Sunday

Jack: I AM the Spirit that Moves

Dear Jack: 
Is it okay to get another pet if the spirit moves you?  


Don't you know, I am the spirit that moves you?
You can't replace me, but you can bring in a new kind of love. You've had her now for almost three months. You see her healing. You feel yourself healing too. It has taken this long for you to trust each other. She no longer runs from you. She comes to you seeking love. You are healed enough now, to give her everything and more. But I know. I know you still love me. I still see you cry when you don't think you have everything, but you do. You do have everything.

Love, Jack


It's Sobering: The Alcoholic Family


He's so nice one minute but not the next.
I don't understand what's wrong.
He's usually easy going
Not so angry and headstrong!

What did I do to earn his wrath?
What can I do to change it?
I thought our life was right on track.
I'll have to rearrange it.

To make him happy, that's my role
To keep the family close,
To keep the peace and keep the house,
And not appear morose.

Because sometimes the smallest things
Seem to upset him so
And at those times, he grabs a drink
And then it's touch and go.

We keep this secret to ourselves.
We don't complain, we smile!
And go about our business
And become so versatile!


As we grow, we learn how much
Our family impacts us
And we tend to follow footsteps of
The only way it was.

We fight our parents battles
And we run from drinks and drugs
We run from love and closeness
And tighten up when someone hugs
Us because we're never certain
How consistent someone is.
We walk on eggshells all the time
Ready to dismiss

The other for their various faults,
We take a lesser stance.
We make them more important
Than we are in circumstance.


A lesson that is hard to learn
When we've grown up this way--
To be equally important in
What we want and what we say.

So if you cannot intervene,
Make a change in your own life
So that someday you can be yourself
With your husband or your wife

Or your significant other
If you choose a different route.
Because what you want is what you want.
Be true to your pursuit.


It's time to take the driver's seat
And move towards your life goals.
Decide what you want and go for it
And let go of the roles

You've played for years and mastered.
Your time's long overdue.
Take care of others, but care for yourself.
As they say "To thine own self be true."

From the book One Heart's Journey
by Kate McGahan LMSW

Monday

BAGGAGE CLAIM



I’m building a wall that I don’t want to build
A stockade ‘round my heart and soul
All because those before you filled
My life then left a gaping hole.

You pay the price of baggage carried
On and off throughout my years.
Some cast off and deeply buried,
Some I keep to tote my fears

Of failure, guilt, abandonment, 
Which pull me down and hold me back.
These fears are much like bricks and mortar
Weighing down my heavy sack. 


I’ve always had the tools I need
To ward off enemies unknown
Always ready to defend
By erecting walls of stone

Impossible to penetrate!
They kept me sound
They kept me safe!
They also sheltered me from love.
I’ve paid the price of seeming brave.

It’s time to cast those things aside
That I no longer need because
Not only do they weigh too much,
They sheltered me from what life WAS.


My life is very different now
How wrong of me to utilize
This defense when I’ve no cause
To doubt your word or your advice.

I feel exposed as I toss out
The huge amounts of sand and stone…
Afraid to be wounded without my “shield,” 
I await the pain as I stand alone. 


Only to find that the pain doesn’t come!
I tentatively discover
That warmth and tenderness surround
Me as I start to now uncover

The parts of me I’ve saved for you,
The one who taught me it’s okay
To be myself and share my truth
Knowing you’ll meet me halfway

With respect and courtesy.
I learn life is a paradox.
Tear down the walls with kindness and
  Build gates of love, not walls of rocks. 



A Lifelong Course


Life is all about the experience of love
...Or the lack thereof...
And the expression
Of feeling.

Life keeps dishing out opportunities
To feel
Good and bad.
To FEEL. 

When that happens
We either come through
Our Rite of Passage,
Or we smother the opportunity,
Burying it with our chosen painkillers;
Anxiety, addiction, depression....


Push the feelings away
And maybe one day
You won't feel anything.
You can become an inanimate object.

And life will still keep dishing it out
In the hopes that one day
You will learn
What it hopes to teach you.


Love is always the lesson.  

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