These sunflowers are getting TALL. It's pretty wild.

Okay, I am jumping up and down from all the excitement today. I get to spend the WHOLE DAY at one of my most favorite places - St. Kate's. It's Summer Chautauqua and I'm taking two classes this morning. Whoop!

Back in the time of badness and sadness in life, my therapist helped me by using EMDR. Some people think it's hooey.. I say hey - if it works, I don't care if it's hooey or not. She had me focus on a bad event, then we did the eye movements, then she had me go to my "happy place" in my mind, then more eye movement. In overly simplistic layman language, it scrambles up the pathways to the memory of the bad thing, and then you can remember the bad thing, but not be back IN the bad thing in your head. It really does work. I can try and force myself to think about the bad, but it doesn't cause and instant, traumatic reaction. It's feels like I'm remembering a scene in a play.

Why this tangent? Because, everytime she did this with me, my happy place was the lawn at St. Kate's. The campus, and my time there, represents the first time in my life that I felt whole, and safe, and powerful. It represents the first step of breaking free from the toxic family relationships (I'd go back and forth for a while - well, years - but that first little taste of freedom was so awesome). From that point on, anytime in my life that I've felt sad, or unsure of myself, or mad or any of those feelings that stir me up... I go back to campus. Sometimes in real life, sometimes just in my head. Driving through those gates instantly comforts me.

So today, I'm going to my happy place. How lucky am I??