On Non Alcoholic Beverages

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

20 months and counting. This is just my point of view and may not be suitable for all.

10/9/22

Today is 20 months without alcohol for me.

I’ve learned a lot about myself in the last 20 months, particularly about drinking. 

I love to drink. Not just alcohol. Beverages. All kinds. Coffee, tea, sparkling water, soda (diet ONLY), Crystal Lite… and now non alcoholic (NA) beer.

I’ve always loved the taste of beer. I think my first experience of beer was when I was around 7 or so. My family and I were coming back from a Sunday afternoon of fishing off the piers of Brooklyn NY.  We didn’t plan to stay out that long and we had nothing to drink. I was soooo thirsty. 

On the way home we stopped for a family favorite- pizza at Spumoni Gardens. My dad stood on the pizza line with my brothers and my mom and I on the drink line. The beer for my father came out first. I had been complaining for hours about being thirsty. The soda was taking entirely too much time. My mom handed me the beer and said “just a sip”. I took the flimsy wax coated cup off the tray and intended to take one gulp, but promptly downed the entire thing. My mom looked at me with horror. 

“You liked that?” she asked?

“Yes, I was thirsty” I replied.

The workers behind the counter handed us the sodas and the pressure of the line moved us out to the general courtyard where we sat with my dad and brothers.

My mom was still shocked when she said “I need to go back online to get the beer, Esterina drank it all”.

The rest of my family stared at me in awe. Everyone asking how I could have liked the taste. 

Geez, I was just thirsty and it quenched my thirst is all. I didn’t understand the big deal.

I had also danced for 10 years. 2-3 times a week for most of the school year I would put on a pink leotard for ballet lessons and the black one for tap and jazz. I was always concious of how that leotard fit. As I got older and started filling out more, I started to think about calories and the things I liked. I always loved soda and when I realized that diet soda tasted almost exactly the same I decided to never have non diet soda again.

I may have had non diet soda once or twice since then (I honestly can’t say), but it’s diet soda for me now. At least for the past 35 years it has been. 

As a young adult I never chose alcohol as a beverage of choice unless it was some fruity elaborate cocktail on a beach somewhere. Even then I’d only have one – completely aware of the sheer number of calories the drink had.

But sometime in my early 30s there was nothing but non diet soda and beer as an option with pizza somewhere after helping some friends move. I was hot, hungry and thirsty. I wouldn’t drink the soda but had the lite beer instead. Less calories.

And oh my gosh was it good! Beer and pizza together was amazing. It was Miller lite that our friends bought. So the next Friday for pizza night I picked up a six pack of Miller lite. Light beer became a part of my life. 

Well, fast forward a few years. I met my now husband who introduced me to enjoying the subtleties of wine. That was a new area for me. Wine isn’t so easy to just have 1 when there is a whole bottle involved. The addiction took hold from there. Light beer went to all kinds and a little wine too way too much. 

Now I’m 20 months from my last drink and am as happy as I’ve ever been. I don’t miss anything about it. But I do have to give a giant plug to NA beer. I love it! I love it like I love diet soda. All of my life since I switched to diet soda I just don’t even like the taste of regular soda. It’s so sweet my teeth hurt. When it’s the only option I’ve often taken a sip to be polite but let the cup sit full. 

When I first got sober, one day after gardening I craved beer. It has long been a go to after a very hot day or long hours of work. I remembered we had NA beer in the fridge. But I opted for the diet soda instead. It was just as refreshing. 

The next day I started telling this same story to one of the Aware Recovery companions that came to my house as part of the year long program I admitted myself to. When I got to the part where I remembered there was NA beer in the fridge she stopped me with some kind of urgency and almost yelled “You didn’t have any did you?!”. 

No I replied- taken aback that she perceived I nearly avoided a relapse. What did I know? Was NA beer a gateway to drinking again? It seemed to be!

A few days later I told another companion who was at the house about this treacherous near miss. This one told me that despite being in recovery, she is a bartender and has NA beer and mocktails all of the time. She treated the episode as no big deal. 

I didn’t comment. I needed to mull this over. Maybe it was one of these things where there is no hard and fast rule. To each their own. 

No one talked about NA drinks in AA. My husband ended up buying a few varieties to try himself and they were always around the house. But it wasn’t until about a year ago this month that I dared try one. 

At my first sip I was convinced I had beer. I had to go to the fridge and read the can. It wasn’t one of these 0.0% things. I did claim it was <0.5%. Again I was scared about this little amount. I looked it up and read there is no way anyone can get drunk from that amount. You need to drink 40 for any kind of buzz. Your body processes this tiny amount so quickly that even if you could injest 480 oz in any short period of time, you still can’t get inerbriared.

Inebriation-proof and tastes this good? It seemed as too good to be true as the Diet Coke I still love. 

I started drinking them and trying different kinds. They are so good. To me as good as the real thing, but no buzz. No risk of slurring or not being able to drive. 

Nothing came up on my very frequent urine tests with Aware, the breathalyzer or at the addiction treatment center I went to for Vivitrol shots. 

It took me weeks to even think about telling the third companion that I was drinking NA beer. She was the youngest of the group and seemed to be the most receptive to such an alternative thought. As soon as I told her she piped up that she still goes to bars with friends and drinks soda or whatever non alcoholic cocktail might be advertised on the menu. She has been doing that for years and never felt tempted.

Not long after another companion was added to my dwindling # of visits (because I was nearing the end of the program) and this one had a whole list of NA cocktails up her sleeve. Additionally she didn’t get the AA word that drinking any of these out of a wine glass was the road to ruin, so my guilt about even entertaining such a thought went out the window. 

Now I am not saying this is ok for everyone- to have NA drinks, beers or mocktails. Or to have them in traditional drinking cups. Perhaps if I didn’t take that pause when that first companion sort of scared me. Perhaps that may have quickly put me somewhere bad. I’ll never know. 

It’s often not possible to know when you made the right choice. Usually you know when you made the wrong one.

But I’m still not saying it’s a great idea or alternative for everyone. It might not be. I am not an expert and the only experience I’ve had is my own short lived one. 

Not long ago I opened the question about yes/no to NA beverages to the local town Facebook recovery group I am in… and if one could get their proverbial head bitten off I would have. Glad I only asked and didn’t tell them I did!! Not one person (not 1) thought it a good idea. 

The two biggest comments were

1- when did we ever drink for the taste?

2- mimicking the real thing will lead back to the real thing.

And I think that might be true for some people. But not all. 

Everyone thinks they are different or immune to whatever the warning is. I took pause here and evaluated. 

I’ve always had good discipline when it came to food/drinks/calories. I do realize that drugs and alcohol are a different story and their addictive qualities make that nearly impossible to control. 

But I am not having the real thing and there is nothing addictive to it. 

I’ve always been ok with knock off food versions. My Diet Coke as an example, but so much more. I switched to skim milk in high school when I had money from a job and a car to buy the milk. We only had whole milk at home. Did it taste as good?? No of course not. But it was better for me and good enough. Now I prefer it. But I don’t even drink milk anymore- only almond milk. Another switch that wasn’t as good at first but my now preference.

Same with sugar substitutes. I never minded snackwells or those fake types of sweets. I prefer making them myself. Yes, like the beer they taste a little different- but not much. These kind of things satisfy me without the guilt and over time I don’t even like the original anymore. The same has been true for me all my life from the milk down to tofu over meat. 

So in answer to the responses to my question in the Facebook recovery page, I did drink for the taste and never has the fake version led me back to the real thing. When I switched I switched for good.

It’s been a full year now since I dipped my toe into NA beverages. So far I don’t feel any closer to a road to ruin.  Do I miss wine? Not really. There are zero good subs for it and in the face of that reality and I am not even interested.

I haven’t really gotten very into mocktails – for the same reasons I never did before on hard cocktails or hard alcohol. The calories don’t seem worth it. 

The growth of NA beer is pretty astounding. It is available everywhere. The only place I haven’t come across it is in the Bahamas. But everywhere else I have been since in the world, it’s readily available.

What makes it even more fun is the lack of too many options. There are 1-3 available choices TOPS. So I get to try the one or three varieties and never feel like I’m missing out on the dozen more I could have tried like I often felt with the real wine or beer I drank too much of.

The truth is I love to drink. I like lots of drinks. I love the taste of beer and I can have that taste without the consequences. It’s a chance I was willing to take and knock on wood it’s been a gift!

Not for a second in the 20 months and counting now did I feel like I was missing out on a things. I feel great and I love my life. I love my life without alcohol.

Yeah

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On Rainbows

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

This morning I was doing mantras on my beloved mala beads off the Exuma Islands in the Bahamas on our good friend’s catamaran. 

It suddenly started to drizzle, then rain – quite abruptly and hard. My husband who was doing his own yoga on the other hull and I ran to the back of the boat where we were greeted with a beautiful rainbow.

Wow… It stopped me in my tracks. How beautiful. And how beautiful to see a full rainbow on the horizon. We are so lucky.

I couldn’t help but think of the state of Ukraine and her beautiful human citizens who are not so lucky. These past few days I have instinctively wanted to use personal mantra to will something positive or hopeful to the outcome of this unnecessary war. But I also remembered that mantra is personal and will not work for anyone outside yourself. I briefly wondered just then as I have for the past several mornings why then do we use group mantra to raise consciousness or send faith outward? 

The answer was in front of me. 

The rainbow. I marveled at the colors. The anagram of ROY G BIV that I learned around the kindergarten years. The order holds true no matter where you are. 

About 10 years ago while listening to U2’s song Ultraviolet, I contemplated and then researched the meaning of colors and the length of their spectrums. As I started to get back into art a few years later, I considered the meaning of colors even more. The way they blend, and how a color wheel can seem continuous from red to purple, it’s really not. Purple to red is the only place on the wheel that isn’t quite part of nature. What happens between those two? Is there a real place between them? 

White light contains it all. The earth bends the suns rays and we get the rainbow to the visible eye. But what is beyond that? We know about infrared and ultraviolet, but what is there that we can’t see or detect with the combination of instruments and our 5 senses? 

Universally red is considered basic and instinctive while purple is considered spiritual and highly conscious. Red is larger and takes up more space on the rainbow. Purple is smaller and is only accessed by passing all of the rainbow’s outer colors. 

What lies past purple going inward?

What can’t we see?

I stared at this gem that appears when the elements of fire (sun) and water mix into the element of air seemingly right into the element of earth’s horizon. 

The purple color starts to go within. 

Going within is the key. It’s the path to something deeper, meaningful and what isn’t just a mirage or hologram, but what is real and we can’t see or detect with our eyes. 

We can all go within and quiet the mind of excuses, fears, worries, selfish desires, etc to find the right answer to anything. The answer that is ultimately right for the world, not just the human who is asking. 

Those fears, excuses, desire, etc are the other “colors” you need to pass through in order to find the peace within. 

The place within where field or maybe plane of existence of the personal self does not matter. What matters is what is real and what is for the greater good. 

So perhaps the question I wondered about mantras for personal matters vs mantras for others was right there in the rainbow. It is the bridge between personal self and greater good. I can do mantra to seek my own higher consciousness, which is ultimately for the greater good. Or I can chant with others in community for the greater good. 

It all works if the intention is to leave all the material and selfish behind and pray for peace and harmony for all. 

ALL. 

Regardless of species, race, skin or hair color, or beliefs anyone was taught. 

If you truly truly go within, you too will know that none of anything material or visible matters if what you wish for others is what you want for yourself. 

Just some of my deeper thoughts this morning. 

Namaste

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On Being Middle Aged

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

When I was a teenager, then a twenty something; I thought middle age or (gasp) older was absolutely an dreadful place to be. Like many younger adults I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I knew better. I was always right. I did things the best way. Older people were out of touch.

I don’t want to be younger, nor do I look back at my own life or the younger beings around me with envy. I like where I am. I will even go the mat and say I think middle aged is the best part of life. After the crisis part of course. If you are “lucky” enough to have a mid life crisis at all.

I’m 45. To some that sounds like “only 45?” and to others that might sound like “45??? Gulp”.

The crisis was the worst/best part of coming to terms with life on life’s terms and with who I am. Not everyone will have one, and many who do have one will not change. With that aside, I believe that even without one; mid life is an awesome part of life.

The best thing is a combination of experience and health. If you reasonably take care of yourself, you can be fairly healthy during mid life. With almost 30 years of driving and workplace experience, these years are a sweet spot of cruising with confidence through otherwise tricky or unknown areas. No major physical decline yet combined with good reflexes, memory, and ability to pick up and respond to life’s surroundings.

By middle age most people (not all of course) are financially comfortable. Less worries about paying bills, less interest in having more, staying fashionable or climbing the ladder. It allows me to live and work with comfort. I’m old enough to be taken seriously, experienced enough to understand life/work dynamics, and still young enough to switch in a dime to learn new programs, policies, software, phone apps…

Aside from my far sightedness slightly declining each year at my annual Optometry visit, I’m in the best physical health of my life. I’ve learned to make sleep important, exercise a routine part of life, and to make wise food decisions for the sake of my health.

Mental hygiene takes a front place as well. I’m no longer embarrassed about having human responses to stress and pressure, so I don’t pretend they don’t exist and take an active stance in dealing with those types of things. I no longer view self care or down time as a reward or something for others, but a necessity to keep myself fresh, in good health and useful to society.

Speaking of embarrassment, caring about what other people think just isn’t a thing anymore. I’m not afraid to be myself or of failing. I know it’s a part of life and if anyone else judges that, it’s none of my business. As long as my intentions are pure I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. I enjoy realizing when I messed up or was wrong and it feels good to acknowledge that to myself and others.

I have enough years of cooking experience to cobble things together from my pantry that taste phenomenal. I try all kinds of art projects I would have felt like a poser to attempt. I love the way I dress, decorate, garden, clean, cook, love others, and live my life. I have go-to recipes, outfits, and ways to entertain that work. I am comfortable with the skills I have and know my limitations on the skills I do not. I am so ok with what I lack. No one can have all they want.

In taking risks, I am excited to try new things. What is the worst thing if I don’t like it? I just won’t do it again.

I believe I can now live life with a good balance of safety and risk. Being young is often accompanied by an irrational idea of invincibility. I see many older people living with too much fear of too many things. I might get to that point too, but at this point I know I do not like the way fear feels. It makes me feel small and trapped rather than safe. Instead of succumbing to it, I live safely in my actions but am courageous enough to push through what a rational mind knows will be ok. That wasn’t the experience in my younger days!

There is so much more to say, but I’ll stop here. Honestly the mid life crisis and coming into what Richard Rohr calls “the second half” is what got me to a really beautiful place where acceptance of what is, is how I want to live life. It was about 8-10 years of chaos, and something for another blog.

I do not know better. I am absolutely not always right. There are so many ways to do things and different ways work for different folks. Older people have wisdom and our elders are our teachers.

So, I will ride the tides and adjust the sails instead of fighting the waves and expecting days of perfection. And I will enjoy this moment that will too pass where I am grateful to be healthy and middle aged.

Namaste.

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Social Justice is not Socialism

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

As I sit for a six month mammogram follow-up, I’m just told that I also need an extra ultrasound today. On the long drive from Branford to Meriden this morning I saw so many ads for early detection of cancers. One that tugged at my heart a little more than the others is a new screening for Lung Cancer detection. It makes me a little sad because my mom my diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer very late and passed away at the age of 49.

But I had to ask myself, how sad can it make me? My mother never had health insurance, as I never did before growing up and taking a job that provided it. My mother would have not gotten an early detection screening. She never had a mammo. She never even went to the dentist and started wearing dentures when she was 38.

All these years later, healthcare in the U.S. is still something for people who have money or jobs that provide it for a reasonable cost. I feel lucky I can get a mammo, let alone all the follow-up tests and diagnostics.
Not everyone is so “lucky”. Capitalism and social justice are not mutually exclusive. Did I earn this right?
Social Justice is not the same thing as socialism.

This isn’t a socially just society. How can we walk past the homeless or drive through minority filled inner cities with poor public schools, run down stores and bars on the windows and say “these people didn’t earn their way”???

I get wanting to keep what you have earned. I really do.

I get that there are people who do not work very hard and feel they should have more than they do. 

I also get that many of us haven’t completely earned what we do have.
Have you ever done a privilege walk? If not I would suggest looking it up to see what it is. During a robust discussion brought up during a Hygge game a few weeks ago, my husband and brother/sister in-law pulled up one on google and did it together. My results were nearly 20 points behind the highest one in the room. For some reason it upset me. My ACE score is another that upsets me. I should be dead with my ACE number. But I’m not.

I’m in a good place now. I did work for it. And hard. And I still struggle. I get triggered. I’m on meds (partly because I have healthcare). But do I deserve what I have? Do people with early life privilege 20 points above mine deserve what they have? For me it’s an astounding NO to both.
The roads I traveled today, with the banners I saw for early detection screenings are not things I built or had anything to do with. I did not earn the car I drove here in, it’s borrowed money on a loan.

I didn’t create the military I joined at 18 which gave me the money, healthcare, structure and education I needed to be more successful. Those things were there for me, built by society.

Not everyone has these opportunities. If you can even call the military an opportunity. Too many young people I know wouldn’t even consider it, but again they’ve never even really had a shirt or video game they didn’t want. Too many have no idea what hard times are. And another too many have too much of an idea of what hard times are. That is not fair.
How many inner city kids can even read/write to the level it takes to pass the ASVAB to get into the military. How many can’t because they are nursing a sick parent at home or the only source of daycare for a younger sibling? How many are walking around with untreated trauma and don’t have the healthcare “privileges” to get treated?

Never mind the non-material things like love and encouragement. A trauma free household and neighborhood. Hope.

Do I deserve even the work I did to get to where I am more so than them? I don’t think so.

The only way to even the playing field is to realize the privilege you have been given and give some back so others can come up to the same level. Or the government can help do it through taxes. That is not socialism. It’s social justice.

I don’t want anyone cleaning my toilets or serving me coffee who can’t put food on their table, house their children or get a good night sleep. I don’t want them to feel less than me. We are equals. We all came onto this planet as humans and should be treated as such.

Will it cost me more money? Of course, but so what?

What is life if we aren’t going to lift up others?

When will we as a global society learn that there is little happiness in accumulating more than you need?
In my humble opinion if you really think that then you are a slave to money. And if you think you having money and prestige is more important than someone else eating…. I just can’t…

No freedom til we’re equal – Macklemore – Same Love

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It’s Through the Heart

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

It’s through the heart where our light comes from.

Our heart is in the middle, between our head and the ground.

It’s the connection between our body and mind.

It’s the way to the middle path.

Through the middle is where liberation lies.

Liberation is pure love.

 

This morning while practicing sadhana (a spiritual routine) I had an inspiring thought. While engaging the 3 bandhas during some breathwork, I thought about keeping my heart open and full of light. These three bandhas are energetic locks at the perineum, naval area, and throat area. The heart is automatically not locked. It’s open.

 

It’s Valentines Day so I thought a bit more about the heart as I moved through my practice and into meditation. Suddenly so many random ideas I’ve had, spoken about, and written about began bubbling to the surface.

 

What is the right thing to do? How can the heart lead us?

 

Society puts us on a confusing path by teaching us from a young age that there is good and bad. Our brain learns how to navigate this world through comparison and opposites. It would stand to reason, as many of us do, that good and bad are opposites. If they are opposites that means if you are not good, you must be bad. Growing up Catholic, I also took that to mean if I am not good, I am a sinner. Then guilt and shame rise up. A quick road to a slippery slope.

 

The first time I felt an absolute true spiritual connection through words, quotes and teachings was surprisingly in a two-day work seminar I took in March 2012. It was the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. The instructor went through a spiral notebook we all received as we learned about the habits working from the inside of ourselves outward. Never [to me] were such true words spoken. I felt connected with myself in a way I never had before. I realized I have paradigms, the inner power to change my thoughts, and can root to my true self so deeply that my values and morals will guide my decision making. I walked away from that training a different person.

 

Several weeks later I was on work trip in Maine. We were on a mandatory outside walking break. Since I didn’t read the memo, I was trotting around in my stilettos along a scenic mountainous path in Portland ME. Since the 7 Habits training I started to change my life. I was walking alongside a colleague who had also been at that training with me a few weeks back, so I asked her if she enjoyed it. She replied that she absolutely did! And not only did she enjoy it; she wasn’t sure why, but she and her husband started going to yoga on Saturday mornings since then. Additionally she is a physician, so the email list that generated from the class targeted her to learn more about the heart.

 

The heart, here it is again.

 

She was involved in a series of live online classes that focused on physical and spiritual heart health, and how to work with patients on things they connect to in order to motivate them toward better health. She explained to me that she’d never thought about it before, but the heart is the only thing in our body with an electrical impulse. Where does that electricity come from? It’s the link between our inner and outer worlds. Interesting right?

 

Electricity is light. Light comes from our heart from the netherworlds.

 

I’ve also been reading and re-reading Michael Singer’s “The Untethered Soul”. Chapter 6 is all about the heart. What it is. How our life ends when it stops. How when we keep it open, we experience life fully. Why we close it and how we can choose not to. It’s fascinating.

 

 

2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

On a slightly different (yet related) tangent, several years ago I took a Yin Yoga Teacher training. At one point our instructor drew a Yin Yang on the white board and explained the dark and light side in a way I had never before considered.

 

Most of us have the understanding that the white side is Yang. Lots of energy. Pure light. The sun. Male. Loud. The dark side is Yin. Stillness. Darkness. The moon. Female. Quiet. Knowing this I’ve always considered one side good and one side bad. Yet it semi-bothered me that what I considered the “good” side or the Yin side, was the dark part of this circle.

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I copied the white board drawing with fascination. Yang represents the warrior. Yin the healer. We need both. But we cannot just be one or the other. The warrior will destroy everything in his sight if left alone. The healer will never move and be destroyed if left to her own devices. The balance is in the middle. We need to be activated with Yang power when needed. Getting lit by your inner fire in order to make change and do our work in the world (the visionary). But also knowing when to step back and be in the place of love, peace and acceptance of what is (the teacher). Balancing the Teacher and Visionary is the middle path. A little of both as needed. Not too much, not too little. Neither side being “good” or “bad”.

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The “right” path is through the middle. The “wrong” path would bring you around and around the circle. The true way is right in the middle in the path between both. In the Yin Yoga world it’s the Tao (the way).

 

 

The middle way. Buddha said that!

Unknown

 

How do we get to the middle? It’s up to us. We can do it with our own energetic light if we keep our heart open.

 

Why the heart?

 

Because it’s the middle. It’s the 4th chakra right down the middle.

 

Our brain, heart and gut all have neurons that are in constant communication to keep our autonomic functions running smoothly. We have 3 parts of ourselves that govern decisions and how to be in the world. In the physical body these parts reside in the upper, middle and lower parts respectively. We also have 3 levels of brain function. The reptilian brain, the limbic brain and the neocortex. The neural connection between the three is well developed. Our psychic apparatus consists of the id, ego and superego.

 

If we listened to our lower selves only where our gut, bowels and reproductive organs live; we would live in a world where it’s all about food, sex and waste. It’s the primitive side of us. The lower brain that all creatures with a brain on this planet have. It is the basis of evolution. To do what it takes to survive. The reptilian brain. It would be the id in our psychic apparatus. It would be the Yang in our Yin Yang.

 

If we listened only to our mind on the other side of the body, the part we consider in our heads we might get nothing done. For one it’s noisy in there. The mind never stops talking! It contradicts itself constantly. It’s all about learning, growth, creativity and is never happy just where it is. It seeks more. It’s calculating. Only humans have this part of the brain. It would be the superego or the neocortex. We take what we learned from others as right and wrong, and operate from there in a confused state of mind about what actually is right from wrong. This part seems to believe that loving one another, helping others, and giving is how to make the world a better place.  But using that alone, we would never be activated by the fire in the belly to get up and do something when we see the world in a state of injustice and disrepair.

 

The heart balances these two out. It’s the emotional center. The limbic system as mammals all have. The part of the brain that if left alone dwells in balance with nature and the cycles of life. Values and morals come from this part. This parr’s decisions are based on the greater good without taking more than needed. Animals do not hoard. They don’t kill if they aren’t going to eat. They live in and with nature as one.

 

Since we are human, we will always have the metaphorical devil and angel on our opposing shoulders. The mind and gut are both very loud and seem to have (no pun intended) “minds of their own”. Our bodies are built that way. Perhaps our heart, right there in the middle hearing both and having a subtle intelligence of its own, is where the answers to our inner and outer dilemmas reside. We just need to quiet the other two and listen.

 

I’ve tried to follow the advice in The Untethered Soul and purposefully keep my heart open. It’s hard! It’s a habit we all have to protect ourselves. But if we trusted our hearts to listen to our lower selves when we sense danger or our higher selves when we sense creative energy, we wouldn’t need to protect it. We would use the heart’s intelligence to put the other two to work when they are most needed.

 

The heart is special. It is the only part of us that generates it’s own electricity. I ask again, where does that electricity come from?

 

It comes from a place we cannot identify. A place that gives life. A place that the path we seek would lead to. In sadhana this morning while energetically holding the bandhas at the throat, gut and base; with my heart open I realized it’s the part of me that I want open and to be my guide through this world. I want to take care of it, love it, and listen to it.

 

It’s through the heart where our light comes from.

Our heart is in the middle, between our head and the ground.

It’s the connection between our body and mind.

It’s the way to the middle path.

Through the middle is where liberation lies.

Liberation is pure love without attachment.

Unknown

Namaste

 

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Anxiety and Missing Medication Doses. A Missed Effexor Dose.

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

I woke up from my husband’s alarm this morning. It’s Saturday, and what most people would consider a day to sleep in. But for us almost every week for a different reason, for the past 9 years- there is some reason to get up.

6am today.

The beeping jarred me awake from a very vivid dream that I try to hold onto for a moment or two- trying to make sense of what it meant.

At some point just moments later, I realize that I feel EXHAUSTED. I mean exhausted, in case the uppercase didn’t relay this feeling well enough. Next I notice an almost unbearable throbbing of my head. My nose is stuffed. My mind is racing for no good reason. So badly that my heart and breath (with stuffiness) matches the anxiety.

But there is a reason for anxiety. We are moving and had just spent a week in the new house meeting with contractors, getting quotes, installing ductless air… working for work… working around the house… managing upcoming renters and our mostly adult children. A week of some big changes too. Devin, the youngest of our brood of 4 passed his road test on Thursday. Days of carting kids are just suddenly over.

I went through this week like any other. Feeling like I’m going through the motions to get to the next step. Feeling like I’m barely hanging on and can hardly make it another day at this pace. Telling myself and my husband that we cannot keep going on like this. That the work we are doing has to be for some great reason so in the near future we can finally rest.

Massive changes taking place around me hardly phase me. If I went back to every week in the past 9 years- nearly every one of them would show at least one or two mega great changes and things to celebrate or mourn. It’s constant. This week was really like no other. So why am I anxious today? It’s no secret I struggle with anxiety disorder and PTSD. But it’s felt very under control for about a year now with a few relapses. Why now?

I think back to yesterday when at some point around 2 or 3pm in the afternoon I felt unbelievably restless. Then it turned to feeling trapped. Next I’m frantically texting my husband about how I feel. This alone is an old familiar feeling. I hadn’t done this in about a year either. I’ve had relapses of panic and/or PTSD episodes, but this one is different. It feels a little more uncontrolled.

We’ve had workers in our house since Tuesday around the work day clock. They were supposed to be done Wednesday. Then they said Thursday. Thursday when I arrived home at noon they were still there. 7:30pm and wanting to eat dinner with no where quiet to sit… they are still there. Thursday evening they say they will need to come back for a half day Friday (yesterday). I am ready to go back to our home on Cheshire. We have renters coming today (Saturday) and I haven’t been home in a week. We are also going to Long Island. I’m starting to feel overwhelmed again. Like I have no time for myself. There is so much to do. I’m sick of eating take out, I want to cook but need to shop first. The house in Cheshire is on the market and I can’t even think about what it might look like after my quite messy 22 year old came home for the month of Aug. I can’t bear to look at my broken fingernails with dirt underneath due to the copious amounts of yard work- and there is more to do in Cheshire. My body is sore from what feels like non stop physical labor from cleaning, fixing, working. I have bruises, bug bites and cuts everywhere. I need to unpack my clothes and loads of food in Cheshire only to pack an overnight bag… then unpack again Sunday.

As the hours tick by and the workers are still there- relaying they are ‘almost done’ every 1-2 hours. I become increasingly more agitated. At 4pm they announce they are in fact done and start to clean up.

I drive home in commuter traffic with a car packed to the gills with air conditioners, food, photo albums, clean and dirty clothes, frozen items defrosting rapidly in the nearly 90 degree heat, amongst a myriad of other things. My car is constantly packed with stuff to cart from house to house or to drop off here or there. My anxiety starts to go over the roof.

Somewhere on Route 10 about 20 minutes away from home while moving at a snails pace I start to cry. Really really cry. And it feels good. It’s a release of all the toxicity I feel has been building up that I just pushed away and dealt with.

Long story short I get home and feel fine, but the night is filled with mixed emotions ranging from sadness to anger to despair to PTSD related thoughts. I’m crying, then laughing.

What is wrong with me?

IS there anything wrong with me?

Wouldn’t most others hit a limit of feeling like it’s too much as well?

To add other weird fuel, I have 4 known trigger dates that I’ve identified in my PTSD treatment. Trigger dates are times to rest and realize your body recognizes similarities in the atmosphere (light falling certain ways, temperatures, smells, etc). One should rest because our lower brain only feels these things without rational thought and goes into fight or flight mode in an attempt to protect itself. If we don’t consciously pick up on this with the higher brain, the lower brain shuts the higher one down at a certain point to divert all energy to fight or flight. This used to happen to me a lot. With and without dates, brought on by other known triggers. The only thing is you don’t know when those other triggers will strike. At least with dates there is an ability to prepare and take it easy.

Three out of four of my most prominent annual trigger dates take place on & around July 9th through on & around August 9th.

I’m not taking it easy or treating this time of year with any special care. In fact I’m feeling busier than usual and barreling ahead like someone is chasing me.

As I move around in bed my body hurts in every single which way. Mind, belly, headache, muscle pain, sinuses, heart, third eye.

I mentally go through the morning and imagine going downstairs for coffee and to take my daily dose of Effexor. That is when I horrifically realize that I never did take my medicine yesterday morning. Pieces of the puzzle start to fall into place. My emotional breakdown and complete instability last night. The way I feel today. The feeling of being trapped yesterday. It makes sense.

More often than not if I forget my pills by 10am I have a dizzying headache and feel crazy nausea. I take them as soon as I remember and I’m fine within a few hours. No head ache yesterday. No head ache = no physical reminder something was amiss. Only hours later when my old mood symptoms returned did anything feel off.

So is it the chicken or the egg??? Anxiety from missed dose or missed dose due to anxiety.

Both??

Twice this week when going into work I forgot my pills. One day my husband delivered them and the next I had some in my car. Perhaps I’m anxious, my thoughts are jumbled and I can’t remember?

Is this anxiety or is what we are going through something that would make anyone anxious? 9 years of non stop activity and life momentous life changes taking place back to back (divorce, kids driving & going through all firsts of puberty, graduations, college starts, new jobs, house moves, new schools)

Is it my trigger dates?

Do societal expectations to do it all, hurry faster, give and experience as much as you can cause anxiety? Would my PTSD kick in less if I weren’t so busy and experienced the same levels of increasing anxiety that society in general seems to feel? I know I’m not the only one. Stress and anxiety seem to be a quiet epidemic virally rolling through our nation like a barely detectable tsunami before it strikes.

Does it matter to me where it’s coming from?

This morning I cried some more. I cried because even though I know how sick I get when I miss a dose, I didn’t realize how much the Effexor was keeping the anxiety at bay. Like I said I’ve had relapses. But yesterday’s was something different all together. It was like I never started a single pill and I was right back to where I was before I began dealing with this issue. It feels like a complete and absolute loss of thought and emotional control. The lower brain did take over. It sensed some kind of danger and shut the rest down. It’s terrifying. But I do have to admit the crying jags feel really good! They actually hurt physically in my heart, throat and head- but it is like there is a release of pressure in those areas and it is coming out. Am I not allowing emotion to pass through by taking pills?

The struggle is real. The pills really work. The issues are complex and are both personal and societal.

There is no point to this blog other than to just wonder, chicken or egg? To share with others how missing a dose feels because an hour ago I wanted very badly to read someone else’s experience. To see how long it was before they felt better once they took their dose. To see if anyone else wonders if their life experiences would affect anyone or if there is something truly wrong with the wiring in their brain. 9 years of running around and with delayed onset PTSD creeping in slowly through that time. Would an occasional breakdown be expected?

I used to be so afraid of the thought of having a mental illness. So afraid I didn’t even want to find out. It’s stigmatized.

Once I couldn’t take it any longer and started meds, I was afraid of anyone I know finding out.

Now I just want to shout from the rooftops that it is ok, you will be ok. We all struggle. As soon as we stop pretending we are struggling & that all is hunky dory- it miraculously becomes easier.

Why is that? Because we let the emotions pass rather than holding them down & hiding them? Does the medication prevent real healing then? Or is it a bandaid?

I don’t know. All I do know is that I’m starting to feel a little better about 2.5 hours after my dose this morning. I haven’t left the couch yet so I can’t speak to the level of feeling better other than I’m not suffering through stillness any longer.

Writing about it and seeing my fleeting thoughts in front of me helps.

If it helps anyone else too either now or in the future, then all the more beautiful.

Esterina

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On Public Toilets and Mother Theresa

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

I have this recurring dream, probably for at least 2-3 years where I’m in need of a bathroom and the only ones available are in public restrooms with lots of toilets and no dividers. I will use it anyway. Often without fear, embarrassment or anything to the like; as everyone else in there seems comfortable doing their thing and that normalizes it enough for me. A few days ago I actually went into a restroom where I saw this to be a reality and literally pinched myself in wonder of whether or not I was dreaming.

I couldn’t help but then Google what this dream means, and I learned that it signifies (not surprisingly) a lack of privacy in one’s life.

For many years I did feel a lack of privacy – mostly in the way of being myself since I moved in with my husband and step children. That is coming up on almost 10 years ago. I often felt like I was on a stage and that every move of mine was being watched and judged by the critics in the audience. Likely because it was.

Something I would say with no malintent like brushing your teeth after eating before school makes more sense than before eating, or having a phone conversation with my ex husband about our children’s grades or something would come back to me or my husband a few days later in some form of judgement or ridicule.

The food I made or some ingredient that seemed foreign was meant to purposely exclude someone who didn’t like it. The norms or rules I lived by before (that most parents have in place) were now viewed as capricious regulations I set forth because I wanted to control the step kids.

I let the kids watch family shows for an hour after homework at night, I had bedtimes, I tried to limit screen and video game time, I made a variety of different dinners and insisted the kids try new things in order to eat dessert (with my own biological children long before meeting my husband) – and all of it was picked apart, criticized, or judged. Nothing I did was right. It was exhausting for me and my husband to constantly have to talk about or defend what seemed to me like normal behavior.

Going back home at the end of a long day and being in a new situation is tough enough. But then worrying about every ingredient I used, every conversation I had (even behind closed doors and on the phone), every song I listened to, everything I read, how my yoga was weird, EVERY move I took made it positively exhausting. I felt like I was unable to ever figuratively let my hair down and chill out in my own home. There was no where to go. No where to run to in order to just BE.

Then I really started to stress. I was diagnosed with anxiety disorder. Not too long after, the PTSD I had lived with my whole life came to life and went out of control. For the past 3 years or so I’ve been metaphorically purging my past. A lot of yoga, time off, and time in an outpatient mental facility will do that to you. I started blogging around 3-4 years ago and going very public with my struggles. No privacy – absolutely. Was I ok with that? Not really, but it was something I could live with.

But feeling like I can’t be myself, allow my natural feelings to flow out of me however they may, now that I truly had no control of the emotions I had locked up years ago and was working through in therapy… THAT was another story.

I like self discovery. I can’t say a lot of what I’ve gone through was pleasant, but I wouldn’t change it if a magic wand was handed to me and I was able to go back in time and do things another way.

Life is not supposed to always be pleasant. I believe we are here to learn and examine when we are in discomfort. Making connections between my feelings, my dreams, my values and why they all have a positive or negative connotation makes it all part of life’s beautiful and super messy journey. How boring it would be otherwise!

As I’m growing older I am not just going through the days of my life, but living the days and experiences while examining my role in it, however small. I’m looking to the sages and teachers before me who tried to instill the wisdom they’ve learned. They know what makes life worth living. They knew and tried to tell us that you have to take the good and the bad, and not resisting any of it makes it easier and, dare I say, more colorful! We get so many conflicting messages from society that it can be difficult to know what the best way to do anything is. One lesson I’ve learned but continue to struggle with is self care.

In a separate but very related story a few days ago my husband and I bought a Hygee card game. We sat down with a glass of wine and started to ask one another thought provoking questions. Some questions seemed silly at first and we started to skip some. But a few cards in we realized even the silly ones can be deep and there was no need to rush through them. The richness was in slowing down and really exploring why you would answer in a certain way.

A few hours later we pulled out the cards with my youngest step son. One of the questions asked was the type of person we most admire. The type… hmmmmm.

I had to think about that and spoke my mind’s reaction aloud to Devin and Daren. My immediate reaction was the Copernicus types. People before me who ultimately knew a truth and were not afraid to go against the grain of the masses to pass it along. My second reaction was the Mother Theresa types. People who give without any type of return expectations. Then strangely enough I said- “actually I don’t admire Mother Theresa.”

I thought about why. Now – don’t get me wrong, I cannot say I know very much about her and how she spent her days, but the impression I’ve received through the years is that she gave relentlessly. That’s wonderful right? But did she rest? Did she take time for herself? Get a massage, a mani/pedi, meditate and clear her mind from outside influences, eat food that would nourish he body and soul? I don’t know. Maybe. But my impression is no.

So my third answer was the Dali Lamas over the years. They do mediate and practice self care. They preach what we all know to be the truth inside. I can’t really argue with their messages. Maybe others can, I don’t know.

I grew up in a Catholic school and in the Catholic Church. It was ingrained into me to give ceaselessly. To be a Mother Theresa type. Now that I’m older and hopefully wiser, I’m not just reading the words of the sages and of the Bible quickly without thinking and making a checklist of ho hum, yeah got it. Like the Hygee cards stopping to think about what the words mean and how I may want to interpret them and live my own life.

Most of us have heard the Bible quote “To love thy neighbor as you love yourself”, but what does that mean? Do unto others… but what if you don’t love yourself? What if you don’t practice self care? You can do what I thought of as a “Christian” thing and love them and give them more than you give yourself, but that is exhausting! And if you loved yourself and made self care a priority- wouldn’t the world be a better place if then we took THAT person, attitude and energy to our neighbors. Without the self care the model is tiring and teaches the neighbor only to take. If we showed them what we do – like rest and give, they in turn can do the same. Otherwise shortly down this chain of relentless giving, we will experience burnout.

I didn’t go into this much detail with my husband and step son the other night. But it’s a combination of the Dali Lama and Copernicus types that I most admire and a small part Mother Theresa. A balance of love, self care, giving and teaching from the heart.

The day we played these cards was the same day I saw this public toilet. Granted- these two toilet bowls were in one stall with a door, likely for a mother and child. But it brought my awareness to my recurring dream and my curiosity was piqued just enough to google it.

Yes, I don’t have too much privacy- BUT I’m also not practicing the self care I know I so desperately need. I admire these people, but I’m too exhausted to do any more to be like them. Perhaps for all those years when my children and step children were younger if I did practice self care (mediated on what I’m mediating on now) I’d have realized earlier on that I shouldn’t be affected by what other people think, and should feel good about doing what I really knew to be the right things rather than worrying and living in constant fear of judgement.

If I practiced self care I may have been an example to teach them all the same. To go to a private space and just take care of yourself in any way that feels rejuvenating and fulfilling to you. To love thy neighbor as you love yourself means you have to love yourself first and foremost. Or the model just doesn’t work.

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On the Chakras

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

More often than not we find scientific ‘proof’ that ancient wisdom passed on through generations that was considered ignorant hokey-pokey non-sense turns out to be true. How did they know?

 

This painting I created is my artistic interpretation of the manifest and un-manifest world. The colors symbolize the manifest world; and the shades of tan, white, black and grey are what is on the other side. The colors also are the Chakras.

 

As humans we know very little that can be scientifically proven regarding the spiritual world or how conscious life pops in and out of existence. The energetic body is something that some types of scientists dabble in, but again there is no ‘proof’.

 

Eastern philosophies and their ancient texts explain that as there is a visible physical body, there is also an accompanying invisible energetic body. It’s just as complicated and intricate. It has systems, nodes, and channels as our physical bodies do. Energy can get blocked just as an artery can. Emotions are energetic. They get stuck and if not released can go deeper and deeper into our being and/or eventually manifest through physical pain.

 

Mental health professional do this type of work and explorations. Yoga is all about the energetic body and helping energy flow more easily through the practice of physical postures (asana). Hence, my interest in the topic. Additionally my interest in art and color peaks my curiosity into how color is combined in various ways.

 

The chakras are something that has always fascinated me, long before I understood, practiced or taught yoga. The first time I heard about them, they just made sense to me. Like my cells deep down inside knew it to be true even though my mind was kind of laughing at the idea.

 

For anyone who doesn’t know about the chakras (I was well into the my 30’s believe it or not before I ever heard of them!), they are 7 of the main energetic centers of our bodies that energy flows through. They start at the base of the spine in the tailbone area and work their way up the body through the crown of the head through the center part of the body.

 

Later while completing a 500 hour yoga teacher certification course I would learn about the rest of the energetic system, but the chakras are the most well known and are depicted through so many texts and pictures throughout history.

 

The chakras have colors. There are 7 and they coincide with the colors of the rainbow. Their flow is vertical (unlike my art piece). Like the koshas (yogic) and other more managerial concepts I’ve learned about in my life through my business education, they remind me very much of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It also reminds me of evolution in that it starts out very basic and physical, but then moves toward a path of higher consciousness and enlightenment toward self-actualization and understanding why we are here. We can’t get there until the lower needs are met. In the chakra system, if anything is blocked on the lower end; the energy is unable to flow up higher.

 

These two pictures I swiped from Google Images are a visual depiction of what I’m describing. Maslow’s famous triangle in this photo is actually colored similarly to the chakras.

The chakras are energetic. I later came to the realization that when I’m in emotional pain, the actual physical accompanying pain is located at a chakra point. It often points me in the direction of where I’m being blocked.

 

I’ve studied and read a lot of spiritual and religious texts. I don’t have a strong belief in any one thing, but I have an idea of how my own personal belief system/understanding of the physical and non-physical worlds are: the tangible and intangible. The part where we are alive and moving about this planet, and the part of the cycle that is blocked to us. The part where we wonder what happens to our consciousness or spirit when our physical body dies. What is our spirit before we are born? Is the spirit even real?

 

My artistic expression of the spiritual life cycle is depicted here. Like the Yin-Yang, half of the time our spirit is in the manifest world and the other half in the unmanifest world.

 

The colored lines are the manifest world, the world where white light bends and we can see color.

 

The non-rainbow colors represent the un-manifest world. When all colors are combined and mixed together, they create the ‘color’ (if you can call it that) brown. When you add white to brown it becomes tan. Adding black darkens it up. White is all there is, with everything included in it (white light contains all the colors in the spectrum), and black being the absence of it all – together they create gray. At dusk when we are in between day and night, color is shaded over. It doesn’t exist to the eye. Only form.

 

Our physical life is surrounding by this unknown. Before birth and after death there is the unknown. Lack of light (life) is as far away from us as possible. Or is it? Does it bend and show color in the absence of material things? Possibly it contains all the colors blended together (browns), and on the side closer to death and darkness that brown is darker, while on the side closer to birth and brightness it’s a shade of tan.

 

White and black together make a perfect in between shade of gray. Gray even has shades- darker and depending on the mixture of black and white: still a total absence of color. Science already has determined that in the absence of anything material, refraction of white light is also absent.

 

At least to our senses that is. Perhaps if we had another sense we’d see a whole other world on the other side….

 

The chakras here in this painting are the physical living world we experience. They move from a lower vibration to a higher one. Less conscious to more conscious. More connected to the earth and physical things to less. Much like Maslow’s triangle.

 

 

1stCHAKRA

Color: Red

Sanskrit name: Muladhara

Known as: Root chakra

Location: Base of the spine in the tailbone area

Symbolizes: safety, survival, grounding, nourishment from the Earth energy (food, other humans, clothing, etc)

My interpretation: it is our root. It’s located in a place where we sit and literally connect to the earth beneath us. Also in a place where we connect with other humans through copulation.

To me it symbolizes the earlist part of life when we are completely at the mercy of others. We build a foundation from the original safety and survival as babies. Our perception of the world is shaped from there. We come into life here. We could be stuck here our whole lives. If we are, unless it’s purely lack of money for food/shelter/clothing – it’s an energetic or emotional “stuckness”.

 

2ndCHAKRA

Color: Orange

Sanskrit name: Swadhisthana

Known as: Emotional chakra

Location: Lower abdomen, about 2 inches below naval and 2 inches in

Symbolizes: emotions, creativity, sexuality, and is associated with water, flow

My interpretation: it is what is next. We feel and can interpret that after we are fed. Sexuality helps life to stay on the planet. It’s the next closest thing to survival after we are fed, clothed and have the ability to live. It’s also our ‘gut’ feeling and is at the gut level. It symbolizes the childhood part of life where we are learning and growing, coming into our own and understanding how to respond to the world.

 

3rdCHAKRA

Color: Yellow 

Sanskrit name: Manipura

Known as: Solar chakra

Location: Upper abdomen, between the heart and belly button (solar plexus)

Symbolizes: Mental activities, intellect, personal power, will. It’s where self-worth, self-confidence and self-esteem are built and is at the core of our personality and identity.

My interpretation: Once we have that safety and gut feelings, we are able to use our mind and will power to go about in the world. That will power is based on our heat and desire. Heat and power like the sun. It’s the younger adult part of life up until middle age or the part of life where we shift mentally to part II – or something else. Where we are moving & shaking, taking care of the young and old. Working and using our physical identity to move through the world.

 

4thCHAKRA

Color: Green 

Sanskrit name: Anahata 

Known as: Heart chakra

Location: Center of the chest just above the heat  

Symbolizes: The ability to love, relate to others, have compassion and feel our inner selves.

My interpretation: Mentally we can move past all the intellect and listen to our heart. It’s like the highest of the 3 proverbial minds (gut, mind, heart).  It can guide us the right way if the solar plexus chakra is flowing freely and we can distinguish it between the monkey mind and the inner self. It’s the connection of the physical body to the higher body. It’s a place in life that symbolizes a switch to another thought process. If you can get there it’s beautiful. Usually around middle age or when we start to get tired of the grind and ask “What For”?

 

 

5th CHAKRA

Color: Blue  

Sanskrit name: Vishuddha  

Known as: Throat chakra (voice)

Location: Throat  

Symbolizes: Communication, self-expression, speaking our truth, creativity

My interpretation: When the lower chakras are unblocked we find ourselves more closely in the flow of life. We are able to be creative, speak our truth, and communicate in a heart-felt way with the world and people around us. On the proverbial life line, it’s at the later part of life where we understand how we are interpreted, live from a heart level rather than a level of obtaining material wealth, possession or status.

 

6th CHAKRA

Color: Indigo (or Purple in some places)   

Sanskrit name: Ajna  

Known as: Third Eye chakra 

Location: Forehead, between the eye brows   

Symbolizes: Inner wisdom, intuition, imagination. Ability to see the big picture inside and out. 

My interpretation: In other cultures the elderly are praised for the very notion that we get wiser as we grow older. We can be taught certain things, but it’s only through really knowing and figuring out their truth for ourselves that we can become wise enough to understand the wisdom bestowed upon on from sages of the past.

 

7thCHAKRA

Color: Purple (or White in some places)   

Sanskrit name: Sahasrara   

Known as: Crown chakra  

Location: Top of the head    

Symbolizes: Inner and outer beauty, universal connection with spirituality and consciousness. Pure bliss.  

My interpretation: Sounds like heaven on earth! With everything else unblocked and no attachment to any outcome- we can experience total peace, utter bliss. It’s the closest thing in our living world to death and not having an investment so tied and rooted to the material world. It’s the top of Maslow’s pyramid where we self-actualize.

 

The pyramid and the image of a sitting body are both sort of triangular in shape. My interpretation is that the larger base is at the bottom because those descriptions of what these areas symbolize are the most connected to earth. They are more difficult to move through and where the majority of individuals experience life. As we move up toward the more narrow sections, there are less humans around that thrive in those parts regularly, and it gets a bit easier to move because it’s further away from the root or axiomatic apron string. We can move up and down the Chakras at any time. But if the energy system is blocked by emotion it is difficult. Even a person with little to no food if they are emotionally clear can self-actualize.

 

In my artistic expression of this cycle the colors live in the middle of the known and unknown worlds. The small symbols on the painting that go from left to right, bottom to top are my humble explanation of moving upward through the chakras toward the unknown, which ultimately is completely and utterly surrounded by the pure energy of beautiful, boundless, weightless, expansive and all encompassing white light.

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this and 6 other pieces were inspired by contemporary artist Sean Scully. 2 weeks ago Daren and I went to the Wadsworth in Hartford and it was the last day for his exhibit. He works in stripes mainly.

 

 

 

 

 

Voices Carry

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

Voices Carry

 

“Shush, keep it down now, voices carry”

 

The song “Voices Carry” by Til’ Tuesday always gave me somewhat of a chill. Not in a bad way, but through some haunting lens I didn’t quite understand but felt a magnetic draw to.

 

2 years ago while preparing some yoga classes April’s Sexual Assault month which has a strong hand-in-hand partnership with October’s Domestic Violence month (a topic that I feel very strongly about as a child abuse survivor) – I set out on a search for songs about these topics.

 

Voices Carry came up under Domestic Violence. Yes, I suppose – ‘shush, keep it down now, voices carry’. It wasn’t all too different from some of the other 80’s tunes like Luka and Behind the Wall. It had that same eerie vibe that drew me in, while not really digesting much what the lyrics were so poignantly about.

 

A few months ago on the way home from work my music was playing on shuffle in the car when “Voices Carry” came on. Likely for the first time I really listened to and digested the lyrics. The Internet search from 2 years ago plagued my mind, but I wasn’t so sure anymore that Domestic Violence was completely behind it. Was it a secret lover perhaps? What did the words mean???

 

Hours later after dinner, walking the dog and the nightly routine – Daren was out at hockey with Devin and I picked up my phone before bed to search the lyrics meaning.

 

No doubt it was about the power dynamic in an Intimate Partner relationship. But what I read over and over and over, is that the song was originally written with “She” instead of “He”. I read a lot about the video and how the man tried to control the woman… (never saw this video) and how it could be about sexual assault; but I couldn’t shake what almost seems now after one too many sources said that it was about a lesbian relationship.

 

Wow. That just shifts everything now doesn’t it?

 

I’ve written about this before- that back in May 2017 I was required to take a 50 hour CT state training on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in order to teach yoga at Domestic Violence shelters. I was ambivalent about the training. It was a requirement. I had to shift my schedule a bit to fit it in. It ended up being a life-changer.

 

The topics were so eye opening. It wasn’t just about the topics. It was about the dynamic of relationships. The dynamic of human unfairness. The dynamic which children grow up and how certain segments of society are treated unfairly. How cycles of violence perpetuate through generations. How we treat and work with perpetrators. How the police are trained and not trained to deal with these issues. How the law works and how the laws have changed over the years. How our culture almost encourages boys toward violence and treating women as objects. How the LGBT movement plays into it all. How race is involved in this. I trained at the umbrella agency in Bridgeport CT. I was finally able to piece together that these topics are all so very related and are ultimately human rights issues. Human Justice Issues. All encompassing and under one umbrella.

 

It was there I very sadly realized that I myself have PTSD from childhood abuse. I was very likely unable to handle the awareness until then.  It was probably the most educational 50 hours I’d ever spent – professionally and personally.

 

Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and a same sex relationship – how can one song be related to all 3? How can these topics even be related?

 

Strange thing is that they are. It’s all stuff that as a society we’ve kept hush about and swept under the rug. Things that folks were ashamed of and had to hide. The unspeakable, but oh so very real truth.

 

I heard the song again last night on the way home after sharing a few drinks with a friend. It haunted me as always. Something I read a few months back when I search it the last time preoccupied my mind enough for me to try to find it again (of course I could not – go figure). A writer explained how she always believed the song was about a heterosexual couple in an affair situation until she read about the “she” word removal as well.  At that point she wrote a bit about how sad it was that the record company wouldn’t record it, as stations and the public were not ready for the topic; but how that changed the words and entire meaning of the song for her.

 

Voices Carry… Voices Carry… Voices Carry.

 

That was the main meaning. If we don’t keep quiet about a topic, the voice of it will carry to others. The message will get across. Yes, ‘shush’ we’ve been told to keep it down, that voices will carry. But on the other hand – Voices Carry! The more we talk and bring awareness, the more our voices will carry. Would it have been so bad to carry the message the writer intended to send?

 

The love of homosexuals. Any human or sexual orientation that is involved in intimate partner violence. Child Abuse. Sexual assault/abuse/rape. The mental illness of perpetrators. & their own sordid pasts… These are human rights issues. Things that have made people feel ashamed and lesser than. Things they’ve felt the need to hide. People who have felt they have no voice.

 

Not treating everyone the same regardless of the shoes they’ve walked in is ABUSE.

No need to listen to the bully who says “Shush & Keep it down now”. Voices do carry. All of them do. Like drops in a bucket. Each little drop will contribute to the eventual overflow that will change things. Every voice counts.

 

https://spinditty.com/playlists/Songs-About-Domestic-Violence-and-Child-Abuse

Unknown

Voices Carry

'Til Tuesday

 

I'm in the dark, I'd like to read his mind
But I'm frightened of the things I might find
Oh, there must be something he's thinking of
to tear him away-a-ay
When I tell him that I'm falling in love
why does he say-a-ay

 

Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry



Uh-ah

I try so hard not to get upset
Because I know all the trouble I'll get
Oh, he tells me tears are something to hide
and something to fear-eh-eh
And I try so hard to keep it inside
so no one can hear

 

Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Uh-ah

 

Oh!
He wants me, but only part of the time
He wants me, if he can keep me in line

Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, shut up now, voices carry
Hush hush, keep it down now, voices carry
Hush hush, darling, she might overhear
Hush, hush - voices carry



He said shut up - he said shut up
Oh God can't you keep it down
Voices carry
Hush hush, voices carry

 

Songwriters: MANN AIMEE / HAUSMAN MICHAEL / HOLMES ROBERT / PESCE JOSEPH

Voices Carry lyrics © Til Tunes Assoc., MECHANICAL COPYRIGHT PROTECTION SOCIETY LTD, 'TIL TUNES ASSOCIATES

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images-1.jpeg

The Unassuming Pear

Posted on by Esterina Francesca

The pear has little to no reputation. It is in a few desserts. It isn’t as popular as the banana. It’s not used in any popular lessons (such as the famous non comparison- apples to oranges). It’s not considered exotic like a papaya or coconut, it’s not a popular “pick your own” fruit, was never “in” like the avocado, or so heavily used in food or drink like the grape that fields and farms are required to keep up with the demand.

It’s just an unassuming pear, which is why I chose to paint it. 

The pear is like almost every other living thing amongst us. And like most things we don’t give it a second thought most of the time. 

The pear, the apple, the banana, the trees that produce these fruits, the flowers, our pets, sea life and of course humanity all live through a cycle. It’s as natural as nature itself. Humans are the only ones who sometimes fear or fight it. The rest of the planet accepts it as the flow we live in.

The flow and these cycles are shown to us by nature and what governs living. Particularly through the seasons. 

The pear painting goes from left to right, top to bottom through it’s very own abridged life cycle.

Winter
Winter is when most consider their surrounding closest to death. Life as we know it rests and hibernates. We hunker down and wait out the storm, most of us complaining along the way and wishing away the time until spring.

However, in the midst of the storm, under ground, and right below the surface, Mother Earth is preparing for the next cycle. The frost and subsequent defrost are laying the ground work for what is coming. Perhaps we may even consider it to be where life truly begins.

Like the architect on an empty lot where a new building will one day stand, the architect is surveying the surroundings and mentally creating what will later manifest as a structure using what is available in that time and place to make it so. 

In that time where there appears to be nothing, there is a vision of the future bubbling right under the surface- waiting to be put into action once the sketch is complete.

Winter is the sketch. It’s the time to not do, but just be and know that the spring will come, and with it there will be work to do. 

Under ground the trees and perennials are preparing the seeds that will come forth in the spring. Compared to sentient creatures such as us humans, it is the time when the mother’s egg prepares to be fertilized. 

It’s actually where all the magic is taking place. All that we cannot see or understand in the material world. It’s that beautiful dark little slip of space and time where the spiritual world intersects with the physical one. It may be the most auspicious time of the year.

Spring 
The thaw. The flow of water and life. The sun is with us longer. Dirt is tilled. Seeds are planted. The egg is fertilized.

Of all the planted seeds (the seed of man and animal as well in the form of sperm), only a small percent actually sprout forth into life. The lucky seeds that mesh perfectly with the womb of mother/Mother Earth, the ones that happen to have the prime conditions that nurture it’s growth, are so very lucky. We take it for granted, but we are fortunate to be alive and to experience life. The spring is the time of rapid growth where what makes it lives through its early days to survive through to maturity.

If we are looking at spring through a seasonal lens, it’s the time we lay the seeds, nurture what is planted and help it along until its strong enough to be on it’s own for whatever reason it is here to be. 

Ayurveda calls this time “Kapha”. It’s cool, wet and dense, just like the earth in the spring. It is strongly rooted to its source; very grounded. It grows quickly, and puts on weight easily.

In the chakra system it’s close to the roots. It’s red in color like the root chakra. All life needs a strong root to connect to the earth and then hold it strongly enough to keep it safe but light enough to allow it to grow.

Through the lens of a human, it’s the time of fertilization and early growth until young adulthood. Baby fat, rapid physical maturation, rosy cheeks, dense, learning-growing, needing a bit more nurture and support from the source as the child matures. For the mother who housed the egg and was in rest during the “winter” of the relationship with her own child, the work arrives in the form of carrying the child and then helping it arrive safely in young adulthood.

The pear… it isn’t quite ripe. If it is off the tree, it will be light in color; tinged by that red root that held it close to the branch. If eaten it’s a bit bitter, not quite ready. It has yet to mature. It’s a child. It’s in the spring or Kapha cycle.

Summer
Sun. Teaming life. Hot. Moving for purpose. Lighter, a bit dryer & quick to inflammation. 

The earth and it’s fruits are mostly in full bloom. Growth slows but it’s at the peak of maturity. The seeds no longer need help- they have the ability to live on their own, fighting off bugs and weeds without much outside help. The result of those spring planted seeds are here doing and being precisely what they are meant to do and be.

In Ayurveda this is “Pita”. Hot, quick to fire. Sustaining of life as we know it. Chakra-wise it’s lighter, and yellow like the sun. It is the chakra of digestion. It gives and supports life by helping everything keep moving as it should. Like digestion it’s lit by “Agni” or that internal moving fire.

Humans are now young adults to middle aged. In their prime. Taking care of both the young and old. They have an inner fire to make things happen, to sustain life, get things done, and keep the world going. They are the largest source of income generation. They have the energy and drive to keep it all going. They are like the full summer blooms, doing what they were meant to do.

At this time the pear is ripe. Mission accomplished. It’s the time to eat it or bake with it. Despite its color, it’s tinged with yellow undertones.

Autumn 
The change. Colors deepen. The temperature starts to cool and the air is lighter and drier. The days begin to darken. It feels like a welcome relief. The trees start to relax and succumb to nature. The leaves allow themselves to deepen, change, and finally let themselves go. Before the leaves do let go, that tree never seemed so beautiful.

Ayurvedically speaking this part of the cycle is “Vata”. Whether you are a half empty or half full glass type of person, it can be seen as the time of death or the agent of change. The necessary change that needs to take place so the next cycle of planning and development can take place. Chakra-wise we move up the body to the color blue or the throat chakra. The throat representing voice. With a mature and wise mind, humans have less energy but are able to speak their truth and guide the next generation.

Humans at this part of life also begin to slow down and let go. They often feel colder and have a more deep and philosophical understanding of this cycle and their own part it in. They are closer to spirit and that magic time of “winter” so to speak.  Generally they have more trouble keeping on weight and become drier. The skin is tinged with blue and darker undertones. They are like the fall.

The pear, if uneaten, becomes darker too. Blue & brown undertones. Overripe. More age spots. Soft to the touch. But the sweetest and juiciest it will ever be if you can handle the mess! Another proverbial day or two in its own cycle and it just becomes a pile of mush. Mush to turn the seeds inside to something new perhaps? The opportunity to begin the cycle again as we head back into winter.

Circle of Life
It’s a beautiful cycle. It is nature. Each part has its very own purpose and feeds right into the next. There is no real beginning and no real end.

We should keep in mind that there is truly nothing to fight. Try… but we will not win. It’s easier to just understand nature and accept and open up to where we are are in it.

Nature is bigger than us. She will carry us through each awesome, perpetual, ongoing, self sustaining cycle so we can play our own special part.

Like the seed that created the unassuming pear, we are each a seed lucky enough to have made it. 

 

I painted two versions of this. One with the raw primary colors and the other with a softer tint of each.

Below I used photography and light alteration to show the same concept.

The original pear this blog was written about is the one to the bottom left of the first photo.

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