Thank you, guys

I love this blog.  I love being able to direct the discussions to questions  of balance in the personal, physical, professional, and political arenas.  I promise to always be open to questions of my own fairness and courtesy, because I expect that from others.
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I am venting here because I honestly believe that I see the path to greatness and mastery, as many others have seen it.  The only way I can be certain is to share as much of my thought and process as possible, and let smart, good, energetic people of many persuasions do their best to tear me a new one.  Unless I can explain and defend, my "mastery process" concept is a joke. 


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A student recently asked me to help her find a new spiritual goal, now that meditation was steady.  I told her to go more deeply into that meditation, and find her own answer.  This is what she just sent me.  superb.
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My room is the most important thing to my spirit.  The night I sent my
husband the e-mail letting him know where we stood I emptied out our
bedroom, threw the queen-sized mattress and box-springs on top of the
derelict station wagon in our garage.  I cleared the room out
completely.  When he got home I offered it to him because he'd been
bitching that he didn't have a place for his stuff.  I told him he
could take it, but if he did I wanted all of his crap out of the office
in a timely manner.  If he chose not to take it I would give him the
office and endeavor to get my crap out of the office instead.  He
didn't approve of the dismantling of our marriage bed.  He refused to
put a thing into that room he felt was a mistake and a tantrum, except
for to possibly help me put the bed back in there.  I refused.

Now I have my own room.  I put in a twin sized bed underneath the south
facing window and I watch the moon travel its course like I had through
the south facing window of my childhood bedroom.  I meditate in the
mornings to the ocean mimicry of wind through the evergreen that shades
me from the rising sun.  Now I have a space of my own.

As a child I endured a lot and early.  I think I've come out stronger
and healthier than most with that resumé.  I attribute my success to
having had a safe home.  Neither my mother nor my stepfather were
remotely abusive. I knew I could sleep safe in my bed and the adults
sleeping nearby would go above doing me no harm to defending me from
any threat.  Once I was out of the apartment it was another matter, but
my home was safe.  Everything I've healed I've healed because I had a
safe place to do so.  My husband took that away from me.

He decided when; every fight, every reconciliation, was on his terms.
He would follow me, badger me, bully me until I gave in to him.
Sometimes he'd seem fine and then snap over what seemed like nothing to
me.  He's never laid a hand on me, he's a wall puncher and a yeller,
and a master guilt-tripper but he's never touched me in violence.
Still I flinch from him because he gave me no safe place no ability to
predict if it was going to be a good day or a bad day.  So I have taken
my safe place.  I have my room and I will not give it up until he can
convince me that ours will be a marriage of partners respectful and
supportive to each other.  He can lecture me as long as he wants to
about promises of "for better or for worse" but he has not honored or
cherished me, he has chosen to give me worse when he could choose to
give me better.  No man is getting into my room again without earning
the privilege.  What my spirit needs from me is a safe place.  Because
that is where I heal.  I don't care if he thinks I've taken too much, I
don't care if the therapist we see this Sunday thinks I've taken too
much.  What all parties involved need to understand is that this
marriage is not being pulled out of a nosedive, we're going through the
wreckage to see what can be salvaged.  We are not bringing the
therapist into the cockpit we are bringing the black box to the
therapist.  My husband does not have me anymore, he merely has dibs.
For now I am my own, but if any man is going to claim me again, he gets
the first chance to earn me.

So it seems a feeble little goal but for now standing strong and
defending my right to a safe place of my own is my goal.  I will make
it a room that nurtures me.  Maybe someday my husband and I will be
able to build a mutual sanctuary together, but until I can trust him
without question he doesn't get my room.  More than anything I have
lost in this marriage I miss having a safe place.  I deserve that much
dammit!  So there it is.