I am working on changing my ideas and thoughts and attempting to discipline my mind. As I have mentioned, having a spiritual practice helps greatly. Another thing that helps is to simply call on God, Spirit, Whatever, while in the midst of a troubling idea or thought and focus on the present moment. One of the biggest lessons from my training as an actor is also becoming one of the most important life lessons to grasp and practice: I can't affect the past, it is done. I have no idea what the future holds so spending my time pondering the potential dangers is useless - except to create the danger, and well, the only sane and safe place to be is in the NOW focusing on the present moment. Currently, I am busting my ass to be present and it is actually working...sometimes! I had moments this weekend that threatened to lead me down the negativity rabbit hole. One such thought was having to return my son to his other parent. Another was having the desire to grill out for the holiday weekend and knowing that the two grills I bought and put together are no longer accessible due to the divorce. I then started thinking about the new kitchen installed last August that I did most of the prep work or and supervising of the workers. I started to think of the landscaping tools and equipment that I purchased and used. Basically, I started remembering the 'stuff' that seems lost to the end of the marriage. These thoughts almost got the best of me until I chose to let the fuckers go! I chose to focus on the long hugs and fun my son and I shared while we were together. Instead of thinking about the grills that are no longer mine I realized that the cleaning of the grill was no longer my responsibility and for that I am grateful, I fucking hated cleaning the grill and often opted to 'burn' it clean, but that's a story for another Blog post. As for the kitchen, well, I changed my thoughts from granite countertops to enjoying the great conversation and company that I share in an old outdated kitchen. There are so many moments when the tragedy, loss, and betrayal hover poised and ready to drop me to my knees with depression and sadness. I have had many of those moments, enough for a lifetime. While I am not saying that I won't have more, while I am still an advocate of "feeling the fuck out of my feelings" (Thank, Dan Savage), I know that if I can realize during the in-between moments that I have a choice on where to put my focus and on what to think and thus, I feel I am going to choose good things. Inspiring things, instead of crying at the sad song, or brewing over the losses, I am going to stick my head out the window of the fast moving car, doggie style and enjoy the whipping wind as it sends my spit flying up my cheeks.
So this is a short one. Short and yet meaningful.
Today, many someone's didn't wake up. Today many someone's won't fall asleep, there time on this plane will be past. Today, many someone's didn't have food or clean water. Today, many someone's were beaten, mutilated and harmed. Today, I am not one of the many someone's who experienced those things. Today, I am grateful for that. Today, waking up is the gift. Everyday I wake up is the gift. Bout damn time I started recognizing.
When I recently consciously started my daily spiritual practice, I thought it would change my life completely, deeply, and immediately just because I started doing this thing that spiritualist, gurus, yogis, pastors, ministers, and even regular folk spoke so highly of. Everyone from Oprah to the postman talk about a daily practice. Everyone, everywhere is talking about meditation, visualization and quiet time. As a member of a Religious Science Center I know first hand that there is not a Sunday that goes by where the importance and virtue of a daily spiritual practice isn't encourage and revered. When I start tracing how long I'd been exposed to spiritual practices, meditation and the like, I go back to my Conservatory actor training and realize it was being pushed there. I go back even further to Bethany Baptist Church where I was brought up and baptized as a child and there too, Reverend Scott spoke of getting quiet every day with God. Even before then, I remember my Grandmother playing soothing music and rocking me for the longest time and 'clearing my head'. Now that I've realized that this practice has been with me forever, or if not forever, then a way long time, I wonder why I have stayed away so long? I wonder why I have been resistant?
Change has been occurring rapid fire in my life, however, I know that the bulk of it began before this new and most recent set of spiritual practices. About three years ago I remember setting up a sacred space, a small alter, and began to give love to my ancestors. I called to them for guidance, support, love, whatever. I had been interested in the Yoruba tradition but it freaked my then wife out so I didn't pursue it. Anyways, I was searching for a spiritual home, a place to learn and know myself and God on a deeper level. It was also the time when I began praying and knowing that my son was coming, before the test was positive. I would light a candle, burn sage, and took to meditating two, three, five minutes several times a week. At times I fell completely off the wagon, but then I would get back on again and find a depth of stillness I had not known before. It was shortly before my son was born that I accepted a dear friend's invitation to experience the Center of Spiritual Living that had changed her life. My friend had been inviting me for over a year and I finally got the wife to agree and off we went. While my spouse was somewhat wary, I felt that I was finally going home.
I began taking classes and started to really get involved. I was even able to convince my spouse to do a retreat and a class. Though she never really drank the Kool-Aid, she gave it a shot to appease me. I became more and more involved with the Center. She became less. Ultimately, I began to understand how I am accountable for the outcome and the state of my own life. I believe this to be one of the greatest understandings of life.
I initially sought guidance at the Center for my troubled marriage, I visualized being in love and falling in love anew or for the first time with my wife. Then I went deeper and didn't attach anyone or any outcome to the demonstration of love and connection and peace that I knew I was to experience. Life began to rapidly change at that point. I was meditating and praying more often, yet not with daily consistency. I stopped smoking and opted instead to run. I lost forty pounds. In some ways I knew I was running from the toxic household I had created. I started running to escape to the better life that I was realizing awaited me. I liked being able to breath well enough to run. I love running. I love falling in love with me. That is what started to happen from getting still. No overnight success. I just started to fall in love with myself. I began learning to first forgive me. I am learning now to protect and take care of me on a very basic level. Learning that I am not bad or mentally deficient because others say or do mean things to me. I am learning, finally, that I am the best caretaker of my own soul and that trying to sub-contract out that job leads to heartache and pain.
My life hasn't changed completely, deeply, and immediately because I started a spiritual practice. My life has changed because I changed it. My life is changing because I desire it to. My life is changing because the God that is all there is within knows it's time. My commitment to my daily spiritual practice is helping me get still and quiet enough to hear God in everything. Hearing God everyday, in every place, in all ways always, makes my perspective on life so different. It makes life so good all the time, even when it is full of obstacles and challenges. I am finding the glory in every moment. I never fucking thought I would be one to say that!
Yesterday was a good example of a horror moment that was ultimately still filled with the grace an goodness of Spirit. I had to attend court regarding aspects of my very ugly divorce. My mother and sister were there, in support of my spouse. They are living with her, still in the home she and I built. It is a very uncomfortable situation. My mother and sister didn't look at nor speak to me. It was heartbreaking. My soon to be ex-spouse had only disdain for me. I was silent. I clung to my attorney and my dear heart - a friend who is that and much more - who took care of me and reflected God, Love and Spirit back to me with each smile, word, and gesture. My dear heart, stood by me when I was alone, and wiped my snotty nose when I couldn't stop crying. While the seeming hatred and betrayal of my closest family members threatened to tear me apart, God, present in all ways and all moments was the brightest most potent good in the room. God protected, loved, smiled on me and through me. Provided me a loving and lovely shoulder to lean and depend on. The horror moment passed and I am more compassionate towards my family than ever, for they know not what they do. I am also clear that knowing God means I am never alone. With God there are no mistakes. There are only occurrences set forth to lead us to our highest best possible outcome, to our evolution and to our enlightenment.
Back of every mushy love song, behind every magical movie moment about It, there stands “perfect love”. Before Titanic and after Romeo & Juliet, beyond the loss of will and the jading of Will and Jada, there It is. This thing, this It that makes the struggles, the pain, the heartache, the hurt, the agony, the anger, the tears, the loss, the profound sadness… worth it. Why else would we simple beings dare to try, try, and try again? Because we all know there exists an It and we know that It lives deep deep deep within the fiber of who we are and whomever we hope to be; that we are love, we are one, we are best in unity. And in our short span of time breathing we hope to share breath with another who knows It, our oneness in a way that is bigger than the two bodies. It can make two bodies create a cacophony of harmony. It plugs them in to the One, together, stronger, than any other can ever do. When those two meet they know It instantly, regardless of how they choose to stage the play of their lives from that point on. They know. Even if they deny it, sometimes, It makes you crazy, sometimes It seems too messy, but It knows. Ask the rare and few who have found It. Usually they aren’t available for some reason and time passes and life happens and then there they are, sometimes decades later, finally ready for the It they saw so long ago. It is great comfort to see that It exists even if it takes a lifetime to do something about It. Even if one never does something about It, just knowing It exists is enough to propel us through life and into death with a calmness and a peace that comes from the confirmation of not being alone, of being One, of being God.
StillTasting the poisonAfter all these yearsToxic blowsTo the MotherStllReverberatingGruesomeSide affects InfectingMore than the hostSo many more than the hostInfected carrierInfiltratingGenerationsInsidiously manifestingIllness and rotDestruction and deathStillTasting the poisonAfter all these yearsToxic the blowsTo the MotherStillMaking the child sickDiseased without cureBroken beyond repairCondemned to repeatStillTasting the poisonAfter all these yearsToxic blowsTo the MotherBattered the BastardChild at her feetGruesomeSide affectsReverberateStillGangreneOf BodyOf HeartOf SoulSpreadingCorruptionThrough man's handsThrough woman's wombViolence planted inViolent seedStillSprouting poisonAter all these years
ERICA BRADSHAW
DENIAL
The biggest lesson I’ve ever been exposed to in my lifetime is that the denial of a problem, challenge, or issue, has long term – potentially catastrophic affects that touch the lives of everyone.
Denial, a very powerful mental defense mechanism, originated so skillfully in the mind, can be as impenetrable as any known physical substance.
Accessing the mind to crack the resolve of denial seems to be the prognosis. However, the likelihood of success seems minimal. Security behind the wall of denial is state-of-the art, cutting edge, savvy, and is able to learn and regenerate organically to fend off intruders and defend the source that the psyche must protect, at all costs, even life.
At the end of the day, she’s my mother. At the end of the day, I have my own denials. I have my own security company working to protect my deepest darkest hurts and secrets. At the end of the day I am no better, just different. I am challenged with different circumstances, different stressors, different, but the same.
I stood by and saw her at the pivotal moment. The moment when the pain, that would need a wall of denial built six feet thick and wide, would be constructed on the inside and outside of herself to protect the hurt that I watched get inflicted. I was there when the atrocity happened. I watched. I was there. I ran with her. I held her hand and felt her tenderness so big, her grasp on my small hand squeezing so tightly I could barely breathe. I remember it all so vividly. I remember the thunderous word clouds that lingered overhead before the rain. I remember the pain, it started as a slow trickle, growing faster and faster, wilder and madder. It reigned on her and on all of us through a foggy alcohol induced storm. There was no way to escape the hurricane inside the house, so we ran out. The storm attempted to follow, but exposed to the light of the sun, the fresh air, the odd eyes of the world, it was unable to sustain, and with one final gesture fury disabled our car, cursed, and retreated. We ran away, found shelter within public service. We got a new home, new stuff. We let fury die. Fury did die, slowly. Years later his offspring, the one carried during the battering, would bear witness to Fury’s physical death, I refused to attend the funeral. Fury, he had changed me by then and I no longer needed a father for the rage I bore.
DENIAL
The biggest lesson I’ve ever been exposed to in my lifetime is that the denial of a problem, challenge, or issue, has long term – potentially catastrophic affects that touch the lives of everyone.
Denial, a very powerful mental defense mechanism, originated so skillfully in the mind, can be as impenetrable as any known physical substance.
Accessing the mind to crack the resolve of denial seems to be the prognosis. However, the likelihood of success seems minimal. Security behind the wall of denial is state-of-the art, cutting edge, savvy, and is able to learn and regenerate organically to fend off intruders and defend the source that the psyche must protect, at all costs, even life.
At the end of the day, she’s my mother. At the end of the day, I have my own denials. I have my own security company working to protect my deepest darkest hurts and secrets. At the end of the day I am no better, just different. I am challenged with different circumstances, different stressors, different, but the same.
I stood by and saw her at the pivotal moment. The moment when the pain, that would need a wall of denial built six feet thick and wide, would be constructed on the inside and outside of herself to protect the hurt that I watched get inflicted. I was there when the atrocity happened. I watched. I was there. I ran with her. I held her hand and felt her tenderness so big, her grasp on my small hand squeezing so tightly I could barely breathe. I remember it all so vividly. I remember the thunderous word clouds that lingered overhead before the rain. I remember the pain, it started as a slow trickle, growing faster and faster, wilder and madder. It reigned on her and on all of us through a foggy alcohol induced storm. There was no way to escape the hurricane inside the house, so we ran out. The storm attempted to follow, but exposed to the light of the sun, the fresh air, the odd eyes of the world, it was unable to sustain, and with one final gesture fury disabled our car, cursed, and retreated. We ran away, found shelter within public service. We got a new home, new stuff. We let fury die. Fury did die, slowly. Years later his offspring, the one carried during the battering, would bear witness to Fury’s physical death, I refused to attend the funeral. Fury, he had changed me by then and I no longer needed a father for the rage I bore.
I have thought for so long that I am more than my physical ability, appearance, and limitation. But being overweight is not an arbitrary or accidental disability(it can cause disability but I do not believe it is a disability); it is a choice, a lifestyle choice. It isn’t cancer, it isn’t MS, and it isn’t a birth defect. It is generally a conscious choice to disconnect from physical self care and well-being for one or many reasons. It may be the genesis of many deformities and limitations but it is not, as far as I know, a malignancy that appears out of the blue. I have always believed in a mind/body/spirit connection. I focused a lot on my mind and spirit. Still I have generally had a disconnect my body. I am now beginning to understand how full integration is necessary to experience the life I want to experience to the fullest. This is my choice, it is not something I push on anyone else, hell, I am not a "Change your Life" pusher, I am merely sharing my story.
I have a weight loss goal and I am getting there one tenth of a pound at a time. It is very slow. Painfully slow at most times. But hell, I got where I am one tenth of a pound at a time, soo... I think so much of my weight gain and maintenance has been to keep me safe, hidden, protected in some kind of way. I mean I don’t exactly understand it but it kept me away from people. They didn't really get to see who I am. As far as I believe. No one expects much from someone hidden in the bulk of their body so I have always easily surpassed expectations. I strove to always be more than anyone could have thought I could be. No one expects a fat woman to be athletic and if you are…wow, AMAZING. No one really looks to fat woman to be sexy and beautiful so when we are…wow, SUPER HOTT! It’s like the thought is, ‘how did you manage to be so fierce and fabulous through all that fat?’ As much as I hate to admit it there is a point to that line of thinking. I am not condoning it as right or wrong, merely acknowledging it. Shit, I know I have thought it. When I reject my body by overeating, not exercising, and a general lack of care it is a BIG deal that my beauty is so bright & deep that it can shine through, it is a BIG deal that my sexy can shine through. It is a BIG deal that as much as I have tried to repel others and maybe even myself, that I was unsuccessful and my inner light, my inner love, my inner God shines through. Just a theory as to why people are often surprised and astonished by most things overweight folks do!
I philosophically ponder on God, peace, and other de-stressing topics as my toddler pretends to nap. He is happily chatting in his bed while I muse on the ethereal. Perhaps he is in his own conversation with God. How the hell would I know? So, why spend precious brain time with what I can never know. My son is happy and content, that is all that I desire at this point.
It is my believe that God shows up where my attention calls It fourth. Yes, I just said 'It'. God the everything, the 'Stuff' that is everywhere and the essence of all that is. My definition doesn't have to be yours but just know, this is where I'm coming from.
God -That's my topic today. I think I'm learning, and "Ouch!" it fucking hurts! I'm learning that to spend mental time wrestling with things, concepts, ideas, facts, lies, stories - that I can do absolutely nothing about - is a waste of time and energy. I'm learning that God shows up where and how my thoughts allow Spirit to be. For instance, I would love love love for my son to be back in daycare, however, that is not possible right now due to circumstances out of my control. I have no need to discuss the nitty gritty details but... there is just nothing I can do at the moment. I have been mentally chewing on this subject for weeks and the only stuff that arises is a venomous cud that ultimately makes me sick with anxiety and worry. I don't like anxiety or cud. Yucky! I mean, yes, it makes my stomach feel flatter because I'm so incredibly tense, but it also leaves my hands sore from being clenched into such tight fists. Ultimately anxiety brings a headache and it's already allergy season, the last thing I need is a self induced headache.
Slowly, very damn slowly, I am learning how to discipline my thoughts. I can usually catch a very negative thought, such as, 'I hate that so and so I wish I had never blank blank blank!' That thought, if left to run wild, would have previously spun into a frenzy of quite toxic thoughts and ultimately lead to bad behavior. Then, to add insult to the injury I would become guilty with the lack of self-control I was able to exert. Next, and this is the kicker, I'd begin to beat myself up with over-eating and/or more negative thought patterns and behaviors! At this point all that negativity is refocused back on me and my inadequacies! What the fuck? I have done this insanity pattern for the better part of my life and have come to only one option that works in my complete and total favor. It seems real corny but, here goes...
I turn my attentions to Spirit/God and when the inciting negative thought presents, I replace it with thoughts of the Greatness, Love, and Kindness of God. Then I do my forgiveness mantra. Remember that?
'So and so', I forgive you for not being what I wanted you to be. I forgive you and I set you free.' (L. Hay)
It is a practice, I'm getting better, though not yet a master.
So corny and simple and effective.
Going to God seems corny.
Oh well, I'm now corny.
Lata Skatas!
E-
I was recently invited to join a meditation workshop. I have been getting the message from varied sources that it is time to set up a dedicated spiritual practice. I have dabbled in meditation and other spiritually inspirational stuffs for many years but never a dedicated ritual of practice. At this workshop we were invited to engage in a 21-day meditation. I signed the contract and began. I set up a sacred space, got out my candles, sage, white shimmery cloth and found some soothing music. The benefit of this small 10-25 minute practice is exactly what I was told it would be and more. It does something to my whole day. I believe that it assists my consciousness to stay awake and present. The practice is providing an amazing amount of patience and clarity as I go through my daily journey. I am not a walking Zen poster, however, I am evolving into a more peaceful and kind Erica and that is a blessing, for everyone in my life - I a sure. Today is day number 13 in the 21-day meditation challenge, I have a feeling I won't be stopping at day 21.
Also, I recently finished a 12 day juice cleanse. I have never in my life gone 12 whole friggin' days with out chewing and eating food! I was initially inspired by the movie, 'Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead'. That was well over a year ago. I have been building up the balls to go forward with a cleansing juice fast and well, I did it! My next goal is a 30-day. It may take me another year, probably less, but I'm gonna do it!
The power of thought is positively life altering. Meditation, visualization and disciplining my thoughts, and even feelings is, fucking awesome!
The manifestation and demonstration of the best life possible is happening in every moment. I just have to remember to keep my EGO out of the damn way to experience it.
I have been listening to Eckhart, Deepak, Oprah, Iyanla, etc... for so many years and yet, I never heard them so deeply until now. The spiritual revolution has begun and I'm jumping joyfully on the mutha fuckin' horse. Yee Haw - Bitches!
Much Love Y'all!
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