Change and new orientation and other blessings

I feel lately some changes stirring in me. Right now I'm sat outside and it's the most beautiful day. All I can hear inside the house is relentless footsteps... I see she's task orientated again, as per usual. And that's the thing that has changed for me. As much as my gut feels a little knotted to be in close proximity with her right now, the changes have reached a high point in the fact that I no longer want to chase after her coattails. Before I felt like I 'had to' run myself ragged after her. I had to throw everything, every minute of the day into helping her. One of the most painful memories I had leaving here was the complete lack of respect she had for me, the disdain- and then even more painful was realizing it had left me with some pretty severe conditioned emotional responses. Through some work which sadly I never finished at CODA- I realized that I was trying to 'fix' it- and I was so fearful of the angry response I would get that I bowed and relented constantly. I had no boundaries.

Now, just for the seven months of leaving and forging my own time- I felt at peace with being able to imagine possibilities with my day- the things I could do, if I would choose to do those things alone or to be around people. I discovered fun. I discovered beautiful things- and freedom. Which- coming back here, I mourned because I was sure- that's it. It's over. My life is over. I'm back at living in servitude.
But I didn't bank on how that time on my own had fundamentally changed me. All of a sudden I've been restless. Before it would have been 'enough' even though I was slowly losing the will to live. But now I WANT to live. For myself. And while I can hear the footsteps inside, the swearing, the guilt tripping and manipulation 'I'll do it myself then, I always do.' I'm refusing it. I had felt like it was a bad thing to do nothing. That it was frivolous to want to go out and spend time around people. Because that was what I was made to feel- that it's important to be of service. Now I see it's not. My best friend joked and called me Cinderella the other day, and it's finally a relief to see that other people see too- that this way of living is wrong. So over the weeks I've started to very little by little- get out. On my own. I've been to the pub and spoken to people and to my surprise realized that I am not as socially inept as I've always been told I have been, and always felt I was. I do have people that care about me in my life now, that value me. As much as they are few, the whole experience of being 'out' of that tiny sliver of pie that was my life has shown me that it's the best thing to aspire. Not just for success but to ask the question- how do I WANT to live?
It's been so important for me to live how other people- these people in my past- wanted me to live. They wanted me to be nothing. They wanted me to be their beating board, they felt comfortable and entitled to sound off at me, blame me, project on to me, and abuse. And I was miserable. And now it's done because I can feel the peace now in just pleasing myself. Just being okay with deciding that 'enough is enough' and that I can be okay with relaxing. And if she in particular wants to stress, and run around and not take herself into consideration- its not my problem. I'd felt like that was selfish before, but now I understand how guilt ridden I was. Truth be told I felt guilt ridden for merely existing. This is why- I've held the bonds of dysfunction and let them beat me down, and then just by my admission that it must be my fault- rather than accepting it is their own behaviour- I've been saying 'more please' to more punishment.
And now- I see that it's equally important to let people own their own behaviour. The saying- 'you didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it.' is ringing in my ears.
I have changed. As much as I am not massively comfortable with the anger and now response that comes with seeing, noticing and accepting that I have been treated disrespectfully, badly and wrongly- I at least now know positively that I am coming somewhere near my own. Because now I'm important. And this assertion feels like its been waiting for me a very long time.

Gifts in unexpected forms...

There are times when I feel truly alone with myself and times that it eats at me. I've asked for help a lot over the past few days and my goodness... Has the Universe made its presence felt! And often times today in the most hilarious metaphors and just a new sense of something stronger entering my life.
I walked today again, even though I ache to my bones for it, it was needed. Over the past couple of days I've been left to my own devices and to take care of myself. It almost didn't end well, or so I thought until it just proved to be a lesson. A lesson in which I understand something now.
I had a late breakfast with a sandwich shared with the pup and an energy drink and cigarette, staring at the most beautiful view- scrub and fields and the Tor and dappled clouds, the cold wind whipping at me, singing along with Pearl Jam's  'Elderly Woman Behind The Counter'. And I was so appreciative of all of it. Because this is it- I can look after myself. My question has been over the past few days- why? Why have people felt it okay to try and oppress me? And if everyone thinks I am such a nothing-- am I ever going to be able shake that- to live independently as I crave? But the answer given was different to me was different. The answer given was- this situation where I took care of me. Where I saw again- I can do it. I have will.
And I have choice where that will goes. Do I have to be quiet and be of service- no. I'm choosing to do so when I do. All part and parcel of my people pleasing past.
I can also choose to do for me. I'm strong enough to. I see that now. In fact, the possibilities are endless.
That's what I felt walking back. To be met with an apology, which was a massive shock. Things are changing. I'm changing. The scapegoat will not exist anymore.
My question was answered. These people who oppress- who think they can control... They only matter as much in the power we give them.
The greater message to me today was- 'does it really matter?' look, I can smile quietly and step past it and I can manifest my own path.
I don't have very much, and not a great deal of love. A few but far absent. I love them always but this life will get full again. But in this alone today, I have felt the presence of love and power and thank it greatly for the synchronicities.
And for one last image- my hat was pulled low to shelter me from the wind. Walking down the main road, I was carefully trying to navigate me and the pup through the mud and hit a road sign, full in the forehead. I shook off the embarrassment and giggled... Common sense to make sure I can see above the brim but also- that I need to open my eyes (mentally and physically) to see the signs. :)

A slap in face with the wet fish of reality...

My left hand won't stop shaking and I'm feeling rather overwhelming empty and yet full of tiredness, emotion and mostly just in shock. That might explain the numbness.

Today has been a bad day. I walked through the supermarket this morning in a daze and feeling like my head had just been clouted by something. In a few ways it has. As I'm wandering around the produce staring at the apples and fruit and feeling the sense of drain and slight hunger, the familiar sound of that song. Ironic.

It's like rain on your wedding day,
It's a free ride, when you've already paid,
It's some good advice that you just didn't take
And who would have thought it figures...

Life has a funny way
of sneaking up on you
When everything's okay
And everything blows up
In your face...

And I might have found that funny for the stark truth that appears here, a short sharp shock that began with a rather literal rude awakening this morning. Everything has blown up in my face and it's an irony I'm looking at the synchronicities and thinking that someone has a really redundant sense of humour up there.
Maybe it's because I'm feeling a little fragile and a little like a joke myself. Maybe it's because I'm again at that place where I'm saying 'what the hell do I do now?' and am I- all alone???

I was thinking in the car, I don't have myself. I never have. The fundamental blocks of my life have been missing because I have zero self reliance. I have no self belief. I've tried and so far, I've failed. And those people knew it... And they treated me like some joke for it. 'oh she'll be back. She can't cope on her own.'
It's why I didn't go back for so long. I struggled and didn't eat and strove relentlessly to try and make it. Because I didn't want them to be right. I didn't want to be a joke.
They've scoffed and laughed at me behind my back, and I've let them and they've taken advantage of me, and I let them. But this scapegoat is dead.
I've heard every creatively negative, hurtful word that can be thrown my way today. And one thing rings true---
Do people who love treat and talk to others this way?

The answer is no. I'm not loved here. I left in the first place because all that existed was control and i felt completely dehumanized, and it certainly wasn't me that had any kind of life. I was scared coming back here, knowing the same might happen again and it has. Except this time the scapegoat is dead.
I know the words aren't true, they are just nasty words to try and hook me.
I know this has no basis in reality. I know I must be worth more, as a person.
Because for so long I have felt like a 'thing'... An object, nothing. And it has eaten at me to the point where I have almost felt like my life being that meaningless, what was the point in living it? But something got me through and that was- I'm not a thing.
I'm a person. I'm a woman. I'm a 5'5, 9 st, 28 year old female with grey blue eyes and dark hair. I'm corporeal. I'm intelligent, beyond low self esteem which has always been an issue, I have had achievements in my life which mean that I have a brain. I can think. I can study. I can do most of what the next person does. And I have a soul. I have a path to follow.
And thinking tonight I have seen it all come together a little more clear. I'm awake to it and that is these PEOPLE have told me and treated me as I am nothing. For their own moral stance or whatever reason they saw fit to do so. Because I am an easy target because I have never stood on my own.
And it started with him. And it ends with them.
Because this scapegoat is dead and because I will no longer submit to being dehumanized, and being treated as a joke.
Because I'm not one, I never was.
I'm Kyra. And I'm trying to get free.

Calling in the darkness

I remember rarely when I dream, and even less frequently have nightmares.
The last nightmare, before this encounter was almost a month ago now, and I could barely call it a nightmare, more of a very random, strange and messed up dream- where my estranged father was hammering nails in my head, in a bizzarre, harrowing and macabre DIY attempt at hair extensions. My mother was shrieking and saying 'you can't do that. WHY are you doing that, it's going to kill her.' In which he then protested he would remove them. I recoiled, holding my head, scared that if the nails would be removed, that I might bleed to death or that my brain might escape me through the holes in my head. Wierd? Very. A snap shot in the mind of colourful crazy! ;)
However, recalling it the next day I could put pieces in that these were real fears that my estranged father had delivered fatal emotional blows to me that in order to cope with the trauma, I had learned survival skills that may have been less healthy, and that were voicing discomfort, fear at being evolved into something else.

Last night was another encounter entirely. I would describe this as a nightmare, because it woke me from sleep with a start and an inability to rest for my flailing heart beating and for the images stuck in mind. I felt awake, which seems almost like a double reality- being awakened from slumber in a dream- and I guess this signifies my waking up... Rather a startling, rude awakening to myself.
What I saw when I awakened in my dream was an image of a boy- sandy haired, around ten years old. The boy looked dead. He had fully black eyes that seemed to be bleeding smoke, his mouth was  pouring out darkness, shadow.  And he was just there, across from me as I lay here, in this bed, sobbing, crying 'no... Oh no... Please no.' I don't know if it was exactly because the image in itself was so hellish that I really did not want to see it but also the horror that this child was dead above me... Like a loss of innocence. But the whole time there was something else... Something I couldn't see while I was quaking and terrified of the boy- a voice in the shadow. One in the dream that I was sure had caused his demise. It was screaming at me, hissing. 'You're a liar! You're a liar!'
It was then that I awoke with a start, my guts twisting in expectancy to see this same sight on opening my eyes, but there was nothing. Just the dim shapes of the furniture in my room, the moonlight casting a pale, mute glow in the window. And there was silence, no sound apart from the slumbering pup and my breathing.
I tried to turn over and catch the dream again. I wanted to enquire the screaming voice. I wanted to admit. Yes... I am a liar... I lied to myself a long time ago that the shadow doesn't exist. I lied and tried to escape the fear of facing it and last night it showed me, finally, an image I cannot ignore, erase or deny.
I may look upon it as the death of my innocence... Or rather that my shadow was showing me that my very young self had been living in the shadow for a very long time. In becoming more aware of my voice, it opened up something again that said to me that it will not be ignored. And so, I need to do more work. I need to find her... Me. I need to make her safe and give her the safety in the light she deserves and I need to acknowledge, respect and honour the wisdom of my shadow.
Because last night I met my shadow self. And it told me I need to wake up.

Renunciation of the mute button

The oddest equations can sometimes be the most freeing. For example, today and quietly reflecting and ruminating about certain situations in my life... And for a while being present with that, has been painful. And yet again though, I find tears springing to my eyes, a quiet relief. For years the notion that I would one day be relieved to feel pain would have sent me recoiling and scoffing at the idea... For the fact of being frightened to death of it- of pain. And by feeling pain and feeling relief, there is no masochism to this. I am simply stating that emotionally, it has been like blood letting- the infection that had been killing me slowly- the pain of the past- had been living in me and taking away parts of me, hiding away and smothering growth, covering it with the loudness of defense mechanisms. And it seems now... That while it hurts, it's freeing to feel it. It's okay now to bow my head and cry. It's okay to voice it to the silence in the room, to myself. It's freeing because it's one thing I have been missing. 
MY VOICE. 
I feel like I have all these years been mute and have only just learned how to open my vocal chords. And in that.... I guess the truth in a lot of ways is that emotionally, that has been the case. I have felt refused the right to speak, to lay forth boundaries, to say no, to express differing opinions, to express authentic. And truth be told that at many times in my life, and this is also painful- that I have been treated like some mindless automaton, meant to just follow orders blindly because these certain individuals (through their own inherrant issues with themselves and how they relate the world) believe me to lack any kind of sentient intelligence at all. 
I have been a ghost, I have been a drone. 
And that for me with knowledge NOW as I grow, as I start to understand a little more of my own self concept, it hurts. That I failed to have a voice then. 
But with it, there's an amazing sadness but also an amazing clarity. An amazing notion that 'oh wow. Things can be different now. Things ARE different now.' 
And they are. While I still struggle with voicing appropriately, because I am still growing into my right... It can sometimes be defiant, nascent and rebellious but I am finding those qualities, as tiresome as they are for other people, to be quite empowering and inspiring. I love those qualities, as it's quite literally, the 'little me' speaking up- finally, as it should always have been. 
But also, I am not met with the same feeling of shame that has gripped me before. There is no great anxiety over 'losing love' through acceptance of bad behaviour of others, it is simply now- bad behaviour which I have the right not to put up with. I feel more grown now. And I can smile with that, with the relief, the release, the knowing that I have come a little further on in my healing journey, but also- that as much as I have grown, I have also grown younger. That's a fantastic relief to me, that I am drawing ever closer to my little self than ever now. 

Presence

The first thing I felt as I awoke this morning was a deep knotted sensation in the pit of my gut, followed by a peripherally, distant feeling of alarm. I'm not sure what I had dreamed, but something has remained with me all day, as if someone has stepped into my shadow, shaken my subconscious and stirred my mind like the coffee grounds still twirling in my mug. It's a quiet feeling of tension, gnawing at me, tinged with anxiety and that same old fear... Of my ghost self, of passing on without ever being. And yet, with this peeking beyond the curtain of my consciousness, I have mostly found myself in a comfortable state of semi hyper awareness. Not in the sense of over awareness of social situations but more an awakened, mindful state that has lapsed between the drowsy,melancholy feeling that has jabbed its way into my diaphragm today. I have noticed much... The foggy, dense overhang and the cold biting at my thumbs and nose, the invading smell of ginger on low boil and how much it resembles incense... The smell of home cooking, heart and home. The swans, cooing as they flew above me. The smell of bonfire, and winter and fresh air. The sound of heavy, pelting rain on my roof... And how good it feels to be listening to it. Today I feel again, that although I may not understand the lingering fragments of feeling that are stirring in me, I will understand it in time. And what it has given to me today... From the minute of awake is a freedom that has permitted me to loose the reigns that hold me captive to my mind, my thoughts, my ego.. and that free me to be and breathe a little gentler and just for a little while, to walk in step with my Higher Self. I'm starting to look up again... I thank that feeling today for its gift of quiet presence. 

Flown blind and perplexing unknowns

I haven't blogged for quite some time. Needless to say, much has happened in my life since I last came here... I've come full circle.
And I'm still working out whether that seems to be a good thing, or a bad thing. Either way, what transpired has humbled me. It has changed me.

My inner work is never ceasing. Whether or not I hear it, it continues to work through me, ticking
 away, grinding in my solar plexus and at times gently simmering on the bottom like fine sediment lifting, dredging up old remains.
I still don't know what it all means, and maybe that's the beauty of it all. I will never know. The minute I get some semblance of understanding, something comes before me again so I see the puzzle is even more intricate, even more mysterious, and is a constant challenge to my thinking. I feel like I have a hand before my eyes, making me blind to strengthen my peripheral understanding. I know... I know that I am so young still. I have so much to know still.

Tonight I feel quiet... Rather perplexed, a little mournful. But rather inspired by the depths of where this karmic residue might take me. Where the pain lies within me...should I look upon its true face what transformation might begin within me. I don't know how much continental drift has taken place. I do not know how far I have shifted.

Today has felt like a quiet test, where I have bitten at certain points but I have become still again. I've been trying to work out what I am feeling, what has been missing- where the loneliness has gathered in and filled me- the unease, the dissatisfaction, the 'should' thinking has caught me in this place since I moved. And tonight there is a feeling of familiarity... Not of the sense of incessant chatter and wavering dysphoria but that of connectedness. To something else. I've been staring out into the silent white landscape with only my thoughts. And the moon hides between a smoky shield of cloud where only a dusky sliver of light is cast on the irredescent carpet that covers everything. I've been thinking- that in waiting I am wasting away, silently, quietly and again, alone. But now- I see that I am merely again- awakening. I'm looking on the reflection of my inner workings and seeing it with a knowledge that I have something new to discover. Something old to uncover. And I'm connected again to the wonder of the voice that speaks to me, that connectedness to all and everything, every atom and every part of the earth and sky. I'm waiting for it to reveal itself again... And I'm becoming new again, rather than a ghost of what I was.