HOW WAS I TO KNOW? “How was I to know that what I am you didn’t want me to be?” I have no recollection of what play that line is from. I heard it when I was between eighteen and nineteen years of age, in a small Illinois theater. I recall little else about the play itself. And yet my entire body remembers vividly the feeling that occurred as I heard an actor utter that line. “How was I to know that what I am you didn’t want me to be?” Those words reactivated an internal trauma it would take decades to even begin to integrate. We knew little about the dynamics of in utero imprinting or of birth trauma when that declaration first landed with a

TIRED OF THE SELF It seems to me that there are those who never tire of telling self-diminishing stories about themselves, and then blaming others for the effects those stories generate. Please feel free to delete and/or to unsubscribe at any point. I just feel compelled to say this and to say it now. It is common in our culture to deal with issues surrounding self-esteem. Most if not all of us have or continue to struggle with a wounded sense of self. I personally believe these challenges are integral to our spiritual evolution. We are meant to grow from a false to a truer self-image. The false sense of self is emotionally originated and is then perpetuated by the mental stories we tell from this wounding

APPROVAL SEEKING Being born to a highly critical mother left me spending much of my life seeking approval or at least acceptance. I am long past blaming my mother. I knew my grandmother, and so I know from whence the judging consciousness came from. My mother spent her entire life seeking approval from a woman who was not capable of giving it. This continued long after my grandmother’s death. I lived and experienced this long enough to see that my mothers torment was of her own making. I vowed that I would not make the same mistake. While my pattern was particularly geared toward gaining the attention and affection of men the mother dynamic is to this day alive and active. The differential that keeps me from

WHERE I BELONG While I grew up in the Midwest I never really felt like I belonged there. I could write volumes as to why that might be. Ultimately it really doesn’t matter. From early in adolescents I always knew I would leave my native Ohio and only occasionally look back. I longed for what I perceived to be life in the big city. A big part of that longing was career aspiration. I wanted to go to New York City and leave my mark on the Great White Way. I was going to sing and dance on Broadway, and then make my way into the film versions of the same shows. I would have a huge mantle to hold all of my awards. In the privacy

THE BIO OF A BIOPSY Here we go again. The glare of the fluorescent light was softened only slightly by the hint of sun glinting through the small window. The same mass-produced village scape hung slightly crooked on the wall. The same unimaginably uncomfortable chairs. The same computer. The canned music seemed louder than before. The music seemed so much louder than before. Here we go again. And yet not. In the mere months following open heart surgery there was now evidence that cancer may be coming to teach its revolutionary curriculum once again. And yet not. Not again. Not a repeat. Though it is the very same room lit by the same fluorescent light with the same sterile décor that six years ago I heard the