Taking Care of the Self

So I'm sitting here getting ready to write something, feeling good, and then HD wakes up (he fell asleep with W) and all of a sudden I'm NOT feeling good, feeling like I have to stop what I'm doing because now I'm no longer in charge of me or my time.  And all of a sudden I feel angry and bitter and resentful and constricted.  And he says "Are you grumpy?" and I say "No" in a tone that really says yes, and he asks why and I say, well, what I just wrote above.  And he agrees that he is not in charge of his time and I totally flip out and close the laptop a bit to hard and say "Fine!  I'll just go to bed right now.  You're not in charge of your time so I don't deserve to be in charge of mine either.  You're ready to go to bed now so I have to be a good wife and go to bed with you." and I flop down on the bed and cover myself with sheets not very gently.  And he pauses with this look of incredulation and mouth kind of agape and says "WHAT is WRONG with you?  I just meant that I'm not in charge of my time right now because you're in here with the light on, but if you go somewhere else then I can do what I want, which is go to bed.  Get up and do what you want.  Geez."

So, um, yeah.  I have since moved to another room and will attempt to spill out/work through a theme that has become apparent to me over the past week, which apparently just erupted all over my bedroom.  :P  I'm setting the intention that what you just read was the breakTHROUGH and not just a breakDOWN.  That it has all been expelled from my consciousness, or maybe it will hang around just long enough to get on the screen and then will be released for eternity.  Yeah.  That's a good intention.  :)  And I'm choosing not to pick apart the above conversation (even though I totally could!) and just trust that what was said was what I needed to hear to get me to where I needed to be, and leave it at that.  ;)

L is 4.  She has, in recent weeks, refused to pretty much do anything that resembles taking care of her basic needs for herself.  She needs help getting dressed, serving herself food, finding her toys, and the most annoying of all, going to the bathroom and washing her hands.  Her pleas for me to "Help me wash my hands, mama!" led to the rather deep question (although it came out deeply annoyed): "Do you want me to help you or do it for you?  Because those are two different things."  (Ahh, big important insight there for me. . .)  Her answer: "Do it FOR me!" 

I absolutely believe that behind every behavior is a need, and I have had kids long enough to know that a lot of stuff is a phase and will disappear without any sort of "training", and that four is a year of discovering how big the world is and how small the child feels in it which often leads to increased requests for help and hopefully leads to the security that help will be there when it is needed, and brings the child back to a place where s/he would like to do it all alone again.  And then five tends to be about how the child knows EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING, thank you very much, and doesn't really need the parent in much of a capacity at all.  Unless everything DOESN'T go the way s/he expected. . . 

Anyway, so I'm not really concerned that I'll end up doing everything for her forever and she'll never try to do anything on her own again, mostly I'm just trying to make it through with what patience I have.  Which, at the moment, has been on the small side of nil.  The bathroom, especially, since it often results in her ignoring her need to go until the last moment and then I have to find her new pants and undies (oh, laundry), and when it comes time to wash her hands she gets interested in something else and wants me to keep waiting until she's done.  Um, no, I'm not cool with that. 

So we have this new behavior (needing me to help with, or do LOTS of stuff that she could do herself, for her) and this incredible, knee jerk anger, frustration, and desire to tear out my own hair that comes from me.  It finally occurred to me to stop and see what she could be mirroring for me, what it is that she is triggering in me that is causing this incredible, out-of-proportion with the actual issue, reaction from me.  I can't help her when I'm flipping out myself, so taking care of MY side of the issue is really the most effective place to start.  When I remember.  And I'm not sticking my fingers in my ears because I don't want to hear it. . .

The answer came last week, when I was working to get the outside animals taken care of so I could get dinner ready so I could sit down with my kids and watch the show "Touch" (LOVE that show!)  And I was outside scooping wet bedding out of the brooding room where the ducklings had once again splashed the majority of their water onto the wood chips and it reeked and I was taking care of it right then instead of waiting until tomorrow morning and it was 8:46 (Touch comes on at 9) and dinner would absolutely not be done, and I had spent a good couple hours just prior wasting time on facebook or something and I asked  out loud "WHY do I do this?  Why do I sabotage myself so that I can't do the things I want?  Why do I wait until the last minute and then I miss what I was looking forward to???"  And I groaned and sighed and finished up and made it in JUST as the show was starting.  And as soon as the first commercial came on and I headed upstairs to work on dinner, L sayid "I need to go potty!" so I grumbled and took her up and she keept saying "I don't want to miss Touch!" and I said, annoyed "Then hurry up!" and as soon as I wiped her, she layed down on the floor and started playing with her James train, continuing to say "I don't want to miss Touch!"  And as I washed my own hands I said "Well, you would be able to do the things you want if you would just DO what you need to do yourself instead of waiting for me to do it and getting distracted by the trai. . . ."  Oh, crap.  Um, yeah, that message was for me. 

Yep, truth be told, I'm not all that great at taking care of my own needs, either.  (I had to tell myself to just get up and go to the bathroom already instead of trying to hold it until I was done writing this. . .)  And gosh darn it, do I really need to wait for other people to give me permission, or help me, or do it for me?  Do I need to wait for someone else to say "Good job, I see you've been working very hard, go take a break!" or "You did all of your work!  Good girl!  Now you can go outside and play!" or  "Well, you've completed your obligatory assignments for today, now you can work on something just for the fun of it."  or "You look tired, why don't you rest for a bit?" or "I can see how your soul is suffering under the weight of these "shoulds" that have been piled on you.  I'll take them off and throw them away for you." ????  I don't NEED to wait for others or to get permission to do any of those things.  But I feel like I DO.  Deep down I really do.  And it keeps me frozen.  And you know what?  I'm sick of it.  And I'm ready to be done with it.   

My pattern is normally to ignore my needs, push them aside, until I hit crisis point and freak out.  And then I have to do all of this intense work that takes up a lot of time to get myself semi back on track.  And I look at that time and part of me feels like it was a waste and I feel guilty about it, so I keep on ignoring my needs because I JUST took care of them (sort of) so I shouldn't need to spend more time on me, until I hit crisis point again, and the cycle continues.  Today, while I was watering my seedlings that had been neglected for a few days while I was away, it occurred to me that they would die if I took care of them the way I take care of me.  They would have no chance.  They need regular, tender, nurturing care.  And so do I. 

So, some things I can do.  Journal, paint, or sketch daily.  Wait until the day has started and everyone is fed and I have worked towards something I TRULY want to do before getting on the computer.  Look myself in the eye in the mirror and tell me I love me.  Drink enough water and eat what my body is directing me to eat.  Get outside and not just when I'm feeding the animals.  Ooh, you know, when L asks me to take her to the bathroom, I could use that as a reminder to get present and focus on my breathing, even if it's only for a few seconds.  A few seconds of gathering myself up and being mindful is better than none!  Maybe that's what she's been trying to tell me all along.  <3  My four year-old zen master.  :)

How about you?  What can you do to take care of you better?  Little ways that you can water yourself instead of trying to recover after a drought?  I'd love to hear them if you're willing to share.  We can all use more possibilities in our lives.  <3

Birthing Children and Beyond

I had a dream the other night that HD and I were at this homey type medical center of sorts, and I realized I was pregnant and in labor. We asked them if we could hang out in one of their rooms, and let them know if we needed anything, and then I felt the familiar and exhilarating feeling of my body pushing without my input, and I went with it, and out slipped a 10+ lb boy, smooth as butter.

When I woke up I had that familiar, "Oh, I miss that!" feeling. Baby lust. Or rather birth and baby lust. Disappointment gently brought me down when I remembered that no, we had decided that we were done adding any biological children into our family and had taken permanent measures last spring. I know some people have post-vasectomy babies, but honestly I don't feel that that is in our future. I really am happy and peaceful with our family just as it is. But OH! The rush of birthing. . .

You may be thinking I'm completely insane here, with this talk of missing birthing. ;) I'll get to that later. What I realized later that day, as I was pondering this in the shower, is that I STILL have the opportunity to birth, just not children. In fact, I have many things inside me that WANT to be birthed, and I've been fighting them. It's terrifying, you know? Birthing something, especially something that feels really big, changes everything. Life as I know it will be different. Better? Quite possibly. But the fear is still there.

And I think that's what the dream was trying to tell me. I've done the terrified, fighting-every-minute-of-it birth. My first birth was a pitocin induced, anxiety ridden, force myself to the end type birth. I actually think W had tried to be born weeks earlier but I had refused to allow my body to let him out. Fear. Absolutely. So he was induced and there were points where I had my arms and legs and face clenched so hard that they would go numb and be stuck in one position, and my husband and doula would lovingly massage and help me relax. Points where I felt that my body was being ripped apart. I know the pitocin had a lot to do with it, but I also know that I was absolutely working against my body by tensing up. And because narcotics make me throw up constantly and the whole "needle in the back" thing freaks me out (and that I'm incredibly stubborn ;) ) I made it through with no pain meds. What helped the most was our amazing doula, who would bring my attention to places that I was tensing, and help me relax them. Honestly, I was so disconnected from my body at that point that I didn't even realize that I was doing it. She reassured me that what was happening was normal, that I COULD do it, that I WAS doing it, and that we were all really okay.

That's where I've been lately, with these things inside me that want to come out. I'm having this type of birthing experience. I allow things to come out a bit, and then I freeze, or close back down, or tense up. And I KNOW that doing that when giving birth to people increases pain. Exponentially. And I'm seeing how I'm doing that right now, and causing myself pain.

I drew this a few weeks ago in my journal, because words weren't able to express how I was feeling.



My second birth was much easier. I was more in tune with what my body was saying, and I was less afraid of what would happen once the baby came out. I WAS very afraid that she'd be overdue and the doctor would insist that we induce again. My water broke at home on her due date, labor started immediately, and in an hour and 15 minutes I was checked at the hospital and was 7 cm already. As I labored at the hospital I could hear the nurses whispering in disbelief that I was so quiet even without an epidural. I was listening to by body and breathing and staying on top of it with the help of HD and a very good friend. I kept waiting for the "body ripping apart" feeling and it never came. After another hour I was ready to push, but I was told I couldn't because the doctor wasn't there. So I sat on the bed, trying to be a good patient while my body pushed my daughter down for at least 20 minutes. She lost her cone head, I ended up with internal tears, and I lost my rhythm with my body. When the doctor did show up, I felt frantic and couldn't push effectively. On the squatting bar, on my back, nothing seemed to work until he said he'd have to cut me and I jumped back up onto the squatting bar (yes, there was laughter about how quickly I moved ;) ) and got her out with some external tearing. But, she was out! And I remember thinking, as he laid her hot, slippery body on my belly, "I LOVE this!" And then I met her and loved her too. ;)

So that birth is an example of knowing better how to follow my instincts, trust that I know what I need to do, but getting caught up in what OTHER people feel that I should do. Their rules and expectations and requirements that, in this case, mostly led to more pain when I followed them. It never occurred to me that I could say "Sorry, I'm pushing her out now with or without the doctor!" And a lot of the time, it doesn't occur to me that I can birth those other things in me in ways that aren't expected, that don't fit the norm, that come at times when others are unprepared even though it's the perfect time for me. Just because they don't realize it's right doesn't mean that it's wrong. Whew. That can be a hard one for me!

My last birth was incredibly peaceful and calm. Intense, yes, but only a bit painful, and I never felt out of control. She was 6 days late, apparently she wanted to hold out to be born in the spring. ;) We decided to have a homebirth since (among other things) the hospital had just gotten in the way and caused problems with the previous birth. I knew that my body knew what it was doing, and I trusted our midwife and her apprentice completely if either of our bodies would need help. I called the midwife around 6 am. For awhile I needed to walk THROUGH contractions to work with them (unlike I'd read/heard that I'd have to stop and focus on them), and then I sat on the toilet for awhile. I was able to feel things changing inside of me, the bag of water bulging through and then breaking, feel into each second by second as I marveled at how I was more present than I had ever been. So very, very cool. The apprentice got there around 7:45, checked me, and said I was 8 cm. Actually, I was complete at that time, but since the midwife wasn't there yet and I wasn't pushing, and the birth pool was too hot, she decided to lie to me. ;) (And I'm so glad that she did, because it allowed me to listen to when my body was ready to push, instead of panicking that I needed to push NOW because I was dilated to the "correct amount".) I stood in the birth pool, waiting for it to cool down, swaying and dipping and when I felt like I was going to loose my grip, breathing so deeply that I could feel the very edges of my body with my breath. Eventually the water cooled, and the midwife arrived, and I had the urge to push. And L came out, with both fists by her cheeks (that was the pain part ;) ), and I caught her. And then I sat back and we floated in the water for awhile. She was born around 8:45.

THIS is the type of birth that I dreamed about the other night. Where I know that I have the strength to do it, the support around me that I need, the TRUST that it is all working out how it needs to be, and no one around me telling me any differently. Completely empowered to help what is inside me move through and out in whatever way comes up within whatever time it happens. No judgement, just presence with what is happening NOW, knowing that what is happening now is okay and fine and perfectly where I need to be. Bliss.

This realization has helped me through the last few days. They have been incredibly emotionally intense, and stopping the "I need things to change so life can be easy!" voice and instead treating the waves of emotion moving through me as contractions, breathing deeply, focusing only on what is going on in my body, and at times feeling my very edges with my breath when I feel I might loose it, has really REALLY helped me through without screaming at my children and breaking things. ;)

After I understood what the dream was trying to tell me the other day, I decided I wanted to paint that birthing energy. I'd let out the resistance energy on paper, and I wanted to do the same for the other side of the spectrum. I also wanted to be able to look at the energy of how I want to move through this birthing of these not-children and remember. And this is what came out:



Painting it felt so good that I felt joy zing through my body at times. I am so incredibly awed and humbled to have played a part in its creation. It makes me smile just looking at it. And I want to do it again! I want to let that 10.5 lb baby boy slip out like butter, empowered and present and full of trust for each experience in each moment, no matter how intense or painful or untimely they may be. Just relax into them, knowing they are just right, are purposeful, and are taking me exactly where I need to be. WANT to be even.

Yeah. :)

This Blog

So after the post in December, I had all of these plans, all of these ideas, all of these images in my mind of what was going to happen with this blog now that I had declared myself ready to play big and be powerful and live my truth out loud. They mostly involved posting regularly, maybe even daily, because I have at least one blog that I follow where the author posts daily, and I love that I have something to look forward to from her every day. Never posting more than once per day, though, that seems needy and pushy. ;) I needed my blog to look like other blogs I respect and love and that inspire me deeply in order to be, well, those things I said I was going to be. ;) And then L got sick with a fever for five days, and she only wanted me to sit with her on the couch. I was able to get up and do things in about 15 minute increments- work on meals, clean up enough that we would have dishes and clothes for the next day, run to the bathroom- before she would start crying pitifully and heart-breakingly for me to come back and sit with her again. I COULD have brought the laptop to the couch with me, but in a stroke of pure and utter genius, I decided to just be present with her and myself as we sat there. Yes, five days was a lot of presence. ;) But WOW the stuff I felt come up and that I was able to work through! And, as I have noticed before when she has been really sick and I have focused on myself, each time I had a huge breakthrough, a huge shift, a huge releasing, she would appear to feel better for awhile. Like my releasing my stuff allowed her to release some of hers as well. And oh the joy at times, of just BEING with her, even though she was sick. Being TRULY with her. It filled my heart.

A few times as I was sitting there, it came to me that I wanted to write some more on the blog, mostly because I didn't want it to be another case of me doing something awesome and then hiding in fear. And I realized that this felt different. It felt more like peaceful contemplation than the terror I had experienced many, many other times. And it started to sink in that maybe my playing big and telling my truth can even have it's own timeline that doesn't have to match up with the timeline of others. Meaning maybe posting daily just isn't how I roll, and that there is nothing wrong with that at all. Maybe how I roll is more like a wave. I get to a place where I can share, where I have something TO share, and then I dip back down again, into myself, into silence, into what appears to be "bad" or "negative" or "undesirable", and then I come through it and am able to formulate words again, ready to share again, and the cycle repeats itself. And it's all good. :)

Also after posting in December, I went back and re-read all of my old posts. I saw my early struggle of what this blog WAS. At first I started out wanting it to be a place for me to record what we did, a kind of online scrapbook so I had documentation that we, well, DO something. But that felt very inauthentic to me. And then I decided to allow myself to post what I felt inspired to post, to follow where that led. And I think that I can now see where I am on that path. For now, at least, this blog is a place for me to share what is going on inside of me, the journeys I'm taking, the paths I'm walking, the truths I'm discovering inside of me. People have told me that reading my experiences helps them move through their own, which sometimes really amazes me, and I am humbled and grateful for the chance to hold a hand, hold a space of love, hold a light without even realizing it. But at the same time, it's not about getting others to change or do what I've done or believe what I say. I share because I feel this internal nudge, push, sometimes a size 14 EEE boot up the rear to let it out where others can read/hear it. Sometimes it's the writing itself that helps me process and get to where I need to be next. Sometimes I need to write it and put it where others can see you make it more REAL, make it matter more. There is this fear that comes with putting myself, my processes, my learnings out there. Especially when I am well aware that what I have just discovered to be true may well change in the next year, week, even second. I remind myself that I am not responsible for the reactions of others when they read what I write, I can only ever speak for myself, for my experiences.

I can never tell you what you should do, how you should feel, how you should think. Only you can know that. I can share MY truth with you, but I can't tell you what your truth is, only you can do that. My responsibility is putting my own truth out there. Your responsibility is deciding if it means anything to you, if it resonates with you, if it's worth your time to read what I write. If it is worth your time, awesome, I am so grateful to be walking with you for however long our paths cross. If it is not worth your time, that is equally awesome, and I am grateful to you for realizing that you need to move on, and that it is not my responsibility to change myself to be what you need. I send you love as you walk down your own perfect path.

I am finally realizing, after years and years of fighting it, trying to fit into the mold of "acceptable" to other people, trying to push away the parts of me that annoy others and "get me into trouble", that I can only ever truly be me. Even when I'm fighting it, I'm still me, I'm just tearing at myself, attempting to destroy and dismantle my own essence, until I get to nothing? I'd rather be me than nothing. There were points in my life where I felt that maybe it would have been better to be dead than be me, but I am grateful that I chose to give myself more time. I am learning to love this ME.

And I love me the most when I remember and really feel that I AM love. We are ALL love. When I marinate in the feeling that I am love, allow myself to really feel it even though the "Yeah, whatever"s and the "you're horrible!"s and all of the other arguments pop up, as I hear them and allow them to fall away, I am left in awe of me, and you, and all the amazing ways that love expresses through us, even though those ways may annoy or get us into trouble because others don't understand that it's love. When I can really hold that "I am love, you are love, we are ALL love", anything seems possible. And that's a lovely place to be.

How I've Jumped

Well, there has definitely been "jumping off" that has happened since my last post, although obviously keeping this blog updated was not one of those things. The biggest of those things was signing up and going through the first part of a certification course. What it's for isn't extremely important right now, I know it will come out later. The most important part is that this is something that has made my heart sing since the moment I heard about it, over a year ago. But my mind kept telling me how bad of an idea it was- it's expensive, and I don't deserve to have that much money spent on me. I've read judgements others have made about the people who subscribe to this type of thinking. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the certification once I have it. But it kept coming up again and again, my heart telling me more and more that this is the direction I need to go. And so, I signed up. And after each call I feel bubbly and jazzed and so RIGHT, that THIS is where I need to be. I still don't know what I'm going to do with it, and the thought of others judging me because they think they know what I believe and am going to say still bothers me, and I still am really not sure that I could charge people money to guide them through the new possibilities that I am both starting to understand and have understood for years but just kept telling myself I was crazy. But I took this first HUGE step, and I am sure that I am walking down the path I need to be, by following my heart. <3 Do you have anything like this, that you heart is calling you to ever so loudly and your head screams at you to turn away?

I don't understand this painting. As I was painting it, I kept hearing "Home". And it feels good. And maybe that's all I need sometimes, maybe all the time. The feeling in my heart that this is the way to go to get home to that love, to myself, even when my mind doesn't understand it, even for big, important, expensive things. Sometimes, maybe all the time, my heart knows better than my mind. :)

Having a Purpose

This post is a few months in the making. :) It was set in motion by a call I got from a lovely friend, who wanted to talk about a behavior her son frequently exhibits. He is autistic and seems to really enjoy shredding leaves. I didn't hear the phone ring, though, and she left a wonderful message, and at the end of the message she said that she just wanted to know that the leaf shredding had a purpose, but then she paused and questioned why she needed that. And at that moment I felt a zing. Both for her and for me, because feeling through that zing brought me to the realization that "lack of purpose" has been holding me back a lot in my life! That before I do anything, it needs to have a purpose. Or at least a purpose that others will recognize/accept so they won't accuse me of wasting my time. So many times I've had these strokes of inspiration about things I could create, but stop because they have no "purpose" (that I know of), no "acceptable outcome" other than the experience of creating, so I'll go into thinking how I can turn them into a product to be sold, and then I get overwhelmed by the whole selling aspect so I stop and never do anything. There are so many things that I feel so strongly in my heart that I need to do, that I need to create, but because the direction is coming from my heart (which speaks in feelings) and not my head (which speaks in words), if someone asks me WHY I am going to do or am doing something, I just have nothing to say. Which, as you can imagine, tends to go over real well with most parents and teachers. It isn't until recently that I've been feeling that it's okay to say "Because I feel like I need to", and most of the time I'm not even brave enough to say that. So I have a glorious, amazing feeling that is directing me towards something, and then I try to come up with justification that my head will accept, and I can't, so I do nothing. I just spin around and around and accomplish nothing other than suppressing what is trying to come through me and sticking with doing the "acceptable" things, like housework and cooking and doing things with my kids. Because, after all, I can't justify doing things that I WANT to do, that have no "value" when there are responsibilities to be done! But by the time I've finished those responsibilities, I have nothing left to create with. And then I start the next day over again at the same place, but feeling a bit more defeated every day.

So I was slowly feeling through this, paying attention to the ways in which I let a lack of purpose that others will understand stop me, when I was directed to a blog post by The Organic Sister entitled "Why Am I Choosing "Productive" over Actually Producing?" http://theorganicsister.com/productive-or-producing/ And WOW, there it was!

"Is this:

1. Feeding my soul,
2. Feeding my greater vision and purpose in this world, or
3. Feeding the souls of others?"

THAT'S the purpose that most matters. Not money, not power, not "looking good", not the "purposes" I THOUGHT I needed to assign to these urgings of my heart to make them okay. The purpose that matters most is being in the light, in the love, that allows me to feed my own SOUL, and if it feeds my soul, most likely it also feeds the souls of others, if only from the permission that comes from seeing someone else do for their own self what your heart yearns for you to do for yourself. And if just DOING what my heart urges, without knowing what will come out of it or if it will accomplish anything "worthwhile", if DOING it feeds my soul, then that's all I need to know! That's a purpose in and of itself!

And then I felt that tug again. My heart was communicating to me in sparks and swirls of joy. "How lovely to have those words as a reminder, right where you can see them. Go paint." And for just a second I stopped and looked at the dishes that needed to be done, the laundry that needed to be switched, the fact that I WAS about to go call my niece and wish her happy birthday. And then I took a deep breath and got out some paper, and my paints, and a jar full of water.

And an absolutely wonderful thing happened. I didn't like it, lol. It was too small, some of the letters bled together. . . it was nice, and it felt wonderful to paint it, but I WANTED to try again. And yes, that may not sound like a big deal, but it's been a big thing holding me back. What if I mess up and it looks awful? What if I waste materials and time and don't even like it? And I WANTED to try again, but not because of any judgements about how it wasn't good enough- I learned that I need to space my letters, and that I didn't like that background and that I wanted it bigger. It wasn't wasting at all, I learned through the experience of creating, and those materials were integral to the process of learning. :) I WANTED to try again, but not because anyone outside of me TOLD me I should (in fact my girls were oohing and aahing over it.) So I did try again, and this time I loved it. So I scanned it, and then I put it in a frame and sat it on the island in my kitchen.



This COULD be the end of this particular story, but in fact there is more. After I read the blog post, I commented on The Organic Sister's facebook page about how much I loved the post and how it encouraged me to birth the beautiful things that were trying to come through me. And she replied back that she hoped I'd share what I'd been birthing. Yes, zing again! So, after I scanned the painting, I sent Tara an email with the painting attached. And she replied back with lovely, positive words, and asked if she could share it on her facebook page with a link to my blog or something. Wow. I said yes, but could she wait until I blogged about it, because I really wanted to share the process that led to it's creation? She said yes.

So, you'd think I'd get right on that, wouldn't you? My stomach was all butterflies, I felt warm and loved. I reached out and did something outside of my comfort zone (shared a part of me with someone Important! and Famous! and much bigger than I have allowed myself to be!) and it went really, really well!

Well, if you look at the date on her post, and the date of this post, you can easily see that much time has passed. Being one who enjoys pondering (have you noticed that? lol) I sat with "Isn't it interesting, how I have been unable to blog about this and get back to her?" And one of the fears that came up that I was very aware of was that if I DID get back to her, then more people would be directed here. Which was scary because I've really been operating under the assumption (hope!) that very few people actually read my words. Which is kind of silly, I know. Why have a blog that you hope no one reads? But it felt safer that the only people who read here are people who know and love me already, so they will be more gentle and caring with any comments they may leave. It felt safer to be small.

The biggest thing I noticed from my pondering is that this has been a pattern in my life. I'll learn or do something awesome, stretch my experience boundaries a lot, people will respond positively, and then I'll go into hiding for awhile. I recognize now that, for me, doing this awesome thing outside of my comfort zone feels like being so filled with joy that I just run and run, feeling the wind blowing through my hair, feeling free and powerful, and I burst through some veil or curtain out to where people can see and there is applause and then I realize "HOLY CRAP I'm standing on thin air!!!" and my legs and arms are spinning in the air like a Loony Toons character, and I manage to get back behind the curtain and stay there for awhile, panting and shaking, eyes huge and panicked. Until finally I calm down and remember just how wonderful it felt out there, and decide to take a peek, and maybe try to edge down the cliff to that new place waiting out there.

Well, this time, after pondering and realizing what was going on, I have decided to run through the curtains and jump. I'm not sure what that will look like exactly, but I am ready to go. I am ready to play big. I am ready to be powerful. And I trust that, even when it is not comfortable, it will be exactly what I need. I am ready to live my truth and live it out loud. Wooooooo. Feels kind of breezy and teetery up here. But I am ready. So here I go. Anyone want to come with me?

Three. . .

Two. . .

One. . . .

WAAAAAAAAAA HOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! :D

The One In Which I Share Some Paintings

Getting to the point where I'm ready to share some of my paintings here has been a journey, one I'm still walking. :) Being afraid to put them, MYSELF, out there, possibly get negative feedback, possibly have people make assumptions about me, heck, even have positive feedback in which people say they want to buy a print (which has happened! And was both exhilarating and terrifying!). . . so much possibility, change, growth, and even more simmering there under the surface. . . Well, with some recent events I have finally realized, WHAT THE HECK AM I WAITING FOR?!?!?! Our time here is finite, how awful would it be to die and not even achieve my soul's purpose because I was too afraid to even start heading in that direction?

I have noticed, recently, this undercurrent of "I'm not old enough to do anything important". Wow. Working through that. It especially came clear when I heard on the radio that Pink is only one month older than me. WHY exactly is it that I'm not old enough? And how old IS old enough anyway? Crazy thoughts just trying to do their best to protect me, lol. :)

So anyway, here are a few that I have on this computer. I have more that I got scanned at Kinko's but require some photoshop work and since it's nearly 3 am I'm just going with these. :)



Consuming Fire

Yup, that's me in the middle of a fire being chased by a dog and crocodile. It's what came out one day when trying to paint while my kids were closing in around me and needing every last thing. Ahem.





Trapped





Rainbow Connection

There for awhile the song "Rainbow Connection" was stuck in my head big time. But thankfully Kermit is such a wonderful singer that it was nice. :) This painting came of that, and after I let it out, the song wasn't stuck in my head anymore! I may have to try that again, although I'm kind of afraid to find out what an "I Smell Sex and Candy" painting might look like. . .




Be Here Now

I painted this as a reminder to myself because, well, I need the reminder! I just love it too, the colors, the splashes, everything. :)

So those are a few, and sometime I'll share some more. :)

Hiding Behing My Kids

I've noticed how I do this recently. The big lightbulb moment came when I was thinking how we should get involved in our community more, and the idea of delivering Meals on Wheels popped into my head. My kids LOVE to talk, and have no idea that they shouldn't be friends with adults, so I thought it could be right up their alley. Lonely older person + cute kids who love to talk + food delivery= fun for everyone and brownie points for "doing good", right? Heh. It hit me that *I* was nowhere in the equation besides driving said children and food, and prepping it once we got to the house, if it needed to be. Deep deep down, I noticed a glimmer of fear about talking to people that we would be "helping". Afraid of interacting on a meaningful level, of truly looking them in the eye and "seeing" them. That's what my kids would be there for, to shield me from having to truly "be there" with the other person. Ouch.

Yeah, I've used them as a way to avoid having the possibility of opening up to others. It's easy when you get distracted and interrupted multiple times per conversation. Or when your kids are so busy you have to be right by their sides the whole time. Like when they were younger at the park. Yes, young kids need adults to be WITH them at the park, to pay attention to them and interact with them. But I can see how I also used that "needing to focus completely on my child/children, which is what GOOD parents do" as a way to NOT interact with the adults that were also there. If I keep my eyes constantly on my children I can't see the eyes of the other people around me. I was protecting myself from the possibility of communicating with other people by being hyper focused on my kids.

I also use them to protect me from the dangers of being early. ;) I don't know what it is, it's something I've explored but have yet to get to the bottom of, but I have this huge fear of being early. Exactly on time is kind of okay, late is better. I don't know why, it just is. I also have a lot of reluctance about getting going places. So I'll say "You have five minutes before we walk out the door!" but be completely unprepared myself. I'll go back to checking my email or something else unimportant that, truthfully, I'm just using as a stalling tactic to actually getting moving. And then we'll have one minute before we need to leave and I'll speed through everything I need to do to get going, rushing because "We need to leave, we're going to be late!" and it will be one minute past when we needed to be on the road and I'll tell them to get in the van, but no one has shoes on, or someone needs to go potty, or a crucial mission must be completed. So we find the shoes and the bladder is empty and the mission is won and we are now 10 minutes late (or more) and as we rush into wherever we're supposed to be I can say "Ugh! Potty emergencies at the last moment! Sorry!" and the blame is off of me and onto them. Ick. And that little part of me has a smug smile because it got what it wanted (the safety of being late) AND the focus got taken off of me and my incompetence! But oh, I don't JUST use them as a way out of interacting with others, or of avoiding blame.

It's interesting how, in some ways, I've used them as my excuse for not being with myself. No time to do what I want, I have three kids to take care of! Except sometimes there will be time when no one needs me, everyone is happily engaged in something, and I'll sit there staring at the computer. Or starting a chore that could probably wait, procrastinating what my heart is telling me it really wants to be doing- painting, or reading something meaningful, or meditating, or, or, or. And then I FINALLY get the nerve to start moving towards this thing that would feed ME, and immediately there is an emergency or a fight or someone needs assistance in the bathroom. And then I get all frustrated and start with the "I can never do what I want because they won't let me!", but there is a little part of me going "Whew! Dodged that one, didn't we!" That's the part that's afraid of doing what I want to do (Life is hard, you don't get to do everything (or anything) you want to do, that's selfish) that believes I'm not worthy (Look at everything that you need to do! You have not earned nurturing yourself you lazy scum!) that feels that *I* am dangerous and should stay away from myself because, after all, I just do everything wrong and I am not who I "should" be to be a good, acceptable, worthy person. *I* am despicable and dirty and disgusting and should stay as far away from myself as possible and become just the opposite of what I am. So these quiet, sharp, very persuasive voices stop me in my tracks, and then I blame my kids for them. The majority of the time, it's not my KIDS who won't let me do what I want to do, I'm stopping MYSELF from doing what I want to do.

It's been kind of fun just noticing when that happens. I don't even necessarily have to do anything about it, just see that it's there, notice with love how part of me is trying SO hard to protect me from myself. How sweet. :) Sometimes I get a good giggle about it. When I find myself struggling during my day to take care of them so I can do something *I* want, and it just keeps not working, it's helpful (when I remember) to ask "Do I REALLY want to do this thing? What is it that's holding me back?" and listen, and see, and accept. When something is going on on the outside and I'm really struggling with it, it normally indicates a struggle I'm having on the inside, that the outside experience arose because of the inside conflict. That doesn't mean I'm bad or lazy or "should just get off my butt and do it already!" Adding judgement to the mix doesn't help in the slightest. There's enough of that already going on- that's what's holding me back! What helps the most is noticing with love, seeing it there, and working with or around it. But I have to see it's there first, inside ME, not caused by my kids. Which, ultimately, is good, since the only person I truly can control is my own self!

Fun little voices they are sometimes, when I shine on them with love and the fear disappears. :) And then I can take responsibility for me and be more that "just a mom". When I notice the resistances to stepping into "Who I Really Am" instead of the roles I play, I also step into my own power and things get really fun! For all of us, my kids included. Because when I have the courage to be who I am, it makes it easier for them to stay who they really are too. Which is great because they are awesome people in little bodies! <3