"As Good As It Gets"

The activities of the last few weeks have been unbearably busy.  I have been feeling so uncomfortable with the pace of my life.  More often than not, I felt completely overwhelmed and all I could do was practice deep breathing over and over again.  Yet, I am a stay at home mom and this implies that I should have time to spare.  I think this in my own head, and others' have verbalized the same sentiments to me.  I need to change those awful thoughts in my own head that I am not enough and need to do more to in order to validate myself as a person.

Currently I am volunteering as:  a Girl Scout leader with weekly meetings for one daughter.  This takes more time than I had anticipated.  I'm also a member of children's council at church.  The girls' school semester thus far has been daunting,  I show up for all of my children's events including chapel skits, parent teacher conferences, class parties, field trips, student of the week activities, picking up from play rehearsal, pep squad practice, dance rehearsal, attend middle school football games and then the basic routine of homework, tests, and projects for a now fifth grade Middle Schooler and a Second grader whom both now have more academic responsibility.   And keeping up with medical needs such as speech therapy, eye exams, flu shots and now one needs an OT evaluation for help with her writing. And both of my daughters had fall birthdays...don't get me started on birthday party preparations or when animal control showed up twenty minutes before my eldest's birthday party to take our newest rescue dog to the slammer for nipping a girl on the leg.

This doesn't include all of the emails from teachers, coaches, theater directors and others to keep track of all of these activities, either.  And then the balance of regular life:  laundry, shopping, cooking, eating, cleaning, etc...  finances, house upkeep, etc, etc.

There isn't much time for bon bons.

Or Carolyn.

The last few years,  I finally said yes to very thoughtfully chosen activities for myself and for my children.  And this school semester, it has been draining. A few weeks in to the semester I thought, there is no groove here.  I can't get my bearings.   In my journey of healing which overwhelmingly fulfills me, there has been no time to think or to write, which I'm beginning to understand is how I process life. And then the ultimate was that I forgot to attend a play with a friend that I had arranged.  This was the moment when I decided that my weekly Girl Scout meetings which I was planning and leading were too much and I switched them to every other week.  I was mortified that I forgot to show up for the play which I was so excited about but immediately knew that...

TOO MUCH WAS GOING ON

AND SOMETHING HAD TO GIVE

A mind cannot handle constant input, and even better,  I don't want to do this to myself anymore!  My mind and body require rest and that includes during daytime hours, not just sleep.  I began forgetting not just events, but words in my vocabulary.  I crave silence and stillness and it renews me incredibly.  After a cathartic meltdown because I stopped long enough to process feelings that I had been too busy to entertain, I went to yoga today.  If was just a mediocre class but even that experience was FANTASTIC for my mind, body and soul.  I feel so calm as I finally have a day that I have no where I HAVE to be.  Now there is a multitude of tasks waiting but I have to take care of myself and it doesn't matter what other people think and that includes some in my own household.  My downtime is honoring myself.  It is also teaching my daughter's how to take care of themselves whether they understand it now or not.

I spoke to a few other moms about the pace of this semester and they were in whole hearted agreement with me, and they were relieved someone else was saying it out loud.  And then I thought,  why do we do this to ourselves?  Yet my kids really are not in that many activities.  The play WAS a big concentrated effort for a period of weeks, was wonderful and now it's over!  Starting a Girl Scout troop, well that is big.  I didn't know just how big.   Now I see the relief in my children as we have been able to come home after school and just have down time... and do homework and projects...

With the holidays coming, and even more jam packed scheduling, I thought, oh my, this is as good as it's going to get this semester, this madness. So, I am going to remember to reset my deep breathing reminder app on my phone and thoughtfully consider each activity and check on each member of the family as to how they are doing, including myself.  I have to say no if necessary.  It doesn't matter what everyone else is doing.  A stressed and numbed out mom cannot function nor adequately be present for myself or my family and that is what is most important to me.

Namaste.  This picture says it all.

All You Need Is Love...

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create.” John Lennon

I came across this quote yesterday.  I lived the first forty years motivated by fear and slowly I have been learning to operate out of love, bit by bit.  It's very slow intensive work to change the way my brain has been wired, the stories I tell myself about myself and my life but I am chipping away at it every day.  You also have to examine who is around you and what they are motivated by and is that helping you in your journey.

What does Resurrection really mean?

I taped a The Best of Oprah Show with Marianne Williamson.  It sat in my DVR for a while.  And then something pushed me to watch it.  I was about to delete and bam - out comes mention of resurrection.

Whaaaaat?

Marianne Williamson - new age spiritual guru mentions resurrection?  (My idea of who she is does not fit in with this but....I am wrong!)

And yet this is the BEST kind of resurrection I have heard of!

My religious baggage makes me so uncomfortable about "Jesus" talk or what I would call old school bible teachings.  This would include talk of blood, sin, calvary, Armageddon, the devil, to name just a few topics off the top of my head.  In this type of Bible teaching,  I heard judgement, judgement, judgement.  I have been judging myself unmercifully for forty-five years, I do not need any more talk of telling me what is wrong with myself.  I need to hear what is right.  I need to hear that God made me perfect as I am.  And that is the divine within.  Recognizing the divine within, the gig is up, it is all about LOVE.

ALL ABOUT LOVE!

Yes, I was screaming that.

Now back to Marianne on my DVR, she is saying a lot that is making so much sense but then I catch this little bit that blows me away:  "The meaning of the word resurrection is the mind lifting up into a new kind of thinking."  She speaks of the Grace of God and that grace allowing us to switch from the victim modality, "this is so terrible" (and for me, I'll never get over this, whatever this is) to one of healing ourselves.   Changing the track that our brain and mind usually play out.

A new kind of thinking.

Yes, she's talking about mindfulness. My favorite subject.  {smile}

Jesus wasn't trying to judge us.  He was trying to show us how to love.  Love ourselves and each other.  During the process of learning to love myself, I just naturally love others in the process, even those who drive me crazy.   When you feel that spark of divine within, you are drawn to give it away.

Somehow I listened to that little intuition that I needed to watch that show.  I needed to hear this.  This idea of resurrection changes not just the track of my brain but it confirms the changes that I'm made in the track of my life.  It reconfirms so many lessons.  So many different people from different walks of life but saying the same idea, in different language, in different ways.

Namaste!

My Inner Frankie Heck Is Taken Over By My Inner Theatre Goddess...And In the End It's All About Soul

This morning, I felt myself channeling my inner Frankie Heck, the barely getting by mom from "The Middle."  We have been on a Middle marathon and I have absorbed the essential quirks of each character.  I now repeat things to myself dropping my chin to my chest and whispering words a la Brick.  And then laugh hilariously at myself.  That laughter feels so good because I have not acclimated to this crazy school year.

Back to Frankie.  Two days ago, Mallory's velcro tennis shoe strap broke.  Her father, the surgeon sewed it and then the next day it broke again.  We lucked out because she had free dress at school the following day.  She wore her brand new mandatory dress leather shoes.  I was informed by her teacher that the leather strap had broken off these shoes during the day as well.  As Mallory has play practice every day after school there is no time for shoe shopping and she has no other shoes to wear to school, at all.  

So, this morning we are driving to school.  George had permanently sewed the strap to the other side as the velcro piece is now missing.  I implored Mallory that these shoes have to last through school today and then... One More Day until we can go shopping Saturday morning.  At that moment, my inner theater goddess rose above my inner Frankie Heck, and the Les Mis song, "One Day More" popped in my head.  

So I HAD to play it for the girls and of course, it's on the hard drive in my car.  It goes like this... You MUST push the Play button to read the rest.

The girls are now mortified when I began singing in the car.  And that makes me want to sing louder.  They now implore me to turn it down before the car doors are opened in carpool.  I say, "You're welcome because the song will be stuck  in your head the rest of the day."

They depart and I drive through the rest of the campus and turn it on full blast.  I open the windows because it is a fabulously crisp morning.  I sing all the short way home (or at least the words I know because it's a lot of dialogue.)  {smile}  There is something about Les Miserables.   I've seen the show many times, ranging from a Toronto production to The Dunham School to the movie theatre screening of the 25th Anniversary Production in London.  

Who knew a story about prison, prostitutes, and war set in 19th century France could have such an impact on me.  Yet, the meaning of the story is all about God's love for people on the fringe.  

Here is author Victor Hugo's summation of his own book:

The book which the reader has before him at this moment is, from one end to the other, in its entirety and details ... a progress from evil to good, from injustice to justice, from falsehood to truth, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, from corruption to life; from bestiality to duty, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. The starting point: matter, destination: the soul. The hydra at the beginning, the angel at the end.

And in the end, it's all about the light and the dark, (LOVE) and God within our soul.

Ahh, I guess that's why I was drawn to it.  





This is Bonus video above.  It's the 25th Anniversary of Les Mis in London.  The first singer is Colm Wilkinson and he originated Jean Valjean in London.  I dug in my playbills to see that I saw him perform as Phantom in Toronto.   His voice stayed with me!  He sings simple exquisitely.  Every time I watch this I get chills and depending on my mood, a few tears. It's just perfection.  In the 2012 Les Miserables movie, he plays the Bishop who takes Jean Valjean in.

Letting Go of Victimhood

When faced with something that brings up discomfort inside of them, most people spend their energy on reacting, blaming, fixing or running away. But this never heals anything in the long run. It is a gigantic leap in your awakening when you realize that your suffering does not come from what is happening in your life. Suffering comes from your stories about what is happening. People who have gone through great suffering and emerged empowered did so because they were able to see through the stories of victimhood and instead showed up for what Life was giving them.
~ Mary O'Malley

Once more Mary strikes again.  Love this!  I have experienced this.  I believe this.

Sara Bareilles: Brave

This song is so good it makes me want to cry.  I love the words and I love the music!  It makes me think of Brene Brown too!

My Lesson On Anger from "Pretty Woman"

There's a scene in "Pretty Woman" where Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are in the bathtub and she has her legs wrapped around him.  He says the line that he spent ten thousand dollars in therapy to be able to say and that was "I was very angry at my father."

I took note of that line back in 1990 when the movie came out and it has stuck with me ever since. It would come up whenever I got angry at anyone or anything.  And I would spend many seconds emphasizing the word angry.  It would go like this. " I was very ANNNNGGGGRY."   In the last fews days, I was very ANGRY at someone.  And the anger turned to tears and I had a couple of sessions of ugly cries and then anger and back and forth over the last few days.  I really understand why people stick with their compulsions because the journey to heal is not for wussies.

But an aha has been coming about my anger.  I never really owned it.  Sure, I would rant and rave over the injustice of whoever or whatever it was but deep down...

I didn't think I deserved to be angry.

It was a mental mind game.  But I did deserve to be angry, I just had to detangle from the stories I have told myself that I am not worthy.   And separate and get some clarity from other people's stories that involved me.

As I'm allowing these feelings to work through, I pick up "The Artist's Way" (written by Julia Cameron) which is the workshop I'm taking this semester at church.  This is Chapter 3 which was my designated chapter to read this week.

Picking up this book and this chapter to read was God's hug for me.  I needed one and he gave it to me in this form and I'm grateful.

What stands out are the words....of the ENTIRE three paragraphs above.  I'm a people pleasing "nice" person, so I stuffed my anger, denied it, buried, blocked and hid it, etc.  But anger is there to show me my boundaries.  Again and again, it shows me my boundaries.

The last paragraph on anger:
"Sloth, apathy and despair are the enemy.  Anger is not.  Anger is our friend.  Not a nice friend.  Not a gentle friend.  But a very, very loyal friend.  It will always tell us when we have been betrayed. It will always tell us when we have betrayed ourselves.  It will always tell us that it is time to act in our own best interests.     Anger is not the action itself.  It is action's invitation."

There is a reason that the line from a movie in 1990 stuck with me.  Anger is my friend and I am worthy to listen to it and use it appropriately.