Walk Inside Your Story and Own It; Countdown To Lesson 1

Collage Mixed Media    by Crystal Marie (neubauer)

Over the past few days, I've had multiple conversations with artists, after reading a raw and honest post by one friend, in which she expressed that this time of staying at home has helped her identify what she had always perceived as a personal flaw, as simply her body telling her that hustling to be a productive member of society, by society's standards, was not the way she is wired. In the past, she was able to identify the first part, that this producing and hustling was hard, but hadn't been able to put a finger on just why that is.

Now, with more time to rest, while still being present to her job working remotely as a school teacher, she can more clearly see the second part, that the problem wasn't in her, the problem was in the expectations of the system. 

As a recovering codependent, over-functioner, people-pleaser, I can very much relate to that feeling of self-blame when something isn't working. And as a more contemplative, intuitive, artist, I can very much relate to the dawning recognition of how that self-blame - or put another way, lack of self-trust, has influenced the trajectory of my goals and dreams. 

When I don't trust myself, I turn to the input of others. When I don't trust myself, I can find myself shaping my personal dreams into goals that I think everyone else will approve of. Because, if I don't trust myself, I think it must be everyone else who has it right, after all, look how happy they seem to be. 

So reading this friends post in the early morning hours a few days ago, gave me much to contemplate. I allowed my thoughts the space to roam, to sink down under the covers with my body, and acknowledge what had been whispering in my ear for a few weeks now; my big dream goal might not really be my big dream goal. I think a part of it is, but then I twisted it, like a soft doughy pretzel, to fit what I thought would make it more acceptable, more worthy of your approval. In that moment, the aha place for me was in the dawning understanding that I wasn't being true to what I wanted and what I needed. What my own personal rhythms had wired me for. 

I'm still processing exactly what that big dream is for me, now that I've come to this place of opening to it. I've been journaling each morning, allowing myself the time and space to puzzle it all out. To look at just what parts of that dream do fit and just what parts I know would actually make me miserable. In that journal, I can pour out my words and see them reflected back to me. It gives me the space to dump it all out on the page without fear of judgement. I'm identifying my story. My voice. The place I am right now, here, today. Not the place I was 5, 10, 15 years ago when that dream first began to form. 

One of the aspects of my new live online workshop that I'm most excited about, is how it is designed to do exactly that same thing for the participants. When I got to teach the class that this one is based off of in California last month, seeing each participant connect to their own truths and their own stories, finally seeing how those truths and those stories impacted their own art and could be seen in their own style, was remarkable.

Life changing was the oft repeated phrase throughout the course of those three days together. 

Being able to teach this process, using collage and journal prompts, in an online live workshop over the span of three weeks time, with six individual lessons, gives us the unique opportunity to go even deeper into this content. Slowing down the time to work through each technique and lesson to get to the heart of the thing. Maybe even, to see how this time of change that we are in, has caused you to reevaluate what you thought you wanted and give you more insight to exactly what it is you are wired to do, what it is that you really want your art to say. 

It may sound like a tall order, but after that San Diego experience, and after the first online live workshop I just taught for free on Facebook, I'm feeling pretty confident that you'll have these light bulb moments of your own. And you'll have them while making some pretty cool art you'll be happy to display. 

The new class is called  Collage and The Intuitive Story: Finding Deeper Meaning In Your Work.. And I need to let you know that there are just a few days left to register. The first class goes live on Tuesday the 28th of April and already there are people registered from all across the globe. No need to worry if you aren't able to tune in to watch each lesson live, everything gets saved to video for viewing at your leisure - and at the end of the two month period of time the classroom is open, you'll be given the opportunity to download the lessons to save and view forever. 

I do hope you can join us for this new workshop. And don't forget, the full 8 videos worth of free workshop content, Discovering Your Intuitive Voice, is still available in my Facebook group Crystal Marie: Canary Rising until April 30th. 
You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness."
~ Brene Brown

What Is Crystal Marie: Canary Rising?

Originally opened for subscribers to my Patreons blog, my Facebook group had been largely inactive over the past year, as I hit the pause button on my Patreons account.

Recently I renamed the group,  with the decision to expand and change the intent  of how I use it. Now widely available to anyone who wants to join, a respite for all creatives in the midst of an uncertain world.

I'll be writing another blog post with more details on where I've been the last few months, and the direction I am taking, but today I wanted to share a manifesto of sorts, written to explain the meaning behind the name - Crystal Marie: Canary Rising.
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Canaries were historically used by miners as an early warning system to toxins that were building in the air, making it unsafe for the men to breath. If a canary stopped singing and passed out, they knew they needed to get to safety. In that vein, the term "Canary in the coal mine" has been adapted by many in the medical professions to describe the chronic illness packaging that I have - where I am effected first, harder, and more severely than other people will be in an environment where there are toxins, in the food or the air around me.

The term was enlightening, but it always bothered me. It was basically a death sentence for the canary and meant they were kept in cages for the benefit of others. But I also began to connect to the Canary imagery. It drew me back time and time again.

Reading about these little birds, I found that Canaries are members of the Finch family. They are songbirds, bred and revered for their beautiful melodies and considered the most prized songbirds in the family. 

The term to "Sing like a Canary" means you've ratted someone out. It means you are a snitch. But it means you've told the truth about that person to the authorities. A truth they didn't want you to tell. 

With all of these ideas and their symbolic meaning in mind, came the group name and the following manifesto - still being tweaked a bit, but solid enough to share with you:

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Canaries:

Many of us so called introverts spend so much time alone in our favorite spaces because we are so sensitive that being out there in the world so much hurts. We are empathetic beings, we pick up on the emotional currents in the atmosphere, we read insincerity from a mile away. We get pulled in by the story of the underdog and make it our mission to call out what is not right.

We have a heightened awareness to what is toxic, in food, in the environment, in the legal system, the infrastructure of society, in our spouses, partners, friends, and the world around us.

We stay in relationships longer than we should, because we are sensitive to the potential of our partners and friends, even when they can’t see it. We are sensitive to hypocrisy, sensitive to conflict, sensitive to injustice, and sensitive to speaking and understanding deep truths. 

We are not too much. We are not pushovers, or shy, or inept. We are not snowflakes, or pansies. We are not boring, or uninteresting. We have colorful, beautiful, creative, inner lives full of thoughts, hopes, dreams, for ourselves and for each other. We have important things to say when we open our mouths if only the world would listen. 

We are poets, and dreamers, artists, and writers, musicians, and makers. We are not weirdos. We are Canaries.

They took us underground, and kept us in cages. They tried to take advantage of our talents for their own limitations. 

We stopped singing when the air was toxic. 

We lost hope as the light grew distant. 

We nearly died in the caves they kept us. 

We let their lies become our binding mantra. 

We lost our way when we forgot our own voices. 

In that place where the darkness met The Light, they heard our song and knew it rang with truth. 

Light that spills out, reveals everything. Seeps into the darkest places. 

Light that envelopes what is dark and cracks it open to redeem the untold story inside. 

Light that beckons the soul to the surface, clears the way, warms, nourishes, creates life. 

Finding The Truth in that Light revealed that the voices weren’t in “they” – they were in me.  The voices that kept me in that cage weren’t coming from outside of me anymore. They were born at a time when I needed their support and a place of safety. That cage, at first felt like a respite. 

But then I grew, because of The Light and the song in my own breast. 

I grew beyond those bars, and what felt safe then began to feel like the very thing I feared. 

And I was right, I feared the darkness and I looked around and all I saw was dark. 

I feared death, and I looked around and all I saw was death. 

Those I tried to help by staying right there in that cage, those I gathered and convinced to join me inside those bars, began to fade. 

It wasn’t until I came to realize that I had The Truth inside of me, that my song began to rise. 

My song. The Truth gave me.

My song. The Truth gave me.

My song. The Truth gave me. 

My song. The Truth gave me my song. 

When I opened my mouth and began to sing my song I could see. I could see the only lock on that cage door existed in my mind. 

If I seem too big to you, it isn’t because I’ve made myself too big. 

It is because you’ve been locked inside your own cages and made yourselves too small.

The world doesn’t need more of us locked in cages, the world needs us to be free. 

We are poets, and dreamers, artists, and writers, musicians, and makers. We are humans. 

We are not victims. We are canaries. 

And we are rising.

Canary Rising. 

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If this description fits you - come on over to the group on Facebook and join us. There is room for you at the table!

On Love, Impossible Standards, and Being Fully Alive; A Health Update Of Sorts

Me, one year ago this month, April, 2019

A year ago I was in the midst of getting a diagnosis on what was causing the extreme reaction my body was having to anything I ate, along with mostly any beverage besides certain brands of water, coffee, or tea. And it was more than just food that my body was freaked out about -- it was odors, chemicals, temperature changes. It was physical activity and too much sunshine. I reacted to anything and to nothing at all, and it was wildly unpredictable. I spent the majority of the previous year carrying extra clothing, mapping escape routes, and scanning for bathroom signs everywhere I'd go.

By April, this time last year, I had lost a third of my body weight. Slowly at first, and then rapidly cascading. I was below 100 pounds when I finally caught a glimpse of my full naked body in the mirror and saw with horror, an emaciated dying woman staring back at me.

When the body sheds excess fat, we women are conditioned to celebrate. We've gone our entire lives seeing images of scantily clad, underweight women on the racks of grocery store shelves being upheld as an impossible standard of beauty. Fitness magazines featuring beach bound bodies is our measure of good health, and calorie counting is all the math we are really expected to learn.

In the 90s, I was an expert at keeping my diet as close to zero fat a day as possible, regardless of the sugar content. As long as the label said zero fat, it didn't matter. I fed my daughters from the lie of that poison.

We knew the images we were bombarded with weren't possible to achieve, because we were smart women, not the bimbos the world tried so hard to reduce us to. We would need personal chefs & trainers, body sculptors, plastic surgeons, photo shop experts, plenty of money, and even lower self-esteem then society and our family units had already managed to instill in us.

When there is no more fat to eat, the body starts consuming muscle mass, of which, at the point that I caught sight of myself in the mirror that morning, I had very little left. The skin that covered what used to be my back side-my reported best feature, now hung down the back of my legs like heavy drapery in a funeral parlor. And when I sat in the doctors office watching him examine my very frail hands, while pinching the skin that had lost it's elasticity, with a worried look on his face, it confirmed the news I already suspected. This was bad.

There would be no quick fix, take a pill, try a this diet, way out of this one. Not that there ever had been. Chronic illnesses with diagnosis like Lupus, Fibromyalgia, Thyroid Disease, Connective Tissue Disorder, Sjogrens, Raynaunds Syndrome, Lyme Disease, and Mold Toxicity had plagued me my entire adult life. Each new level of disease activity bringing with it a variety of expert opinions ranging from sound medical wisdom, to the very worst experiences with men in white coats, who hid there perversions, contempt, and ego driven personalities, behind the facade and respectable title of MD.

I limped along through 30 years, mismanaging my healthcare and ignoring the worst of my daily symptoms, adjusting to each new level of disease activity the best way I knew how-- by putting on a smiling face and pulling up my big girl panties to prove my worth to others, while hiding punishing degrees of pain & exhaustion that was enough to make a grown man cry.

The diagnosis that came felt like a life sentence. And indeed it was, as the stage of disease activity in the beginning was suspected to be aggressive and came with an average life expectancy of 4 years after diagnosis. The gravity of the doctors tone the day he called with the news, was one of those life moments that seem to replay in slow motion. Listening to him speak, he could have been repeating the lyrics of The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow, it didn't matter, his tone expressed his sympathies and regret at having to deliver this news.

Later, I stood in front of that mirror again, his words on replay, while I made a thorough examination of each part of my body. People had already been quietly expressing their concern for the dramatic change in my appearance. But the voices that stood out to me the most, were the women who responded with some form of self-deprecating humor about wishing they had my problem, because no amount of dieting, or self-hatred, had given them the relief from their own body shaming.

I decided right then and there, in the midst of believing I was dying, evidence standing in full nakedness before me, that I was done hating my body. I was done hating myself. I was done hating ME.

If you had asked me at any point over the course of the previous 30 years if I hated myself, I would have laughed & brushed you off. I would not have shown what was behind that smile anymore than I would my naked body in front of the mirror that day. But my therapist's gentle words spoken wisely during a previous session, reminded me that misogyny was not just about men hating women, we women were pretty good at hating ourselves too.

In that slow boiling stew of toxic masculinity, authoritarian belief systems, patriarchal under-structures, and blatant objectifying of our parts, as if detachable pieces of a macabre Mrs. Potato Head doll, we had at some point, become too defeated to stand in solidarity against it and decided the best thing to do was simply to agree. The lucky ones were thin enough, blonde enough, fair-skinned enough, and had just enough money for liposuction and a boob job. The rest were left to fend for themselves, to continue to be knocked back into the depths of that stew, by  some red-heeled stiletto fighting to maintain her own status, while secretly knowing her physically desirable days were numbered.

I returned to the mirror each day after that and looked myself directly in the eye, repeating out loud "I love you. I love this body. This body has carried me. This body has birthed my babies. This body has held my grandchildren. This body has carried me through everything I've ever been through. You are beautiful. I'm sorry I didn't respect you. You deserve so much more. You deserve to be loved. You deserve MY love. I will never desert you again."

Almost a year after the date of that diagnosis, and twenty pounds heavier, that morning routine has given way to the busyness of my new life. The prognosis has been upgraded from Aggressive to Systemic, with a normal life expectancy, albeit, not a normal degree of life activities, and by no means symptom free.

For the most part, people do not notice the tell-tale visible symptoms spread across my cheeks or down my arms, that reveal the ongoing invisible activity of the disease, the still unmanageable without medication reaction to food and environment, the heart issues, organ issues, central nervous system damage, and misfiring information pathways between my brain and the rest of my body.

What they do see is a woman who now has a more appropriate level of muscle mass, and fat already settling back into all the perceived wrong places. They think the physical appearance is evidence I've conquered this thing and cheer me on with socially acceptable words like "You look great! I'm so glad you are well!" As if health can only be measured by a narrow range of outward features & falls somewhere between emaciated and slightly underweight on the bathroom scale.

It doesn't matter if I try to explain that in spite of all the good progress, my new normal comes with daily symptoms that leave me slightly wrecked on a good day, to completely debilitated on a bad one. The message continues to be that the thing that matters most is what a woman looks like on the outside, how she makes others feel if she doesn't smile, and how much better it is for everyone else if she can just put on a happy face. And her big girl panties.

I'm still swimming in all of that with the rest of you. Still daily measuring my worth broken down & added up by my parts. I look down at my hands each morning and notice the new lines permanently etched by the struggle of nearly dying and coming back to life, and have to force myself to shift from hating them, to loving them. I still step on the bathroom scale with concern of letting myself go too far. And today in writing of these words, I am seeing how much I need to return to that practice, of standing fully exposed to my own eyes in front of a mirror, while I remind myself that only when I remain in a place of full honesty, vulnerability, and authenticity will I thrive.

It is in that place where I am able to stare at my own reflection, look myself in the eye, and repeat the loving mantra that my worth has nothing to do with my body, that I know I have become fully alive.