​                                                          "Tell me your truth!"
 
As a couple's therapist, I hear this often, but what does it really mean? The last time I was asked this it was a demand, spoken in anger as a challenge - tell me your truth - and I spun off in my thoughts like this - "My truth? Tell you my truth? I don't even know what my truth is in this moment - I am angry and hurt and terrified and spinning and holding in what I am feeling. Whatever I tell you right now, will it be my truth?  I need time to find my own truth - meaning what is really me. Is this really me? My hurt feelings and anger? Yes, in this moment this is what I am truly experiencing, but is this my truth? I don't think so.
 
What is my truth?
What is the truth?
Is there a difference?
What is it that you are really asking me?
 
I see in my mind's eye a me in this emotionally chaotic moment who is sputtering, struggling to tell you my truth, coming up with some words, and you pointing your finger at me in response - "See? I told you so!" Blaming, accusing, proving your own point.
 
So I scream out in my mind "Screw you and your truth! You don't know what I know and you don't know that I know that you are not telling the truth!"
 
Some part of me will then remind me that I don't know that. I think it is true. I could make that my truth and call you a worthless piece of whatever, and we could stand firm in our separate truths and self-righteousness and aloneness. And if one of us can't tolerate this separation they will give in to the other's "truth". They will self-abandon and the relationship will suffer, probably in silence.
 
Instead, I want to take space to find my truth which I will hold loosely as I seek to know what is true, and then I really want to talk to you and find healing between us, which will be possible if you are willing to let go of your tight grip on your truth.
 
Finding what is the truth, if this is even possible at all, takes time, humility, and an honest desire to listen and hear one another - to understand each one's perspective, to admit that we may have this wrong, until we hear from the other, and they hear from us. This takes great love and great patience.
 
This is hard enough in couple's counseling when we are dealing with two people caring enough to enlist the help of a third - two people who want healing and understanding. It is harder in family therapy, and it is harder in a community, in a nation, and then hardest when it comes to the world, but I believe that this is the way forward. Each one's "truth" is actually each one's perspective, and the story we are telling ourselves, out of which come our feelings and thoughts and actions. We come closer to the actual truth when we are honest with ourselves, when we have awareness around why we tell ourselves the things we tell ourselves that we call our truth, and when we openly share and listen to one another, seeking what is true in honor of healing the rift between us.
 
This is how we heal the world...this is a great work. It is not easy, but it is important now - more than ever with our current capacities to destroy it all, take us all out, almost with no effort, blinded by and empowered by what we call "our truth". There is your truth and there is my truth and there is The Truth, which we can get closer to by sharing our truth, listening, validating each one's perspective, improving communication, apologizing, forgiving, deepening connection worldwide.
 
We also have that capacity these days - for worldwide communication in real time to accomplish this difficult and challenging process.
 
And so, I still have hope, and I hope that you do, too!


​

I am developing a new program that I call "The Hero's/Heroine's Journeying to Weight Loss and Better Health and Well-being", and I am looking for ten clients who would like to give it a try at a special introductory price!  This will be a six month program that costs only $300/month, or $1500 if paid in full (that is a savings of $300).  The program consists of two hour-long sessions per month by phone with me, and then unlimited support through a private Facebook Group! 
 
I believe that a weight loss journey can be a very heroic adventure when approached holistically, addressing causes of weight issues in spirit, mind and body.  In this program I will help you sort out all of the diet and lifestyle change information you have heard and help you discover what works best for you.  You will learn to listen to your own body and understand what you need to be and feel your best, and you will undoubtedly be surprised at what, together, we discover. This program has the potential to help you get to a point at which you no longer even worry about your weight any more.  Imagine being free of all that stress!  You will feel so much more confident in your own skin, you will feel lighter and healthier and more vibrant, and you will be able to stop wasting money, time and life energy for the rest of your life wondering why you gain weight, why you can't take it off, why a diet that worked for your best friend doesn't work for you, and what is really going on.  
 
I have been developing this program for quite some time and I am really excited to get started with some courageous and motivated clients!  My approach is gentle and loving but intelligent and informed - I have been where you are, I understand the frustrations of being obsessed with weight loss, and I love having the freedom I have now to live without what I will call "weight anxiety".  Releasing weight anxiety will also result in better overall health and well-being, better sleep and vitality, and more time to do what really matters.

​Yesterday a friend of mine from long ago posted a song of his on YouTube that I had played on – it was my first time into a real recording studio.  My fingers used to freeze in my own living room as soon as I turned on the tape player, so this was a big deal.  I had practiced and practiced and I was so ready, only worried about the mental game.  We did two takes.  What an experience – I wish everyone could do this. After I had finished what I was supposed to do and what I had practiced, the engineer continued the music and asked me, through my headphones, to improvise on the end.  I had relaxed considerably, having finished what I was there to do, so I went with it.  What I did wasn’t brilliant – on the fly all I could come up with was so simple.  But in the end, the work I had practiced got cut and what I had improvised, in my relaxed, “this doesn’t matter” state was saved for the final recording…
 
The point is this. When we are stressed, or in fight or flight, what we produce has that energy around it.  Our best work comes from a state of peace.  

​So, like Elijah in the wilderness, you are being asked – who are you?  What is for you here?  Who are you here?  In the fragile silence of the desert you are being asked – who are you when and if you are not your achievements or your titles or your roles or your possessions or your bank account?  When your children have moved on and your parents have died, who are you?  Who are you when you are no longer getting report cards and winning awards?  Who are you when no one knows who you used to be?  Who are you when all that matters to you is finding shelter and food and water? Do you know?  Who are you here and what is here for you in this place?
 
What is here for you is Stillness.  What is here for you is Love.
 
That is all.
That is everything.
 
Who are you when all there is is Stillness, when all there is is Love?
 
You are Stillness.
You are Love.
 
You are all.
You are everything.
That is all you are, always.

​I am in Vermont, about 90 miles from the Canadian border, on my way home from an orientation weekend at UVM where my son will be a freshman in the fall.  It’s 2004.  I am about to pull on to Route 91, going south.  I yawn as my son sleeps in the seat next to me.
 
Traffic slows.  What’s this?  Armed guards?  Weird. I watch as the cars in front of me slow down and then are waved through.  I feel nervous.  Should I be? I pull up to the man in the uniform with the gun.  Where have I seen this before?  Oh yeah, Yugoslavia.  1985.
 
He doesn’t wave me through. He signals to roll down my window. My anxiety moves up through my legs, into my stomach.  What is this?
 
I roll down my window. He looks at me for several seconds.  I wait. My mind races.  Then he speaks.
 
“State your citizenship,” he says.
 
State my citizenship?  In the middle of Vermont?  Seriously, what?  I try not to laugh.  I think of a joke.  “Wow.  I heard you folks in Vermont are tough.  I’m so sorry, I am a citizen of Massachusetts, but my son is attending UVM in the fall.  That’s him sleeping over there.  We’re almost Vermonters!”  Instead I look at him, my eyebrows go up, I try not to smirk, and I say, “So you mean as in U-ni-ted Ssss-TATES?” He tells me to pull over.  Uh oh.
 
My son awakens and asks me what is going on.  I tell him I don’t know.  Other vehicles are waved on to freedom.
 
More men in uniform arrive with flashlights and proceed to search the mommy van.  My son looks at me as if to say, “Mom, what did you do?”.
 
Flashback.  Communist Yugoslavia.  1985. I am pregnant with my son.  I am sitting in a police station, wondering if he will be born behind bars.  I have to pee.  I try not to vomit.  He kicks me hard, as if to say, “Mom, what have you done?”.  
 
Fear changes us. The proof is here in the middle of Vermont.  I always felt so lucky to be an American citizen; lucky, unafraid and humbled.  Then, 911, etc.  We are changed.  
 
Vermont.  The men find nothing.  We leave with a funny story.  Communist Yugoslavia.  We leave knowing that we are lucky Americans and we get to leave.
 
Flash forward.  June 2018.  This Vermont story no longer seems funny.  My son, in response to his post-911 America, is serving in the Air Force.  The fear in our nation has flourished. The border patrol is commonplace, we are building walls, we imprison or send away “others” and we rip children from parents’ arms.  We are lost.
 
FLOTUS says she really doesn’t care.  
 
I do.  Yes, I do, in answer to her question.
 
And I believe that with deep love, faith, compassion, awareness and right action, we will find our way back home.

Love for Love’s Sake
 
We loved for Love’s sake, unattached to the outcome, although when the unexpected separation came I was thrown into an emotional turmoil unlike any other, and had to go through the stages of grief before returning to Love.  Loving him united me with my Higher Self.  My Highest Self, and yours, is Love.

Love for Love’s sake.  There are no guarantees, and still we must love for love’s sake, and keep our hearts open…
 
The Realm of Joy and imagination
 
Go to the woods alone – stay there for awhile and become comfortable.  Magic happens!  Some things will happen in your imagination, which will light up as you play like a child, rooted and grounded and accompanied by the forest world.  Here you will find your stories.  Other beings will come to play with you – the owls and the deer if you are lucky.  They sense you – they know who you are and they check you out even before you are aware of their presence.  If you are lucky they will play with you.  I have a little friend who I met when he was very small and still had his spots.  He and his mother let me follow them for awhile and then he was spooked by a forest sound.  He ran to me instead of his mother.  I believe in my imagination that some kind of imprinting happened.  I would see him almost daily after that and we would hang out together.  His mother and father checked me out, too, and I got to be close to them in a way I am told is not the norm, but I think maybe it is the norm, we simply have lost touch with that aspect of our being.  But what is most astonishing is that, after having moved away and not seeing them in the months of winter, I revisited in early spring of the following year, and he seemed to remember me.  I followed the little group of deer for a few hours – this same group would let me get close the fall before but now they were skittish and stayed ahead.  I felt a sadness for having lost this sacred connection and finally decided to let them go.  I watched them disappear into the cloak of the forest, turned to leave, and there he was.  A yearling, 15 feet away – looking at me.  Energetically, I knew it was him.  My heart soared and we played!  I followed him and took many pictures.  He would turn and look to be sure I was following and if I stopped he would move towards me.  I had forgotten to turn off my phone and when it rang, a treasured call from my daughter living in France, instead of running he came closer, as if curious, and I chose not to answer, not without pain, but needing to stay connected to him.  After awhile it was getting colder and I realized I had lost a glove.  I told him good-bye for now, headed back following my own tracks in the snow, found my glove, and went to the water trail looking for birds.  An hour later, still in the forest, I turned a corner and there he was again, glancing at me from behind a fallen log!  I had never seen him down in this area before and I laughed heartily and once again began to follow him, this time up a steep incline – he went ahead but would stop and wait and watch me climb.  We went back into the deeper woods together and played some more.  He fills my heart with joy and I am humbled.
 
A few weeks ago I was at the Quabbin, just inside the woods on an old road after checking out a cellar hole, and three large coywolves ran straight towards me at full speed, each turning at the last minute and running on ahead.  I chose in the moment I first saw them to calm my heart and not be frightened, not send out those vibes though I might feel that afterwards, remembering how fierce they looked while running at me, and I tried to get a picture.  I got blurry photos of each one, each so powerful, and again, I am awestruck at these experiences.
 
We are brought back to Love.  Love for Love’s sake.  
 
“Where have you hidden, Beloved?
Why have you wounded my soul?
I went out to the wilderness calling for you
But you were gone.
 
Oh shepherd keeping your watch in the hills
If by chance you meet with my Love
Tell him I suffer in my lonely grief
And I soon shall die.
 
I have searched for my Love in the mountains
I have searched among the meadows and the fields
He has poured out a thousand graces in them
So my heart might be healed
But my heart is not healed.
 
Where have you hidden, Beloved?
Why have you wounded my soul?
I went out to the wilderness calling for you
But you were gone.”

These are words of a song written by John Michael Talbot.  I used to sing his songs in church and I got in trouble for it, but that is another story...

Do you know the power of Love?  We must open our hearts, and even in times of gut-wrenching loss we must keep our hearts open.  This is the only path to peace and empowerment.  It isn't easy, but it is worth it.  Open your heart!  Even still, keep your heart open.