Taking the Leap in Italy Part One

Before leaving to Sicily, I really had no idea that I could actually take this kind of trip. I wasn't sure if my body could handle it, if I could handle being away from home this long.

Between the fibromyalgia, chronic back pain, and other health issues plus a hernia that recently became much bigger and more uncomfortable, I really didn't think I could do it. 

My body though is holding up very well. I have the usual aches and pains but nothing that I can't handle.  I even made it through a very physically brutal week in Rome.

Now that I'm here I am so grateful I took the chance.

I am so happy I planned for 43 days here. Today is day 18 and I feel like I have lived many lives since arriving here. 

I traveled 4562 miles, to get here, I've visited gorgeous Sicilian towns, I spent 5 days in Rome and have painted 5 paintings so far.  I'm with what I would call "family" and so I feel very held and safe. I am still pushing edges, going way beyond my comfort zone. I'm telling you this because I really want you to know that if there is something you want to do and you are just not sure how you will do it, start planning it anyway. Think about it, dream about it, write it down, say it out loud, get ready. You don't have to know how. If I made this happen, you can make whatever is in your heart happen.

Just believe and expect it to come into being and eventually it will.

I had no idea how I would do on the flight, how I would pay for this trip, how I would do here physically and emotionally. I could not wrap my brain around it. But the money has shown up when I needed it, I made it through that long flight and my body has truly held me in all this. It's really been such a gift.

I feel beyond grateful.

So back to Italy...it is just so beautiful here!! 

 Every door, window and alley dripping with beauty.

The food is amazing. The gelato is to die for.

The art, the sculptures, the architecture are out of this world.

If you are Facebook you may have seen my regular daily updates, video clips, and pics of my travels.

Here are some pics and highlights of my first two weeks here and my absolute favorite parts of the experience so far.

Thank you for being here!

Windows!

Doors

The food is amaazing!!

A street in Siracusa, Sicily

I am so inspired!

These are my first two paintings, Viola and Porta de Sogni (sold)

Laviana: Woman of Rome

My third painting Porta alla Speranza   (available)

The art is stunning!

The sculptures are just dripping with beauty and emotion.

The buildings and structures are out of this world.

And I feel like a giggly school girl on the trip of a lifetime.

Being a Woman of Color and Charleston

 I know that racism is a loaded subject but what happened in Charleston deeply affected me as a woman of color and a human being. I shared this on Facebook, but I realize many of you on my list are not on Facebook, so I am re-sharing here.

I painted this painting a few days after the Charleston Massacre. I was deeply affected by what happened and spent much of the days following, crying, listening to the Color of Fear on Youtube and painting this painting. It was my way processing my feelings.  Afterwards I just didn't have any more words.

I included the 9 figures of those who were killed and one figure for the survivors who must be so traumatized and devastated to have been there during this massacre. And then the little girl was mentioned to me a week later and I knew I had to include her, facing out and looking at you when you look at the painting. For me she completed the piece.

This is what I shared on Facebook and I share it with all of you because speaking my truth is absolutely essential to my health, and my well being and if I'm going to share the journey with you, my journey, then I must be honest about all parts of the journey not just the joy, and excitement, but the loss and grief, and the feelings of feeling like "other".

From my FB status:

As a woman of color I am heartbroken. I don't have a lot of words to say, in fact I have purposely refrained from talking about the stories of brutality and injustice not because I don't care, but because I really am trying to absorb it all. I am trying to process it and there is no processing it.

I have friends from all races and I love all of them AND not BUT, inequality and racism exists.

There is no doubt in my mind and I myself having lived in predominantly white neighborhoods since my twenties, have experienced numerous occasions of being followed in stores, being asked to put my bag behind the counter and then seeing that no one else in the dressing room was asked to do the same, I've been approached by a manager at a buffet table and asked if I had paid for the buffet when he could have easily checked with my waiter.

I am often the minority in many of my circles throughout the years. It is something that I notice, and can't help but notice. I have been accepted and loved in many of my circles but it feels sad to me when I attend a retreat or art workshop and am the only person of color. It is interesting and curious to me when my ethnic girls do not sell as much as my other girls.

I notice and I feel it.

These are such MINOR incidents but they tell a story, they reflect the rejection of color as other. It is devastating to know that lives are being lost because of this rejection, this hatred and fear of "other". We are not "other". We are all human. And of course most of the people on my FB feed know this, but not everyone gets this as evidenced by the disparate treatment of people of color.

I must admit I have been afraid to speak up because the last thing I want to do is alienate the beautiful people I have come to know here. But being silent does not educate, being silent perpetuates the myth that racism is exaggerated or the myriad of myths I am witnessing of threads on this issue. I can't be silent anymore.

And if we love each other then having hard conversations is a gift we give to one another and if something pains you I want to know and I would hope that you would want to know when something pains me. Having these conversations is really about being human and wanting the best for your fellow man.

Saying Yes to My Body Again and Again

Every time I work on connecting with my body, nurturing it and practicing body love through food and movement, I feel like I'm approaching it from a deeper angle than I have before.

In the early years it was about recognizing I even had a body after spending my formative years outside of my body to cope with the trauma.

I spent a lot of years on the run from my body. For years it kept calling me back with various ailments and dis-ease. It still calls me back when I don't listen.

I limited myself greatly for years, believing that my body just couldn't do certain things.

So when I really started living from my yes, it was my body that I first said YES to.  That first year and half of my yes journey was all about saying yes to my body and seeing what it could do. I needed to bust the limiting beliefs I had about how much I could do physically and I did. I now know my body is capable of more than I originally believed it was capable of.

I do still have my limitations physically due to several surgeries and health issues, but for the most part, I shattered those old beliefs and experienced a physical and mental vibrancy I had never experienced before.

My connection started to slip about 8 months ago and I found myself checking out once again with my old trusty way of numbing out...food, particularly the sugar and salt cycle. But even checking out this time was different. You can never really backslide the same way again, once you have experienced growth.  You just aren't the same person backsliding and so I still thought about my body, and longed to find my way back again.

This time I'm entering into the next Journey of YES, on June 1st, saying yes to my body again.

I've already begun saying yes, juicing again, listening and paying attention, trying to move more by taking walks, eating greens every day and just eating better in general.

It took a recent health scare for me to really feel how much I value this body even with all it's tender, wobbly and chubby parts. Even with the daily chronic pain and discomfort. Even with the thoughts and feelings around being not good enough.  I love this body.

It has done the best it can do with what I have put in it. It has tried to let me know time and time again, that it needs more nutrients, that it needs to move.

It has broken down on me when it could not take the weight of my abuse with food and my negative self talk.

It's done its very best to stay alive.

I love this body more than ever now.

I'm going to Italy in this body! The one I never thought could take a long trip without completely falling apart. And hey it may fall apart for a few days, but this BODY is going to Italy and that is huge.

And yes some days I'm going to eat something that may not be the best for it, but for the most part I can work on being more loving and nurturing toward it.

I can give it vibrant and whole food.

I can listen.

I can move.

I can practice my endless gratitude for it.

I can return again and again when I leave it.

I will be here again, just not the same. I'll say yes again and again because reclaiming of my body is an integral part of healing the way I entered and was received by the world as a little girl.

While it was the portal through which severe abuse occurred at the hands of my mother and several men, it does not have to continue to pay that price.

It deserves my love, my attention, my tender loving care.

It deserves, I deserve healing and restoration. 

What are the ways you leave your body and how might you return to it? Why do YOU leave your body?

A Recent Health Scare

Life kind of came to a crashing halt for a few days this week when I found a lump in my breast on Mother's Day.  For three days I imagined what I would do if I indeed did have cancer.

It was by far the scariest three to four days I've experienced as I waited to get my mammogram and ultrasound on Wednesday.

Here is a short video I took in days leading up to the mammo. I haven't shared it with anyone till today but if this scare helps someone be more mindful and in tune with their bodies then it's worth it. 

Being in this place of facing my own mortality really put a lot of things in perspective and made me zoom in on a few things in my life that perhaps may not have been in focus before, such as people I still need to forgive and ways I've checked out of my body and how I would like to nurture my body more through food and movement. While this is something I've been working on for a few years now, nothing like a health scare to put things into complete perspective. 

On Wednesday, I went in for my mammogram and ultrasound. 

It turned out that it was an enlarged cyst.

I literally just broke down, crying of relief, when the ultrasound technician told me not to worry, that it was just a cyst.

As strong as the feeling was of terror for those few days, so was the feeling of gratitude for my life on Wednesday as I walked home from the hospital. I felt like I was given my life back.

I realize not everyone gets to walk away relieved after a mammogram and many must face their own mortality and the painful journey of trying to beat cancer and live. For those of you who have been through the real deal, I send you massive love and respect. No one really knows what it's like for you unless they have been there. I merely got a taste of it, but I don't really know what it's like.

It's Sunday, one week later and I am still trying to find my center again. Self care has been ramped up to more exquisite self care. I've been eating healthier, acknowledging my feelings more, even went in for a foot reflexology appointment and have been paying really close attention to my body which is what it was craving all along.

The truth is I know I'm under a lot of stress with moving from my apartment and going on a trip to Italy (oh yes, did I tell you I am going to Italy for 43 days??). I am feeling the pressure though and trying to find ways of easing it, including perhaps not moving right before my trip.

Time will tell and I am focusing on getting clearer and receiving ease in all decisions that I make.

The ironic thing is, eating healthier and moving more, really does bring more clarity.

Lots of sugar and carbs and the resulting mood swings, really makes things fuzzy for this brain of mine. I'm learning to listen and get quiet enough to hear and the body is such an integral part of that.

The temple needs to be clear of debris and static for the truth to arise. I'm learning this big time right now.

Thank you for all the prayers on Facebook, for the private messages and love you all sent my way.

---

Next journey begins June 1st.

This 4 week course is about practicing living your yes, living inside of it, becoming it, learning how to tune into it, how to identify what your yes energy is and feels like, what blocks it, what sets it free, and ultimately harnessing its power.

For more information visit the registration page here.

The Flipside of Motherhood

From Healing the Mother Wound

This is a repost of a blog post I wrote the day before Mother's Day in 2011.

I know many of you struggle on Mother's Day.

For me, Mother's Day, is a wonderful celebration of being a mother mixed with the sadness and anger of having a mother that could not love me in the ways I deserved to be loved.

And on this day as well as other days when I least expect it, the young child in me grieves for the loss of her mother.

This is for all the women who have experienced painful mothering, may you find a way to mother and nurture the inner little girl within you.

The Flip Side of Motherhood

Saturday, May 7th, 2011 at 5:27 pm

This post is for the many mothers I know who had toxic, abusive, painful mothering as children.  I know many of you personally and I am one of you. I am also a mother and I celebrate that beautiful fact and am eternally grateful for being graced with this amazing being who came through me. 

So tomorrow will be bittersweet as I allow myself to be celebrated and celebrate the mothers around me, and also sit with the pain of not having been mothered.

I see all the tributes on Facebook, my Fb family putting pics of their moms as their profile pic and the many statuses reading: I love you Mom, or some other wonderful sentiment.  As per my usual modus operandi, I was seeing, but not seeing, reading but grazing over what I may be feeling, going so swiftly through, that I never gave myself the chance to acknowledge what I was feeling.

And so today, I allowed myself to stop and feel. And what came to me is this sadness about my own mother and this feeling of being on the outside looking in.  It is also came to me that not everyone is celebrating their mothers tomorrow or may have some really mixed emotions about celebrating their mothers. Some of you may be feeling exactly like me.

So here is what I am feeling today, the day before Mother’s Day. 

For me there is this great sense of loss even though my mother is alive. There is this sadness, that I barely felt the warmth of my mother’s touch. Tears come, right in this moment as I write this, the longing still soft and tender.  Touch, the idea of it, the longing for it, the gaping hole left by the absence of it, and the ambiguity that reams in and out because of my undeniable experience of it as toxic…all just makes me want to cry.

Today on the day before Mother’s Day, I grieve for the little girl who did not have the powerful mirror of MOTHER, staring back at her with love, joy, encouragement and admiration. I grieve for the little girl who encountered cruelty and violence in the eyes of her mother and felt unsafe in her world and feared living another day. I allow myself to see that what I experienced was not mothering, I let myself feel the space that was left by my mother’s inability to nurture me. 

There is a part of me that longs for mothering still. 

Today I allow the space for this longing, and the sadness, lest it spill sideways.  I breathe, and cry, and breathe, and cry some more and move through, and each time I do, I am healing by filling the space with the love and compassion I so desperately needed then.

I know there will always be a corner of sadness for the mother I had, and the mother she had and the line of dysfunction which kept us all from fully loving.  I am saddened by this generational rage, this wall, this fear that made its way into all of our lives, keeping us from the greatest gift of all…to fully embrace ourselves as mothers and to love and protect our children fully.

And yet there is a joy for me and I hope for you, that we did better, whether it was to choose not to have children, or to love the ones we had in a different way, we are not our mothers.

Tomorrow is our day to be celebrated as mothers and to celebrate the mothers around us. We can have our truth and not be overwhelmed by it. We can take care of our beautiful selves, take time to mother ourselves, allow ourselves to be nurtured and loved by others. We can make space for the grief. 

We can give ourselves what we needed then and find safe and supportive people who will serve as healthy mirrors.  We are capable of standing in all of it with power and grace, even if sometimes it means we crawl under the covers to stand in it.  When we resist, and suppress, we suffer. But when we move through, we move through to the other side, and each time, there is a healing.  Each time we move through, we heal another piece of the broken child and make space for love and joy to come in and wrap its loving arms around her/him, lifting her back up with dignity.

Holding you in my heart.

Lovingly,
Stephanie

Awakening

I wrote this in March of 2014. I'm revisiting the deep truth in it today. I hope it is helpful to some of you who are struggling to "be here".

I have felt an amazing awakening in my life, but it did not come without some periods of  deep unconsciousness (being asleep at the wheel of my life), being so far into my pain that I could not fully experience love or life fully.

I've been there, more times than I have been in this beautifully alive place.

I still visit that painful place now and again but I am now becoming way too anchored in the truth of my life and the visits into pain are less intense and do not seem as true anymore if that makes sense.

This poem is about the transition from not wanting to be here to fully being here. It is very raw and personal, but I know from experience that sharing myself in this way is both healing for me and for so many others and that is what continually opens me to sharing my journey with you.  I'm including the written poem as well as a video of me reading it.

Awakening

I’ve always had one foot in one life,

And the other in the after life.

I remember carrying the

Endless screams of wounding,

like badges of honor

like proof that I had suffered enough

that I deserved better,

I had done my time.

Anything had to be better than this.

I didn’t want to be here but I clung nonetheless, cause quitters suck.

And I was not a quitter.

Walking in two worlds makes for a weary life

Non committal

Always having “maybe” at the tip of my tongue

Looking then looking away

Seeking then shutting it down

Hopeful then hopeless

There were times when I convinced myself

That my time here was up

And I found extreme comfort in it

I didn’t awaken in one moment,

things did not become clear,

in one shining miraculous moment of self realization.

My awakening was a slow burn,

it still burns

 But somewhere there were a string of moments,

When I decided to be more here than there

I remember the moments

When I recognized the

Deliciousness of this life

how precious

Tangible

Messy

And Beyond Lovely

This life can be

I remember the brief yet undeniable moments when I chose this life over the other.

 The moments when I understood that the afterlife could not match this. here. life.

Where love just explodes in your heart

Where being human held such delicious tangibility and possibility

Where one can heal, change, transform and awaken

And feel it deep in your bones

How sweet awakening is…

How alive and vibrant it is to open

After being closed

To feel love again after feeling broken

To feel the touch of another

After living protected and untouched

How sweet it is

to remember who we are

Never will there be such delicious contrast

It is reserved only for this realm.

I remember when I decided to live

And being here was much cooler than being

dead.

Here is a video of me reading my poem Awakening set to images of my art