And onto a new year...


Here I am on the eve of 2007. I have made some decisions about what the next few months are going to look like. Well, I made some decisions and the universe chose some things for me to be fair. As the universe has projected, I will not be taking classes this semester. With the exception of my very time consuming job I will be back to focusing on me. I have joined weight watchers online community today with the goal of losing 65 lbs.... I am actually pretty excited about this! I have also decided to check out this whole letterboxing trend... seems something I will enjoy. In essence I am going to actually truly commit to learning how to take care of myself and take my healing journey to the next level.
I have been working with a personal trainer on and off over the last couple months and have really enjoyed it. I have started some weight lifting and she and I have been working the bench press which makes me feel increadibly powerful. I am hoping with a combination of the strength building and the weightloss I will learn to experience living in my body as a positive and empowering thing. It makes me so sad to think this but in reality I don't think one day of my 28 years on this planet has been spent living from a place of acceptance and joy. I have spent all of my time looking at myself from the outside in. I need to learn to experience life from my own body, and I think a big part of that is going to be getting in touch with taking care of my body. So here we go, another leg of the journey.

Namaste

I am recovering from a painting high that just struck me and motivated my time in my studio. I managed to pull the first layer of an acrylic mixed media piece out of my weary soul. It is a eve with loud music and strong emotions. Manic in their range.

I spent my day with the men I work for wandering around the Portland Sidewalk Art Festival. It was really enjoyable but I must say that I did find the lack of representation of mixed media work a bit disconcerting. There were a couple of wonderful mixed media artist represented but the majority of the art work there were pretty things. Not that there is anything wrong with pretty things, however they bore me.

So here I am another night home in my lonliness. My husband at work, my friends otherwise occupied and my energy level low, anxiety high. Not a particularly comfortable feeling, unfortunately the remedy of ice cream and pizza is not doing a damn thing to pacify me tonight.

I can't put my finger on what I want.

Vivid dreams trying to send me a message and whether I am blocked by fear, laziness or pure exhaustion is hard to say. So much of the pieces of me that I abandoned long ago are coming back to make me complete once again. And with this overwhelming process comes a great deal of isolation.

...

Here we are the eve of my 28th birthday. I sit alone to the soundtrack of the new Ani Difranco album. Exhausted from work and painting and passion. It has been a long time scince I blogged here. I have been neglectful scince we finished the Artists Way process. Things have changed over the last several months. For one my job has changed which has been a huge blessing. I am now actually the team leader for a group home for men with Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy. The house opened June 10th and my world became a whirlwind of work and anxiety and adjustment. Things have fallen into place and I am slowly losening my grip on the home. I have always believed it takes 6 months at a new job to relax into it and adjust. So I have felt in flux. But that is the nature of the beast I suppose.
My body has been aching. My healing stagnated as it seems. I have increasing back pain and my anxiety ebbs and flows with no avail. I am trying to find a new shrink to assist with my meds as I have yet to find a combo that brings me any relief at all. It is managable when I can bring myself to paint and express myself, but I am finding myself more and more tired and plagued with physical pain which makes the effort to do anything a huge challenge.
Sometimes I wonder if there will ever be an end to this ridiculous anxiety. It seems I have just struggled with it for so long.... how much can one person fight for themselves? Eventually I just want to sleep... like really really sleep. Deeply with no pain , no anxiety, no waking up, no cold sweats, no nightmares.... just sleep. It has been years scince I just slept... I am exhausted.

Absolutely to the core.... exhausted


Jocelyn

Another week gone by...


I am starting my day a little differently today. It is Saturday morning at 6:40 am. My work day has just begun and I have decided to blog first thing and see how that sets the mood for the day. I am not wanting to be here today... really I am not wanting to be here any day... but today especially. We have been having our whole office repainted (the interior) and it looks like today is the day they are going to be doing more work on the room I work in.... yeah for 12 hours breathing in paint fumes! This place is such a hole it's unbelievable, really. What little consideration is given to the health of the employees blows my mind. Anyhoo. I do not want to spend my whole blogging time bitching about the job you all know that I hate. I would rather catch you up on the events of the week.

This has been a pretty intense week for me. I applied for two more direct care jobs. One at Spurwink and one at Creative Works. My goal is to find and apply for 2 appropriate jobs a week until I am out of here. It makes me feel good and productive when I have actions to take on a weekly basis. Makes it a little easier to spend the time I have to here in the interum.
I had therapy on Wednesday and we talked a lot about my issues with body image, sexuality and intimacy. Very intense. What I think I have discovered is that I never really developed on a emotional level when it comes to sex. I spent my adolecent years trying to fill a role and please everyone and find the place that I fit that I never accepted myself just as I was and never had the chance to explore sexuality in a safe way. Now here I am at 27 and married and competely out of touch with my body. SO I am going back! My husband and I are going back to the teen years with our physical relationship so that I can explore and become comfortable and learn more about myself. I never had the high school boyfriend or the giggling sexual exploration. My experiences were all very intense and alot of them traumatic. I am very excited about this! On the other front in dealing with my self esteem and body image issues I am working on a mixed media painting to express acceptance of my body as it is right now. All the curves and roundness and beauty of the body I am blessed with. It is going to be a long process pulling all the images out of my head and getting them on the canvas but I spent 2 days this week working on the background and I am really pleased with it thus far. The other thing that I am doing in this arena is next week my dear friend Miranda is going to help me to update my wardrobe with clothing that really fits my body now and makes me feel good. I have avoided purchasing new clothes because of my deep desire to be smaller and now all of my clothing is ill fitting and ratty and i done care for much of any of it. Clothes shopping has always been challenging for me... not one of my favorite hobbies and I am so fortunate to have Miranda who is a master shopper not to mention fashion expert to help me on this part of my journey! So that is where the healing is at this week.

I also saw a chiropractor for the first time this week which was very enlighteneing. I have alot of upper back and neck pain which I have attributed to job stress and working at the computer. However it looks as though it can be more attributed to the way I walk and breathe. My body still functions in the "fight or flight" response because of my PTSD. I knew that my emotions were ruled by the PTSD and my hormones but had no idea that my physical movements were as well. SOOO I have 4 excercises to work with daily: deep belly breathing, tummy tucks (sucking in my tummy) Kegal excercises and striding (walking with elongated strides for 1/4 mile per day) These 4 excercises should improve my core stability and support my spine in proper alignment as well as retraining my body out of fight or flight. Very Intense!~ I go back to the chiropractor twice a week for the next two weeks and am pretty excited about all the syronicities... cool.

SO we are also finishing up the AW pretty quick here. I have been doing my morning pages on my work days, which does help with the work stress. I have pretty much abandoned the artist dates and have been using the time in my studio instead. I have stayed up on the reading every week and have done proably 50% of the tasks the past few weeks. I have gained a lot from the process and am glad that I stuck with it. I am sad that I havent been able to stay up with the blogs that I origionally did but most of my computer time was at work on the weekends and now that we are in busy season I do not have that oppurtunity as much. AND once I change jobs I won't have that opportunity at all... ah well I am doing the best that I can to keep all the balls in the air!

OKay blog time for the week is now over. I apologise for any spelling errors, I am not in the mood to go back and re read all this I just hope it is coherent. I hope yall have a wonderful week and I look forward to sharing with you again next weekend!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Hello..... I think I am done neglecting my poor blog now. Things have just been so crazy scince the surgery that it has been hard to reconnect with blogger world. I have made it a priority to update my blog today so here I am at 6:39 am here to share with all of you lovlies. SO this is what has been happening: I am still hating my job, actually I think I am hating it even more now. I find ever minute that I spend in this building depleting my internal resources to a dangerosly low level. I am still waiting to hear back from the guy at Residential Resources. I applied a week ago and then emailed him a couple of days ago. I will give him until Tuesday and then follow up by phone. If I still get nothing then I am going to make it a priority this week to go through the job listings and find 2 suitable positions to apply for. Keep moving slow but sure to get myself out of this hell hole. IN the meantime I am fighting to keep my spirit open to new job opportunities. SO, that's the job front.

I met with my surgeon for my post-op on Wednesday. Eveything came back ok from the lab and looked normal. She did not find any endometirosis and just removed a small piece of fibrous tissue which could be the cause of my pain. We will have to wait and see. If my pain has not subsided then we know that the problem is more the vulva vestibulitis which sucks because there are not a lot of treatment options for that. I am beginning to fear that there is going to be a lot more of the mind-body connection involved in this physical part of my healing than I thought. One of the ideas that has been presented to me is to see a sex therapist in conjunction with my regular therapy process and do some deeper work with my emotional and energetic connections to my womb. ANYWAY this week I have been feeling a bit fragile, frustrated and sad. I had really hoped that after the surgery things would be much more setteled than they actually are.

As a treat to myself I went back to the massage school I graduated from and got a massage from a student yesterday. She was an amazing deep tissue practicioner and really worked a lot of the knots and problem areas out of my neck and upper back which is exactly what I went there for and thought I needed most. Physically I think it is what I needed most. But, emotionally I think I could have benefited more from a nice relaxing nuturing full body swedish massage. Perhaps in a couple of weeks I will need to go back and try for that. It is just so difficult for me to relax most of the time. Even when I am just hanging out doing nothing I feel like I am running a marathon on the inside. It just gets so exhausting and frustrating being me sometimes.

As far as the Artist's Way goes, I have been somewhat recommited to the process. I have definitley been staying up on the reading and doing about half of the tasks. I managed my morning pages 4 days this week and I did not even think of the artist's date but that is okay. I am not going to allow myself to feel guilt for that. It has fit as much as it can in my process for the moment and it has lent to a tremendous amount of work and healing. I plan to stick with this same level of commitment for the last two weeks of the process and finish it out with pride.

Well, I beleive that is all for today. I hope all is well out there with my blogy friends and family. I do sincerly love all of your feedback and I do apologise if I have been out of touch with your blogs I hope to get back into it at some point, when the time is right.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

This is my very first altered matchbook shrine!

OKay folks I am back and I survived! The surgery went well. They found some scar tissue nodule thingy behind my uterus which has been removed and I did have an unplesant allergic reaction to the pain medicine which sucked but I made it through and now I am bored out of my MIND! My husband has my car this week as his is in the shop so I am stuck at home and going stir crazy. You know when you are so bored you don't want to do anything? yeah, that's where I am at. I still have to take it easy. Yesterday I did some crazy cleaning and wore myself out (I was sick of my apartment smelling like a sick person!) and ended up in bed at like 5:30 and in quite a bit of pain SO I am trying to honor my body and my healing today and continue to take it easy but I will tell you it is not an easy thing for me! I have febrezed everything within reach and my cat is now avoiding me... hmmm I don't really have anything else exciting to share. I have taken a hiatis from the Artist's Way due to the surgery buisness and don't feel ready to recommit quite yet. I have been working on some different artistic projects and some nice treats for my new pen pals and I will share a bit with you all shortly. I have finally uploaded pics of my altered matchbox that I did for my cloth paper studio competition and am oh so proud of so I suppose I will share those with you in the next post above you lucky dogs :) Okay I got nothin!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

No weekly check in today folks. I am cranky, in pain and in no mood to deal with anything. I have been at work for 11 hours. I have had these pin prick sharp pains shooting out of my left ovary for the best 24 hours and it makes me very uncomfortable. I have a feeling I am going to be uncomforable, over tired and cranky until my surgery is over on Wednesday. THEREFOR, you proably won't hear much out of me until a couple of days post-op. I appreciate any good thoughts you can all send my way and hope to be back up and in good form ASAP.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

OOH Week 6 Check In!

Here I am back at work for another Saturday and it has been increadibly busy. SO I am going to jump in with my Week 6 Check in while I have a minute.

#1. I did my morning pages 4 out of 7 days this week. Again, in my days off I just did not find the time or the motivation. I had a lot of sadness this week onf Wednesday and most of Thursday and I was stuck in it. Then Friday I had a lot of resolution and love and I was enjoying that too much to be distracted by anything else.
#2. I did not do my artist date this week, again, it was not my focus.
#3. I wouldn't necessarily say I experienced syncronicity this week as much as I experienced the grace and ease one has when they are on the right path towards their authentic life. Cetain things particularly with the effors in going back to school just seemed to go very smoothly.
#4. Alot of issues with body image and womanhood surfaced this week amd these are things that are going to take time and energy and work to get through.

So week 6 is over and we are onto week 7. I am actually going to try to do week 7 and 8 this week so that I wont have to worry about getting behind the week of my surgery. I know that the Artist's Way is going to be the last thing on my mind that week.

I am feeling okay today. Pretty stressed out because work is so busy and I really hate my job. BUT only a week and a half and I am off for 10 days and then when I return I am hoping to be out of here for good by May 1st... cross your fingers for me!

Okay I am going to cut it short today and get back to work. I hope all is well with all my lovely readers and we will get more caught up soon I promise!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

I am feeling a little sad today.


I had a therapy session today and one of the major focuses was body image and my ability to complete disconnect myself from being a woman as means of protecting myself from pain. I don't know where or when it all began but I have what I logically know is a very "off" image of self. This is a very hard post for me to write because there is no wry humor or off color remarks when it comes to this topic for me. This is very real, very raw and very much a part of my daily life. No matter what size I have been through out my 27 years I have never felt attractive, or sexy. I struggled with anorexia thoroughout the end of high school and the beginning of college and then moved to alcohol and pills and then I suppose when I gave up these addictions I just sort of started hiding and letting the anxiety take over my life. The more I hid the more weight I gained and the more I felt the internal weight of the hatred for my body. Now, I know that I am not an enormous woman. And I know that I am probably very much in the "average" but that is not how I feel. The scary part of it for me is that I can look back at pictures of myself 15 lbs lighter or 30 lbs lighter and even 60 lbs lighter and completely emmaciated and underweight and I know that deep down in all those years and all those sizes I felt exactly like I do today.
I am working very hard to heal all aspects of my life but this one here is a very tough and very painful corner for me and I don't really know which direction to turn.. it feels very lonely here. I do not want to hear how beautiful other people think I am because that only accentuates the fact that my image of self does not match up....
One of the things that came up in therapy today was how all this connected with my issues with intimacy and womanhood... on a physical level this ties in with my medical problems and my upcoming surgery. When asked the question "What does being a woman mean for you?" I was filled with sadness and I guess that this is the place from which I am looking to connect. So I ask to you my women readers. What does being a woman mean to you? I appreciate your feedback and your honesty.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Another Saturday stuck at work!

Hello all! I have a lot to write about today so I am going to try and be a bit organized and hope you all don't get too bored with me... especially as I am not sharing any lovely eye candy today... perhaps if you are good next week I will post some more of my projects.

Okay so AW Week 5 Check In:
1. I only did my morning pages 4 out of 7 days this week. BUT I do not feel guilty about it, which is lovely. I have been much more focused on getting well this week than the structure of the AW process, so I am okay with it. On the days that I did my morning pages I did enjoy them this week with less resistance.

2. This week I did not do my Artist's date. In fact, I had doctor's appointments on all the days that I wasn't at work for 12+ hours so I did not want to "schedule" any more of my off time. In lieu of the artist's date however this week I did spend more time than usual in my studio creating art.

3. don't feel like answering this this week.

4. I would say my ability to set aside the structure and rules of AW and just allow myself to create and heal this week was pretty signifigant to my recovery. I had more confidence in my creations as well. I can't wait to share my matchbook shrine with yall!

OKay that is all for the check in this week. Today I am stuck at work for an amazing 12 hour shift which I am none too excited about. My car is in the shop so my husband has to drive me to and from work all weekend and we are expecting a big snow storm tommorow... joy oh joy. Oh the upside I started a new novel which I am really enjoying it is One For the Money by Janet Evanovich which is the first of 11 that are in the series about Stephanie Plum who is a crazy cool bounty hunter. My therapist told me if I didn't like them I couldnt tell her as she could no longer be my friend so I was a little worried... but man, it is funny and I wish I could read all day instead of doing work! I am definitly checking the rest of them out of the library to read post op in my recovery do nothing time... now I am reallly excited!

Okay the last thing I am going to address today is that I have been tagged by both http://harmoneyinline.blogspot.com and Eliza from http://sixfootone.blogspot.com So ladies here it is

1. Four wishes, dreams and desires:
a. to open a private massage and polarity practice in my home.
b. to own a digital camera
c. to visit the Greek isles
d. to obtain a bachelors degree

2. Four imaginary lives:
a. An ecelctic author of romance novels.
b. A full time artist with an amazing studio.
c. The lead actress in a Broadway musical in NYC.
d. to be a mom

3. Four things I should change:
a. my job
b. how often I use the phrase "I should..."
c. my excercise regime
d. the amount I eat sweets.

4. Four things I like about Artist's Way:
a. I love doing the writing tasks on Monday and Tues while I am at work
b. I love the feeling of community we have in the way we are doing it together.
c. I love the essays each week and find her writing very insightful.
d. I am beginning to love the morning pages.

5. Four things I hope to get out of the Artist's Way:
a. Confidence in my creating.
b. Clarity of my goals
c. Contiued sisterhood
d. Love for myself and my inner artist.

Okay I am all worn out now so I am going to be a stinker and I am not going to tag anybody today... perhaps tommorow, we'll have to wait and see. I hope you are all doing well and taking car of yourselves and your souls.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Hello my blogery friends! This is my very first Artist Trading Card and I am so very proud of it. I watercolored the background paper and then stamped and embelished it. This has been my joy of the week thus far.

I am feeling really disconnected from my blog. Pehaps because I have spent so much time lately creating rather than writing about creating. I guess I am at a place in my healing where I am celebrating my growth and healing in the creation of my arts. Though, I am having a difficult time not feeling guilty for my lack of passion when it comes to this here blog. Ah well it is all part of process. Today I had my therapy session over the phone as my car is without a working transmission and therfor I am housebound until it gets fixed next week.

I want to talk for a moment about this over the phone buisness. The session itself was validating and wonderful as usual. What I find so extraodinary is the fact that my therapist was willing to take the time and just have a conversation with me off the clock. I think that I got so used to sublevel medical care that when one of my doctors goes above and beyond like this I am completely bowled over. Another example is my amazing OBGYN who is performing my surgery in 3 weeks. She is going into private practice in a couple weeks and called me yesterday in between surgeries from the hosipital just to put my mind at ease that she still intends to care for me. She too is absolutely amazing. I know how frustrating it can be to be unhappy with the level of care you recieve from your doctors. I just want to encourage people who are unhappy to seek put a better situation and not settle as I setteled for so long. Having a couple of doctors that I feel are really in my corner has made a tremendous diffence in all aspects of my healing including the value I put upon myself.

On that note, tommorow is a day filled with pre-op appointments. I am actually looking forward to meeting with my anestheiologist and nurse so that I feel better prepared. I will try to check in tommorow and tell you all how it goes but if I do not get a chance I will be back over the weekend.

Oh and by the way.... that job I hate so much... I am leaving it soon! After the surgery and postcare I will be moving on and am just exstatic as can be about that!

Hope all of you being of light are living well!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Artist's Way Week 4 Check In


1. I did my morning pages 6 out of 7 days this week. It felt like I didn't really have anything to say in my pages this week. It made them hard to get through and frustrating. I did not want to do them this week.

2. I did go on my artist's date this week. I took my inner artist to Michaels and AC Moore craft stores and spent a couple of hours perusing and picking up treats for myself. Then I went home and taught my inner artist how to make chocolate mousse! It was a really lovely day!

3. I can't say that I noticed any syncronicity this week- though I was feeling pretty disconnected so I very well could have missed it!

4. I joined the yahoo group clothpaperstudio and found a whole new group of creative supporters. I m starting to recognize the divide that I have created between artistic and crafty as a safety for myself. I am trying to find a balance of both expressions in my life and an equal appreciation and respect for both of these aspects of myself.

So that is all she wrote for my check in this week! Now on to bigger and brighter things!

I am stuck at work again for another 12 hour day. It is loud here today. All the leasing department have taken over my normally quiet little bay and there is horrible music being played in the cubicle next to me. Not to mention most of the men in the leasing department are loud and showy... icky. I wish they would all go home and leave me in peace and quiet. Crappy energy in here today.
I have been pretty busy today but I did manage to spend some surfing the net. One of the women from my birthday group on clothpaperstudio is Gina. It is her birthday month for February. That means that all the other members of the group send her a little something like an embelished tag or Artist's trading card. I was working really hard all week putting stuff together for her that I am pretty proud of. THEN I found that she has a buisness and a website www.sweetwatersisters.com I checked out some of her mixed media work and OMG this woman really does some amazing stuff! I was drooling over the sister circle journal pages sooooo beautiful. But now I have inner critics creeping in about my work. I am really new at Mixed Media and have been having a lot of fun with it but I am starting to feel itimidated now that I see what some of these other ladies are doing. Ah well perhaps the more I practice the better I will feel about my work.

Okay I am getting a headache and a great deal of impatience with my job so I shall say farewell for today. Perhaps tommorow I will be able to write from a better place!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Good Evening Friends!


It has been so weird to not blog all week this week due to my reading deprivation for the Artist's Way process. I have felt really disconnected. Not only from not writing but especially from not reading the blogs I generally keep up with. Tommorow is going to be a big day of catch up... hope it is slow at work!
This has been a good week overall I have gotten involved with a yahoo group clothpaperstudio which has been exciting. I am learning new mixed media collage techniques and spending a lot of creative time in my little studio. I am a bit bummed that my collage Adult Ed class got cancelled. It was supposed to start next week and evidently there wasnt enough interest. BUMMER! I am having a hard time finding affordable collage classes, if anyone has any online class resources they could turn me onto I would appreciate it!
Well, I am fading iknto dream land here folks. I will be much more exciting tommorow I do promise you that! I hope all of my readers are doing well and that you dont feel neglected by my week of absence!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

The past that lingers....

In love and light,
Jocelyn

I am tired, sweaty and stuck at work.

All of this makes me a bit crabby. Actually I have been frequently crabby this week. Disjointed and disconnected and disconcerted for that matter. It has been an icky week. And now here I am sitting at my computer at the mouth of hell and writing my blog.
So we are at the end of week 3 in the artist's way which is crazy in itself. I am going to share my weekly check in again. So here we go:

1. I did my morning pages every day this week. I still enjoy doing them, it is becoming more of a habit and I am finding that I run out of things to write earlier than in the beginning of this journey. I think this is a good thing.
2. Yes, I actually did my artist's date this week and it was okay. I read through about 1/2 of the hollywood gossip magazine I had set aside and enjoyed about 35 minutes of silence in my home, but then I got bored and took a nap. I liked the nap better than the date so I am going to make the nap my date.
3. Yes I did notice a weird syncronicity this week. My friend Jessica emailed me . She is also a fan of the Artist's way and has just started watercolor painting.. hmmmm
4. I had a difficult time with some of the childhood tasks this week. I also found that some of the tasks made me realize that I have built a really amazing support system for myself outside of my family.

OKay that is the end of Week 3. Now I have done the reading for Week 4. I am feeling nervous and resistant to the reading deprivation. I am going to make a commitment to it from Monday to Friday of this week. SO for all the blogs that I religiously read and comment, please don't feel neglected and I will return next weekend to catch up. That being said, it may be too much temptation to hop online so I may not update my blog this week either after tommorow so if that is the case please know that I haven't abandoned ship I am just taking a little break in support of the "process" I am getting even more cranky just thinking about it.... I might have a tantrum. Hmmm that actuallly sounds like something that would proably be really good for me. What do you all think... are you fans of the occasional tanrum?

Okay that is all for today. My job is melting my brain and making me very unenteratining indeed ! Hopefully I will have more inspiration or at least entertaining words tommorow!

Oh bother!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Hello! Above is my first submittion to Mixed Media Memoirs and I am very excited about how it turned out! This has been a good art week for me. I started working with the acrylic paints that I recieved from Erin's family last week. I have had alot of fun with that. I have also been able to keep up with my morning pages and am going to start this week's artist date as soon as I finish with my blog here! This week's date is a steaming cup of tea and a couple of Hollywood gossip magazines and a silent house.... oh and then I am going to take a nap.... oh lala.

I want to share one of the tasks from this week. 3 of my obvious rotten habits and my subtle rotten habits. The obvious ones are 1. I eat chocolate in excess on a daily basis. 2. I only excercise like twice a week at a maximum and 3. I take sleeping pills every night. My subtle rotten habits are 1. I beat myself up about rotten habits 1 and 2. 2. I smoke when I am at Erin's house even though I quit smoking months ago. 3. I neglect my self care. Hmmm the tasks this week have not been easy for me and I will talk about it more on Saturday with the weekly check in. I think mostly it is all this looking back into my childhood stuff. It's not that I had a horrible childhood by any means it's just that a lot of my self image and esteem issues are very deeply rooted in the past and it makes it difficult and uncomfortable to explore that territory. I did have a very productive therapy session yesterday where we addressed some communication skills that I can work on to improve my ability to stand up for myself with my family ..... this is tough stuff for me.

I am feeling like this post is really disjointed. Perhaps that is the theme for me this week. I have been feeling out of sorts on and off all week. Emotionally and physically. I am adjusting to the Effexor which I have been on about a week now. I have also been eating like crap and not excercising all week so that doesn't help matters. I did get up this morning, work out and ate a really solid breakfast and lunch which did improve the way I feel a bit but I am starting to bottom out again. SOOO I think I shall take my nap now and make my self care the priority for my day and see if I survive or if my whole world falls apart! Gotta work on those bad habits sometime!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Miss Banana, This one's for you!


So here we are on Sunday. I am feeling cranky and groggy. I have been at work for 8 hours and I have 4 more to go and I do not want to be here. I am thinking of my paints sitting at home and all the creative ideas that I would love to be experimenting with. Alas I cannot as I am stuck in a dusty building which I truly do believe to be situated over the mouth of Hell (yes, just like Sunnydale High School) I am talking to whiny clients over the phone booking car rentals that I don't give one iota about and wasting my time away.... I hate my job. Granted it is only temporary. Granted I have other things in my life that fill up my soul. Granted I am doing everything in my power to create and implement a life plan that will get me out of this place. BUT today this is where I am and I am not very happy about it. But enough of this nonsense. My friend Miss. Banana has asked me to share the Mexican Casserole recipe I was raving about yesterday from last week's date night, so me being the nice lady that I am is going to do just that. Now this is not actually MY recipe. I did find it somewhere online and I don't remember where but if the actual creator of this recipe is out there, thank you!

Mexican Casserole

1 lb ground beef
1 tablespoon veggie oil
1 clove garlic
1/2 cup each onion and green pepper chopped
1 teaspoon each salt and chili powder
1 16 oz can kidney beans drained
2 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes with juice (from can)
3/4 cup uncooked instant brown rice
3/4 cup grated cheese (I like the mixed cheese and I use way more that this)



1. Brown beef in oil add garlic. Add onion and pepper. Cook until the onion is transparent.
2.Drain the fat off. In a 2 quart casserole dish combine meat mixture, salt, chili powder, beans, tomatoes, and rice.
3. Bake covered at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Uncover and sprinkle with cheese, bake an additional 15 minutes uncovered.
4.Serve!


So there you have it, this casserole, Scene It and your honey and you have yourself a lovely little date! I hope you all enjoy.

Okay I think I am going to close this up for today. I don't have anything inspiring to write about so I figure I will just stay at work and wallow for a while. I hope you are all doing better than me today!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

I'm Back!


Well here we are the end of week 2 of The Artist's Way... I can't believe how fast it is going. I am going to start my blog today with this week's check in.

#1. This week I did my morning pages 5 out of 7 days. The first day that I missed I just completely forgot about it and then yesterday I didnt do them as I didnt feel well and it just wasn't part of my truth. I am still proud of myself for sticking with the. I am not resistant to this piece of the work.

#2. I did not do my artist's date this week and I honestly feel increadibly guilty about it. I know now that scheduling it for Friday does not work. I need to do my artist's date on Wednesday or Thursday morning. Next week I will make it a priority.

#3. Nothing new is really coming in for me this week. The continued theme is finding balance and I seem to be pushed in the direction of painting which is pretty exciting!

So there it is. I am looking forward to doing the reading for week 3 today. I am stuck at work for 12 hours so I should have plenty of time to absorb the information. So now I want to talk about my last couple of days. Yesteday I had a wonderful morning with my friend Erin. We went up to Freeport and had tea with her parents and then I was allowed to raid the closet filled with her aunts old art supplies. I ended up with a rather large selection of oil and acrylic paints and some canvases. I am very excited about this however I am also a touch nervous. I am afraid of the oil paints cuz I dont know anything about them as far as maintaining brushes ect and even the acrylics because I have no idea what kind of paper to use or anything. So next week I shall have to make a trip down to the art store and speak with someone there and hopefully get some help without looking like an idiot.. hmmm we'll see I get really anxious about stuff like this.

ON another note, my husband and I had "date night"on Wednesday night. It was really really lovely. We snuggeled in at home and played Scene It (which I am now obsessed with) and ate mexican casserole (which I am now also obsessed with) It was so nice to just spend a couple of hours together without his stress from nursing school and my stress from (well just from being me I guess) anyway, that was that and it was lovely for that matter.

I also started working on a multimedia collage for Melba's page this week under the theme "this is me" Unfortunately I did not get it all together and will not have time by Monday so I am really disappointed about that. I had planned to finish it Thrusday or Friday but it didn't work out. On Thursday I found out that my surgery will be on March 1st and I have a bunch of pre-op stuff on Feb 9th. Now knowing the date has made the whole surgery bit very very really which is kind of yucky. Then on Friday I started my new medication Effexor and it made me feel a bit under the weather for the afternoon and evening. In fact I went to bed at 6pm :( So I guess I should say I had some really nice moments this week but I also had some disappointments and today I am feeling the disappointments more. I guess part of it is adjusting to the new medication and getting back into the swing of working and whatnot but I am just feeling kinda down today. SO I am going to leave it at that and try to get into The Artist's Way week 3 and see where the day takes me. I hope all is well with all of you lovely angels!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Here is my life pie... it looks so broken and sad.

Here we are on Tuesday!

I wanted to take a moment to express how overjoyed I am about all of the amazing feedback I am getting on this here blog! The fact that I have dear friends, and old friends and strangers reading my words and supporting me in such an amazing way brings me to tears of joy... thank you. On that note, it has been a long and exhausting day so rather than write today I am going to share some visuals with you lovely people. Firstly will be my "Life Pie" from the Artist's Way week 2 (keep up the amazing work all you AWer's out there!) and secondly the art that the life pie excercise sparked in me... hmmmmmmm

I send you all angels of joy to buzz blissfully arounds you while you sleep.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Poor Neglected Blog.

Good Evening friends! I have neglected my blog this weekend. I work 12 hour shifts on Saturday, Sunday and Mondays in a job that I detest to the core of my being. It makes it hard to share from a positive place on these days but today, I am going to give it my all. I shall start by sharing my version of the week one check in:

1. I did my morning pages everyday. I thought this would be my biggest challenge but in fact I have really enjoyed them. It has helped me sort through a lot of stuff this week with the news of my upcoming surgery and whatnot.

2. I did do my artist's date on Friday. I gave myself a tarot reading with the resounding message of BALANCE. I found myself really resistant to commiting to an Artist's date and couldnt quite pinpoint why. I know I was anxious and didnt really want to leave the apartment but that is pretty normal for me on Fridays. I'll have to see how I feel about it in the coming weeks.

3. The resounding messages this week were of balance, connecting, quieting the mind and recieving. I feel all of these lessons are just beginning to unfold and I look forward to the work I will do with each of them.

SO that is it for the offical week one check in share. Now onto what has been going on in my life today. I have found that through all the work that I am doing in therapy and with the artist's way and rediscovering myself and my joy, I am changing rapidly and healing a tremendous amount. One of the hardest things I am running into right now is that as I heal and work towards the life that I want, the things that aren't working, aren't in my truth and that I am just kind of doing to "get by" are becoming more and more difficult, painful, frustrating ect. I, like so many others, have a lot of anxiety when it comes to change surrounding my job. I can always come up with a million excuses why I cannot leave this job that I hate so much. Granted some of them are valid as in, for example: I am having surgery within 4 weeks, now is not the time to lose or change your health insurance provider. Okay so RIGHT now is not the time to leave BUT I am feeling a desparate need to have a solid plan A and a solid plan B. I am feeling overwhelmed with desparation to know that I will never again in my life have to endure a job that makes me as unhappy as this one does. So that being said I know that my plan A surrounds building a private practice of massage and polarity clients once my husband graduates from nursing school. I also know that one of my deep down desires is to become a published author and to explore more mediums of art. The thing of it is that the universe is screaming at me to have a plan B and to do something now. Even if it is not the ideal situation, a little change to a better situation. I guess what it comes down to is that I need to determine the baby steps to my dream and figure out which ones I can start to take now so that I may embrace my joy along the way. On that note, and thinking of my plan B, I started looking into the associates liberal arts degree through the local community college. I spent some time in college right after highschool and managed to acquire about 21 credits but I didn't do well. It has always been one of my dreams to one day have a degree of some sort (besides my massage licsense). I kind of gave up on the dream a little bit and managed to convince myself that I wasn't smart or commited enough and that the cost of such an education would be a waste. ICK I do not like that I said this to myself... it's downright rotten. SO here I am in the middle of all this change and thoughts of even more change and ya know what? Surprisingly I am doing okay. Thank you all for your loving support and know that I cherish you all for your role in my healing journey.

In love and light and a little bit of chaos,

Jocelyn

Good day to all of you amazing beings. Today I want to share a part of my Artist's Date with you. For my date this week I got out my candles and crystals and chimes and incense and I gave myself a tarot reading, which I haven't done in years. The main message the reading got across to me was BALANCE. Balance is crucial at this point in my journey and learning the art of balance is where my attention should be focused.

After the tarot reading I decided to bring out my Healing With The Angels cards by the amazing Doreen Virtue. I am struggling with the anxiety of my impending surgery. I had nightmares about it last night and am feeling very nervous today. Anyway, I opened myself up and asked my angels for assistance, clarity and love and this is the card that they sent me. I am going to write out the meaning as Doreen puts it below. Perhaps I will write again today but if not I wish you all a lovely Friday and hey, week one of the Artist's Way is coming to a close. Blessings to us all for an amazing job on week one!!

MEDITATION: A quiet mind hears the voice of the angels more easily. This card is your angels way of asking you to quiet your mind so that your angelic communications are loud and clear. First thing in the morning, spend at least five minutes with your eyes closed, and breathe deeply three or four times. Ask your angels a question, and then listen as intently as you would a dear friend. Don't strain to listen; if you chase the answer, it will evade you. Instead, continue to breathe in and out deeply, and allow yourself to relax. Tell yourself that recieving angelic communication is natural for you, and that it is actually an everyday experience. The more you relax your mind, the easier it is for you to hear the answer. (Doreen Virtue)

In love and light,
Jocelyn

A kind of Crappy Day


Well here we are another day in The Artist's Way. So my activity that I am going to share today is the one about 5 other lives. I had a lot of fun with this one. The excercise was esentially to choose 5 other lives that I would love to be living. Here are mine:

1. A lead actress in a broadway musical with an amazing home in New York City.
2. A social worker. A strong powerful woman exuding compassion and joy.
3. An artist. Able to support myself entirely from my art.
4. A novelist.
5.A folk/rock muscian.

All very exciting prospects. So, now about my kind of crappy day. I found out today that I will be having laprascopic surgery within the next 4 weeks. I had the same surgery in 1999 and I know that it is not too too scary but it is unnerving. I will need to take some time off from work. In any case I am unsetteled by this news. I think what is most unsettleing to me is that I feel I know the cosmic reason that this has come down to pike to me at this time. I do believe that this is the universe presenting a lesson to me in recieveing. This is something that I, like many women stuggle contiunously with. The art of recieving and not feeling the need to even the scales so to speak. I find myself very uncomfortable when someone does something for me or gives something to me and I don't have the ability to immediately do something in return. Through the short recovery time from this surgery I will be forced to compassionately recieve from my friends and husband. The lesson for me will be how to accomplish this with grace and without guilt.

hmmmm my heart is humming.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

p.s I have worked on some watercolor backgrounds today and am hoping to have some art to share with you tommorow. Pending the computer gods are on my side.

Here's my champion!


Another Day!

Well here we are another day on The Artist's Way journey. Today was another long day of work and I actually made it to the gym today which was very exciting indeed! I have decided that in my entry today I am going to share a couple of the Artist's Way tasks that I have worked on. The first is to share my affirmation of the week. I find it increadibly powerful. It is an affirmation that my massage therapy teacher, Karl shared with me and it stuck. If this affirmation resonates with you I encourage you to experiment with it!

I love my body and I trust it's wisdom.

I also want to share one of my "Champions of my Creative Self-Worth"

One of the amazing women in my life has become one of my number one cheerleaders when it comes to my healing journey and my creative, authentic self. Her name is Erin and I want to introduce this amazing being to you. Erin is willing to support me in any way I need. From creative support vocally , to accompaning me on creative journeys to being my emotional touchstone in all times of need. Erin is like my good angel here in this dimension. She makes me laugh, let's me cry, holds my hand and shoves me square in the behind when necessary. I love her dearly and I can safetly say she loves me too just as dearly and that feels really nice to share. Yeah Foley!

So that's all for today my friends, tommorow I see a new doctor who will hopefully have some effective suggestions and assistance for my anxiety crap, I will keep you posted on that very frustrating side road of my journey, I am sure there are those of you out there that can relate to the frustrations of medication experimentation but that is a discussion for another day. Good night!

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Good Evening,

Today has been a very long, very difficult day. There was a lot of change that took place in my workplace and it has me unsetteled. On a positve note I did accomplish my morning pages today and I did three of the excercises. I was a bit skeptical of this process at first. Especially with all of the healing work I am doing outside of The Artist' Way. I have questioned whether or not my commitment would stay solid once I actually starting "doing" the excercises. I feared I would become too overwhelmed or find myself to be to self absorbed and narcisitic. I actually had a co-worker say to me that some people shouldn't look so deep into themselves as they may not be able to handle what they find and will get stuck in a perpetual cycle of narcissism and driver everyone around them crazy.... it is noteworthy to mention that I very much disagree with this. I have spent so many years hiding and covering up that it is time for me to be completely self-absorbed ya know? I knew eventually the day would come that I would finally have to deal with myself and now it is here upon us. I feel grateful to have the Artist's Way and the support of all of you beautiful beings reading my words and giving me supportive feedback. I thank you to the deepest depths of my soul. For now I am feeling the need to lie next to my husband and heal in silence this evening.

In love and light,
Jocelyn

Here I am!

Hello and Welcome,

My very first blog entry, how very exciting this is! I have decided to create this blog because I have joined forces with www.katspaws.blogs.com to participate in The Artist's Way journey. I am very excited about this and did my morning pages today for the very first time. I am increadibly proud of myself and all the other beautiful beings that have chosen this journey together.

On a different note. Things in my life have been relatively chaotic. I feel I should share a bit of my journey up to now in my very first blog entry so that any readers I may have aren't lost. I am 27 years old. I got married this past summer and graduated from massage and polarity school last April. The "good on paper" parts of my life are in a nice position for the first time in my life which has allowed room for a complete and total emotional overhaul and major healing undertaking. The catalsyt and what was thought to be the origonal cause for this healing journey is the fact that I am a rape survivor. I was raped just before my 22 birthday. I have already done a tremendous amount of healing and work surrounding this situation but there were two major areas of my life that were and are still being affected. One of which is my sex life and the other being my anxiety disorder. In any case, I got myself a phenomenal therapist and we have been working together scince like October. The process has been long and draining but I do feel as though I am making substantial progress. I am very proud of myself this weekend for the 3 specific reasons. #1. I asked for a raise for the first time in my life. #2 I joined the gym this week and I actually worked out once. #3 I signed up for two adult education classes, one on mixed media collage and the other on bellydancing. I very excited about all of this! Before now my anxiety would have prevented me from trying any of these new and exciting things. Some of the things that I am trying very hard to incooperate in my life are excercise, art and creativity on a much grander scale and daily self nuturance. It seems the most major thing that Julie (my therapist) and I have spent time on is trying to figure out what I enjoy, what makes me feel good and fills me with joy. I have spent so many years drowning myself with self abuse and trying to fit all these extreme molds that I created so that I could feel like I fit. I tried so hard to form myself into a person that I though just may be "good enough" I did this for so long that when asked. "what makes you happy" I really couldn't answer from an authentically Jocelyn place. Although it may sound really simple and basic it has taken me months of work to get a true base of what "things" make me happy. I mean what actual activities that I can participate in make me feel good. This is why I am so proud of those 3 things I listed above. I was able to not only find things that I, Jocelyn, authentically enjoy and desire in my life but I was also able to convince myself that I, Jocelyn, am worthy of recognition. (wow... this is big doings people)

One of the other things that I am working with is changing my perspective. I am trying to look at all the things that I do in my day as parts of healing me. Even on the days (which are still pretty frequent) where I cannot seem to get myself off of the couch and feel crippled with anxiety. I am trying to learn how to say to myself, " this is just a part of my process, I am doing exactly as I am meant to be doing and I love and honor myself for wherever I am in this healing process." It is very difficult to learn how to be gentle with oneself. To forgive oneself and treat oneself with the compassion that is so easily distributed to others.

On that thought I shall close for now and see where the day leads me.

In love and light,
Jocelyn