“Who is Jesus?” Over Coffee

As the years and the days go on, I find myself longing for Jesus more and more, but equally unsure of who exactly he is. I just wrote a whole book about it, but somehow I still don’t know. 

If I don’t believe I was born stained, dirty, sinful, then what significance does salvation hold for me? If I don’t believe in original sin, but maybe even original blessing, how do I view salvation as a return? As a return to true union and relationship with God. As a remembrance of my membership in all that is God. As a reminder that I am loved and I am whole?

Does Jesus save? The footprints of my ancestors on my soul scream “yes!”. So what does

Jesus save from? Who does Jesus save from? Where does Jesus save from? Hell? What is that? Who’s going and who is already there?

Is Jesus really the God of the oppressed? Is he saving us from our oppressors? Is he saving us from the sins of white supremacy and all the other ills we are oppressed by? When? How?

I still love him. I don’t even believe in atonement theory anymore, but oh how I love the blood of Jesus. Oh how the hymns still wreck me. Oh how I want relationship with this God-man forever. How I choose him. How I love him. 

Is him being a teacher, a mentor, a revolutionary, a beloved ancestor sufficient? Am I okay if I don’t need a man to save me from hell? Am I okay if I don’t believe I deserve hell even in all my gayness, my blackness,  my otherness? Am I okay with believing that I am inherently okay?

All roads lead back to Jesus even when I’m not always sure what that means.

The Giraffe That Was

Last time I wrote, I wrote about the concept of “enough” eluding me. How I always feel like I am at “too much’’or “too little”, but never landing at just “enough”.

Well, I think I found “enough” in the bush this weekend.

I saw a giraffe. 

I was driving through the bush in my old banged up station wagon. A park ranger was sitting in front with me, an 18 year old adventurer sat in the back, and then I saw it. So I stopped.

I stopped.

The giraffe did something so majestic, something that feels so out of reach for me. It just was. It was just in a state of being. 

It wasn’t being depressed. It wasn’t being anxious. It wasn’t being happy. It was just, being.

I want to be. 

I want my kids to say about me when I’m gone “Mama was”. And even now that “Mama is”.

I want to be.

I think I get really distracted and over invested in being things. Being well. Being sick. Being good. Being productive. Being, things. 

But the giraffe….

May I simply exist as I am 

May onlookers drive by and look at me in wonder and say “she is”.

And may that be

Enough.

Enough?

I’ve been journaling a lot lately. And that’s been nice. But today I felt I needed to sit at my computer and click clack my thoughts and feelings away. I felt like I needed to step into the vulnerability that comes with the possibility that someone might actually read this, as well as the hope that maybe someone might relate. 

I’m in Kilifi, Kenya, sitting at one of my favorite restaurants that hangs above the sea and sports the most beautiful sunsets in town. The sun hasn’t started to set yet so it’s still warmly shining on me as I type. But the 5:30pm kind of shine, the soft one. Not the hot 12:30pm kind of shine that makes me want to run indoors. It’s inviting. I feel invited by the sun. As the sea gently ripples beneath me I feel invited. I feel invited by the sea. I feel invited to let her do what I seem to be unable to do right now: tear up. Cry. Let tears come out of my eyes. So I guess rippling ocean will do. 

Now, this place is swanky. It’s not a place that someone on my limited income can afford to come to on a random Thursday night. In addition to sitting and writing, I have ordered myself a glass of wine. A rose. It’s delicious. The perfect amount of fruity while still being seductively dry. I’ll probably even order another. When my heart and my hands come to a place of contentment with writing, I will close my computer and order my favorite thing on this menu: the oysters. I’ve had a bad run with seafood lately. It’s felt way too meaty and fleshy for me as a person who eats a largely vegan diet. But I ordered them because I used to love them. They bring up such fond memories of pleasure and relaxation and I need that. I need that right now. I need to love them, so I will.

I’ve been contemplating the word “enough” lately. “Enough” is so elusive to me. It’s so desirable yet unattainable. I don’t quite understand it. So I have been dancing with it, getting a little closer to it with each move. My world over the past several years has largely been very dual, very binary: Too much, or not enough. 

I haven’t arrived at the beautiful middle. 

First there is too much. 

My mental illness is too much. I have waaaayyyyyy too many children to take care of. The things I need cost too much. I have spent too much time away from family. I’ve said too much. I’ve eaten too much. I’ve overcommitted.

And then there are the people who encourage me to desire and attempt to attract what feels like “too much” in my context. The say attract a perfect mansion of a home, a huge salary, the nicest car.

Then there is not enough. 

Oh, not enough. 

That’s a big one for me. The kids and families I love don’t have enough to eat. Two different people asked me to take on their children today, but I don’t have enough. I don’t have enough emotional bandwidth. I don’t have enough space in my house. I don’t have enough money.

Where does enough lie in between the binaries?

Where is not having an extravagant mansion, but also being able to pay my rent in the home I do have? Why do I always have one or the other? Why can’t I get to enough? The middle.

Where is not being crippled by depression and anxiety, but also not needing to be constantly unsustainably high on life?

Where is having children and caring for them, but not having too many or caring too much? And why can I never get there?

I attended a Dharma of Money workshop the other day and the teacher did a meditation on enough. Thinking about, meditating on, and visualizing enough felt so deeply healing and satisfying for me. It feels like a place I so desperately need to be. But I just don’t yet know how to get there.

I started keeping track of my spending lately. I made a budget of how much money I intend to spend on each area of my life. One of the areas I am struggling to stay within budget of is my habits like this. Like feeling completely overwhelmed and coming to drown my stress in oysters and wine. 

Yesterday it was potato chips.

The day before it was fries.

Today its oysters and wine.

 I have budgeted $40 per month for my eating out and drinking and snacking, but I am consistently going way over that. I am spending almost $100 per month on these indulgences. I don’t make much money at all so that’s a lot. That’s “too much”. But when I was a 21 year old bartender living in Philadelphia I would easily spend $100 on a weekend of partying. So. was that too much? Or do I now just not have enough to sustain my (sometimes unhealthy) coping practices? What is enough? Where is it? What does it taste like? Will it ever find me?

I don’t know the answers to these questions but all I know is right now I am still stuck in the binaries. I don’t have enough money to pay for this wine and oysters, but I feel like I need it after today because today was too much. I know that a two bedroom house is sufficient for me and my family. We have been squeezing into two bedrooms for months now… but I want more. I want three bedrooms. I want to have a sea view again. I want to have enough space to entertain friends. Is that too much or have I just been living on not enough?

Growing up in America, but living in Kenya has made the whole notion of enough very confusing.

Today was a day of too much and not enough. 

I had too much responsibility, but not enough time. 

I had not enough money, but too many financial responsibilities. 

I had no more emotional capacity left, but a daughter that needed me to be strong for her.

I had too many emotions and not enough tools.

I had too many oysters and too much wine…. Or was it just enough?

Messy

I am messy.

Living as a person with schizoaffective disorder (bipolar type) means that inside my brain it’s like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder had a baby.

It’s a fucking mess.

I am also a trauma survivor. I have triggers, which when activated open the door for the symptoms of my mental illness to come in and cause crying spells, outbursts, panic attacks, pleading, and desperation.

I am messy.

There is very little that’s “respectable” about me. I may start the day by wearing shoes but easily kick them off to liberate my feet which just don’t feel right inside of something. Same with clothes. I wear the least amount as possible. Because it’s hot here and I don’t like the feeling of my body being closed inside of something. Unless I am covering up my fatness of course. My fatphobia will shame me into adding a layer or two.

I am messy.

Romantic relationships don’t come easy for me. I have only had a few. People find me hard to commit to, undesirable, or best taken in small doses. I am other. I don’t fit in. I am frequently not chosen for true intimacy. 

I am messy.

I leak love all over the place. If I choose to love you I will love you bigly, wildly, and out loud. I will love you so big that our hearts will collide and make love to each other and leave a big mess behind. 

I am messy.

Family, chosen and bio, confuses me. I can’t seem to get it right. Who am I home to? Who is my home? Who belongs to me? Where do I belong? If I get it wrong, will you leave me? That breaks my heart.

I am messy.

I get pleasure from screaming. Sometimes that’s the only way I can hear my own voice. 

I am messy.

I desire pleasure in my body, but don’t feel beautiful enough or desirable enough by myself or other people to access it. So I go for it outside of myself most times.

I am messy.

Sometimes showering is hard. Getting out of bed is hard. Telling the truth is hard. Not hurting myself is hard.

I am messy.

I am messy, but I am soft. And I am still here.

“As much as you are able, choose life.”

“As much as you are able, choose life.”

Most of my really close friends know this already, but a few months ago I made a very difficult decision. I decided that if I ever got as sick as I was from October 2016 to somewhere in the beginning of 2019, I would choose to no longer live anymore. After making it through that excruciating pain, devastation, hopelessness, helplessness, and the chronic depression, anxiety, psychotic episodes, visual and auditory hallucinations, the non-stop abusive chatter going on in my head, loss of friends, loss of memory, loss of partner, loss of community, rapid weight gain, disorientation, 6+ hour long crying spells with no relief at any point, that voice (I don’t know if it is an auditory hallucination, my own fatigue speaking, the devil, I don’t know and have stop trying to figure it out at this point) that so loudly and so persistently begged me to kill myself daily and the agony of staying alive anyway. Pretending to have joy when I was completely joyless, paralysis in my body to the point where I couldn’t even make it to the bathroom, flashbacks, physical, emotional, and spiritual trauma responses that weren’t seeming to get better and a diagnosis (schizoaffective disorder and depression and anxiety disorder) that I vehemently refused to accept… I decided that now that I made it through that hell, I am never going back. Ever. Now that I finally have relief and feel so good and healthy and so much more like myself again, the thought of going back to that hell seemed absolutely unbearable. So, according to my hospital records and my own research, I learned that my cycle of schizoaffective episodes or falling into psychotic depression usually comes about every nine months and last anywhere from a few days to 2 years. I sat with this information for a while. I sat quietly with it. I sat with it in the loud joy I am currently experiencing as well. And with a very sober mind, I decided that my next episode will be my last. I will not fight the desire to die. I will surrender. I will allow myself to die, to be free from the pain. I wouldn’t fight it. I would not push my way through it. I for damn sure wouldn’t experience it. So I decided that if that level of pain comes again (which according to my charts should be very soon) I would free myself from it and choose death. That’s what I felt able to endure. Death over the pain and suffering for sure. 

But as I tend to do, I read a book recently that has completely changed my life, and possibly my death. It’s by Sarah Bessey and it’s called Miracles and Other Reasonable Things. In it she says..

“I am still sick and I am healed and I am always being born again over and over.”

I read those words and they knocked the air out of me. I paused and put the book down, the words still ringing in my ears. I began to cry. It felt like this truth was piercing through my fearful/stubborn heart and it felt like all the prayers I have prayed since I got sick and all the prayers you have prayed for me began to swirl around me and wrap me up in a cocoon. Inside that cocoon of prayers, and my own hard work to get/stay well, and all the therapy, and all the love, and all the incredible support from you, and all the love and compassion for myself, and all the medication, and all the meditation, and the vitamins, and all the essential oils , all the yoga, all the walks, all the beach trips, and all the care from my caregivers, and the drive to mother my children, and the naps, and the massages, and the workshops, and the tears, and the breaks from life in a safe place,  and flashes of my family (those of you I chose and the family that I was born into) began to flash like a slideshow before my eyes. And then I exhaled, and I opened my eyes, and I was different. It was in no small way, a rebirth. “I am still sick and I am healed and I am always being born again over and over.” 

I have so much love and support for anyone who chooses death, to not suffer anymore because you just are no longer able or even because you don’t want to. Trust me, I get it and I totally respect and support you. I am even willing to walk alongside you through the process if you need someone. I am here. I am in a really good and healthy place myself right now so I have so much space to hold for you and lots of support to offer. But after my… miracle? Dare I use that word? For me personally, for my own story, I feel I have been granted new life. Literally. Life again. “Always being born again over and over.” The miracle of hope and endurance and long-suffering and even the desire to live rose from the pages of this book and landed right in my soul. I now feel “able” to choose life. I don’t know what is coming in the future. I may be this healthy and happy forever. More likely though, another episode is coming. Soon probably. (If anyone dares to tell me that mushy gushy “think positive” or “Jesus wouldn’t allow that to happen to you again” or any other annoying bullshit that invalidates my experience or the reality of my life I will punch you in the face…in my mind. But as of today, I choose that no matter how bad or how good it gets, I choose life. At least that’s how I feel today. That’s the life I was born  into today. But as I said, I don’t know the future because..

“I am still sick and I am healed and I am always being born again over and over.”

But for today,

“As much as [I am] able, I choose life.”

Confessions of an Always Strong, Badass, Resilient, Beautiful, but Temporarily Sad, Depressed Mess.

So I’m just going to write because I feel that it always saves me. I always feel better after I do. It leads me into my pain and carries me out on the other side. So, I know I made this big goal this year to write a memoir, and I have been working my ass off on it. It is going to be amazing. But right now I don’t even think my memory works. I am smack dab in the middle of another rock bottom moment in my life and I can’t write to tell the story of what has happened in my life, I need to write for my life. I need to show up at my laptop each day that I am strong enough to and write whatever the fuck comes out of my bleeding heart and confused mind onto the page. And then I need to do the really scary thing of giving you access to it. Because that’s who I am. That’s how I heal. And thats how my work heals others.

So as interesting as what happened to me when I was 12 years old is, I am not 12 right now. I am 32, right on the cusp of turning 33 and I am fucking sad. I am in pain. I guess I should write about what got me back to this place but I equally don’t think it’s relevant and am equally ashamed to share it so I am cowering away from doing that. But what I will say is that on Saturday one of my worst fears came true. No one died. No one got sick. There was no tragic accident or disaster. I failed. Yes, you read that right. Failure is what my worse fear was. At least I feel like I failed. And on this paper what I feel is valid even if it is not the truth. Whether it’s the truth or not doesn’t make it hurt any less.

I remember being a kid and making vows. I remember experiencing painful things from authority figures in my life and vowing to myself and to God “I will NEVER do that to my kid”. “I will NEVER make my kid feel this way”. “I will NEVER put my kid in this situation”. I vowed. I promised. Cross my heart hope to die stick a needle in my eye. And then when I became a mother, accidentally might I add, those vows became poison to be. My whole life was/has been/is working my ass off, sacrificing everything, killing myself in order to make sure that I NEVER break those vows I made now that I am a mother of daughters as deserving of love, security, education, etc etc as I was. I believe in vows. Honesty is of high importance to me. I bend over backwards never to break a promise. But on Saturday I broke a big vow that I had made to myself, to God, and to my kids. I broke my promise. My word became false and weak and a lie. I promised my kids that I would ALWAYS make sure they were in school. That they would never be turned away from school because of money. For those of you who don’t live here or in other places where you know what school fees are and you know what it means to be turned away from school for not having paid them, ask a friend. I am not going to explain the whole thing here. That’s not what I am here for. But, after saying goodbye to 2 of my girls on Tuesday as they began their journey back to boarding school in a nearby town I did what I always do. I bent over backwards to come up with the money to pay for their school fees. I hadn’t succeeded in paying their fees on the correct date before they were admitted to school, but I held true to that vow I had made and did everything I knew how to make sure that I paid their fees ASAP so they would not be sent away from school. The funny thing is, I wasn’t even worried about the possibility that that would happen. I mean, that doesn’t happen to my kids. It never would. I promised. No matter what it took, and it has taken A LOT, I absolutely ALWAYS make sure to pay school fees for my children and keep them in school. Their right to education is something I have drilled into them since I met them, since they were like 9 and 10 years old. They know that Mummy will always make sure that they are in school because it’s their right to be educated and in the classroom instead of in the system of sexual exploitation I found them. Only problem is, I failed. I didn’t come up with enough money for all the girls’ school fees and two of them were sent home completely unexpectedly on Saturday. I was actually napping when I got the call that the school had kicked them out. Two things: first, I know I said I wasn’t going to explain the background and I totally just did, but that’s just what happened I don’t care. Second, I am not an idiot. I know that there are thousands and thousands of mothers and children that go through this ALL THE TIME. Like, to most people, this really isn’t a big deal at all. My kids are privileged to have gotten this far without ever having missed one day of school because of school fees since they met me. I am privileged to have so many people who sponsor my girls’ education and have for years, almost a decade, many who have never missed a payment. Thank you to those of you who make your sponsorship payments, and to those of you who didn’t and your sponsored child was  kicked out of school, this isn’t about you. They are not your responsibility. They are mine. You are being kind and generous and doing what you can. It’s my job to fill in the gaps no matter what.

But anyway, my point is: I know that two girls being kicked out of school for school fees on Saturday, and then me coming up with the money to pay the school fees and sending them right back to school on Sunday isn’t necessarily a huge deal, even to my kids. This is about me and feeling like I have proven a point to myself that I have fought against for so many years, the point being “You are a bad mother”. I remember how traumatic it was for me as a kid when my basic needs weren’t met (which is no one’s fault) and I totally projected that pain onto my 2 daughters even if that wasn’t their experience. I immediately made up the story in my head. Actually, it didn’t happen immediately. First came the shock. And then the denial. And then the realization. And then the crash. The story I had been running away from why whole motherhood journey crashed into my reality. And my “reality” became: I am exactly what I said I would never be. I am a single black mother who isn’t able to provide her kids with their basic needs and therefore is traumatizing them forever and so they are going to grow up and be as fucked up in the head as me and spend their whole life’s earnings on therapy trying to heal from all the trauma that being my daughter has caused them. I have recreated more Little Brittanies. Little Brittanies are bad and traumatized and emotional and fucked up and sick and need to be fixed and will have to spend a lifetime trying to be fixed and be normal but deep inside Big Brittanie knows that Little Brittanie will never be okay and normal and fully healed. Little Brittanies grow up to be Big Brittanies and Big Brittanies always have some Little Brittanie inside them which makes them inadequate, too much, damaged, abnormal, and never good enough for this world or other people.

Basically, my kids being sent home from school ripped off another layer of me and revealed that deep inside there is still some self hatred there and in life I am still trying to do enough, to be a good enough mother, to make up for being Brittanie. Because being Brittanie is bad.

So, there are a couple ways we can go from here. In the past when I get this low I am normally taken to the doctor and hospitalized and my doctor bumps up my medications for a while so that some of the extreme pain that I am feeling can be numbed because the pain is so overwhelming that in the past it has made me very ill, caused me to loose my mind and even almost my life. So the safe thing to do is numb it a little while I go through therapy to deal with the root of the pain. But I am not doing that this time.

This is not because of the self hate that I am now aware of or a way of punishing myself or me trying to make myself sick. If I needed the pain to be numbed a bit this time, I would run to my doctor and she would gladly take care of that for me. But the truth is, right now I am stronger than I have ever been. the fact that I can even identify why I feel so horrible is huge growth. Because I am now strong enough thanks to my support system, my God, my spiritual practice, my medication, my self care practices, the Gohonzon, my community care practices, my friends and family, my financial supporters, my therapist, my psychologist, my resilience, prayers myself and others have prayed, and the legacy of strength from my ancestors, I actually can run directly into this pain, heal it, and come out stronger on the other side. Halle-freakin-lujah.

So that’s what I am doing friends. I am going to actually experience this this time. I am going to do the work. No numbing. No “easy buttons” as Glennon Doyle says. I am going to do the work of feeling this pain and coming out of the fire as ashes that rise into Beautiful. I am going to come out changed and even better, even healthier. I trust the process. I trust my life. I trust my God. I trust myself. So, I will probably be depressed for a while. Please feel free to remove yourself from my life if my depression triggers you. I want you healthy! I might not smile everyday, though I hope to! I might not even get out of bed everyday, though I hope to! I don’t promise any level of people pleasing fake positivity or fake positive thinking religious bullshit living. But I promise to tell the truth. The truth heals and liberates. I am into healing and liberation. Fake bullshit living puts people in prisons of pain. I am not into prisons. Lived in them for too long. So here we go, let’s do this healing thing.

Slow Mornings

I love slow mornings

Coffee, cuddled up under warm blankets

Waking up slowly and letting the light in

I love the hot sun on my face in the morning

Green gardens with bright flowers peeking through to greet me,

to say good morning,

to release God’s new mercies afresh unto my soul.

I love new mercies

New days, new mornings, fresh starts,

Potential, of new smiles and new lessons.

Fresh chances to love, to live, here, now. Presently.

 

Too Christian for the Buddhists, Too Buddhist for the Christians: A Christmas Reflection

I’m the kind of person that likes for things to be very clear. Are we fighting or are we okay? Are you coming over, yes or no? Exactly what time should I expect you? Are we going or not? Are you a Christian? Yes? Well, do you love Jesus? Do you have a deep, personal love relationship with Jesus Christ? In fact I started dating someone several months ago and I remember asking her these exact questions in the early days when we were considering a relationship. I was sending her voice notes of prayers to Jesus about whether or not we should try dating before we even went on our first date. Most people question whether or not I am a Christian. Hell, so do I. But one thing that no one ever questions including myself is weather or not I am a lover of Jesus. I’m not sure if I am down with certain aspects of Christian culture, but I know, and most people that I know also know that I am deeply, madly in love with Jesus and I live my life as a follower of His. Jesus has been the answer to every question I have had in my entire life, and it has looked a certain way. It’s looked like (to me at least) a very liberal kind of Christianity. So when problems have arisen in my life I have always gone straight to Jesus in traditionally Christian ways: by praying to a Jesus that lives in Heaven, by studying and meditating on the Bible, praise and worship, getting Christian counsel when needed. And sure enough Jesus brought me through what I hope was the worst two years of my sickness through these practices.

But over the past almost a year now I have been adding to my spiritual practices. I have discovered practices that literally counteract the effects of my illness and I have been doing them. Most of these practices come from Eastern religions but are now widely accepted in the west, particularly yoga and meditation. But about 5 months something changed. I found myself praying excessively about healing my illness and spending hours every day with God begging Him to take this affliction away from me. I also continued with my worshiping and reading the Bible and meditation etc. But in my prayer time about 5 months ago… and this is the part where I will probably offend all my pastor and fundamentalist Christian friends if I haven’t already… I started getting this impression that I should try chanting. It wasn’t like an audible voice or anything, it was just an impression upon my heart “you should start chanting”.

So basically, to be clear, what I am saying is… and this is where my Buddhist friends get offended… Jesus lead me to start chanting. I started with simply chanting “OM” for 15 minutes with a group. When we finished it felt as though I had taken an anti-anxiety pill. I felt so much better than before I started chanting! It was amazing!! Once I realized that I could use the vibrations of “OM” to combat my depression I started chanting it several times a week whenever meeting were held. And then one day while reflecting on the power of OM chanting I remembered a conversation that I had with a friend in LA. When I was having the conversation it didn’t seem significant, but as I sat at my alter reflecting, I realized the Holy Spirit was obviously so present during that conversation. My friend was telling me about how much her life had changed since she began chanting. She shared with me that she chanted a simple phrase “nam-myo-ho-renge-kyo”. I remembered the phrase from the Tina Turner movie. About 5 months later at my alter in Nairobi, Kenya I started contemplating chanting the phrase. Eventually, through my friend in the U.S., I met several other people here in Nairobi that chant the phrase. It’s a practice of Nicheren Buddhism. The group that practices this Buddhism is called SGI (Soka Gikkai).

As soon as I started chanting I saw an immediate effect on my illness. SGI is all about overcoming suffering and I noticed that when my depression and anxiety tried to push me down to a literal living hell, I was able to overcome it through chanting. I have been hospitalized every 5-6 months since my first psychotic break. I have had symptoms of psychosis, anxiety, and depression daily since I first got sick. I take tons of meds to combat it. But what started as me using the practices Jesus preaches to overcome these symptoms turned into adding chanting to those already powerful practices. The more I chanted, the more I learned about Nichiren Buddhism. I learned that chanting is more than just a prayer. You can’t “just chant” and expect for things to change. I learned that I also have to put effort in whatever it is that I wanted to change. Now let me slam on the breaks. SGI does not worship a different God than Christianity. In fact there is no worship at all in SGI. It’s not even about God. Most people who practice don’t even believe in God at all. This practice is about what we call “human revolution”, you using the power that you have inside of you (which I call the Holy Spirit) to change your life and even your emotional state. Since I have started practicing I haven’t been hospitalized at all!!! Before I started practicing I would have a depressive episode maybe once per week. Since I have started chanting I have had only 2 episodes in several months!! Chanting has raised my vibrations and allowed me to recognize that the power inside of me is strong enough to overcome my schizoaffective disorder and it’s symptoms. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely not (yet!) cured or healed from my illness, but I have a practice that helps me overcome it daily even though it’s still there. Don’t worry! I haven’t stopped taking my meds or seeing my therapist and doctor, or stopped praying to Jesus and reading the Bible and getting encouragement from it when I’m low etc. But this practice and the teachings have become a vital part of my life,

So now my issue is that i’m too Christian for the Buddhists and too Buddhist for the Christians. Both tell me that I am not allowed to identify as both, but honestly I do. I will not deny that Christ is my savior and the Lord and love of my life. However, I do believe that this Christ lives as the Holy Spirit inside of me and is what I evoke when I chant. I also will not deny the power of cause and effect (the power of nam-myo-ho-renge-kyo). But, I do believe in God (Jesus) at the same time. I think God is the embodiment of the Mystic Law. I have been praying about reconciling this in my heart since I started to believe it. Then yesterday (Christmas Day) something happened. I was at the beach with my kids and my partner and we were swimming and laughing and playing around in the ocean and I realized: I was there. For the past 2 years I have missed Christmas with my kids because I have been sick in the hospital and completely psychotic, depressed, and anxious, almost completely unaware of where I was, what day it was and what was going on. But yesterday on Christmas day, I was present. I was present with the people I love. I wasn’t in some psych ward or recovering in someone’s house. I was present on Christmas. Isn’t that what Christmas is all about, presence? I was aware of Immanuel, Christ With Us, not only being present with us in that ocean but being present, brought into the world for Love, because I am not perfect and never will be no matter how much I try. But Christ’s presence as my savior saves me from the death that is the consequence of that. I was also aware of the presence of my own Buddha nature, how I had made a determination to be well for Christmas and to make this Christmas the best Christmas ever for my kids, and I did it. I made the determination, added the effort and made it happen. Right there in the ocean with my girls and my love, I started worshipping, singing songs of thanks to God as I thought about this. I said a special thank you prayer to Jesus for introducing me to chanting. And as I sang worship songs and danced around in praise in the ocean,I realized I had been given the best Christmas present ever: presence… then I got up the next morning and chanted.

Lessons from goddess Glennon Doyle

Do the next right thing, choose the next right person.

If you want to grow, serve the ones you have.

Figure out what it is that makes you wanna stick forks in your eyes and don’t do that thing!

Make whatever boundaries you need to make so that you don’t quit.

“Do whatever it is that I need to do today so that I don’t quit”

Figure out what kills you and don’t do that thing.

RESPECT THE DREAM!

Everything beautiful in the world is created by people who are not ready.

“Write like you’re being paid until someone pays you” -Mark Twain

Each day you figure out what your values are and then you match up those values to your hours.

Figure out what your daily job is and show up for yourself every single day.

Be an artist, don’t be a babysitter (of your art).

WATCH the video below for more yummy lessons from the video I pulled these from:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upqNHz4RSSc

When Darkness Invades

I was in Mombasa when I got the call. From the other end of the phone “Sarah is missing”. I didn’t even blink. I thought for sure my daughter was just misbehaving, maybe ran off with a boy somewhere, or running away because she didn’t want to go back to school since it was the first day back to school. I continued with my day as usual, taking the other kids back to school and flying back to Nairobi. But then when it started getting dark and she still wasn’t home was when I began to get scared.

A week ago my daughter was abducted right off the street we live on. The supposed “safe” street that I’ve walked down a million times. She was abducted, drugged, and then held in a trafficking ring for 2 days. I had no idea where she was. It was the most terrifying experience as a parent. I was afraid she may be dead. The first night I slept on the couch, as close to the door as I could, just hoping the bell would ring and it would be Sarah. Two days later I got a text message saying “Mum it’s Sarah. Don’t call. I’m in trouble. I need help”. We continued to text and through her texts I learned about what had happened to her and the hell she was living. That’s when shit got real to me. The search was on. It was even more painful for me to be in contact with her and hear what was happening to her and not be able to do anything about it. As a parent you want to protect your kids. Not being able to do that was so hard.

Eventually Sarah escaped and after jumping through lots of hoops, she is safely home with me. I thought when she was finally home with me the hell would be over. No. She’s completely traumatized. She won’t even sleep in her own bed. She sleeps next to me every night and spends most of her days in my bed.

I am writing this because my therapist told me that I need to process what happened instead of trying to be so strong and trying to escape reality. So this is an attempt to process what I experienced and what I am feeling. My house feels full of weight, especially my room where Sarah is. It just feels heavy and dark. I sage, I diffuse oil, but her sadness is stubborn. So of course I am experiencing vicarious trauma. As her main support, a lot of her emotions fall on me and I have been absorbing them. I feel like I need a bath to wash off all the pain and trauma. I feel like there’s a shell around me and I need someone to crack it open for me.

The past several days I have just been running away trying to pretend this didn’t happen. But it did. And it makes me really fucking angry. I was in such a good space before this. I was so happy. I have plans for the next few months that will make me happy. But this awful thing has just come in and destroyed all of that. I want to feel better. I want my baby to feel better. I want this to be over. But one step at a time. And me actually writing this is the first step. Sarah is going to therapy and going on her own healing journey as well. I can’t let this awful thing completely ruin everything. Light overcomes darkness. So I am going to keep praying, keep thinking positively, fight for my joy, do yoga, burn my sage and incense, diffuse my oils, write, meditate and use all the tools I have to overcome horrible tragedies like this one. Eventually the light will overcome. Jesus. Jesus will overcome and bring peace and joy. Eventually i’ll be able to feel more and even tell the story. Eventually I won’t be angry anymore. But one step, one step at a time.