Anne Lamott: OCTOPUS

Again and again I find myself moved to share the strong, courageous, wise, essential, and fierce voices of truth of women. Women who move beyond survival into something much more outraged and peaceful, honest and hopeful, powerful and inspiring. These are the voices of deep truth that are dangerous to the status quo of our political systems and often our own minds, shaking us awake and into an ever expanding depth of consciousness. Deepest bow to Anne Lamott and to so many others. 🙏💜Molly

OCTOPUS

It is hard to keep track of all the things to be freaked out about these days. The killing of Renee Good, Kremlin-parroting Tulsi Gabbard’s FBI raid on the Fulton County, Georgia election office, the little boy in the bunny ears cap detained under the command of dog-killer Kristi Noem and then sent to South Texas, where a few days later, and thanks to the dead brain-worm informing the decisions of RFK, Jr, there was a major measles outbreak. Somewhere in there Alex Pretti was killed, and I thought finally, finally, the nation is hitting its bottom; right?

Of course not, because there is not going to be a bottom anytime soon. When I first got sober, in total hopelessness and degradation, but still not convinced that I had to stop drinking—maybe I was overreacting!—old-timers told me that the disease of alcoholism is an escalator that only goes in one direction, down. The next floor down makes the current desperation look like the good old days. And I believe this is also true of the disease of golden elevators.

No matter what cruelty or corruption came flying at us from the tennis ball throwing machine of power, I could always figure out my next move in personal generosity and the peaceful mass response by people of good will.

And then, yesterday afternoon, while I was sulking in the back room about what I misinterpreted as a slight by my personal husband, speed-eating a whole bag of Skinny Pop popcorn and muttering that men are pigs, Trump posted the Obama ape video.

Let me repeat that: Trump posted an Obama ape video.

Now, looking ahead, I think the visual of this Truth Social will help us a great deal in the midterms, but all day yesterday it left me speechless, looking everywhere in my brain pan for something that could accommodate the president posting the most vile, racist meme about his predecessor. I made up with my husband, in the hope that he could help me with this. He is a brilliant and kind man, usually talkative but struck speechless. We came up with almost nothing, except a story from August, 1989 when my son was born.

One of my dearest lifelong friends and Sam’s godmother, Peggy Knickerbocker, came home from the hospital with me and two-day-old Sam, to care for us that first week, as I had forgotten to get a husband. (Do you want a guaranteed great seat in heaven, near the dessert table? Help take care of single parents with newborns.)

One morning we were reading together in the living room while the baby slept. She was reading Vanity Fair, when all of a sudden she looked up, gaping, hardly breathing. As it turned out, she was reading an article about how Hitler had had sex with his niece, and she was literally quivering with outrage. She shouted, “I have HAD it with Hitler,” and flung the magazine across the room.

We laughed off and on all day whenever we remembered.

Now the truth is that I have had it with Trump since 2016 and thousands of times since, but I do not think the Obama ape video is this nation hitting a bottom. He is measurably worse every few days. The question is, What do we do?

We all know the answer: we keep it simple, practical, peaceful and effective. We go left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe. We love people like our lives and nation depended on it. (They do.) We register voters for the midterms, we donate to election watchers, Oxfam, the ACLU, immigrant legal funds and so on. Every day, we do something that helps a little.

I used to tell my Sunday School kids the story of a young girl whose mother had died, and who, in her grief and confusion, went down to the beach every day, pried octopuses off the pilings farthest from the shore and took them back down to the water.

One day her grandmother found her doing this, and said, “This really won’t help with what you’re going through. It really doesn’t matter.”

The girl replied, “It matters to the octopus.”

In our pain, our grief and confusion, each small act of goodness, love and non-violent resistance helps dilute the toxins that are dumped daily into the common well. Each matters to the octopus.

— Anne Lamott

https://sites.prh.com/annelamott/

Layli LongSoldier: It's Not That This Country Has Changed — The Problem Is That It HASN'T Changed

"Thank you Layli for giving words to something I've been thinking about as the hate campaign to erase history, to foster racism, sexism, and cruelty of anyone who doesn't fall behind a fundamentalist line is in full swing. We have experienced this before. We recognize it. Any hatred is born of self hatred. Or the fear of facing oneself. This country was not empty when the first immigrants came ashore. Native peoples here have a presence, histories, stories, and knowledge that was here thousands and thousands of years before and will be here after. I keep being reminded that this period of colonization is small when you consider eternity. The impact, however is painful and real. As you say, Layli, we go forward with dignity, knowing who we are, and no manner of false story, lies, or cruel acts will change the facts. We must continue to carry and feed our stories of connection and compassion." — Joy Harjo

On the plane home today, I had a comforting thought. I remembered what my parents lived through... and what I lived through, already, in my own lifetime.

As for myself, I remembered that I was born in the 1900's! Yeah. I grew up in a time when people HATED Indians, especially in border towns. Their racism was not hidden, some people thought we were straight up drunks, dirty, dumb, and less then human. My friend and I were talking about this car wash in Farmington, NM. When we were kids, it was common knowledge that white high school boys used to go "roll the drunks" at the car wash for fun. I remember crazy moments... like getting jumped after school for "looking" at someone wrong. More over, the Religious Freedom Act for Native people wasn't even passed until AFTER I was born... imagine that! Native people lived on this land for thousands of years but we couldn't even PRAY in our own ways until the late 70's. For a long time, I internalized shame from this society until holding that shame was too exhausting... and I decided to be caring and accepting of myself... and I started educating myself. Finally, the cells in my body started coming together, I was whole. The racism didn't change, but I changed. And that was the difference.

As for my parents... my mom used to have friends of different racial/cultural backgrounds... they'd come to her house for dinner and what-not. One time the KKK came and burned a cross on her lawn, she still has a newspaper clipping of that.

For awhile, in the 70's, my dad was involved with the movement on Pine Ridge (AIM). And he got into some "good trouble," as they say, for those activities. And what did my parents do during those times? They were just themselves. It's like, what was going to happen to them? Were the racists going to make them stop believing in their values? Were my parents just going to CHANGE who they were because it was scary or unacceptable? No. They lived through those times, being who they were... and when all was said and done, after they faced consequences and backlash, they still continued living with their heads held high but also humble. They don't even really mention those days, they don't consider themselves anything special. Just like my generation lived through some ugly times too... I still remember the racism. I remember the sexism... back then, girls couldn't just be themselves. There were also pedophiles everywhere, sorry to say. Seemed like every time I turned around, someone was trying to touch me or my friends. Jeeeeez! So on the plane I realized that I have lived through these things already. Straight up racism, sexism, violence, bullying, predators, and so on. It was everywhere and so thick, I couldn't think straight sometimes. I couldn't even love myself, it was so toxic.

I have been so overwhelmed in the last month, especially. I felt so shocked and scared by what's happening that I almost felt afraid to post anything. Then I realized, WTF? This is nothing new, I've lived through this before. So why am I freaking out? I know how to be myself. I will continue being myself. My views and values should not be a shock to anyone. And if I get in trouble for it, oh well.

I stand for respect and love for people of all nationalities, cultures, colors, religions, sexual identity and genders, and so on. I stand for due process. I stand for safety of our children. I stand for respect for our land, the water, the beauty. I stand for the sovereignty of our Native nations. Fuck this racist, xenophobic crap that's going on. Corrupt white men running around with too much power and money is nothing new. At this stage, they all look the same... like Crusty the Clown. That's the thing... it's not that this country has changed. The problem is that it HASN'T changed. This is what I finally realized today, although I'm sure most of you already knew this. But for this reason, I can finally say for once, I know how this goes. I know what it's like to feel danger and walk forward anyway. This is not my first rodeo, as they say.

Also, I post this as my First Amendment right. That doesn't seem to hold much water these days. But oh well, that's on them, not me.

— Layli LongSoldier

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/layli-long-soldier

Harsha Walia: Sexual Violence Is At the Center of How Violence and Domination Is Structured Around the World

This is such a powerful and truly essential 

message from Harsha Walia.

— Molly

I have been heartbroken at the response to the Epstein files.

Of course, I am disgusted and horrified by what is detailed in the files, but I am also heartbroken by most (not all) responses to the files.

Sexual violence has somehow become the backdrop against which debates about elite rule and empire are being had. I have been (mostly quietly) working in gender-based violence work for 20+ years. And the Epstein files is a heartbreaking reminder about how sexual violence and gender-based violence continues to be largely evaded by even the most progressive leftists.

Survivors themselves have again largely become faceless and nameless - neglected even in most movement discourse. Like: how many have mentioned or read Virginia Roberts Giuffr's memoir Nobody’s Girl? Virginia began speaking out against Epstein in 2011. She died by suicide this past year and her book is a devastating posthumous memoir.

Or, in this week's conversations about Chomsky, for example, people have either defended Chomsky's body of work, or used the latest drop to justify their existing views on why they disagreed with him on a range of issues.

Sexual violence, especially of children, is not an otherwise perverse symptom of elite rule or empire - it is literally at the CENTER of how violence and domination is structured around the world. We cannot keep treating sexual violence as a "private" issue, or as "divisive" to movements, or weaponize it to settle other political scores. It is how power reverberates and is reproduced. And so it must be understood on its own terms. I do believe it is, in part, our collective inability to commit to ending gender-based violence and childhood sexual abuse - as systemic and mass-based issues - that allows the predatory right to present itself as "protecting" children even as they kill and maim and impoverish and kidnap and torture and detain and starve and violate children everywhere.

Those named in the Epstein files should be named and shamed - and the system and elite networks they rely on should be exposed. Absolutely. But beyond the headlines and click bait, we ALSO have to do the actual work of ending gender-based violence and childhood sexual abuse in all its forms, supporting and funding full supports for survivors to end manufactured vulnerability that disproportionately makes some more likely to be targeted, and stop individualizing this violence. One of the most misunderstood slogans is "the personal is political," - which as the Combahee River Collective told us is intended to mean that the indignities that are often "quietly" suffered by working class, queer, Black women are the actual basis of revolutionary politics against sexualized violence and - thus necessarily - to end all interconnected violence.

— Harsha Walia

https://store.iww.org/shop/border-and-rule/

Jeff Foster: We Can Choose To Stay Awake, Tender, Open-Hearted, and Curious

This is such profound deep wisdom for these dark and traumatic times. Thank you, Jeff Foster. Deep bow. 🙏Molly

Photo by Molly

“How do we go on living our ordinary, comfortable lives while knowing that terrible suffering is going on every single day for so many people around the world? Can we ever make peace with that suffering?”

It is a brilliant question.

I have struggled with it myself for years.

I do not think you “make peace” with cruelty and violence.

Not today. Maybe never.

And why should you.

Look. I cannot tell you how to grieve or how to fight. I cannot tell you what to do. But I can suggest the following.

Let the suffering of the innocent and the oppressed move you. Let it break your heart. Let it hurt. Deeply. The pain itself means your heart is still working! You are not numb. You are not detached, cold, or indifferent. You are not bypassing your humanity.

You hurt because your brothers and sisters are hurting. You belong to the same river of humanity.

At the same time, you must accept a limit to your hurting, if you can. Remember, you did not cause this horror. You cannot carry all of it without being crushed by it yourself, without being destroyed by the weight of the world’s suffering. You can only carry what is truly yours.

So you choose how and when to engage, as much as possible. When to read. When to watch. When to talk about world events. When to listen. You do this consciously, deliberately.

Grief and anger have to be held in presence, not poured endlessly into your nervous system all day long without limits. That is not compassion. It is a fast track to burnout and helplessness.

So you breathe first. You find your ground. You return to your real responsibility each day. How you speak. How you treat the people around you. How you love your child, your partner, your neighbour. How you refuse to pass unconsciousness onwards. How you refuse to fuel numbness, hatred, or violence in your family, your community, your workplace, your town or city.

You do your own inner work. You look honestly at the violence and prejudice in yourself. You attend to your own childhood wounds. You look at the log in your own eye before pointing at the splinter in your neighbour’s. Healing your own trauma is not a distraction from saving the world. I truly believe it is part of how the world is saved.

And yes, of course, you can still protest. But not as permanent outrage. Not as more hatred layered on top of hatred. You act where action is possible. You show up. You speak. You vote. You give generously. You withhold consent.

And you do not let protest make you cruel! If your protest costs you your capacity to love, the damage has already spread.

And you rest too. You rest when you can. Rest is not a luxury. It is fuel. It is the source of all things.

And you allow joy, without apology and without guilt! Joy is not a betrayal of the cause. Joy is how you stop the violence from taking your soul too.

You shine your light, even when it feels impossibly dark.

And remember, there is no clean or easy way to live with all this. Anyone who says there is is being glib, or trying to sell you comfort way too cheaply. Being deeply affected by the world does not resolve neatly. It does not offer easy closure.

You may never be at peace with all the suffering in the world, but maybe you can make peace with THAT.

Finally, I’d say that it really is fucking brave to choose to stay awake, tender, open-hearted and curious in a world that keeps asking you to shut down.

— Jeff Foster

https://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/

Reflections On What Sobriety Means to Me Today

June 2025 at Timothy Lake, 41 years after my last drink. Mt. Hood looms in the distance.

What Does It Mean To 

Be Truly Sober?

What does it mean to be sober, to be truly sober today? My connection with my heart, my beliefs and experiences, my spiritual practices, and my conscious awareness have all deeply evolved and expanded over the past 41 years. Today sobriety means much more than abstaining from the substances that I had once been addicted to — although that is an absolutely crucial first step. In the larger picture, for me, sobriety means to embody what we and our world most need to heal. It means to be increasingly grounded in the practice of lovingkindness. It means to embody Peace.

* * * * *

Photos are by Molly

I Didn't Know Any Alcoholics

On June 19th, 1984 I walked into an AA meeting feeling scared, overwhelmed, confused, ashamed, and hungover. I cringed when it was asked for any newcomers to identify themselves and for the first time I spoke the words, "I'm Molly and I'm an alcoholic." I still wasn't even sure if that was true. After all, I still had so much control and certainly wasn't convinced that I was a "real alcoholic."  My former husband was the real alcoholic. Not me, right...?? 

Because originally, I didn't even know any alcoholics. 

And then on February 8th, 1983 my close friend Ann Baker told me, "Molly, Jim is an alcoholic." I remember noticing the time as we sat in her car in an Albertson's parking lot after we'd gone out to dinner together. It was 8:37pm. 

And that was the beginning. That was all it took. Ann's words. I couldn't shake them. I was haunted, I couldn't sleep. And I had to find out — was Jim, my first husband, really an alcoholic?

I felt compelled to find out...

* * * * *

July 1978, six months after my twin brother's suicide

Alcoholics Were Coming 

Out of the Woodwork

Given that I had so many deep layers of unaddressed trauma, I unknowingly often saw through the eyes of delusion rather than the wisdom of my heart. I definitely had no idea how lost I was and the fog that I'd normalized living in for over 30 years. And, yet, there was this pull, this deep inner calling that I just could not ignore, and no matter my fear and resistance and the strong forces of my inner saboteur to stay put in the familiar and not risk venturing into the scary unknown.

I stepped through that initial doorway into my first Al-Anon meeting anyway. But not before sitting in my car on that dark February night in 1983 watching people walk into the church where the meetings were and sitting in big judgment. My exact thoughts were, "I'm not one of those people, those people who know alcoholics." All that I knew at that time was that I had to find out if Jim was an alcoholic. I had to get all of this understood, figured out, fixed, and under control. 

So I went to meetings and soon chaired meetings and welcomed newcomers and got sponsors and read my Al-Anon books while holed up in our bedroom and self-righteously sipping on my glass of wine. But, damn, the sponsors I had, one by one, were falling through the floor into the AA meetings below that happened in the basement of the church where my home Al-Anon meeting was. 

But I persisted. I put myself into two treatment programs for spouses of alcoholics and continued to read everything that I could about alcoholism. And Jim and I would argue. I told Jim that his father was an alcoholic, too. And he would argue, "If my dad is an alcoholic, then your mother is an alcoholic!" Take that!

Well, I couldn't shake that either. Now, after determining that my first husband was an alcoholic and setting about fixing him while "detaching with love," I had to find out if my mother was an alcoholic. And I had a plan. Before my mother's scheduled trip from Michigan to visit us in Oregon, I told her that "we" — really just me —would want her to come, but leave her alcohol at home in order to support Jim in his early sobriety.

And she wouldn't come. She cancelled her trip. Damn. The alcoholics were coming out of the woodwork. First Jim, then his dad and I realized both of my parents, and nearly all of our friends. Then one of the counselors in the treatment program who facilitated the women's group for spouses of those who had the addictions, looked at me and said, "Molly, well people don't marry sick people."

Well, F you I thought. But didn't say. She didn't understand that I just needed to get Jim and my mother, my real problems, fixed and then I'd be fine. Thank you very much.

And now things were really spiraling.  Sixteen months into Al-Anon, my cover was getting blown! Even my counselor at that time was telling me that I was alcoholic. I was freaking out! And before I could stop myself I spontaneously called an alcohol and drug treatment program and made an appointment for an assessment. For that day. What the hell was I doing?! Was I crazy?? 

But I went. And the ATC counselor asked me during the assessment what I thought an alcoholic looked like? And before I could censor myself what blurted out of my mouth was SURE AS HELL NOT LIKE ME!

Oh my, life can be so humbling...

* * * * *

The Way It Is

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among

things that change. But it doesn’t change.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.

You have to explain about the thread.

But it is hard for others to see.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.

Tragedies happen; people get hurt

or die; and you suffer and get old.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

You don’t ever let go of the thread.

— William Stafford

In February 1983 I was a 31 year old young mother to 6 month old Kevin and 3 year old Brian. Matthew hadn't been born yet. I could not have begun to imagine at that time the profound challenges and changes that would evolve once Ann Baker's words lodged in my mind and I couldn't shake them. Just that one sentence — "Molly, Jim is an alcoholic"— would become a radical intervention on the entirety of my life. 

That was when the thread appeared and I grabbed on for dear life. And, no matter what, I didn't let go.

What followed was the bottom of my life as I knew it was falling out from underneath me. Again and again and again. Delusions were loosing their grip on me as layer after layer of deep intergenerational and cultural trauma was being revealed, held with compassion and love, and unburdened and transformed. I was making the long journey from my head to my heart.

And there was this thread that I followed. 

First there was Al-Anon, followed by AA and ACOA (Adult Children of Alcoholics). For years, there was counseling, but often — tragically, for the first many years — with counselors and therapists who had not done there own deeper work and were, therefore, both limited in empowering myself, my first husband, and our children to heal and often caused more harm. That said, through it all there were deep lessons to be learned. And I never let go of the thread.

There were also women's groups and retreats and intensives. There were conferences and workshops and trainings. There was trying on different spiritual communities and beliefs and practices. And there was the healing of my injured instincts which empowered me to gradually recognize what did not serve me. I found myself walking away from teachers I'd once held in high regard like Eckhart Tolle and discarding New Age and other practices which I'd come to realize could keep me stuck in spiritual bypassing (https://mollystrongheart.blogspot.com/2025/12/what-is-spiritual-bypassing.html).  And there was the pain of letting go of old friendships and the deep rewards and blessings of cultivating new ones. So many authors, visionaries and wisdom-keepers, and spiritual teachers and others entered my life. There was fluidity and impermanence, synchronicity and grace, grief and gratitude, and one vital lesson and teaching followed by the next. 

Everything was shifting, evolving, taking me into new territory that I had never walked before. Scary, painful, unsettling, humbling, and transformative times. There were so many fragmented and exiled parts of myself that I had buried out of my conscious awareness. And while I was unknowingly disassociated, addicted, and fragmented, it was these exiled parts that were the ones who were driving the bus — not my Self. Not this core essence of who I am which is interwoven with what I believe is the essence of compassion, peace, wisdom, and love woven through us all.

Over this time, my high tolerance for inappropriate and harmful behaviors and beliefs — that were all rooted in delusion — came to gradually cease to dominate my life. And, finally, at some point I crossed over a line where the pull of living a rich full life grew stronger than any pull to go back. 

This is just a very small glimpse into my journey, into the thread that I followed and will continue to follow throughout my lifetime. No two paths of awakening will look the same. That said, what is common to all is connecting with that thread which calls to us, calls to our deepest heart and soul, and leads us out of the root causes of our suffering and into ever expanding beauty and joy, compassion and courage, vulnerability and intimacy, authenticity and truth, community and connection, and wisdom and love.

Ultimately, I have been learning how to love myself. And make peace with the way it is. This is the sacred path that I have discovered which offers a pathway to Love and to being peace.

* * * * *

We Are Here To Awaken From Our

Illusion of Separateness

— Thích Nhất Hạnh 

While I acknowledge that being alcoholic is a part of me, today I recognize that this is just one part. It is not who I am any more than any other symptom of the ancestral and cultural pain and trauma that I've inherited. These legacy burdens no longer define me.

Today I also no longer differentiate between addictions. You may disagree, but I believe that, on a continuum, we all have them. So there is no us and them. Because trauma is woven through and deeply embedded our culture — a culture that has always been rooted in imperialist white-supremacist misogynist capitalist patriarchy. And this is what has impacted us all. 

This is why we see epidemics of addictions of all kinds, depression and anxiety, dehumanization and all forms of subtle and blatant violence. Everywhere. Unaddressed pain, not genetics, is the root of all addictions. Yes, genetics can make us more vulnerable and predisposed to addictions and different forms of physical and mental illnesses. That said, it is the deep unaddressed pain and trauma that gets passed down, generation after generation, that is the root of our suffering and separation — separation from within ourselves and others.

Today I have personally come to define addiction as anything in which there is a pattern of our using as a coping strategy to distract and disconnect us from the deeper painful emotions and experiences that we carry and have buried and exiled within ourselves. This includes substance addictions and a whole host of non-substance addictions — to work, social media, exercise, food, religion, shopping, compulsive cleaning, hoarding, gambling, caretaking, sex, people, cults, gurus, greed, guns, war, unhealthy relationships, political polarizations, image management and perfectionism, anger and chaos, power and control, judgments and dehumanization, harmful mental and emotional states, projections and ideologies of separation rather than connection. And the list goes on. 

The roots of this self-avoidance is always found in pain, in these legacy burdens, in the illusion of separation. There are pathways that lead us into deep healing, transformation, and freedom from all forms of addiction and ancestral and cultural trauma and pain. Heal the pain of the legacy burdens that we carry and our former addictions lose their power over us. It's that hard. And that simple.

 * * * * *

Nothing Ever Goes Away

... until it has taught us what we need to know. If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. It just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.

—Pema Chödrön 

And this is the lesson, isn't it? The invitation to connect with the sources of wise, compassionate, and loving support that we need to stop the endless running — and Awaken.

In June of 1975 I moved with my first husband from Michigan to the Pacific Northwest. And I brought everything with me — the addictions, the fear and shame, the image management and defended heart, the disassociation and fragmented hurting exiles, the pain and trauma carried by my parents and brother and ancestors. 

I had long ago abandoned little Molly to survive. When given the choice as tiny vulnerable children between abandoning ourselves — and our authentic deepest emotions and needs and sense of self — or the illusion of attachment, we will always choose attachment. This abandonment of ourselves drives our addictions, our triggers, our unskilled actions and harmful beliefs and patterns.

The journey of sobriety, the pathway of awakening and shedding the obstacles to peace and love, is coming home to ourselves. To our authentic Self and who we were born into this world to be before we became lost and hurt and ashamed and so very scared. And so very importantly, this sacred journey is about coming to know and befriend and hold our many parts.

With every year that I am alive, I am increasingly embodying the essence of who I am. And I'm recognizing the essence of who you are. And when we see and experience the sacred wholeness and interrelatedness within ourselves with all of our human and nonhuman relatives, truly see, then who can we harm? No one. Because the illusion of separateness that is the root of our suffering — the delusions, hatred, and greed — no longer holds power over us.

Today I have befriended and unburdened so many of my exiled parts and the old deep pain that they've carried. And those parts — the alcoholic, the terrified little girl, the shame and the fear, the fragments and triggers, and on and on — no longer drive the bus. No longer do I blindly throw out of my heart into that place of unexplored darkness what I had once rejected, split off, shamed, abandoned. Little Molly has needed to come out of the shadows and be held with the deepest empathy and compassion and love.

This is sobriety. This is the peace and equanimity found within awakeness. This too belongs. All of my different parts belong. And, oh!, what a joy it is to come out of hiding, to stop the endless running, and to belong! 

These are profound life lessons. That nothing need be rejected. My triggers, shame and anger, fears and projections, and human imperfections and struggles — all can be welcomed and held. And in the holding, these parts lose their power and are freed from their old roles. They are unburdened. They can relax and no longer feel compelled to be the one trying to drive the bus and get everything figured out and under control. What a relief! What a heavy load to put down!

Everything is impermanent and rises and falls and ebbs and flows when we recognize and hold all of who we are. When we allow what is to simply be what it is. And follow the thread. And hold with presence and unconditional tenderness, compassion, and love what arises. There is nothing to get rid off. Nothing to split off and be ashamed of.

Yes, all this said, the work with the inner judge and critic continues. This is a lifelong process, this journey of awakening. And today I don't need to get caught up and stuck in the pain that once drove my addictions. This unburdening of the deep old pain embedded in the legacy burdens I'd inherited has freed me from any chance of relapse. I am not my addictions. We are all so much more than the pain and trauma we carry. So much more.

And, with practice and with the support of loving community, true peace is always possible. It is. We can free ourselves to Love deeply and to be Peace. This is what sobriety means to me today.

And little Molly is so grateful. And gratitude is held in all of the lives that we touch with presence, equanimity, and an undefended heart. 💜

Bless us all on our sacred journeys,

Molly

Little Molly, 1952

* * * * *

Suggested reading:

 

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness,

and Healing in a Toxic Culture

https://www.amazon.com/Myth-Normal-Illness-Healing-Culture/dp/0593083881 

 

 

***

No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness

With the Internal Family Systems Model

https://ifs-institute.com/nobadparts