Hello my dearest Dear Ones out there! I just wanted to send out a quick update since it has been a while since I've done that. So, I just first want to say that physically I am finally over the worst of the monsterous breakouts! Thank God for that! What's more, the deep scars I had, especially on my jawline are really, really healing. I still have pimples and strangers who look at me and have no idea what it used to look like probably still think, "Oh poor love, if only her skin were smooth and clear, she'd be so pretty." Hah! :) But I know what's happening. Pretty miraculous what my dear precious sweet intelligent little cells are capable of. On the physical routine, I realize I haven't updated in a while. So, ages ago I recommended that silver soap. That did help the huge infection I had going on on my face, but after a while it was overdrying and also I believe may have caused some hyper-pigmentation. So I stopped using that and just went back to pure Desert Essence soap once a day in the evenings. I also switched to Burt's Bees Daily Moisturizing Cream, and in the morning (now this may be crazy for others, but it's worked for me), I put on Avalon Organics sunscreen ON TOP of the Burt's Bees. For me I think it's been essential to have good moisture on my face to help the scars heal. I still use Aloe Juice as a toner. Okay, the biggest thing I think that is helping soooo much, (well on a physical level) is that I exfoliate every 12 DAYS with Baking Soda. It peels off a very thin layer of skin without harsh chemicals and then I notice in 2 or 3 days this fresh new little baby skin (kind of looks like dry skin until I mosturize.) And by day 12, my scars are dramatically lessened. I just keep saying over and over, "Today is better than yesterday, and yesterday was better than the day before." One huge thing I've done during this process is take pictures once a month. When I think I'm not making progress, those photos tell me a completely different story. The difference from month to month is so dramatic! And I feel it would be completely unfair of me not to mention what I believe is healing me more than anything I am doing on a physical level. On a spiritual level, my whole life is changing in so many ways! I am fully on the path towards discovering my truest nature and I am grateful every day for that. Many, many miracles have taken place since I set out in this direction, too many to even list here, but more than anything, I just FEEL lighter and happier and more loving than I have in years. I feel when I look at the people I see on the street that they are my brothers and sisters and that if they would let me I would love to hold them in my arms and tell them how beautiful they are. I feel more loving towards my family members, my neighbors, my grocers, my fellow devotees at church, the dogs and cats that cross my path, the birds in the trees tweeting their songs at me, and my gorgeous flowering orchid that continues to bloom on my countertop. The world inside of me is expanding daily and I feel that I am finding more and more of that expansion to share outside of me. I've mentioned Yogananda and the book Autobiography of a Yogi in previous blogs. Since I have really committed myself to this spiritual path, all doors are opening for me and all healing is the work of God and Guru. I feel each morning that I am being loved and guided by the purest most unconditional love there is and that I am God's child. That I am loved as I can never possibly comprehend in human terms. And that the more I turn to that love, the more love I have to give to others. I also feel a responsibility to uphold my end of that relationship... that partnership with God and Guru. That it is my responsiblity to wake up and meditate and to meditate before bed... that if I have nothing else to offer, at least I can offer that to the feet of the Divine. I think in regards to skin picking, this is HUGE, because my skin picking comes from such a selfish place. As in, I get so self-focused that I can not see the world around me. That the whole world revolves around me and the condition of my skin. That I am the only one that is affected by my picking or that I am the only one in the world who is suffering. So wanting to be there on my meditation blanket each night and each morning to sit and chill with God for an hour or two in my day, that is huge. And life is just changing sooooo much from a year ago. It's unfathomable. I am back to being social and loving in the world, I am back to working (I had 6 voiceover auditions a couple weeks ago and also got a job reading a lead character for preliminary work on a major animated film), I'm in the process of buying and renovating a condo, I've been hanging out with my 86 year old neighbor and helping her get out into the world, I've met a wonderful group of new friends at the Self Realization Temple, etc... A year ago I just could not see how my life would change in such wonderful ways. I just knew I had to stop doing something that was harming me. That's all I knew. So to anyone out there who is reading this and struggling in that dark dark place, I offer my story to tell you that there is light at the end of the tunnel. It is a long, scary tunnel with a lot of scary undealt with things lurking in it, but the power of the light at the end of it can guide you through all of them safely. All you have to do is take the first step. I love you all. I think of you often. I know where you are and what you are dealing with and my heart just reaches out to you and wraps you up in its love. Know that I love you and that you can do no wrong that will ever make me stop loving you. You are precious, you are special, you are beautiful and unique. You are a spark of the infinite and we are one. Sending you love and peace and joy, joy, joy!

ONE YEAR TODAY! HIP HIP HOORAY!

So here it is, my one year anniversary! I'm gonna celebrate with a single scoop of lemon cream gelato on a sugar cone and a long walk to get it in the warm bright sun!

The road to this point has been long and treacherous! I often say if I had known what I would go through a year ago when I stopped picking, I probably would not have been able to stop! But the one day at a time thing and this guiding comforting hand of God on my back have kept me going.

By no means have I been perfect on this road or on this journey. As recently as a week ago, I had a major breakdown and picked at myself. The craziest thing about it, is that I was sitting there having this internal dialogue with myself as I was doing it. "Butterfly! What are you doing? You can NOT do this to yourself!" But I just couldn't stop myself. The voices of pain and hurt and suffering were just too strong. (I've had one of the most stressful months of this process... I'm in the middle of scanning thousands of old family photos spanning over 6 generations. I've had to look at my own immediate family and all the dark shadows that lurk there, and I've had to see the generations of mental illnesses, abuse and psychological disorders laid out in front of me one photo at a time for an entire month! It has been horrible. And it has been purposeful! I feel it is unleashing some built up and buried emotions from down in the pit of my heart and as they say, "the darkest hour, comes just before the dawn." )

So even as I sat down to write this today, I thought, "Well who are you to say that it's your one year anniversary, when you picked at yourself a week ago?" But I think I'm coming to understand, that I suffer from a disorder that I will have to come face to face with for at least a few more years, hopefully not a lifetime, and conquer time and time again. I am in recovery and it is daily and ongoing. My guru says that it takes 8 years to change a hard engrained habit! 8 YEARS!!!!!!!! And that even a little step in the direction of returning to that habit in that time frame is very damaging to the progress of letting it go forever. I know for myself that when I get stressed, I start to look in the mirror more, I start just casually touching my skin, I start convincing myself, "It's okay, to just pop this one. It needs it. It'll help it." And then before I know it I'm in full on harm inflicting mode! So the most important thing I can do is recognize the early trigger points and step away from them.

There is a beautiful analogy I like to think of in times like these. I heard it from a minister at SRF and it has stuck with me ever since. It's the story of this certain type of monkey. This monkey can only be caught by this special trap. It's a little box and inside the box, the trappers place a desirable object for the monkey to spot and try to grab. The monkey reaches his hand in and grabs the object and when he tries to remove his hand with the object, he finds that it will no longer easily slide from the trap door. All the monkey has to do to escape is let the object go. He just has to put the object down and he will be free.
So I can see now that when I'm standing in front of the mirror I have a choice. I can reach in the trap and grab my addiction and hold on to it, or I can look over to my left and see that God and Guru and my family and my career and my friends, the love of my life that I have not yet met and my whole future are standing right there for me just an arms length from the trap and all I have to do is let go of the thing that is keeping me from them and walk over and embrace my Bliss. So I am consciously working on that every single day and have been doing so for an ENTIRE YEAR!!!!!!!!!! And that is something I believe deserves celebration!

So today, I'm gonna pat myself on my back! I'm gonna go out and give myself some much needed self love and I'm gonna share my love of self, God and Guru with all the people I meet along the way. I hope that you are out there today and that when our eyes meet, we exchange a knowing and loving smile with eachother. I hope we see in one another the beauty of our courageous powerful spirits and acknowledge each other as the gods that we are! Wishing you a bright, love-filled, delicious day! Love, Love, Love, Joy, Joy, Joy!

10 months in! This whole being a human thing ain't no joke!

Well hello out there!
I see that it has been 2 months since my last update! Sorry for the delay!
The reason for my delay in updating is that my life is sort of sweeping me away in this glorious way where I feel like each second is valuable and precious and my time is being well spent. What a change from 10 months ago where each second of my life was spent in anguish over the singular thought "My skin sucks!"
The physical condition of my skin is "still healing". It is not perfect by any means. It continues to break out, especially around my period, and big pockets that were formed during the worst of the breakout points are still filling in and regrowing new skin. I don't have any real idea of what it will look like when this is over, and to say that I don't worry about it would be dishonest. I do worry about it. A lot. But there is something in me that wants to see this through and to see what my body can do on its own. And the amazing thing is that tremendous healing has taken place already and continues daily! Every morning when I wake up my skin is in better shape than it was the day before.
I think the biggest change is in my mental and spiritual healing. In a way this whole skin thing and going through this horrific healing process has freed me in some way from my body consciousness. I actually go out with no make up on and just sort of display the healing process in a way I never, never could have done a year ago... and though I do get quite a few sympathetic and worried stares, I also find that the less I'm concerned with it, the less the people around me are concerned with it.
One huge change that happened in the last two months is that work opportunities have been presenting themselves and I have been forced out of my little cocoon, or rather gently nudged by some unseen hand. I've had several opportunities to read some screenplays and plays for future productions and have had many voice over auditions coming in. I've had friends in town for the holidays and other social events that have pulled me out into the light and there I've stood bravely and told people what I've been going through for 10 months. They all looked at me and with love and appreciation threw their arms around me and said "You are a brave girl! I wish you had told me, maybe I could have helped. In any case, I love you." And with each encounter I feel stronger and more determined to make it through this.
The biggest life change is in the value I now place on cultivating my spiritual health. I am more committed than ever and the change is profound. I now meditate in the morning and the evening for a half an hour. I have subscribed to lessons from the Self Realization Fellowship and I study and practice them faithfully. This is the institution set up by Yogananda to teach his yogic tradition to anyone who seeks to follow it. The information alone is a tremendous gift, but in addition I have received many additional blessings by following this path.
One moment sort of sticks out in my mind. I was reading a lesson about gurus, and what a guru is. Essentially a teacher who has fully realized his or her oneness with God and who then dedicates their lives and beyond this life to helping others find their oneness with God. Buddha is a guru, Jesus a guru too and Yogananda a guru to all students who follow his teachings. Anyway I was sitting there feeling rather helpless that I didn't have a guru in the flesh to sit with me and guide me and help me through my spiritual and life demands, and writing about it. The very next morning, my phone rang and it was a spiritual counselor from the Self Realization Fellowship who wanted to talk with me. She sat on the phone with me and talked with me from deepest love in her heart. One thing I was struggling with was this idea of dedicating one's life to God and how that is the highest priority of every human. I said, "Well, what does that mean for me? Am I to give up on being an actress and dedicate myself to the life of a renunciate? Do I become a nun and live in an ashram?" And as I ask the question I kind of feel my heart breaking. I can do that, if that is what God asks of me, but I'm so confused. And this counselor says so sweetly, "Dear One, where He has placed you, there He must come. Play the role you have been given to the best of your ability. Dedicate your acting to God, play for God. What a beautiful thing that is!" And it was like this huge tremendous weight was lifted off my shoulders. I went out that day feeling the great blessing that had been sent to me in this phone call. And then this great thing happened. I was in the mall and I stopped to eat a pretzel on this bench. I'm watching people walk by me. And because I'm sort of open and hypersensitive since this phone call, I'm sort of feeling this undulating wave of the unhappiness of mankind swelling over me. I see 2 teenage girls walk by me, one pretty severely obese and I see her make eye contact with me and duck her head in shame, I see some teenage boys walk by and stare me up and down and then elbow each other and say some snide comment about their sexual conquering power. And I'm seeing all this, and I'm separate from it, but I'm a part of it. I am a human and these are my fears and worries and feelings too. So I sort of have this thought, like "How are we ever to find our way to God from this world of tremendous suffering? How do we live in kindness and love and compassion and calmness and bravery, when we are met with such hostility and pain?" and then I just say "Where He has placed me, there He must come." And I just repeat it, over and over and over until I just feel this huge freedom and peace. So I get up and I go into Target and as I'm going to leave, right at the exit I'm going out, in walks one of my very favorite actors. This is an actor that I have been watching 0n TV and saying over and over, "Oh man, I hope I get to work with him someday!" And here we are at this exact moment, passing each other in Target. And I'm just so moved and swept away by this perfection... that it is this actor, at this place, at this precise moment in time, and all the things this encounter represents for me, this power showing me that I am where I need to be, that I am doing the right work, that there is a perfect organizing power and that I am as much a part of the big moving picture that is life as everything else is. And that as we turn more and more to it, it reveals more and more of itself to us. All we have to do is turn!
So my fellow travellers, this is where I am 10 months in. I've got a ways to go in this process, but I feel like at least now I know that I'm walking on the right path! I send you all love and courage on your journeys and wish you all countless joys, blessings, love, abundance and health for 2009 and beyond!