“Journeys”- Day Four… “Signs and Wonders”

I’m not a person of “routines”, yet every morning, I have a preferred “easing into my day” habit. 

I start with coffee and a devotion/meditation to help me get grounded and focused on the things that are truly important. I usually hop onto the Bible app and see the “verse of the day”, and quite often, I have a book or a plan that I’m going through or I find something random that energetically moves me. 
Yesterday’s verse of the day…

I mean! How about that for God speaking support into the journey?! 
I’ve had a passion for the “renewing of the mind” for many years…I have grown and evolved into the treatment modalities that I currently use based on how they resonated with me, then how I experienced them personally, and then I gained extensive training in them.
EMDR has been so incredibly life-changing for me personally, and I see clients gain so much freedom from the emotional bondage that held them before the treatment. 
It “renews the mind.” 
Yesterday marked the beginning of my training and experience with Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy and EMDR integration. 
Most of the day, however, was travel to Mount Madonna Retreat Center. 
I started out on State Road 1 down the coast from San Francisco. (Remember, my childhood dream?! Just in “reverse!”) I hugged the shoreline for most of the route, and wound through the mountains and redwoods as they met the shore. Windows down…music blaring (without even knowing those details, a friend even sent me the Amos Lee “Windows are rolled down” song to listen to while I was driving!)

I kept thinking “I want to just stop and take this in!” 
There was not one part that wasn’t breathtaking. 

I stopped in Pacifica first and took photos of the most gorgeous cliff views of the ocean. 

I stopped again in Pigeon Point and walked out to take photos of the ocean and lighthouse, and I do believe that I captured the most beautiful landscape photo that I’ve ever taken!

While driving, I started thinking about the retreat center and how they recommended that we bring slip on shoes because shoes aren’t allowed in any of the buildings, so I thought about those cute little Ugg slip-ons that I’ve been wanting, and how I now had a great excuse to buy them! (Friends that know me well, stop laughing. IYKYK) 
So, I searched “Ugg” in my maps. 
Instead of an Uggs store, the Apple ID photo for one of my deceased friends showed up over and over all down the page as an “Unknown” location (with the Apple ID photo beside it.) 
Weird, right? 
So, I “X’ed” out of that search and typed it in again. 
Same thing. 
There’s the photo of my lifelong friend that passed away a couple of years ago with “Unknown” location beside it listed all down the search results page.
At that point, I just put my phone down and turned up my music and just drove. 
I stopped for lunch at a beautiful little beachside cafe in Santa Cruz. 
After lunch, I searched for “Ugg” and maps gave me a list of options for Ugg stores. 
I still have no explanation for the results earlier in the search. 
I just took it to mean that there was a bigger purpose to all of this and I’m not alone in it.

I went to the quaint downtown area of Santa Cruz and got lost in shops and wandering. 

Mount Madonna was about 35 minutes away, so I left in time to arrive for check-in. 

As I traveled up the windy, sometimes one-lane mountain road to the retreat center, my “favorite” Brandi Carlile song played…the one that I’ve always said resonated with me as “My Song” if I were ever able to choose favorites (which I cannot!)

Upon arrival, I thought about one of my “favorite” (I said “one of!”) movies (Eat, Pray, Love), and I realized that I’m living out a real life version of the “Pray” part! ❤️  

The retreat center itself is a holistic wellness/yoga center. The work that we are doing is healing, sacred, spiritual, and l am in awe that I have the opportunity to be here doing it. All day, it seemed that I was getting confirmation after confirmation that this was exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

Dinner at the retreat center was on a deck in the middle of 380 acres of redwoods and grasslands sitting on a mountain top overlooking the Monterey Bay. 
Breathtaking. 

Our first meeting together as a group was immediately after dinner, and we sat on the patio and watched the sun set together as we got to know each other. 

The passion for healing trauma is palpable within our group. 

My personal intention is even deeper healing of past traumas, the experience of nervous system regulation after being in “sprint” mode for so long, the ability to learn from professionals who are practicing this healing modality well, the knowledge of the experience prior to offering it to my clients (I won’t practice something that I haven’t experienced myself), and the ability to bring a deeply effective healing modality to my community. 

And so it begins…

“Journeys”- Day Three…

 Duty called yesterday, so exploration began after teaching/working for a few hours in the morning. Early on in my “wandering” journey yesterday, I found a quaint little pizza shop called Joyride in the beautiful Yerba Buena Gardens with an amazing view of the downtown SOMA district. The entire restaurant opened up to the outside, and the 74 degree high was soul-soothing as I enjoyed my gluten-free pizza, conversation with the owner, and local artisan wine. Perfection! 

Before I set out on the day’s adventure, I booked a car rental, so I walked from the restaurant about a mile over to the Hertz station. The walk started out beautifully as I took in all of the history of the area…the historic hotels, a Macy’s that has been in Union Square since 1947, and lots of new “hipster” shops speckled through the “old.” 

Then, I hit Ellis Street, and the environment shifted dramatically. 

I shifted accordingly from “I’m clearly a tourist” mode into “I’ve got somewhere to be, and I’m late getting there” mode. 

Jesse at the Ellis St. Hertz location was proudly “Service Agent of the Month” for a whole wall of months (he was great, but I did wonder if he was the only person brave enough to work there). He ushered me inside with a protective flair, handed me a water, and sent me on my way within 5 minutes, so he clearly made “Service Agent of the Century” in my book! 

Y’all know where I was heading, right? 

The Redwood Forest has been calling to me since I was old enough to know what it was. 

So, I headed north. 

I had promised a friend a photo from me of the Golden Gate Bridge, so I stopped after I crossed it to get a proper selfie. 

What a gorgeous view and amazing history. Do you know that it is said to be the most photographed bridge in the world? As I stood there taking my selfie, I wondered how many times people have been asked “Will you take our picture?” (I held 3 strangers’ phones after being asked, and then I decided that I needed to take my selfie and get out of there before I ended up with another job!) 

As I continued on to Muir Woods to take in the Redwoods, I thought about how this was another “bucket list” experience for me (not that I have a list).  

“Bucket list experiences” in recent years have seemed to be accompanied by some really difficult pieces. Without going into a lot of detail, I have enjoyed the “bucket list experience” that I was taking part in, and ALSO…there was a significant hurt that is unfortunately now attached to the memory. 

Even with this two week trip, the first part of it was planned to include a bucket list experience that didn’t end up happening.

One of the things that disturbs me more than anything is when I let someone down. That fear of disappointing someone goes back as far as I can remember, and in recent years, as I have been busier than ever raising my children and working, the likelihood of not meeting someone’s expectations increases as my availability decreases.  

As much as I LOVE serving others, burnout due to serving too many, too often, with too few reprieves takes a toll. (This is one of the beautiful benefits to me of this training this week…the experiential practice is healing to the “healer!”)

The bucket list experience that was planned for the first part of this trip didn’t happen because I was not able to do all of the things last week that everyone around me needed me to do. 

So, as I was driving to Muir Woods, I whispered, “God, please help me to protect this experience. I’ve waited on it my entire life.” 

It was affected though. I had a difficult conversation within an hour of my reservation to Muir that left me feeling emotions that felt consuming. 

I walked into those woods feeling like my soul needed a hug. 

And, that’s exactly what the woods do. 

There are no words for what I saw while I walked through the woods for hours. 

I can tell you that I smelled earth, water, foliage. 

I felt the sun shining onto my face as it beamed through the tree branches. 

I took deep breaths filling my lungs and my heart with gratitude that I was in that space. 

I took my time. 

I wandered up on a deer. 

I listened to the water running over rocks. 

I walked through the Cathedral Grove, and I thought about how God had given me my own “Oak Grove” on my land at home. 

I found “gnome” houses in the bases of trees. 

I saw shapes of animals and a man’s face in a tree in the Bohemian Grove. 

It wasn’t until the end of my hike that I was able to actually touch one of those big Redwoods, though. 

It just felt too sacred. 

When I did, though, that’s when the energy of that tree touched that part of me that was hurting, and it said to me, “You can hold both.” 

“And, Also….”

Two distinctly different things can be true at the same time. 

I can be sad that something is true and still be in awe of the fact that I am experiencing something that I’ve longed to experience. 

Of course. 

The peace that came with that awareness led me to drive over to experience my first west coast sunset. 

Now, I know why I don’t have an actual “bucket list”….a West Coast sunset wouldn’t have been on it. 

And, also…it should have been. 

“Journeys” Day Two..

 After arriving in San Francisco yesterday, I wandered through the downtown area taking it all in. I love the random conversations that happen through “wandering” with no agenda. 

First, I met a couple from Georgia (yes. Georgia.😂) who were somewhat frantic while looking for a particular route on the Muni. 

As I was taking in a large female statue in front of the Ferry Building ("R-Evolution") which is a 45-foot-tall sculpture by artist Marco Cochrane (she “breathes”, y’all! 😳), this couple starts asking me for directions. 

I said, “I’d love to help you, but I literally just landed, I’ve never been here before, and I’m just wandering.” 

They couldn’t believe I was from Georgia, and I couldn’t believe they were on a stressful mission to find one particular touristy site and they were missing all of the beauty along the way! 

After I smiled and told them to just trust their journey as they made it to their desired destination, the wife sighed and said, “Yes. Let’s just have fun, and we’ll get there at some point this week!” 

Trust the journey. Every encounter is meant for some reason. 

I ended up at the marketplace at the Ferry Building at the end of the Embarcadero and settled into a waterfront oyster bar called Hog Island Oyster Co. They required patrons to stand in line outside the restaurant to wait for a table. 

As the hostess asked the woman in front of me “How many?”, she replied, “One.” 

The hostess looked at me. I said, “One.” 

The hostess looked to the woman behind me. She replied, “One.” 

We all looked at each other and laughed, and the woman behind me said, “It sounds like it’s ‘solo night’ for women tonight!” 

There was a metal railing containing the seating area outside with two-person tables lining the inside of the railing (about 8 tables total.) I sat down around 6:30 p.m. at one of those tables, and I left around 8:30. 

I stayed there longer than most as I was in no hurry and wanted to experience the culture of the area. 

Here’s the thing….people watching is my favorite…so, as I’m sitting there taking it all in, it struck me that over and over, women showed up around me dining alone. 

At one point, as I glanced in front and behind me, every table on that railing was occupied by one woman, and we were all facing the same direction. I don’t know that there is any significance to that other than I had the thought that this looked like a “Life magazine shot.” 

I will say that I have been reading lately about the “trend” (I don’t know the frequency that it takes to become a “trend”, but it is certainly a topic that is being discussed in the “relationship research community” these days) of people….mostly women within the 40+ age group, who have sworn off romantic partnering as they have experienced negative experiences that have led to a “protect my peace at all costs” mentality. 

I don’t know. Part of that makes me proud that people are willing to enjoy experiences alone and part of that makes me sad for our culture of relationships. 

Anyway….I’m contemplative and reflective, so people watching always leads to me wondering about philosophical questions with a hanging, “We’ll see what happens…” conclusion. 

So, that was Day one yesterday. 

Oh, except, I also encouraged a lawyer that struck up a conversation with me to pursue playing the piano in a bar and joining a rowing team instead of practicing law since he loathes his job. 😂 

Expansion. ☺️

Journeys

 When I was a little girl, I would lay on my trampoline looking up at the sky and dream of being on one of the planes overhead. I wondered where they were going. The people that were traveling…Were they headed to some exotic destination to play and explore exciting adventures? Were they professionals flying to share their talents? 

One thing that I was inherently sure of…they were Expanding. Growing. Connecting. 

They would be different in some way following their trip than when they left.

Today, I’m traveling across the country for all of those reasons. 
Expansion. Growth. Connection. 
As that little dreamer on the trampoline, I mentally planned many excursions. 
One of which involved flying into southern California and driving up the coast to the Redwood Forest, meandering through interesting stops whenever I wanted along the way. Forests hold a special magic for me, and to see those beautiful monstrosities seemed to be the ultimate in what I now know to be “shinrin yoku” or forest bathing. 
My flight today arrives in San Francisco (rather than southern Cali), and I will start my two week adventure taking in all of the excitement of that city along with my forest exploration until Wednesday! 

Expansion.

Anyone who knows me well knows how passionate I am about serving people in healing their trauma especially through the use of the treatment modality, EMDR (https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/).  I have been a psychotherapist for 26 years, trained in EMDR for 10, and I have been privileged to witness clients receive healing from EMDR in ways that I nor they could have ever imagined. I often feel like I am a part of something within clients’ healing journeys that is so sacred that I’m humbled to even have been chosen to be a part of the process. 
Several years ago, I was at a national conference for my profession where one of the workshops was on “Psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy.” My first thought was, “What?! Is this real??? We’ve resorted to the use of mind-altering substances in the name of healing?!” 
Then, I kept hearing more podcasts about the various healing experiences through this treatment as well as the research that was being conducted on the topic. More and more workshops were offered on the topic over the years as well as the keynote speaker at one of our regional conferences speaking on this therapy from a practitioner’s point of view. 
Years before this, I had a client that was working with me who asked if I could come with him to provide EMDR treatment as he received his weekly ketamine treatments. 
“What??? Ketamine? What is ketamine?” 
He took out his phone and started pulling up information as I regrettably informed him that I knew nothing about the use of ketamine, and there were certainly no “best practices” that I was aware of that could guide me in supporting him through his treatments. 
Last year, my COO, Lindsay and I attended an open house for a psychotherapy practice that had just added “Ketamine-assisted psychotherapy” to their therapeutic offerings. I was surprised (to say the least) that there was no professional organization yet established to oversee training in this treatment modality and no best practices to guide clinicians in proper therapeutic care following a ketamine “journey.” 
I began looking for training options. Curiosity fueled the desire for training along with a feeling of responsibility to our profession as a whole to assist in establishing/contributing to research-based knowledge that will guide proper use of this treatment modality (assuming it resonates with me and my core values as I train in the treatment.) 
Months ago, I was at a specialist doctor’s appointment. As this physician asked about my profession, I mentioned that I own Hope Springs Mind, Body, Spirit, and she looked at me like she had seen a ghost. She had established ketamine administration treatment at her practice months earlier, but she stated that she hesitated to continue to offer it without the necessary psychotherapeutic follow-up care. She went on to say just the week prior to our meeting that day, someone had recommended that she reach out to me to gauge my interest in this collaborative treatment modality. 
There are no coincidences. 
I trained in an online training on the topic, and I found it interesting, yet impossible to ethically move forward with this treatment offering as a practice without the experiential training component. 
So….this Wednesday through Tuesday of the following week, I will be at a training in Mount Madonna just south of San Francisco as I join 15 other clinicians traveling from all over the world as we train with a group of professionals who, for years, have been practicing and training in ketamine-assisted psychotherapy with EMDR treatment as the follow-up care…all medically monitored. My goal is to not only to potentially deepen the healing opportunity that we have utilizing EMDR, but also to make healing possibly more accessible for people who might be more resistant to trauma treatment/mental health treatment, in general. 

Growth. 

Following my training, I’m going travel down the coast (can we call that a dream in reverse?!) and meander to visit a friend in Santa Barbara. (Remember my blog post The Semmering? Christine?)

Connection.

Stay tuned….a new journey begins….

“It’s Complicated…”

“What does that even mean?!” 

 I scrolled through Facebook probably 10 years ago, observing all of the “It’s Complicated” relationship statuses, and I probably said something like “Can you even call it a ‘relationship’ if it’s ’complicated’?!”  

Then, I divorced. 

There was nothing that could have prepared me for the level of pain and grief that going through that caused. I have nothing but grace for people as they navigate all of the emotions following such a trauma…including the unhealthy ways in which we may choose to cope. 

 The way that we “cope” doesn’t feel like a “choice” really when we are in the middle of the experience. And, it isn’t in a lot of ways…when we experience something traumatic, our brain goes into “fight or flight” mode, and the prefrontal cortex (our reasoning center) is paused (from an evolutionary perspective, this is great! 

Otherwise, we may “think” too much, and not be able to react immediately when there is an actual threat.) Yet, when we are in “survival” mode following something like divorce, unhealthy coping gets in the way of healing. 

 There are soooooooo many people who stumble down that unhealthy coping path for the rest of their lives. Thankfully, many “do the work” and heal enough to have a healthy partnership in the future. 

This is what is weighing on me so heavily right now….for my generation and subsequent generations, it is so easy to engage in unhealthy coping mechanisms which then become addictions. 

When I was in the “dating” stage of life in my teens and 20’s, we were fully engaged in the moment. There were few distractions…especially growing up in a small town. 

We went to grab something to eat, met up with friends (maybe! 🤭), and ended nights with lingering goodbyes on a front porch. My generation typically followed this idealistic trajectory of dating, getting married, having children, etc. 

Now, I believe, in large part because of our digital society, it is so much more difficult for people to meet each other because it is more comfortable for them to retreat at home and scroll on phones. 

So, this became a problem for my generation. 

First with the introduction of cell phones, social media, the internet…and the problem isn’t with those things. 

The problem is with our lack of boundaries with them. 

We are the problem. Our choices are the problem.

Easy access to technology meant that it became easy to reconnect with a past lover and even easier to find a new one if you didn’t like what was happening in the current relationship.  

And, then came the addictions…to the validation of “likes”, to “keeping up with the Joneses” on “steroids” as we compared our families with the perfectly staged photos on social media, to the dopamine hits of scrolling, to continually seeking “more” and ultimately not feeling satisfied with life. 

We’ve passed that “threat to peace and real connection” along to our children by handing them a device.  

So, now, they struggle to meet people, feel lonely and isolated. They wonder how they will find a partner that they can trust when they know all of the options available to them that can cause broken hearts in a day and time when getting a divorce is commonplace. 

My friend, Mindy, and I went to a couple of concerts this past month. At both concerts, we were seated in the front row in front of the “pit.” We had a “front row seat” to all of the couples taking selfies and asking others to take their photos. 

What we witnessed made me sad. 

The couples weren’t enjoying the experience and each other. In fact, there were times that we saw them angry at each other as they continued to retake photos much to the dismay of their frustrated friends who were not professional photographers! 

I literally watched one couple get so angry that they couldn’t get the “right” photo that they both stormed off in different directions. 

I first noticed this “trend” when I went to a concert with my oldest son last month. I nudged him as I had been watching a couple in front of us seemingly arguing and very obviously not happy to be there together, yet one of them wanted a photo to commemorate this event. They magically transformed into this couple with smiles on their faces as they held the pose, then turned to each other for a “kiss”….(intentionally placed in quotation marks as what I observed was not MY definition of a kiss.) As soon as one of them snapped the held pose while side-eyeing the phone, they both rushed in to view the photo for approval, then were back to their seats turned away from each other with ice growing between them. 

I asked my youngest son this week if he thought his generation would be the one to turn things back around. He’s doubtful. 

People, in general, are miserable as they navigate empty relationships and lack of genuine connection. 

Yet, it is going to take discipline and much working through dopamine addictions to be able to develop authentic partnerships. 

I used to think “Gahhhhhhhhh….🙄 Just stay out of relationship if it’s complicated!” 

Now that I have experienced the very unnatural feeling of “dating” at this stage of life after divorce and raising my children, I get it. 

Everything feels complicated. 

Navigating the life history, meeting families and children of your dating partner, unhealed traumas from childhood, adulthood, marriage….then, add in the phone/device misuse, and yeah…Complicated. 

Doing the work to help ourselves to heal not only helps us to be ready for healthy partnership, but it also protects those along the way that may become “casualties” of our healing process. It helps our children to see us modeling health even through one of the most traumatic experiences that we could experience as humans. 

We have to give ourselves grace through the process. 

It’s messy most of the time. (Remember that our reasoning ability is not working well through it!) 

Initially, we tend to gravitate towards what we feel like we have been lacking the most. 

This is dangerous, because we then tend to make decisions quickly while we’re still trying to heal that void which needs to be healed within ourselves rather than through external means. 

As we give ourselves grace, it’s also important to realize the lessons learned through the experiences. 

I haven’t dated much for many reasons…mainly, I was fully responsible for raising my children by myself, so they have been my main focus, and any relationship that I explored had to consider my children first. 

The lessons have been many, and the serious relationship that I ended last year taught me the most. 

We were “fire” from the beginning. Anywhere we went, our energy together was contagious. 

We played hard. 

We danced spontaneously whether we were in the kitchen, an event, or the grocery store. 

We laughed a lot, worked projects together seamlessly, and ultimately, I knew throughout the relationship that he was in my life mirroring pieces of my childhood that I still had trauma to heal from. 

I didn’t want that to be true during it, but deep down, I knew that it was. 

The couple of other brief dating experiences following that relationship, I saw things from the beginning that caused me to say to myself (and to them), “That’s not ok.” or “This is not going to work.” And, from those experiences, I learned to trust my gut more quickly. 

It has never lied. 

I was just reluctant to listen. 

So, to all you “It’s Complicated” statuses out there….I see you. 

 And, also….there is nothing but grace for your journey. 

Now, let’s get off of our devices and go do some “front porch sittin’” with friends, neighbors, family.  

Real connection is what we all crave. It doesn’t exist on a screen.