Here are some excerpts from the messages I have posted to my e-mailing list on Yahoo.  To sign up go to Joy_2_Me_U on Yahoo.

Sun Jan 6, 2008 3:37 pm
Happy New Year to all my Kindred Spirits! ;-) . . . . One of my phone clients the other day, referred to finding my site as a Google miracle. I like it.;-)

I announced a new Intensive Date for May 25th - Memorial Day weekend - . . . . . Christmas was a lot of fun this year because 3 year old Darien was old enough to really enjoy it. He is such a sweet good kid - such a happy, exuberant kid. It is a privilege and an honor to be in partnership with Susan in providing this beautiful little soul with a safe environment to grow up in. It is a great blessing in my life to have him - and her - in my life. . . . . Here is to more courage, willingness, and miracles in 2008!
Robert

Mon Jan 28, 2008 6:59 pm
It is a rainy day in Southern California. . . . . . I am going to be the Speaker at a CoDA Speaker meeting on the Central Coast on February 11th - so that gives us a good excuse to make a trip up there.  We haven't been up there since we evacuated for the fires in October. . . . . . there was a screw up with ATT about the bill for my Cambria number. . . . . The phone number up there is always one I really liked - the number itself - because it had a lot of 7's in it. 927-7107.  It is the number that is published in my book - and one I wanted to hold onto because of that, but also because deep down I do hope to be able to be living back up there some day. . . . . I am not sure yet when the rent for February is going to manifest - so paying money to get that phone hooked up again falls in the luxury category right now. . . . . . . January the 23rd marked the 3rd anniversary since Susan and I met.  A record for me for sure. . . . . I mentioned in my August Update last year that I had just recently realized that he (Darien) and I had a powerful Karmic / Soul connection. . . . . . Our concern and love for Darien got us through many rough passages in our relationship. . . . . . Susan and I are learning a great deal from each other - and the common ground of our love for Darien is helping our love to evolve.

Speaking of Darien, I have mentioned several times previously without explaining what the problem was . . . . . that one of the financial stressors has to do with Darien's teeth. . . . . Remember to stop and smell the flowers, to be grateful for all the gifts in your life at this moment.  Remember to allow yourself some time to be in Joy.
Robert

Tue Feb 26, 2008 2:24 pm
I am off to Spain on Thursday morning - very early - for my workshops on Ibiza. . . . . . A 3 year old who is now potty trained by the way.;-) It is fascinating to watch him start to learn how to control his body. He is such a cool little man. . . . . Then he came over to me and said, "Stay home papa." I guess it is a good thing I will be leaving very early in the morning while he is asleep. I am getting all choked up and teary right now just thinking about say good-bye to him. Good thing I don't have to. . . . . So, I will be announcing details about this workshop at sea in an Update Newsletter in March. (Obviously didn't happen until now.) . . . . . I finished updating the copyright notice on all of my content pages - and there are over 200. That is not counting the information pages, or purchasing pages, or the Update Newsletters (which have a ton of content themselves) - and of course doesn't count the pages in the password protected parts of the site, The Joy2MeU Journal and Dancing in Light. That is over 200 pages of just web articles on Joy2MeU. . . . . Well, I need to get back to packing and figuring out what all I need to do before I leave. Hope you are being kind and Loving to your self today.;-)
Robert
 

Fri Mar 21, 2008 10:13 am
The great news is that we were able to get Darien's teeth fixed.  Hurrah!!! . . . . . It was very scary to have them give him the medication and then to have to wait 3 hours until they were done. I did a lot of pacing. . . . Now he looks in my mouth (I need some major work done, which the money will hopefully manifest for before it becomes an emergency situation) and says, "Papa has broken teeth." And then his face will light up and he will say, "My teeth all fixed." He just lights up with Joy any time he remembers that he doesn't have "broken teeth" any more.

The workshops in Ibiza went great. We had 30 some people each day.  The travel was hard. On the Monday coming back, I was in Airports and Airplanes for over 24 hours (gained 9 hours on the way.) It took me a week to recover from the jet lag or sleep disruption or whatever. . . . . (excerpt above) . . . . I hope you all have something in your life that is as great a reminder to be in the moment and feel the Joy as Darien when he smiles about his teeth being fixed.;-)
Robert

I have recently been working with a few people who were dealing with relationship addiction issues - and hearing about quite a few others.  All of us have a desperately needy, desperately lonely age of the inner child that was deprived of appropriate emotional and physical needs.  It is that young child part of us that feels like it is life threatening when we don't hear from the other person and wants to send numerous text messages or e-mails or call the other.  I described this Deprived, wounded, lonely child in my article The Inner Children that need Boundaries.

"Desperately needy, clingy, wants to be rescued and taken care of, doesn't want to set boundaries for fear of being abandoned - very important to own, nurture, and Love this part of ourselves because relating to this part of our self out of either extreme can be disastrous. 

Allowing this desperate neediness to come out in our adult relationships can drive someone away pretty fast - no one outside of us can meet the desperate needs of this child.  We can love this part out of the Loving compassionate adult in us and keep those needs from surfacing at inappropriate times by owning how wounded this part of us is and taking steps to validate and nurture this inner child. 

Not owning that part of us can be just as damaging - being terrified of letting ourselves feel the woundedness and neediness of this part of our self can cause us to shut down our ability to be vulnerable and open to emotional intimacy.  If we cannot own how deprived we were emotionally as children and instead try to keep this part of us shut away we cannot Truly open our heart and be vulnerable as an adult.  People who tend to be counterdependent and can't stand being around needy people are terrified of the needy part of themselves - and because of that will keep picking emotionally unavailable people to be in relationship with, or will run away if someone is emotionally available because it will feel like neediness to them. 

When this emotional deprivation is associated with a teenager within us it can cause us to act out sexually to try to get this emotional neediness met.  The fact that we have in the past acted out sexually in ways that we are ashamed of - or found ourselves very needy, vulnerable, and powerless to suppress the emotional neediness in sexually intimate relationships - can cause us to shut down to our sensuality and sexuality out of fear the loss of control we experienced in the past." - The Inner Children that need Boundaries

"My thinking, in relationship to a relationship, is much healthier and more balanced than it used to be - but it still tends towards the extremes within the spectrum of what is possible.  It feels more natural for me to completely let go of the idea of having a romantic relationship or to think in terms of what it is going to be like when we are living together then to think in terms of getting to know someone gradually.  Kind of like, either pretend the water isn't there, or dive into the deep end without looking first to see what may be just under the surface.

It is easier for me emotionally to not even consider going in the water than to gradually ease myself into the shallow water - because if I am even looking at the water it gets me in touch with grief about being alone.  The abyss of wish-to-die pain and desperate loneliness from my childhood - the deprivation issues that I spent so much of my life either denying or allowing to run my life - do not have anywhere near the power they used to because of the healing I have done.  It is relatively easy now for me to separate out the childhood feelings of loneliness - and they do not any longer have a life threatening feeling of desperation to them.  But I also have been very deprived in my adult life - of Love, companionship, affection, touch, sexual fulfillment, etc. - because of the patterns caused by my fear of intimacy.  So the grief around those deprivation issues still has some power because the deprivation is still happening." - Emotional Honesty and Emotional Responsibility part 4: Discernment in relationship to emotional honesty and responsibility 1

Last year In my March 2007 Update Newsletter I got into processing about my fear of intimacy issues.  That resulted in an additional page of processing in which I shared a Personal History in relationship to fear of intimacy issues.  It was an update of the previous time I had shared about those issues in August 2004 - and included my realization that the terror of intimacy defenses that were defending my heart were so powerful, that it was necessary for the Universe to guide me into the delusion that the person I got involved with in 2004 was my twin soul.

"While writing my March Update - in the midst of what I call one of my "writing frenzies" where I was processing through and trying to understand some of the crazy and insane stuff that was happening in my life during the very accelerated time of transformation in March - I kept vacillating between whether what I was writing was okay to share in my Update Newsletter or if it belonged in my journal. . . . (That March 2004 Update - with 2 extra Newsletter pages - included discussion of some levels of metaphysics - and involved some very intimate personal emotional processing - of the kind that I have most often confined to my personal journal in the Joy2MeU Journal.)

. . . . .  I was amazed at how many people wrote me to tell me that what I had written in the March Update was similar to something that was going on in their lives.  It seems that maybe the insanity that I was experiencing is happening in the collective consciousness of old souls on a planetary basis.  And as I said in the note I added to Dance 32 in May, it was a reminder to me once again to write what I need to for myself and trust the process. . . . .

. . . . . So, I am going to wrap up this Update now.  But first I am going to make a declaration about my future and the direction that I am heading in.  I am actually going to repeat a declaration I first made in my November 1988 Update.  The day after I published that Update I met the woman who I had the Adventure in Romance with in December of 1988.  (Who showed up in the matches sent to me on Match.com last week - my Higher Power's cute sense of humor again.;)

I then repeated this declaration in my November 2002 Update.  That was followed by a relationship experience in the Spring of 2003.  It was a long distance relationship that included two short visits by the woman to Cambria - and was about 95% fantasy and 5 % relationship. (As opposed to the relationship in 2004 with my "twin soul" delusion, which was about 80% fantasy and 20% reality.)" - Update on My Fear of Intimacy - an addendum to the Joy2MeU March 2007 Update

Hopefully, some of you will find this helpful in forgiving your self so that you can be open to crating healthier relationship opportunities in the future.

From An Adventure in Romance - Loving and Losing Successfully 1999

"Is she my Twin Soul?  Or an Angel sent by my Twin Soul to prepare me for our reunion.  Will it happen in this lifetime?  Or the next? 

I don't get to know right now.  I just know that I have to Let Go.  And Let Go - and Let Go again. 

I told her good-bye.  I told her that I could not be in her life anymore as long as she was running from her issues and punishing me as a symbol for all of the sins of unkind men. 

And now I cry every day. 

The pain is primal - cellular.  The sobs come from someplace so deep as to be ancient.  I can't write a line without sobs bursting forth from my heart chakra - such an old wound, such a deep trauma. 

But is it about the woman I have just told good-bye or has that woman touched off the old grief for "Her" - Is she Her?? 

More will be revealed.  I just have to Let Go and Let Go and Let Go some more. 

And I cry every day - and the Joy is right behind the pain because I have never felt SO CLOSE TO HOME!!!"

In my December 2003 Update I included some excerpts from my Journal as part of an explanation of the process of Letting Go.

"The grief is right near the surface.  All I have to do is consciously breathe into it, and the sobbing starts coming, the tears start flowing. 

What comes out of my mouth is, "I don't want to lose her."  Sobbing.  Crying.  Hurting. 

And then I tell myself, this can't all be about her.  All this grief is not about the possibility of losing this specific person.  I need to separate out the levels here.  The intuitive message I have gotten for years, what I tell the people I am working with, is that, about 20% of what we are feeling in a moment of intense grief is about what is happening now - and about 80% of it is unresolved grief from the past. 

This doesn't feel like childhood grief though.  I am sure some of it is connected to issues from my childhood, some of it is childhood wounds being triggered - but this doesn't feel like inner child wounds. 

And then I get it.  This is adult grief about being alone.  This is about how deprived I have been in my adult life.  Sobs bubbling to the surface in a continuous stream of burp like little explosions (not a very elegant description, but graphically accurate:).  Tears seeping from my eyes. 

This is about being so alone for so long as an adult.  This is about being deprived of companionship, of affection, of romance, of touch, of sexual expression.  This is grief from my adult life that I am feeling now. 

"These deprivation issues bring up a great deal of sadness for me.  It is not old grief from my childhood that I can release and take power away from.  These are ongoing issues that I need to release grief energy about, but then more builds up.  This is grief about now - and the recent past. 

When these issues are triggered, I need to just feel the sadness - to acknowledge it, honor it, release what I can.  I need to accept them as a perfect part of my path somehow, so I don't fall into a victim place of self pity about them.  I can feel sad for myself, affirm that I need and deserve affection, touch, Love, companionship, sexual fulfillment - and then let go of buying into the belief that I am a victim because those needs are not being fulfilled today. 

This is one of those internal boundary areas that I have found so important to practice discernment about in recovery.  I need to feel and honor the feelings - the feeling of being deprived, the feeling of being the victim of both my fear of intimacy and the Divine plan - but it is vital for me to not buy into the belief that I am a victim in relationship to my Spiritual Path.  Buying into the belief in victimization is what creates the artificial emotional state that is self pity." - Dance 12  written June 23, 2002

This is really good.  This grief is really important to feel and identify because it will help me to see things more clearly now. 

This is why internal discernment is so vital to me and my process.  I always initially identify the feelings coming up with the most recent thing that has triggered it - thus my first reaction is that what I was feeling was all about losing her. 

At this point in my writing on the morning of October 7th about what happened yesterday afternoon, I got off into a discussion of the dynamics of my internal processing, of discernment, and of the disease dynamics as it manifests in romantic relationships.  It is a really valuable discussion but it belongs elsewhere, so will be in a few chapters.  Here is a quote from that writing:

By being in my observer consciousness and telling myself the Truth, that this is not just about her - I am able to start identifying what it is really about.  I recognize that part of the anguish I heard in my voice when I said, "I don't want to lose her!" is being caused by my disease.

Anguish and grief are two different things.  Grief is pure emotional energy flowing.   Anguish is caused by the mental filter / perspective that is dictating how I am relating to the emotions.  Anguish is grief sifted / examined through a filter of fear, shame, blame, and black and white thinking.

It feels like it is all about her.  It feels like I am losing her.  It feels like I will never have another love like this. 

Those are feelings - they are not telling me facts, are not telling me the whole Truth. 

Just because it feels like you are being punished does not mean that is the Truth.  Feelings are real - they are emotional energy that is manifested in our body - but they are not necessarily fact. 

What we feel is our "emotional truth" and it does not necessarily have anything to do with either facts or the emotional energy that is Truth with a capital '"T" - especially when we our reacting out of an age of our inner child. (Quotations in this color are from Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls)

Hearing the anguish in my voice as I was crying and sobbing, saying, "I don't want to lose her" was an immediate tip off to me that the disease was in play - was putting a negative, victim based spin on what I was feeling in the moment. 

So, I pulled myself into my observer consciousness, my recovery control center, and started looking at what was happening from the perspective of the empowered adult on a Spiritual Path.  I started using the tools from my codependency recovery tool box. 

The tone and anguish in my voice did go back to an inner child wound.  The genesis of the wound was in my childhood.  It feels like it is probably real connected to the incredible pain, to the loneliness and feelings of isolation, that the 7 year old who tried to commit suicide must have felt. 

But I have substantially healed that 7 year old's wound - it has next to no power in my life any more.  This is about the effects of that wound - about the layers that were piled on top of it.  This grief about how the defenses - that I adapted to protect the part of me that wanted to die - created my relationship phobia / terror of intimacy as an adult.  This grief is about the deprivation I suffered as an adult because of the childhood wounding. 

"I also know that there are layers of grief from the emotional trauma I experienced.  There is not only trauma about what happened back then - there is also grief about the effect those experiences had on me later in life.   I get to cry once again for that little boy as I write this.  I have been sobbing for that little boy and the emotional trauma he experienced - but I am also sobbing for the man that I became. . . . 

. . . . . I have been going through a transformation one more time in my recovery.  Each time that I need to grow some more - need to surrender some more of who I thought I was in order to become who I am - I get to peel another layer of the onion.  Each time this happens I get to reach a deeper level of honesty and see things clearer than I ever have before.  Each time, I also get to release some of the emotional energy through crying and raging. 

Through clearer eyes, and with deeper emotional honesty, I get to look at all of my major issues again to heal them some more.  I used to think that I could deal with an issue and be done with it - but now I know that is not the way the healing process works.  So recently I have gotten the opportunity to revisit my issues of abandonment and betrayal, of deprivation and discounting.  My issues with my mother and father, with my gender and sexuality, with money and success.  My issues with the God I was taught about and the God-Force that I choose to believe in.  My patterns of self-abusive behavior that are driven by my emotional wounds - and the attempts that I make to forgive myself for behavior that I have been powerless over.  And they all lead me back to the core issue.  I am not worthy.  I am not good enough.  Something is wrong with me. 

At the core of my relationship is the little boy who feels unworthy and unlovable.  And my relationship with myself was built on that foundation.  The original wounding caused me to adapt attitudes and behavior patterns which caused me to be further traumatized and wounded - which caused me to adapt different attitudes and behavior patterns which caused me to be further traumatized and wounded in different ways.  Layer upon layer the wounds were laid - multifaceted, incredibly complex and convoluted is the disease of Codependence.  Truly insidious, baffling and powerful." - Grief, Love, & Fear of Intimacy

To say that what I am going through now feels like a major transformation is an understatement of epic proportions. 

Yesterday when I was going through the grieving, I wasn't doing all this analyzing.  I was just working my program as I have learned to work it.  This is part of the gift of this writing for me - and for you hopefully - is that in writing about my process, I end up breaking it down into an understandable (hopefully) explanation of the underlying dynamics." - Joy2MeU Journal The Path of one Recovering Codependent ~ the dance of one wounded soul My Unfolding Dance 19 (October 2003)

"Oh crap!!  It is going to be one of those kind of writing frenzies!  Interruption - inner eruptions - of my writing for grieving.  I just came home from the CoDA meeting (Thursday Oct. 2nd) sobbing and moaning as I drove - crying because of an issue that got trigged in my sharing.  Not something I was expecting today.  Not an issue that I was aware was part of the emotional eruptions going on right now.  But here it is bubbling up in a string of sobs breaking the surface like air bubbles in a fish tank.  The animal like moans of a wounded beast leaking out from deep inside of me like some gas under pressure or something. 

I have all 3 of my greatest fears, my deepest wounds at the surface right now.  What a wonderful opportunity for growth.  Shit!!!  Fertilizer!!! 

I need to tell the story to put what is happening in context, but the feelings are not cooperating here.  I am so afraid of what this means. 

Today's issue is the second worst.  The one that came up Monday is the worst.  The other one certainly got triggered on the trip I spoke of - was being triggered before that, has been being triggered all week.  All three of them.  Different sides of the same issue in many ways - but also separate issues. 

"I had a terror of abandonment and rejection which I had realized was the lesser of two evils for me.  I had discovered and been working on healing this.

"Through revisiting the eight year old who I was I get to understand on a new level why I have always been attracted to unavailable people - because the pain of feeling abandoned and betrayed is the lesser of two evils.  The worst possible thing, to my shame-based inner children, is to have revealed how unworthy and unlovable I am . . . . It is no wonder that at my core I am terrified of loving someone who is capable of loving me back." - Grief, Love, & Fear of Intimacy

My fear of intimacy is only about abandonment and betrayal, about being revealed as unworthy and unlovable, on the surface.  Those are symptoms, which I had been seeing as the core.  The core is that I am terrified of fully embracing life and Love - of finding someone who I Love and who Loves me back - and then having her taken away by God." - Joy2MeU Update Newsletter October 2000 Part 2

Fear of abandonment and betrayal by anyone I care about.  Fear of Loving someone who Loved me back until she saw who I really am - then being abandoned and rejected.  Fear of Loving someone who Loves me back and having her die.  Terrified of opening up to Love - of fully embracing life. 

"So today, I am grieving once more for the eight year old who was trapped, and for the man he became.  I am grieving because if I don't own that child and his feelings - then the man will never get past his terror of allowing himself to be loved.  By owning and cherishing that child, I am healing the broken heart of both the child and the man - and giving that man the opportunity to one day trust himself enough to love someone as much as he loved Shorty." - Grief, Love, & Fear of Intimacy

I wasn't sure there was even going to be a CoDA meeting today - more than half of the Thursdays in the last 6 weeks had not had enough people show up for a meeting.  Today we did.  Still I sure wasn't going to share the stuff I am sharing here - too deep and powerful, too frightfully intimate for the level of recovery in these meetings locally. 

The meditation in Melody Beattie's Language of Letting Go today was about family and making choices about interacting with family.  One of the regulars led off the sharing, and since no one else was speaking up I went second.  I was talking about how important it was to realize my family couldn't hear me - didn't understand the language of the Spirit and recovery that I speak.  And then because there was a new person there, I started talking about how my parents couldn't see me when I was a kid.  How they could only see their projections and through their fear and shame, through their idea of who I should be to make them feel good about themselves.  I said that they have never been able to see the True me, not as a child and not now.  And then I said - getting choked up immediately before I could get the sentence out - "I have spent my whole life trying to get people to see me." 

That is what brought up the grief - trying to get people to see me.  To see me and to Love me.  To see me and still Love me." 

"Grieving Sunday morning

Sunday October 5th. 
Crying this morning.  Spent the last 3 hours or so, reading through e-mails between us from early in relationship.  So many feelings.  So much has changed so profoundly because of this relationship.  Inside of me, in my relationship with myself so much has changed. 

To connect with this very special woman was such a gift in my life.  She helped me connect with lost parts of myself.  I don't want to lose this connection.  My heart aches at the thought of losing this connection. 

The last few days I have been reviewing, rereading, processing.  Haven't been sure what I was going to share here - that is, in terms of details of how it all unfolded. 

I will share some, not sure yet how much. What is so clear to me this morning, is that the special lady was a perfect part of my path - was a Divine, Blessed gift in my life. 

Crying.  Intermittently sobbing.  Tears flowing.  Heart aching.  Soooo Grateful.  Sooo sad - and yet there was / is such great Joy.  Such a gift." - My Unfolding Dance 19

"I have been having to work real hard at certain times - some periods for hours - on my internal boundaries to keep from being in the kind of energy that drives relationship addiction. The feelings of desperation, panic, and terror that the wounded inner children feel about losing a source of love.  The feeling of energy out of control in my body so that I am not comfortable in my own skin - so that I feel like I am jumping out of my own skin.  The life and death urgency, desperate neediness to be reassured that my love is not going to go away. 

I have, of course, recognized these inner child place for what they are, and have continued to talk to them and try to calm them down - reassuring them that everything is going to be okay.  That does not mean telling them that she will come back, that she won't go away.  It means telling them, that if she does go away it will be what is best for us.  That if she goes away it will be part of our Higher Power's plan.  That maybe our Higher Power brought her into our life to break through the barriers and learn about Love because there is going be another woman in the future who will be able to be more available and willing to commit to the adventure." - My Unfolding Dance 21

Some excerpts from My Unfolding Dance 31 (March 2004)

"I am in incredible excruciating pain. From the depths of my heart chakra come the sobs.  I cannot imagine going on living right now. 

I sent her the link to the Update at 11:32 pm last night.  I am sure she is with him.  Haven't heard anything back - she hasn't been online.  The thought today is that perhaps she is going to end all contact completely.  If she does it might be best in the long run if she absolutely certain that she is never coming back to me - but I do not know how I can survive it. 

I cannot imagine ever being with another woman.  I cannot imagine getting to know another woman - I can't even imagine wanting to meet anyone for a very long time.  I do believe we were so perfect for each other and that she is my Twin Soul. 

I am hurting sooo horribly.  Oh God.  What did I ever do to deserve such a cruelty from God - such an absolutely horrifying punishment.  That may be old message from childhood but it feels like message from lifetimes of this hell of being human and not having Love in my life.  The moans are coming again, the wounded animal sounds. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa "

"Good Morning Sports Fans.  Welcome to Robert's mad hatter ride.  The question we are addressing this morning is Robert's mental health and emotional well being. 

Have I finally had the psychotic break that I was worried about over 15 years ago when I first started writing the Trilogy? . . . . 

. . . . So, No!  I do not believe I am insane even if dysfunctional society would think me crazy.  I have faith in my Truth, in my message, in my beliefs about my path.  I stand firmly in my Truth. 

Have I been acting insane in certain ways lately?  Has my life felt insane in recent weeks? 

A resounding Yes! to both of those questions. 

Why have I been feeling and acting insane recently? - you ask.  Would you be surprised if I were to tell you it was because of a romantic relationship?" - Joy2MeU Journal The Path of one Recovering Codependent ~ the dance of one wounded soul My Unfolding Dance 31 (March 2004)

"On my short mountain walk right now.  Am in huge pain.  I thought I had experienced hell.  I thought that I had been through hell and that I had survived it.  But the hell that I have experienced up to now is a meek small shadow of what I am feeling now. . . . . THIS IS HELL!!!!!! THIS IS HELL!!!!!!  There can be no devastation to match this.  There can be no pain that approaches what I am feeling.  I cannot think of any reason to even want to survive this.  I can only experience terror at the thought of the weeks and months and years to come living in the HELL of separation from Her.  I cannot imagine a reason to want to continue living in this kind of pain. . . . . . FUCK YOU GOD.  YOU FUCKING SADISTIC CRUEL UNSPEAKABLY COLD BASTARD!!!! 

I keep going to the anger to pull me out of the pain.  Anger at God.  Anger at the disease.   I will not take the easy way out of this by turning my anger at her.  There will be some anger at her, but what is happening is not her fault or her doing.  This was a set up - and I am ENRAGED by the CRUELTY of this emotional experience. . . . . .

. . . . . . I cannot express to you the pain I was in. . . . . . What an incredible process!  What a focused, concentrated, intense, compressed, pressurized, hothouse, petrie dish, cyclotronic accelerated atom smashing molecular structure transmuting diamondizing thermonuclear fusion producing explosion of growth and transformation. 

I am in the cocoon being torn apart and put back together again.  I hope to fuck I am being put back together again because I sure as Hell am being torn apart. 

I am in the Black Hole having the life sucked out of me by hurricane force cyclonic pressures that threaten to tear me limb from limb, mind from body, heart from soul - even as I am polished and compressed by unspeakable pressures in this transformation that will vomit me forth a brilliant diamond of crystalized refractive hardness and ineffable power. 

That is, if I live through the next couple of weeks.  I mean, rather I live through the next couple of weeks or not, I will come out a diamond, a butterfly, a beautiful swan - I am just not sure if it is going to be in this body or not. 

I am in HELL!!!!!!!!!!!  The pain is unfuckingbearable.  I must find release from this pain!  I will not be able to endure this magnitude of pain for much longer.  It is not humanly possible to endure this much crushing agony." - Joy2MeU Journal The Path of one Recovering Codependent ~ the dance of one wounded soul My Unfolding Dance 36 (April 2004)

"There is obviously still some terror and shame at the heart of my fear of intimacy that was causing me to sabotage the relationship.  My ego defenses caused me to behave in ways that pushed for the destination my disease wanted - that is to be rejected ("thrown away" was the term that kept coming out of my mouth.)  To my disease that would be the inevitable conclusion, so better to get it over with then deal with the fear, the anticipation, of knowing it was going to happen eventually.  It was the fear of being rejected for being unlovable and unworthy - and losing my Twin Soul again - that was creating so much fear of the outcome for me, because on some really deep level I felt like the outcome was inevitable. 

"It was the terror in anticipation of losing her - combined with the pain of lifetimes of heart rending grief - that caused me to think that death would be preferable to living with losing her.  As it so often proves to be in this human experience, the anticipation of pain is often worse than actually experiencing the pain.  Now that I have lost her - and I do believe that we are not going to be able to be together again in this lifetime - I am in great pain, but the terror of anticipating the grieving is gone." - August 2004 Joy2MeU Update

I hate this!!!!  My fear of the outcome caused me to behave in ways that made that outcome inevitable.  SHIT!!!!!"- Joy2MeU Journal The Path of one Recovering Codependent ~ the dance of one wounded soul Mini-Newsletter 8 September 2004

As I said above, it is kind of embarrassing to reread - and to share here - those feelings I went through.  Those women were not people I had much in common with - nor was I even very attracted to them (physically, emotionally, in any way really.)  But they were a necessary part of my recovery journey.

"It was necessary for me to buy into the delusion that the person I met in December 2003 was my twin soul - in order to delve into my issues as deeply as I did in 2004.  It was going through that experience that brought me to a place where I was available for this relationship. 

The Universe completely ambushed me with this relationship - and did it in such a way, that I had to throw out all the romantic fantasy stuff.  There was no feeling that I had met a soul mate or twin soul - or that there was some powerful vibrational or Karmic connection in this relationship.  I don't even think in those terms any more. 

And it is not that there isn't romance in my relationship with Susan - there is.  But there isn't a delusional romantic fantasy involved.  I didn't get involved with her because I thought she was a soul mate or my twin soul or anything.  And I didn't have to delude myself that there was a karmic connection after getting involved with her in order to justify that involvement - as I did in the fantasy relationship of 2004.  I recognized that the Universe had brought her into my life as a teacher - and that I needed to surrender to the experience.  That she is a gorgeous babe was a definite plus in helping to make that surrender.  (And that isn't to say there isn't some karmic connection between us - there must be or we wouldn't be so deeply involved in helping each other grow.)" - Update on My Fear of Intimacy - an addendum to the Joy2MeU March 2007 Update

As I shared with my yahoo e-mailing list in January, there was indeed a powerful karmic connection for me in this relationship - with Darien. 

"January the 23rd marked the 3rd anniversary since Susan and I met.  A record for me for sure.  I am so grateful that Susan came into my life - and this relationship sure has drastically changed my life.  In my June 2005 Update I explained how "It took a cosmic "coincidence" of pretty monumental proportions for us to even connect at all" - and how on the evening of January 23rd 2005 I got a clear message from my Spirit that I was supposed to surrender to the experience of whatever my interaction with her would entail.

"That night I surrendered to whatever ride the Universe had in store for me with this woman.  That night I realized that I needed to ignore the red flags, let go of any preconceived boundaries or expectations, and go wherever this adventure led me. 

It has been a real e-ticket ride so far.  I have thought it was over a multitude of times.  She would react in ways that pushed my buttons - and I was sure it had ended.  But then it would begin again. 

The key factor is that she is actively in recovery, dedicated to getting healthier." - Joy2MeU Update Newsletter June 2005

And it is certainly true that Susan is very actively in recovery, and that without that we would not have had a chance for a relationship to last this long.  But even with that, I think my fear of intimacy would have sabotaged the relationship long ago except for the factor that I really didn't know anything about at the time I wrote that June 2005 Update.  That unknown factor is Darien.

We moved in together in June of 2005 - and until that time I didn't really have a relationship with the little boy.  It was after we started to live together that Darien and I were drawn together.  I mentioned in my August Update last year that I had just recently realized that he and I had a powerful Karmic / Soul connection.

"In late April or early May this year I had one of those light bulb going on / aha kind of moments of insight where I realized that Darien and I had a soul contract.  That our souls had agreed to meet up at a certain point in this lifetime to be teachers and helpers to each other on our Spiritual Paths.  Despite the powerful connection I feel to him - and that he obviously feels to me - this had never occurred to me before.  When I mentioned my insight to Susan, she kind of looked at me funny and said something like, "Well duh, of course.  You didn't know that?"" - Joy2MeU Update August 2007

Our concern and love for Darien got us through many rough passages in our relationship.  He helped us to not take ourselves and our wounded ego button's so seriously, and to lighten up at times when we really needed to lighten up.  Many times when I thought it was over, it was Darien who brought us back together.  We have had a successful relationship in large part because we weren't just focused on the relationship - we weren't really free to allow our respective fear of intimacy to sabotage us because we both love that little boy so much.  Our focus was larger than just the relationship between the two of us.  That was true even before we became his primary guardians - which essentially started at the time of the April Intensive in San Francisco, even though it didn't become official until June of that year.

He continues to bring so much Joy to both of us, and the direction of our lives continues to be greatly impacted by our desire to take care of him.  My fear of intimacy is still keeping me from opening my heart completely to Susan in some ways - and to myself also of course (the fear of shining too brightly I mentioned in my last post here) - but our Higher Powers unfolded our paths perfectly to put us together with Darien so he could help us both learn about Love.  Susan and I are learning a great deal from each other - and the common ground of our love for Darien is helping our love to evolve.

"So today, I am grieving once more for the eight year old who was trapped, and for the man he became.  I am grieving because if I don't own that child and his feelings - then the man will never get past his terror of allowing himself to be loved.  By owning and cherishing that child, I am healing the broken heart of both the child and the man - and giving that man the opportunity to one day trust himself enough to love someone as much as he loved Shorty." - Grief, Love, & Fear of Intimacy

Recovery is really an incredible journey - I highly recommend it.;-)

Be kind and compassionate for your self today - it is not your fault that you are wounded and have been deprived. - Robert