Inside Out

I saw Inside Out yesterday afternoon with my girls.  I had really been looking forward to it as the movie is about emotions.   Yes, emotions! The characters names are emotions!! Really.   How much more could this appeal to me?  The central character was an eleven year old named Riley.  

Seriously! 

 I laughed, and I felt like I had to cry but couldn't.  I still feel blocked up about that.  I have been studying emotions for the better part of my entire life.  I've always been an observer.  Getting a Masters' degree in Counseling was just the beginning of my formal training.  I'm sure that it began earlier than that, in childhood.  Now, the last 7-8 years I've really been concentrating by using therapy, life occurrences and a passion to understand feelings.  Infertility and postpartum depression blew me away.   I felt so lost and alone.   Therapy helped me to begin to understand what was going on and to heal. 

Along the way, these are the issues that I have delved into head first:  dieting and exercise, eating disorders, compulsions, codependency, spirituality, religion, The Twelve Steps, mindfulness, perfectionism, self-esteem, forgiveness, acceptance, dying, and grief.  One has led into another and my life has opened up beyond measure.

But yet still I hide.  I feel like I hide. 

There are so many thoughts I have and I have spent so much time studying and learning, yet still I think I don't know enough.  I will always be a life long student but I do know some things.  I don't give myself enough credit.  

I am still afraid to tell what I really believe.  

I think one of the reasons that I do, is because I still label myself overweight in my head.  Because I have not attained perfection in my body size that discounts all of the thoughts in my head, my life experience, and the intensive study I have undertaken. 

So I still have low self esteem.  {chuckling}

I don't know what it is. But I feel like breaking out of this.   This coming school year I have less on my plate - less volunteering with things I felt I had to do.  There will still be volunteering just in another capacity - with less planning on my end.  I am currently feeling passionate about the following things: getting my house in order (clearing the way for a cleaner vision), practicing yoga, and planning time with my friends.  

Oh, and running a household and raising two daughters.  One being a teenager very, very soon.

I just can't sit around and wait for the phone to ring.  I have to get off my tuckus and initiate things myself.  

Here goes.

Namaste.

Why Does Crying Get Such A Bad Rap?

I had a big ugly cry yesterday morning, actually several of them, and it is uncomfortable for me to let that much emotion flow through. It's getting easier as I am learning to not stuff my emotions. The catalyst was bringing Mallory, my beloved nine year old muse, to the chartered bus to ride 7 hours away to her first overnight camp for 6 nights. I have never doubted she will have a blast when she decided she wanted to go and I put it out my mind.  BUT IT CAME BACK.

I was a little taken aback when the uncomfortableness popped up two days before we were to bring her to catch the bus on Sunday morning.  The night before I had an intuition that I might need to stay at home from church and let George and Riley go on their own.  But I got dressed to go and read the chapter I needed to read for my class and off we went.  But after hugging that precious girl (who had told me she was nervouscited herself) and watching her walk off and get on the big chartered bus, I lost it.

I had big sunglasses on but the tears were rolling down my cheeks. I tired to wipe them away so no one would see them.

In hindsight, I really, really needed that release.  We drove off to church in silence except that I explained that I would come back and pick them up.

The funky thing is trying to hide the emotion from those other parents in the parking lot or in my own car.   I did tell George and Riley that I needed to grieve her and some other things.   I NEEDED to let this out.  I really, really needed this release.

Sometimes the catalyst that tips you over really isn't the entire reason why the tears come.  And I don't need to analyze why, I just need to let it flow.  Be kind to myself and embrace the tears or whatever emotion it is.  No judging that I'm a wussy, or that I'm crazy, or that I feel too much.

 How many times have I heard someone say in real life or on tv, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you cry?")

Why does crying get such a bad rap?

I cried off and on all morning.  And I still have to tell myself it's okay to do so when I don't see others doing the same thing.  In the back of my mind,  I still judge myself a little for not keeping it together.  My husband is not going to feel the same as I do.  The other moms are not going to feel exactly as I do.  {codependency no more!} Learning to own my own story and allowing that story to be just as it is, has been a big hurdle.

While the tears were flowing, I know I was also grieving other things.  My engagement ring is missing (appears to be stolen) and my Dad's estate is being settled and I've been involved with the legal paperwork.   Dad is reaching from beyond his death to love in his own way.

I did have headaches in the afternoon and evening and this morning but that is O-K too.  It feels like such a relief to let all of that blocked energy flow.  I have low energy this morning and I need to nurture myself.  There is always something that needs to be done and I will do what I absolutely have to and then rest or wait to see what happens, I may be surprised.

I'm learning to roll with the flow whatever that is and be kind to myself while this is happening.

Namaste.

Letting Go Of What's Broken, Part 2

This is beginning to seep in. The most important part of it to me is that, "You get to laugh loudly, paint, write and create. You get to be yourself."

I LOVE writing.  I didn't start in earnest until five-six years ago.  This blog has been hugely important to me.  I process my life as I write.  Thank you for reading and commenting!

I was unauthentic the first half of my life.  I relied on following others, taking subtle signals from others on how to respond.  I did not know how to live my own life.  And I didn't even know that I wasn't living my own life.   I can see it so much more clearly now that I've been claiming myself for the last few years.  (I love the 40's!!)

I feared so much.  I lived in daily anxiety.  A few months ago,  I went to a party that was with a group that I am not usually extended an invitation.  George was working that night and I worked hard to find a date to go with me.  In the past, the first "no" would have halted the process and felt like a major rejection of me.  Yet I kept asking, I was determined to go.  Finally, a newer friend of mine was able to go.  God bless her, she is still friendly with me because I was so anxious about going and it came out as non-stop blathering.  I couldn't stop talking about my worries….

About going to a party??

When and how did I become this person?  (But that doesn't matter and I don't want to spend any more time figuring it out in my head, I just want to grow)  I didn't really understand what happened until the next day, and I processed my behavior and how anxious I was.  About half way through the party, I thought, do I really want to be here?  I  had been wanting to break through into this group for so long (with no real action on my part, just wishing and hoping) and here I was thinking, hmmm.  Do I want to be here?

And why did I want to be a part of this group so badly? Attractive FB pictures? The desire to be part of a tribe, to be part of a larger whole, to be connected with people?

This is part of figuring out who I am.  I have to try things and see how it goes and some may be just the ticket and some may not.  I recognize that there is a group that I belong to at church that I have felt at home with from the moment I sat down in the chair of their book study.  I can't say this strongly enough.  I FELT AT HOME FROM THE MOMENT I SAT DOWN.  The discussions that we have are exactly in line with passions of mine.   PASSIONS!  They give me support like I have never had, and they comment on who I am becoming and see me for who I am.   I walk in the door and they hug me and are glad to see me.  I have learned to have a voice in that class.  I speak up and say what's on my heart and it's not always pretty but they applaud me and my efforts and say the most warm, nurturing and loving things.  And I'm learning to do the same.  I am learning to be nurturing and warm.  I thought I was before but I wasn't in the way that I aspire to be or rather who I think I am deep inside where fear is not holding me back.

It's so much easier to love others when you love yourself.

And I have never attended any functions of this group that I was invited to.

There is a party tonight. I am making plans to go. And there will probably be nerves.  And that's okay.  I need to try this out.  It may or may not be the ticket but I won't know unless I try.

Namaste.

Letting Go Of What's Broken, Part 1

I have read this sentiment before, probably several times over the last few years.  I'm learning that growth is learning the same lessons again and again over time and each time it seeps in just a little deeper into my soul.  I look at it as a spiral and going deeper into the spiral.

When it first happens that a truth of life (an aha) that I had previously experienced comes my way again, I think to myself, "Seriously, this point again?!  I've been here, done this!"  But now it's a little easier, the second, third, fourth, fifth time around…

There are important people in my life that I just need to let go. Let go of who I want them to be.




I have been trying very hard to push for something that doesn't exist in reality.  It's my idea of what a relationship should look like.  It does exist for others that I see around me but that is why there should be no comparing my life with another's life.   There's a saying about doing the same thing over and over and getting the same result.  Yes, that's where I am.  And it can be very painful.

Some people are hard to let go.

Or rather it's the idea of some people.

So what keeps me from letting go.  Is it FEAR?   It's not that I haven't had these same thoughts about certain people multiple times over the years.  When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. (Maya Angelou) It's taken years to embrace the fear of letting it be.  Fear of the unknown.  If I let go of this person or situation, what will my life look like?  Will it be empty and have a void?

(And I've been concentrating so much on that void off and on for years anyway, what would happen if I put that energy towards someone who was open and responsive?)

The path I see clearly now, is that I have to continue grieving and let it go.  But who wants to grieve?   Who wants to volunteer for pain?  Our western culture has so many ways, and compulsions to avoid the uncomfortable emotions.   I just don't believe in that anymore and I don't want to do that anymore.  And I'm learning to feel everything that comes my way.  The joy, the despair, the anxiety, the peace, the calm, the fear, anger, etc. etc.  I'm learning to think differently about those feelings when they come up and allow them to flow through.

Yet the amazing thing in my experience is that letting go, then gets me to the very thing I wanted and needed in the first place but from unexpected sources.  I wake up and think, this person is providing me with exactly what I needed.  It was here all along. Wow!

Dorothy, you had it in you all along.

I had to let go of the old (thoughts) and embrace the new.

And it's so magical. Love abounds where you had no idea it's possible.  It's shows up in unexpected faces and places.  It is rich and sweet.

Letting go of what's broken, is making me whole.

NAMASTE.

My Wholehearted Definition was So Wrong

My kids are home all week for Easter Break and we have been hanging out at home.  Yesterday I hit my wall.  I told them I needed to be alone after a mid afternoon outing.  I haven't had my alone time, I haven't written.  I haven't had an adult female conversation.  I haven't gotten to read or explore my inner journey in any kind of way.

So what saves me?

Walking that darn dog.  At first, I wanted to make them walk the dog because they were home from school.  But I came to realize that I relished walking straight out the house and being by myself, even if it requires picking up poop.

I walk out the door and scramble to find something to listen to.  I find my library loaned audio recording of "Daring Greatly" by Brene Brown.  I have talked about her before, her TED talk.  The core of her message is in order to be whole hearted we must be vulnerable.  (And of course being whole hearted is the goal!)  She has examined this issues via academic research and I love that my ahas have been proven via (social) science.  So as I'm be-bopping along, I think I understand what whole hearted means.  To me, it means loving other people with your whole heart.

And then I hear...

"Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness."

 The rest of the paragraph is pretty good but that is all I needed to hear.  I felt zapped in a good kind of aha way.  As I have begun to feel worthy, I have realized how unworthy I have felt and for how long, and that makes me sad.  And I want to cry and I can cry for all the time I didn't feel worthy but now I "know better."

Here comes the codependent stuff: I have always been more worried about other people's feelings than my own.  So my original definition of whole hearted revolved around what I could do for others.  Oh my.  (sad face)

Now I get that the more I take care of myself - tell my family I need alone time, hire a sitter, write, call a friend, read, move, that allows me to be more loving with them the rest of the time.  It actually puts a fire in me to love them more.

Self Love = ability to love others with open arms and open hearts.

I can hear my girls happily playing together right now.   It is music to my ears because I hear a lot of the opposite of that often.  I KNOW this happy play won't last for long, so I need to move on.  So glad I have had this quiet time.

This is Something Big...

I feel disjointed.  It's Christmas and that always brings something up.  It is our first Christmas without GaGa.  Grief comes up in small waves here and there.  I miss the healthy grandmother who was so active in our lives and she particularly loved Christmas.  She may not have remembered birthdays but she was all about Christmas with decorations, presents and baking.

My little family of four had decided to shake things up by heading way out of town ON Christmas morning because we want to.  In my mind's framework that I had growing up, this is completely off the rails.  And it is exactly what I need to do.

Yet it is uncomfortable.


I have moments of complete excitement and then I have phases of anxiety and paralysis.  In telling my friends about our plans, most comment with bright energy "Oh, how exciting, you are going to have such a fun time."  At times, their excitement is more palpable than mine and I use theirs to help me along.

There has been a dictate in my mind that says I am supposed to be with my family of origin at holidays, and somehow the family I originated had taken a back seat.  In the last years, I have broken with this dictate and each year it has gotten easier to go against the flow.  My family has taken precedence.  That is why this trip is particularly important.

I can also tell it is important because issues of anxiety are creeping in with claustrophobia related to flying, riding in elevators, being in enclosed spaces with lots of people.  I truly know I will be okay, but the thoughts still pop up and I have to work through them and bring the Xanax.  Even having my own prescription of Xanax AND knowing I can take it - has been many hurdles to overcome.

There are so many layers to what is going on right now.  I truly had no sense of self.  Now that I am gaining my sense of self, who I am, what I want, my likes and dislikes and accepting myself wholeheartedly,   I see how very little sense of self I had.  "You don't know you are there, until you are there"

This poem posted by one of my dear FB friends says it all:


'LEAVING THE NEST 

All too frequently we relate like timid birds who don’t dare to leave the nest. Here we sit in a nest that’s getting pretty smelly and that hasn’t served its function for a very long time. No one is arriving to feed us. No one is protecting us and keeping us warm. And yet we keep hoping mother bird will arrive.

We could do ourselves the ultimate favor and finally get out of that nest. That this takes courage is obvious. That we could use some helpful hints is also clear. We may doubt that we’re up to being a warrior-in-training. But we can ask ourselves this question: “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?” '

from Pema Chodron

Jumping in the Air

I knew I would learn things from having a dog, I had read about it.   I was walking her this morning after Hurricane Isaac slowly passed through our area.  Annie is a very skittish beagle.  She spends most of her time cowering from the cats, George (or most any man), loud noises, etc.   I thought about how much time this lovely little dog spent in fear.  I had an aha moment when I reached down to pick up the paper and she flinched at a noise.  I, like her, have lived so much of my life cowering, uncertain and crippled with fear.

It made me feel sad about Annie, and feel bittersweet for me.  I am coming out of it!  And it takes much diligent effort to work through these deeply ingrained feelings of inadequacy.   I am part of a wonderful private group on FB and there was a recent  discussion about fearing our feelings.  One person described it as a phobia.  I understand exactly what that meant.  When I had postpartum depression, I felt like I was losing control and life would never be the same.  After recovering from the depression to a "normal" state, PMS would then throw me into periods of massive uncertainty and questioning my thoughts.   I was so scared of them.  I think someone who had more self confidence would just be bitchy and move through it.  I was in agony thinking about why I felt that way and how I could get it to go away.

Also when I had a disagreement with someone, which rarely occurred because I would not speak up for myself, it devastated me, I didn't sleep and obsessed over the conversation.  I had learned never to speak up for myself even though really deep deep down I knew more.  Now I can see that it is just a difference of opinion and I can agree to disagree.   Someone else's opinion doesn't carry as much weight as it used to.  Codependency explains most of my behavior.  It took my therapist a year to tell me this information.  I guess that's how fragile I was.  I picked up the books and started going throughout their checklists, one symptom after the other, yes, yes, yes.  Okay, now I understood where I was, know how to move past it?

Food was my chosen numbing agent for these massively uncomfortable feelings.  And there is no quick fix to overcome this.  No diet can do the work to teach me how to love myself unconditionally.  That is my missing link and the work is hard but I am so passionate about overcoming this, it is a joy to embrace every aha and all of the pain and all of the peace.

Some of what I have learned is:
Learning acceptance of those around me for who they are,  not who I want them to be.
Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries for those people who I have thought could give me what I needed but are not able.
I needed to accept me for who I am and not what I thought others wanted me to be.  Being comfortable in my own skin and allow my authentic self to shine.
When I judge others it is just an extension of me judging myself.  And when I feel that from others - that is what they are doing to themselves as well.
Most every feeling I was numbing occurred much earlier in my life and circumstances would arise to take me back to that place in time and arrested development.
Feeling the feelings even if it feels like they will consume me, and allowing them to flow through.  It is an amazing process but takes much practice, practice, practice.
Realizing my thoughts (that ugly voice) are just thoughts and I can choose not to believe them and let them go as well.
I can give my own self the nurturing I lacked.
As I heal myself, I see God (higher power) and LOVE as the ultimate answer.  This is a huge difference from fearing God to seeing and feeling his LOVE.

All of the above have been so incredibly important to my journey.  I may be leaving something out but I'll come back to it another time.  It's time to go live life.

Just as I am learning to love all of me, and give myself unconditional love, I will continue to give it to Annie, the dog.  In the meantime, she does express massive joy when she greets us after we have been gone from the house.  She runs around so excitedly and jumps in the air in front of myself and the girls.  Her energy is palpable and you want to join in.

I feel that way too some days even without Annie. {big grin}

At Home In The Fringe

The Methodist church I attend has a Center for Spirituality (sounded so woo woo to me a few years ago, not so much anymore) and I have been moseying over during our Sunday School hour for the last few months. When I walk in and sit down with these ladies (and a man or two), I feel at home. Feeling at home is sacred to me now because I recognize it. Everything that is brought up and discussed is music to my ears. On a few Sundays, I was verklempt like therapy - like good group therapy which I have never done,  just studied about in my Masters classes. As I have been passionately pursuing all things healing for my inner self, attending this class has been an unexpected bonus, right in my own backyard.

The book we are currently reading is Richard Rohr's Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps. I am fairly giddy aobut this topic. I attended a 2 day workshop of his last year and I sat transfixed to what he was saying...for six hours. I wrote about it at the time as THE best revival I had ever attended. And I have post traumatic stress from revivals I attended in my youth.

Father Rohr puts together ideas that do not seem to go together. As a Franciscan Priest, he is on the fringe of the Catholic church from what I'm told and barely hanging on and I like this about him. As you learn the deep truths of your life, your authentic self, being on the fringe is not the scary place that I thought it use to be. My faith is in a loving God and I feel his warmth all the time now and I don't live in fear of his retribution. And feeling that loving God up close and personal now makes me want to act in a loving manner towards the "least of these."

From the introduction of Breathing Under Water: "We cannot stop the drowning water of our addictive culture from rising, but we must a least see our reality for what it is, seek to properly detach from it, and build 'a coral castle and learn to breathe under water.' The New Testament called it salvation or enlightenment, the twelve step program called it recovery."

I embarked on a journey to find out why I couldn't lose weight and keep it off. I knew it was something deep, yet I had no idea in the process that I would embrace the concepts of codependency or Twelve Step ideas, and become closer to God.

Therapy led me closer to God!

I never would have put counseling therapy and God together because maybe no one I knew did it, or in my mind they were completely separate. Now I see God and the holy spirit everywhere, including in myself.

This is what healing is all about. Bring on the fringe. I feel so at home in the fringe.

Love and Boundaries

"Love—as grand and as great and as healing as it is—requires boundaries." — Dr. Robin Smith

I was once again reminded of this powerful statement this week. I sometimes want to let go with certain people in my life, but am subtly reminded again and again to keep the boundaries solid and high. It is just so much healthier that way.

Burnt Out

Christmas 2011 has come and gone.

This is what I have learned about Christmas, there are positively wonderful moments and then there are sad and depressing moments and some in between. THAT IS NORMAL and I have to allow my feelings through it. In a "normal" Christmas without death hanging over, there is anxiety about getting everything done, deciding what exactly "everything" is and plowing forward. I did keep it simple this year, especially with my melanoma experience and George's boards in the middle of it and it was manageable. It was actually really good. I experienced highs of seasonal lights, giving and receiving of Christmas cards, the excitement of my girls, and Silent Night sung in candlelight at church. We had a weekend in New Orleans and it was SO good to get away.

Just got off the phone with the hospice social worker as she had visited with Mary yesterday. I thought I was emotionally "okay" with dealing with Mary, I thought I had "managed" the holidays. I talked with the social worker and she asked how Christmas with Mary went, fairly easy question, right? I started talking and then the emotions came up. In reality the part of Christmas we spent with her which were just visits to the nursing home were dreadful, really really dreadful. It is horribly depressing and sad and one cannot come out of a visit unscathed. But George and I powered through it, we brought presents for the girls to distract them on Christmas Eve before going to church services and then again on Christmas day.

When we walked in on Christmas day, as she was laying face up in her bed asleep, both George and I thought the same thing. Is she still breathing? It wasn't quite relief that she was still breathing. She is now a shadow of her former self. She is bony everywhere, she is in pain. She now has the rash around her mouth area which is a lack of nutrition. She still sits up at times, but there are no positives, no smiles. Her Christmas cards sat unopened. She does pull through to boss me around in small ways, that's how I know she has more life in her.

But if you power through a visit, and put on a protective shield to get through it, the shield has to come down, and I didn't realize I was putting up the shield. Yet it has been coming down the last few days and I fight feeling these sad morose feelings. We are waiting for her to die. We have been waiting for a long time now. She is suffering and we are suffering. I am burnt out. I visit less often especially with the girls out of school and when I do visit, it is tough. It takes a lot out of me to go. This has been going on for too long. Who knew she would hold on in this state. I really want her to let go. The pressure has been ongoing and seems like it will never end.

How long has this been going on? She was diagnosed in September 2010, which was fifteen months ago or 65 weeks or 456 days. Four hundred and fifty-six days of this hanging over our heads. No wonder, I'm burnt out. Her health actually began to decline in December 2009, starting with a case of shingles, unexplained anemia, and weight loss. It became obvious to George and her doctor that it was probably cancer but it took many months to diagnose.

Three other younger people in our community have died of cancer in the meantime. A forty three year old father of three, a fifty seven year old father of two, and an eight year old girl and they all battled the disease for about a year. Why does the seventy nine year old hang on? Her cancer was not as deadly? For two of the cases, I know the aggressive form of treatment is what took the toll on their bodies in the end. There was no aggressive treatment for GaGa because of her age and condition.

All I know is I feel sad, angry, and worn out emotionally. I'm going to leave this post here because I can't wrap this up with a bow. It is healthy for me to say this really sucks, period. I don't have to make anybody feel better. And that is what I usually do and I am learning that I have to break out of what I usually do.

It's Christmas and he looks like Jesus doesn't he?

I came across this on FB yesterday from one of my friends. It was SO timely. I had been knocking around some thoughts about someone I use to be close to and the thing that I do is try to figure out what I did wrong for them not to respond to me (because that has been my habit - it's always my fault, the codependency of I am responsible for your feelings) And at this point, I know there has been very little that I could have done "wrong". I know this for sure. And then I clicked on this seven minute video and heard within the first minute and a half what was going on. It's not about me.

This reminder was so important for me because a) this man's appearance and accent would have been completely off putting to me before. (But actually, he looks like Jesus, doesn't he!!) And b) I believe everything he is saying. I am so happy to be thinking out of the box, accepting someone's words who is different than me, lives in a foreign country and yet, I completely understand what he is saying. These are the lessons I have been learning and he summed some of them up well, (my impatient self did cringe when I saw that it was 7 minutes long- there is always more evolving for me) Acceptance is such a huge part of healing. Acceptance of myself and others. I have learned to accept many things that I did not like before and it is so freeing. I enjoy nature so much more. I go through interactions with people who use to cause me distress, and now there is none. I realize that I am not responsible for other people's feelings. This is huge!

What a wonderful Christmas message!