They believe you magical.
They believe you commander of stars
…and dreams.
They believe you warlord of firestorms…
and raging surf.
They cheer your diaper pants dancing to beloved rock and roll.
They cheer your purple mountains majesty.
And your drumbeats buttered
with smug sympathy.
They believe.
They believe you.
They believe in you with eyes wide shut.
Is that funny?
I’m not laughing.
 
khf/11/20

SEEING LOVE
 
Seeing love in your frustration…
Seeing love in your anger…
Seeing love in your darkness…
Seeing love in your fear…
Seeing love in your anxiety…
Seeing love in your fatigue
Seeing love in your misunderstandings…
Seeing love in your mistakes…
Seeing love in your defenses…
Seeing love in your illusions…
Seeing love in your impatience…
Seeing love in your resistance…
 
Seeing that you are inherently connected to the good…not to the “bad”.
 
Connecting your reactions to the seed of your existence
—which is love--
is deep wisdom.
khf 10/20

Would you be willing to consider hidden trauma?
 
 Would you be willing to envision hidden trauma as real…
As painful as a bleeding head wound…
To see its pulse as anger…
Its heartbeat as fear…
Would you be willing to allow that hidden trauma treats no one with tenderness…
That it is never gentle with any hostage…
Would you be willing to consider that hidden trauma is profound darkness…
And cannot guide anyone into their light…
That hidden trauma only breeds more of itself…
Would you be willing to see hidden trauma as a silent bully…
Disguised as intellect…
Masquerading as knowledge…
Are you willing to consider that all wounds cry out for the therapy of love…
And that the only love that can truly heal the trauma hidden within is self-love…
What’s wrong with me?
Are you willing to consider that you are suppressing hidden trauma…
And that it is bleeding out through your behavior…
Through your self-talk…through your question…
Are you willing to see the clues that will lead you to your answer…
khf 10/20

​I WASN’T ABUSED!
I WASN’T ABUSED!
I WASN’T ABUSED!
I WASN’T!
I Wasn’t Abused.
I wasn’t abused.
Wait…
That’s abuse?
…that’s abuse?
…I was abused?
I WAS ABUSED?
what do I do now?
 KHF, 10/20

Shame does not represent any spiritual reality.
Shame is not connected to spirituality.
Shame is not truth.
Shame is a control device imposed to manufacture obedience.
The feeling of shame is embedded imposed control.
Shame is used by the powerful to control the weakened.
Shame originates outside and is intended to control others from the inside.
Shame cripples growth.
Shame destroys.
Shame leads to destructive self-discipline.
Shame creates exhausting perfectionism.
Exhausting perfectionism is an effort to protect against shame.
Exhausting perfectionism is the result of embedded imposed control. 
Shame is not needed. It is corrosive to love.
Allow self-love, self-honor to replace the burden of shame.
Allow self-trust to replace the destructive energy of shame.
Creating self-love creates self-freedom. Freedom allows for growth. Growth encourages self-understanding. Self-understanding creates self-love.
Self-love creates love for others.
​khf 10/20
​

 The Alley

A montage of urban existence •••
the alley.
an arena of trash and treasure ••• of tragedy ••• of' life
acted out against the backdrop of
screaming sirens ••• giggling children ••. and the shuffling feet of the old.
How many lovers have held hands •••
kissed secretly ••• feverishly ••• savoring the aloneness of the dusk •••
in the alley.
How much money has passed hands ••• furtively ••• suspicious eyes darting ••• piercing the dark •••
in the alley.
How many feet, encumbered by the weight of law enforcement gear have raced the hunt •••
in the alley.
and yet, despite life •••
above all ••• because of it •••
grass grows amid the rubble •••
and ancient women continue to sweep •••
the alley.

K.Foley •84

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
George Orwell
Truth stands, even if there be no public support. It is self-sustained.
Mahatma Gandhi

​Breaking News! Breaking News! Breaking News! Breaking News! Breaking News! Breaking News!
 
 ACORN DEVASTATED!
Because It Transformed Into a Tree!
  
In Related Headlines
 
Caterpillar Hates Being A Butterfly
 
 “I never saw it coming,” Acorn declared according to reliable sources.
 
“I didn’t ask for this,” Caterpillar, who will be leading a symposium on how to halt the sands of time, is quoted as saying.
 
A flurry of lawsuits and protests are rising up across the country to support efforts to stop evolution with the slogan: Keep Things They Way They Are.
 
“What’s the big deal with trees anyhow?” is the question put to the reliable source by Acorn. 
 
Added Caterpillar, “Anyway, who even likes butterflies?”
 
 
In Other Related Headlines
 
Kittens Demand to Stay Little and Cuddly Because Cats Are Annoying
 
 There is growing fear that now puppies and ponies may get in on the action.  If that occurs, experts say a revolution to stunt the growth of all living things is inevitable.  Authorities warn that if babies find out that they are way cuter than teenagers, they easily could be convinced to join this rebellion.  Should that happen, all hope is gone.
 
On a positive note…there would never again be shame attached to wearing a diaper.    

​WHEN YOU’RE STRANGE
 
By Kathleen Hoy Foley
 
 
 
Anxiety has strange written all over it.  If you understand this, welcome to the club.  Though not really.  This is not a club anyone would want to belong to.  Not if they had a choice.  I don’t have a choice.  Anxiety is here.  It is real.  It comes from somewhere.  And then it attacks.  Anxiety is strange.  If it is strange, then I am strange.  There is no evading this.  Although I would like to.  Evade it, that is.  Evade all of it.  Only, there is no evading.  Only acknowledgement.  Then understanding.  Accepting its roots.  Accepting the effects of the trauma that produced the anxiety.  And the hardest part, accepting its real-time triggers. 
 
The triggers…now that’s tough.  Because to outsiders—those who aren’t strange—the triggers are invisible, ghosts only the afflicted can see.  Outsiders only witness the behavior instigated by the ghosts.  Yes, ghosts.  If you don’t understand this, get down on your knees and offer gratitude for every single thing in your life.  If you do, I extend my sympathies.  You are in strange company living in a strange land.
 
Apparently, the ghost of my stepfather is alive and well, living a quiet life somewhere inside my brain.  This is strange, considering he’s been dead for over forty years and it’s been sixty years since he laid down his own form of marshal law and declared war on his kids.  Corporal punishment for my brothers.  Assassination by way of embittered ridicule for me.  I’ll spare you—and myself—the morbid details of his cruelty.  Suffice it to say that he was an effective assassin who utilized mockery and shaming to attack the most personal, intimate parts of me.  It was ugly then.  It’s ugly now.  His finger is always on the trigger.  Always.  Sometimes he pulls it.  That’s when things get very strange.
 
Escalating stress and anxiety come as no surprise to me.  I prepare myself.  I have practical strategies and trusted dependable support.  I also have limits, which I can push to a certain degree and still walk away intact, if not a bit rattled.  But when my limits begin to disappear in the rearview mirror, trouble starts brewing and piece by panicked piece I start drowning in real time.  That’s when I become isolated, as confusion and amnesia rise up and take over.  Don’t misunderstand, I am aware that I am drowning, I just can’t stop it.  If I am fortunate enough and can escape before crazy starts creating a spectacle and I begin babbling nonsense, I am at least relieved of that humiliation.  If not, it all becomes part of the aftermath, that private emotional crash where reclaiming myself—my equilibrium—seems impossible because now I don’t even remember who that other self is, or if she ever actually existed.  There you have it: a schematic of an anxiety attack.  When I say strange, I mean it.
 
I am very well-versed in trauma and its savage, living legacy.  I understand it.  I work daily to deepen my understanding of the complex intricacies of its influence and to continue to expand my knowledge of its resolution.  It used to cripple me.  It is no longer a dominate force.  But I am not cured.  Trauma is not curable.  Trauma is manageable.  And sometimes despite my--your—best efforts, events conspire; the trigger gets pulled; a fuse is lit; and it burns its way back to the waiting dynamite.  Explosion! 
 
Nothing can erase the root cause of trauma or halt the unavoidable consequences once its energy gains momentum and speeds past the point of no return.  But comprehension and acceptance of how trauma affects each of us personally are the great assists in recovery in the aftermath of an anxiety/panic attack. 
 
The crash is a mentor.  It takes us back to the event—not to torment--but to teach.  It shows the first warning sign, then the second, then the third…all the missed and ignored opportunities for averting the crisis.  It reveals triggers.  Including those that were immediately and deliberately rejected because of cultural and emotional attachments.  Truth comes to rest in the aftermath of a trauma crisis: choice and resistance.
 
There is a beauty in how much sense trauma makes.  Those of us affected by it, dance with a strange ghost.  But that ghost always dances to the same tune.  Once we learn to listen and hear its rhythms, we begin to understand its moves.  With understanding comes power and empathy.  With power and empathy we can create new rhythms and design tomorrow now.  
 
When we truly accept, truly deeply see that past trauma exists today—in real time—we are acknowledging the invisible.  We acknowledge the energetic connections that move and sway, backward and forward in this strange dance of time and space and experience that we are engaged in.  We see the ghosts.  Through seeing we gain power to muster our courage to make healthy, and oftentimes painful, choices.  To outsiders we are strange because we see what they cannot fathom.  We become mystics, not of the occult, but of truth.
 
 
Namaste