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