A Sip of Grace for you,A Sip Grace for me.....

Sometimes we aren’t really sure what we are recovering from or what we desire so that we can recover. In my work I notice that we have desires and most of can say those desires are to be loved, be seen, be heard, can I take a breath, I need rest, peace, I want sex, intimacy, safety and good food for my children, time, love myself, surrender, the voices to stop, to feel alive…

We are recovering from the desires we ignore.. we are recovering from the knowing that we know..

When I started my recovery it started like this.. I was 22 with 2 kids 13 months and 2.5 years old. My husband found out I had an affair, it devastated him, it hurt him, it hurt my kids, it hurt me, it hurt my life.. everything blew up, my life, I was a stay at home Mom, and I had a nice life, I drove a mini-van. At 22 that is not a nice life. It was a green dodge mini-van. I had crackers, and sippy cups, and car seats. I weighed 100 lbs soaking wet. I desperately wanted to stop coming home to the noise, to Enya playing in the background, to figuring out dinners every night, bedtimes and stories, and sleep through night routines that had you up all night sleeping by the door. I desired hot sex, dinners, adventures, and deep conversations. I wanted to travel, I wanted to explore, I wanted connection, and I wanted to be loved and seen. My affair gave me all of that and a lot of pain. It gave me the hotness that I desired but that was about it. My husband was left devastated and my children were left with the ghost of our pain. I was left with me. All of me. My husband frequently would share he could’t wait to tell the kids. I told the kids eventually. I believe in owning our own stories and it’s for us to tell our stories.

Our recovery starts with retracing our knowing. Retracing the first time we stopped listening to our knowing. Our knowing stops when we stop trusting our knowing. My knowing told me marrying someone at the young age would not end pretty, my knowing knew that an affair was a band-aid on my soul. What I knew was I was grieving the loss of listening, knowing, feeling, seeing, and hearing my body, my soul.

The ghost that haunted my kids and still does is a ghost we share. We openly share what occurred, how and why, and we share in the knowing. What we share now is to listen to our knowing. When we silently suffer and ignore our knowing all of our desires get pushed out into unhealed coping mechanisms that are projected onto others. I don’t regret any of it.Hurt people hurt people. Relationships aren’t one way streets or cul-de-sac’s. I fucked up more after that, and some more, and each time it has deepened my awareness to my knowing, to my trust of myself and to a deeper love, and connection within me. We must own our desire's, we must own our knowing. Self-Forgiveness is a forever journey that ebbs and flows, and deepens. It is a sip of grace for you, and a sip grace for me.

Grace, Peace, and Love,

J