Very tender lately. The tenderness of being alive. Maybe its the breathwork? Sometimes I really embody the knowing of impermanence. Deep gratitude hand in hand with sadness. Everything is fine. Everything is as it should be. I have both my parents. Still though, the knowing that nothing is guaranteed and ever changing. Time may end and ears may never hear my songs. I may never experience love, that kind that my gut knows exists. The kind Ive tasted but once, briefly.

maybe its the emergence from a long period in the liminal state

of sitting in profound mourning and grief

yet everything is as it should be.

the weighted blanket of a cello

Do you see the benefits?

For me,

because its taken so much of my life to just be here,

here in the present,

deeply listening with the ability to breath into the crevices of my internal body and having the awareness to move through the aches and the pains.

I arrived by clearing, healing, resting and an arduous effort of many differing modalities of therapy. Crying and physically grasping at my heart in hopes it wouldn’t stop beating because the amount of grief.

 

For me,

what is more important is the practice itself.

not discipline

not a regime

not an end goal

 

a deep devotion

to a practice

devoted to my spiritual practice

I am devoted.

A frame drum from Pakistan made from a goats hide, that looked the moon. I learned a hard lesson in travelling with a drum. My mom was with me when I realized what I had done. Its last song was at an ashram near Santa Cruz.

I couldnt throw it away and went to Motherland Music. London told me we could cut the hide and teach me how to make a new smaller drum with the moon hide.

"Dont put your shame on me."

2022 has been one long nap
no forced production
just a practice
of my system
deep reset
 
leaned into my shadow word "lazy"
and I can now rest proud of myself
the work Ive done
the courage to explore deeper to find the seeds that grew the roots of the narratives
knowing them doesn’t remove all the hurt but
assists me in changing the habitual thought patterns
In this moment, bc tomorrow might be different
I can feel my historical emotional body falling in sync with the knowing’s of my logical brain.
 
I am the villain in my victim story
I am courageous and yet I am a coward
(that word feels to harsh)
(Ive been seeking safety)
(is that an excuse?)
(did I just gaslight myself?)
I move in this world with the practiced intention of being my word
yet I struggle to keep the word to myself 
I know that undeserved blame and shame, given by someone dear, is still an active trigger to my system
I come from a home as the black sheep  
That circumstance is how I developed my voice, my boundaries, my ability to articulate all that I feel and think and found my depth of compassion.
Though I have forgiven and understand why all that was
My nervous system is still a few chapters behind
I feel those last few pages are the hardest to flip
because those stories are not mine.
 
“Is this mine?  Is this yours?  Is it theirs? Is it even ours to hold? 
Do you feel the weight? 
The weight of the guilt? 
The weight of the hate?
The weight of the shame? 
Its not for me to hold. 
Its not for me to take the weight off your shoulders. 
I’m sorry someone broke your heart but don’t you
put your shame on me.” 
 
In this moment, because tomorrow might be different, I feel safe in my own body.

In a recent EMDR session we processed a moment that I have gone over many times.

I felt where the hurt lay in my body. Deep in my root.

I reparented.

I told my therapist I felt an ease in breathing in my upper chest an area that is historically locked and weighted.

the release allowed my to feel pride.

I felt the feeling of being proud.

Proud of who I am.

A missing ingredient.

I am proud.

Resume


https://www.anahibustillos.com/2022-resume

Deep listening.

I repaired my relationship with my parents.

I found a kitty cat in a box by the garbage. Fell in love and named her Zapata. Then knowing I had to let her go and find her a new home.

I released more relationships. Thick ones.

I reprogrammed my nervous system.



This has been one of my lowest income earning years in quite awhile.

I knew what I was doing when I took off from work for 8mths in 2021 and then making the decision to cut off an income stream.

I took and am taking a financial risk.

I have worked on my relationship with money but the fear still swoops in on my shoulders from time to time.

All that I had planned to accomplish in 2022 was set aside as my attention (intuition) found more focus on

“what in me needs to be uncovered?”

“what parts of me do I need to sit with and nurture in order to move forward with less weight of the past?”



I could not share my song until I found safety in my darkness.

To relinquish the relationship of danger in dark and to eventually find the solace and healing that lays in the bellows of the belly.

I cannot communicate the depths of my pain in words until I have found a balance in the full range of my emotions.

~~~ without shame

~~~ devoid of the attachment to the stories about who I am given to me, passed down to me and repeated by my own self.

Deep Rest. (system reset). In Practice. (faith).

Finding contentment in the mundane.

Value in just being.

Purpose in simply being present.

A constant meditation.

Painting by Dhrti Dasi & Ram Das Abhiram Das “Prayer for Gajendra”





Neptune Frost

Saul Williams first got me with SLAM. Then I saw he was doing an Afrofunk, electric musical... and it was just as youd expect... a mindblowing trip. I saw it twice and will need to see it 34567 more times to download.

Liminal Status

Today marks 6mths that I have taken off from work. "I am not committed or obligated to no one or anything but myself" sent me on quite an Odyssey that started in NorCal and ended in Mexico.

The practice of doing nothing. The art of deconstructing an ego to untangle a nervous system in order to be reacquainted with oneself. The act of resting with no endgame in sight and trust that the waking will come at just the right time.

That all to say I am firmly stepping away from acting. I don't want to pretend to be other people as a profession right now or ever anymore. I will be making a record. The first one will be a battle cry.

Update. Ill take as long as I need.

a song you played for us to dance to before I had to leave to work one morning. to the rhythm of a gentle heartbeat.

This brings up so much. The partners I have chosen. The patterns. The stories told. All the knowings that I knew, I knew.

Who I am. Who I was. Who I still fight to be.

Your birthday was on Tuesday. While on my way out of town to rest and find peace in the trees I found out you took your life a month ago.  I suppose no one thought to share with me earlier because we were together for a short time and I haven’t been in your life for 10 years and the last time I heard from you was about 8 years ago, until recently.

You started to follow me on Instagram and watched my stories.  It was absolutely peculiar and I felt inappropriate, but I had no intention to engage and it really wasn't worth an effort to concern myself with. Then in early April, at 6am I awoke with my partner at the time to go volunteer and I opened my phone to read a 15 paragraph letter you wrote.  I was taken aback at all that you shared and bothered that you even thought you had a connection with me to even upload all that you did.  I knew you were breaking down and perhaps in the middle of or about to have a manic episode but it was not my place.  I did contemplate writing back.  I wasn't quite sure what I would have said but I never got around to writing it because you had no presence in my life, you had a family, we were in the beginning of a God Damned Pandemic and my partner and I were battling our own troubles and giving it our all to make it work.  Even if I had reached out I had nothing to offer.  And if I did, I would have just been engulfed in another tidal wave to help heal and hold space for yet another man who lacked the ability to do the same for me.  I type this as though I need to defend my decisions but I feel a strange guilt, that I'm sure so many feel that I know is not ours to hold.

In July, I made the decision to yet again walk away from someone I loved for my own well-being and because I deserve so much more.  I was in pain and still am. The relationship left me exhausted, confused, ungrounded and I allowed that to happen. Then another ex who's communication I also had ignored over the years reached out once again.  I was so pissed at the audacity.  I didn't want you men thinking you still had an open door to my life and I.  I messaged both of you that I did not care to share or build anything.  That this was a boundary and to please respect it.  And you, who said you knew I could hold space for so many.  You who asked for my forgiveness so many times, who asked me for a conversation, to be a friend. I said that I did not need to forgive you because until now I at times had forgotten your name. 

My mother recently asked me why I do not stay friends with my exs.  Well, I feel I give it my all and if it doesn't work then I save that space for something more beautiful.  I am cordial with some but most I realized didn't even meet my standards for a friendship.  I am now examining that fact.  

I begrudgingly had to revisit my memories of our time together.  A soul mate indeed.  A connection that was deep and painful and meant to teach me some of my most pivotal lessons.  Our relationship taught me how to find the strength to walk away from someone I love for my own mental health.  It taught me that deep intimacy could be poison and that I also would not settle for anything less than that depth in a relationship.  It taught me to set those firm boundaries of mine so that my heart remains protected.  It showed me how I was allowing someone to treat me and what I would no longer tolerate. You were the 2nd and last partner I ever punched, which I still believe was deserved. Our relationship was the beginning of my understanding that I was given the gift of intuition and that if I don't fucking listen to it I end up engaging in my most masochistic habits; comparing and digging into who someone is to find the truth. I have proven to be a master detective, to my own detriment. It taught me how to move past the confusion and the pulls of a toxic connection; to strongly evaluate the 2 paths given; one is the unknown and the other is the one that has shown itself to cause more tears than joy.  You see with you and I, I knew that if I stayed that perhaps one day Id have a child Id have to take care of alone. That foresight also gives me guilt. Our relationship taught me that I cannot save someone even if I too have known the weight of Depression.

A few weeks ago I unblocked you to look at your and your wife's social.  To see if, to make sure... you were still here.  I had a feeling.  I didn't see anything out of the norm so I breathed a sense of peace and carried on. 

And here I am learning one last painful lesson. I could have found a way to be more gentle and simply have told you "you are forgiven" but I know that even that would not have saved you.  

You are forgiven.  You are accepted as you are. I know you fought for light and I am so sorry your journey was one that involved this darkness. I so deeply feel for your family.  

Be in sweet peace now, Brother…. to be the Light Warrior you said you knew you were meant to be.