Practicing

This year I said no to VBS!! This was pretty big for me to do. Last year was the first time the thought of not working it occurred to me. That is how entrenched it is. It was a "supposed to" in the highest order when you throw God in there with the fact that I am a stay at home mom. It took me up to the week before to actually say no, but then I did. My inner instinct just said this isn't a good idea and I went with it. There was a smidgen of guilt and when I dropped the girls off, I kind of ran through and didn't want to make eye contact with anybody.

But I said no. There must have been some divine guidance because the week prior, GaGa had a rough week, which meant I did too and I was not prepared to deal with a gathering of over 420 kids on Monday. I barely made it through the building without crying the first two days.

I am now practicing taking care of myself, so that I can take care of my loved ones. It is a fairly new skill and this was a further step along the way. One of my friends, described that feelings just want to be recognized. This is so true. My immediate instinct with negative feelings and sometimes even the positive ones would be to avoid the experience of them at all cost. With more and more practice, I see how they just want to be acknowledged and then I see how they can move through. I am still amazed to watch this happen when I have a horrid day and then wake up and be okay the next. I practiced stuffing the feelings for so many years, I got pretty good at it, and it is incredible to now be able to do something different and more healthy.

On Thursday evening, I was again at my wit's end with some occurrences. I was irrationally irritated and I knew it but the feelings were there because I had been so stressed out the entire week, my tolerance level was low. Finally, one of my besties and I just started joking about the situation and I started to laugh, really laugh hard. It was very dark humor and it felt soooo good. I then realized I had not laughed all week. Now THAT is a crying shame. So in the middle of strife, dark humor prevailed. It helped me turn the corner and my mood lifted. So I continue to practice. Whatever works.