap i don't want to feel now... but i think those tears were mourning all of the years i spent avoiding my feelings; of listening to my crazy-mind and DOING and THINKING things to actively avoid feeling things.

feeling things gives me the vulnerability and self-awareness to be able to give my mind that space, to let it breathe, to take a break. this is the first week of the "mindful in may" challenge that i'm doing with a few friends: we committed to meditate every day. just a few days in and i notice the difference between meditating a few times a week and doing it every day. i was afraid it would be super hard, but a few minutes a day isn't really asking that much, especially now that my mind isn't quite so cray cray with its to-do lists.

so, included on today's revised to-do list?
1. relinquish a little more control,
2. let go of a little more,
3. align a little more with my dream-self,
4. experience THIS moment more fully.

oh, yeah, and...
5. breathe in.
6. breathe out.
7. breathe in.
8. breathe out.

yeah, that feels doable.

Balancing Truths

Balancing on the mat is difficult. There's swaying, adjusting, twitching, and, sometimes, falling. And when I fall, I tell myself, "it's ok... get back up and try again!"

I've learned to do the same thing in my life, which is usually a good thing. But sometimes, my "there's always tomorrow!" optimism can be a downfall. Like when I use it to rationalize my way into doing something destructive.

Have you ever been optimistically destructive? It can be as simple as having a piece of cake instead of some fruit by telling yourself that you'll go back to eating healthy tomorrow. Or it can be a little more destructive.

I'm really good at sabotaging my good intentions by optimism (it sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it?). The really hard part is being honest enough with yourself to recognize the difference between optimism and optimistic destruction. Being honest with myself is harder than the balancing, and no one can really help me do it. Like everything else, I just need to practice.

One way I practice being honest with myself, though I didn't realize it until I really thought about it, is through yoga. Noticing feelings, whether they are physical or emotional, and deciding what I need to do with the feelings on a moment-to-moment basis, as part of being present during my yoga practice, is teaching me to recognize what I'm feeling and notice how I'm responding off the mat.

Now here's the really scary part... where I bare my experience. Tonight I really wanted to engage in my own special destructive tendencies--binging and purging. It's been a while since I've done it, and my partner was out having dinner with a friend tonight--which meant a few hours to myself this evening. First I wavered in the balancing: walking through the grocery store I picked up and then put down three different items that I thought about buying to take home to eat and throw up. Next, I played games: if I call Billy and he knows I'm thinking about it, then I won't do it because he'll be looking for the signs when he gets home. I also played the optimistically destructive card: "what's one more time; I won't do it for another few months afterward." Then still wavering, I took a long shower to delay my choice.

In the shower I thought about what I was doing, and I practiced being present and identifying what was really going on. I recognized the urge I was feeling as well as the optimistic destruction tendencies I was engaging in. I felt really uncomfortable with the urge, uncomfortable with the responses, and uncomfortable with being forced to make a decision. I felt like I'd lose if I binged and purged, but I'd also lose if I didn't fulfill the urge.

Then I realized that what I really wanted to do was get rid of all of the discomfort.

And, so, finally, I sat myself down in front of the computer to purge some emotions and balance the scales. And here we are. Do I feel comfortable now? Yes and no. I'm certainly standing back on two feet... but I've also exposed more than I typically like to. ...What I feel best about is the moment where I allowed myself to be fully present and honestly assess where I was and what I was feeling. Hey, it's practice.

Adapting to Extremes

Some weeks are crazy: exciting, stressful, emotional, upsetting, or busy... and some weeks are all of those things. This week was one of those weeks. The week began amazingly: On the weekend I went to an awesome Anusara yoga workshop with John Friend; went on an beautiful beach walk with a good friend; got "free hugs" from adorable young boys on the beach; and came home tired on Sunday night to dinner cooked by my husband. My heart was as stuffed as full as it could get.

Then there was Monday. Obama announced to the world that bin Laden was dead. My entire self felt full. But I wasn't really able to define the feeling--it was confusion about all of the responses I was feeling, a nagging reminder that bin Laden was not the entire anti-American movement, mixed with some sadness for the lost of a human life. Whatever feeling that might be called, it didn't feel good. And watching American reactions from Australia, as well as being one of the only Americans in my workplace and fitness environments, I felt extreme pressure to comment on the whole situation and to respond to the numerous questions I received.

The rest of the week seemed to follow the same pattern--intense highs and lows with tremendous levels of stress on top of the other extremes, with an injury thrown in for good measure. Maintaining my sanity throughout the week seemed to be secondary to just making it through the week at times. I felt proud of myself for making the small windows of time to get on my mat, but I also felt frustrated and unbalanced. My yoga practice was minimized to gentle yoga for short stretches of time to compensate for both the injury and the minimal time I had to devote to it this week.

I think that was the key to the "success" of making it through the week, though: adaptation. Even though it was, at times, unwilling adaptation, I adapted. And that's something we all have to continue to do: grow, change, accept, repeat.

On the Saturday ending this week of extremes, I woke up exhausted and unwilling to try to do anything. I didn't want to work, play, relax, or be. But I did a little hard-work-adapting, made it through Saturday, and on to a Sunday filled with love. Today (Sunday) I reconnected with an old friend: we met in a park and then came across a Buddhist festival where we created lotus lanterns out of paper. After we finished gluing the paper petals on the paper base, we were invited to write a wish on a piece of paper and to hang it from the bottom of the lantern.

Putting together the layers of the lotus lantern with my dear friend felt like the perfect ending to my extreme week. I think my lotus lantern wish will be for continual, but perhaps slightly easier, adaptation. And I'm manifesting it out to the rest of you--I wish that your adaptation is also continuous and that you are accepting of the changes you experience. That's a hard sentiment to fit on my slip of paper attached to my lantern, though, so I'm writing and wishing it here. x

Moderating and Transforming Intensity

Bad things happen; bad things can make us feel like sh*t; shitty feelings can be very intense. And you know what? Those feelings can be very, very UNcomfortable.

So what do we do with intense uncomfortable feelings? I meditated about this earlier this week after my mind felt unable to deal with some seemingly unreasonable anger. After meditation and then an intense, forceful asana practice, I came to the conclusion that yoga has an important lesson about this: moderate the intensity to turn the intensity around!

Pushing too hard in asana practice counteracts the surrender that is necessary in some part of the pose. But we can moderate the push that we feel the need to force out into the world. Energy is energy, but energy can move and change. Just as in asana, the flow of energy can support us or work against us; that energy working against us is the same energy that supports us. If we want to transform negative emotional energy, we can sit with it, experience it, and offer ourselves compassion and love. As we offer compassion toward our negativity, we find the power of transforming it. And the more we practice the transformation, we can turn that intense negativity into intense positivity--joy, love, compassion, and kindness. INTENSE joy, love, compassion, and kindness!

It sounds kinda simple and easy, and also kinda ridiculous. Which might be why I like it. I think, "yeah, that makes sense" while simultaneously thinking "that is incredibly impossible." But if you find that you can believe the first half of the statement, even a little, then your mind is open enough for it to work. Practice the transformation of energy on the mat, and find it ripple through your life.

I took that anger and transformed it, flipped it, and experienced some lovingkindness. It wasn't quite as intense as the anger was, but I know I've got more time to keep practicing. Which is a little more positivity.