Joy Based Living

Last night, a friend of mine who was feeling GREAT just a few days ago emailed to let me know she was feeling DOWN in the dumps. It was very late, so I asked her if she’d like me to send her some poems/vignettes I’d written recently. She welcomed the idea and afterwards she let me know that the poems had lifted her spirits.

I also reminded her that she was probably rebounding due to having just taken a very positive leap-of-faith type of risk in her life. I reminded her about the negative-feeling-crappy-response (which is strangely predictable), which is called The Contrast Place. Her response to reading it: Right On!

So… this post is for you. Especially if you’re stretching your boundaries into greater joy and you’re bumping into darkness of any kind. Kudos!

– – – – – – – –

Trust

Trust the fullness
of sunshine
in your body
to eliminate
the black clouds
in your brain.

– – – – – – – –

A narcissist left the room
and a black cloud was left behind.

– – – – – – – –

Black Cloud

gaslighting says:

i’m not important
what’s the point
i don’t matter
no one needs me anyway

depression responds:

i don’t care
don’t bother
i can’t

– – – – – – – –

Knives and swords can’t make a black cloud go away.

What can?

Either it rains itself out.
Or sunshine evaporates it.

– – – – – – – –

Home

Narcissists love it when you feel empty.
Then they can swoop in and make themselves feel needed
by offering you their most eloquent version of their false selves.
Puffing up their grandiosity
to supply themselves with the ego boost they need
to survive.

The price is steep.

Home,
true home,
is not feeling empty or incomplete.

Home is the essence of self-care,
Home is
Inner wholeness.
Home is
Feeling heard and seen and welcomed,
As is.

Sunshine, as self-care, is the best black cloud eliminator.

Pseudo-fillers don’t work. They leave you feeling empty.
And the black cloud remains.

Sunshine, as self-care, is the best black cloud eliminator.

– – – – – – – –

Healing

Narcissists find black clouds everywhere they go
because it’s how they feel inside.
And if they don’t find them,
they generate them.
(For those of you who are new to this conversation
a narcissist’s repressed shame is their black cloud,
their empty inner void,
which automatically gets projected
onto everything and everyone they see.
It’s the source of their doom and gloom.
It’s contagious. Especially to those who’ve danced with them before.)

I, on the other hand, was the person who would and could find
sunshine
everywhere.
But, I came to discover, this was not the true me.
I kept myself too innocent, naive, young, vulnerable, open.
Compulsively using a survival strategy that required me to
deny or ignore or repress or justify:
a) the narcissist’s behavior
b) my true needs, feelings, desires.

Then, during the healing process,
I experienced the counter opposite.

I began seeing black clouds everywhere.
The projections of darkness wouldn’t stop.
I had ingested them long ago.
And now they were coming out.
I lost my energy and appetite and positivity.
I stopped recognizing myself.
That was the scariest part.

They say that what goes up must come down;
Maybe it’s also true that what goes in must come out.

– – – – – – – –

Reality

Now,
I don’t try to find sunshine everywhere.
Or black clouds.

I am falling in love with
REALITY.

Seeing people for who they are
and what they choose to show me
and who they choose to be.

– – – – – – – –

Sunshine

I’m learning that the
the sunshine in me
IS my
power.

But it’s no longer to be used as a survival tool
to give away
to the neediest bidder.

It’s who I am.

It’s for me to share
with discernment
and wisdom
with those who will shine their
true radiance
back at me.

Others
who see me
and accept me
and hold me in their hearts
exactly
as I am.

With love.

A dance
of
Reciprocity.

– – – – – – – –

I celebrate the sunshine
that’s in me
I bask in it
and dance among
the stars.

– – – – – – – –

January 10, 2018

– – – – – – – –

there is sunshine in my belly
glowing
laughing
radiating light

there is laughter in my heart
giggles
jiggles
snorts
and roars
emerging

there is soul in my thighs
carrying
walking
moving
forward

there are the softest feathers in my soles
lifting
tickling
floating me up

I breathe in
and out

my mind feels
clear
empty
open

my spine lengthens
taller
relaxed
ready
easy

– – – – – – – –

Jan 10 2018