Who’s Driving Your Car?

~ Shawna Rae ~ 5 Comments

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Cooped up in my house, my thoughts seem to be all over the map. I can’t divert myself with friends, wandering stores, or yoga classes. Dealing with my own thoughts has been the biggest challenge of my life. But it’s also the one thing that changed my life so profoundly.

Pam Grout described how she handles these thoughts in her blog here. For those who don’t know, she lost her only daughter, Taz, this year, but has continued on her amazing spiritual journey.

Insist that Love Drive the Clown Car

Here is a photo of Pam with her daughter.

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It’s Safe to Feel

~ Shawna Rae ~ 12 Comments

Lewis Capaldi

At four years’ sober a week ago, I thought maybe my brain had healed enough to try to finally wean myself of an antidepressant I have taken for twenty years. I was down to a really low dose; even so, when I’d tried to taper off before, I couldn’t outlast the withdrawal.

The drug served me well at a time when I felt way too much. It was a buffer between me and the world I had created, much of it painful. One side effect was that I almost never cried, even in the most dire of circumstances.

But I missed crying at something beautiful, like while watching a good movie or listening to an amazing voice.

This morning, however, I happened across a video not shown in the U.S. for the song “Someone you loved.” A few minutes in and tears were streaming down my face. It felt so good, so cleansing. And it had been so long. This morning, there was a tiny thawing in my heart, held safe for me until the beginning of spring.

I used to be someone you loved.

Coming Apart at the Seams?

~ Shawna Rae ~ 5 Comments

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“The world needs you cracked open. Not carefully stuck together. For many people, there comes a point where life has a way of knocking us over enough times that the pieces just have to fall on the floor. Try as we might with the super glue and blue tack, we eventually let it all come falling down. This is life’s way of rejiggling all the bits. Reshuffling the parts that were in the wrong place to start with. Especially now. At the time it can feel like you’re broken. But the truth is that you are actually more whole than you can possibly imagine. You are more whole and closer than you were before. And before long you will come to bless the things that cracked you open. Because just like humpty dumpty, regardless of all the king’s horses and all the king’s men, we are the only ones who can put ourselves together again. And you can. And you will. And it’s going to be glorious.”

—  Rebecca Campbell