Is it just me? Or is everything busier and crazier than usual? There's that end-of-the-school-year feeling for one thing, a combination of burnout and spring fever. I'm pretty sure there's a full moon. Anyway, it feels like a good time to go easy.
Week 17
Mantra | Go Easy
Action (or Non-action) | Take One Thing Off Your To-Do List This Week
The Silver Lining
Here are some notes from my silver lining journal this week...
- We have a village. With Brian gone for the past 2 weeks, our amazing support system kicked in and we had so many offers for dinner and playdates and sitting, way more offers than we could accept! Thanks, village!! Thanks especially to the Green Bean, Bama, the Carrolls, the Hilt-Diehls, and the Blounts!
- Unexpected time to slow down is a gift. I had a client who forgot her session on Wed., allowing me an hour to check email and eat dinner between sessions! I usually have 7 straight clients from 2:30 on, and it's nice to have an unexpected break to put my feet up and enjoy my office space and some food.
- Grandparents are grand. Gavin got to see Bama (my mom) who came up on the bus and stayed for 2 nights. They have such a special relationship and don't get to spend enough time with each other. It's kinda nice when not-so-easy circumstances force an unexpected visit.
- Asking for help is life-affirming. Yes, I tend to take on way too much, and to do it alone. I have developed a really strong sense of having to do things myself if I want anything to get done. But times like the past two weeks push me to reach out for help when I normally wouldn't. It reminds me that asking for help invites positive energy into your life, and opens you up to all kinds of wonderful experiences and connections. Asking for help reminds you of the spirit of life and the oneness we share with all people and things!
- Bonding time with my son. Gavin and I felt really close to each other and bonded in a new way like a little team of 2. It was really something. I love that small fry.
- I am in love with my husband. Having a renewed feeling of "love at first sight" when Bri finally got home 14 days after he left. I opened the door and we both smiled from ear-to-ear like the lovestruck dreamers we were when we met. (Btw, how do refugees, immigrants, international volunteers, military people, etc. handle long distance marriage?)
- Wood is worth the wait. Brian found the engagement ring in London that I've been dreaming of for nearly 6 years! It's a simple wooden band ring. We looked all over and people thought we were nuts when we'd ask at street fairs and in jewelry shops! Then we finally found some but they were ridiculously expensive. Well, at the Camden Markets he discovered wooden bands and got me the most beautiful one that even fits my ring finger perfectly! I love it! I feel so grounded when I have wood against my skin.
- Making Peace with Sadness. I watched an episode of Parenthood online and there was a birth scene. You know the one. Where the fully-gowned mother is lying on her back with a strained and sweaty face and out pops a clean baby who immediately cries and then gets handed to the mother, who bonds instantaneously, adoring her baby who is surely about to nurse perfectly and will soon be whisked home for happily ever after. Well, after I had the birth experience that I had, I used to cry every time I saw any kind of birth moment, as ridiculously unrealistic as it might be, the very second that the baby is handed to the mother. It was more pain than I could take thinking about how Gavin did not have anything like that, but rather a quite traumatic and motherless experience. After a while, I think I started numbing my emotions about it, pretending I was getting over it, and that time was in fact healing some of that pain. I don't know how long it's been since I've watched a birth scene, or what my reaction was most recently, but it's been a really long time since I've felt the raw emotions of that pain in not giving my son that kind of start to his life. When I saw this show, with its 20 second birth scene, I cried so hard. It was good. It was sad. It was real. It's been a while since I let myself have those really deeply sad feelings about Gavin's first hours. And as I cried, I was able to make peace with the wisdom that sadness just is. And it can just be. And I don't have to change it or ignore it. And some things will be sad forever, and that's okay.
Week 16 | Find the Silver Lining | Keep a journal of finding hope amid difficulty
I am veering off-track from my original plan for this week. You see, Brian left for London for work early on the morning of the 10th. He is stuck there indefinitely because of the volcanic ash situation. Talk about an exercise in patience. The first blow when he called to say he couldn't leave last Thursday wasn't so bad. I thought about "keeping calm and carrying on" and just dealt with it a day at a time. But then the next call came letting me know that he might leave Monday. That's today. Didn't happen. He's booked on a flight for FRIDAY. But, guess what? I just saw on the news that the volcano is getting worse and I fear that he won't make it out this week.
It's going on 11 days apart and I can't stand it. The longest we've ever been apart since meeting 6 years ago was for about 11 days when his band went on tour a week and a half after we met. I couldn't stand it then either.
Brian's patience and sense of humor have been admirable. He's helping us stay calm and get through. He's the one who's stuck living in a hotel in a city he doesn't know with 4 days worth of clothes. We keep looking for the silver lining in all of this. Nothing profound to write just yet, but maybe it will come. So that's the theme this week.. silver linings.
If every cloud has a silver lining......
Wow.
Week 16
Mantra | Find the Silver Lining
Action | Keep a journal all week of finding hope amid difficulty
ps - Thanks for coming up tomorrow, Mom!!!
It's going on 11 days apart and I can't stand it. The longest we've ever been apart since meeting 6 years ago was for about 11 days when his band went on tour a week and a half after we met. I couldn't stand it then either.
Brian's patience and sense of humor have been admirable. He's helping us stay calm and get through. He's the one who's stuck living in a hotel in a city he doesn't know with 4 days worth of clothes. We keep looking for the silver lining in all of this. Nothing profound to write just yet, but maybe it will come. So that's the theme this week.. silver linings.
If every cloud has a silver lining......
Wow.
Week 16
Mantra | Find the Silver Lining
Action | Keep a journal all week of finding hope amid difficulty
ps - Thanks for coming up tomorrow, Mom!!!
Walk with Me!
If you're around Chicago, and you're interested in supporting the cause of raising awareness and money for preeclampsia, please join me and my family and friends in the Promise Walk by the lakefront on the morning of Sunday, May 23. If you sign up, our team is "+ Intention" and you can go directly to my page here. If the walk isn't your thing, no big deal! I also don't want anyone to feel pressured about giving money to this cause. But if you are someone whose charitable giving includes helping babies and women, then the cause of preeclampsia awareness and research is aligned well with your interests. "Globally, preeclampsia and other hypertensive disorders of pregnancy are a leading cause of maternal and infant illness and death. By conservative estimates, these disorders are responsible for 76,000 maternal and 500,000 infant deaths each year."-Preeclampsia Foundation
Time (The Revelator)
Just thinkin' about a song that I love. The first time I heard it Brian and I were at a bluegrass festival at Stern Grove in the Sunset District in San Francisco. It was a few years since I'd moved from SF to Chicago, and being at Stern Grove surrounded by the eucalyptus trees made me feel like myself. And there I was with the newfound love of my life in this magical place hearing this magical song for the first time. I love it. And I think it's fitting for this blog and what I'm trying to express and process here. Here ya go - Gillian Welch singing "Time (the Revelator)."
Week 15 | Forgive | Choose 1 Long-held Grievance to Work on
Hello out there! How have you been?
My husband left Saturday morning for London for a week for work. Instead of pitying my single parent experience and stressing over childcare for my evening job while he's gone, I thought I'd put some energy into my mindfulness work. I guess that was one over-arching thing that I did to work through negativity and resistance. I realize the actions that I choose for this blog are sometimes too vague for people who like structure and direction, so I'll try now to list some of the specific actions I took for last week:
After this past week, I've noticed that I am still holding onto some negative thoughts that I really need to let go of more so than I had been willing to admit to myself. Some are things that I have tried and tried to release. Others are things I am only now becoming fully aware of. A huge stumbling block to really being present / aware / positive is holding onto grievances. I'm not talking about grudges. It's a little different. Holding onto grievances is more like holding onto your own negative thought about something. Maybe something that didn't go your way, something that was out of your control or something that brought up a lot of negative emotions in you.
I may stick with this mantra for a while and use some of the actions listed here:
http://www.wikihow.com/Forgive
Please share your thoughts and even the grievances you choose to work on in the comment section. I haven't picked mine yet. But I will.
Week 15
Mantra | Forgive
Action | Choose 1 Long-held Grievance to Work on
My husband left Saturday morning for London for a week for work. Instead of pitying my single parent experience and stressing over childcare for my evening job while he's gone, I thought I'd put some energy into my mindfulness work. I guess that was one over-arching thing that I did to work through negativity and resistance. I realize the actions that I choose for this blog are sometimes too vague for people who like structure and direction, so I'll try now to list some of the specific actions I took for last week:
- When I felt myself having a negative thought, such as "Brian gets to go enjoy London while I'm stuck here with no break from work/parenting and no support." I would try to counter the thought with an immediate positive thought, such as "I am so lucky that he's willing to take on the primary childcare every single Tuesday and Wednesday night, often leaving work in the middle of a project in order to get to daycare by 6. He does this for me, allowing me to have a carefree mind as I go into super long work days at my practice. Not to mention a 2 night break from the whole bath time- bedtime challenge.
- I went to church on Sunday. Yes, I said it. I haven't gone to church for my own spiritual practice .. well, ever. Both my aunt and a friend told me about a progressive, liberal offshoot of the Unitarian Universalist religion, called Micah's Porch in Wicker Park. This was a really neat and sort of extreme practice for me to try for last week's mantra/action. I have some really strong negative thoughts about religion and I've struggled for many years to integrate my deep, inherent spirituality and longing for a spiritual community with the philosophical and cultural friction I have always felt with religion. So just going was a huge process of working through lots and lots of long-held negativity and resistance. This was just another moment in life in which I learned a great life lesson from my son. My child, who has difficulty with transitions, new things, being told what to do and when, and being separated from me without a great deal of prep work, was able to sit with me for two songs (played by the in-house band) and then when all of the kids got up to go to "Kids Church" one of the adults just said "Let's choo-choo" and he joined right in the train and walked out of the room, completely trusting the situation and opening himself up to the experience. What a kid.
- A general practice I try to use, and something that I help my clients learn to do, is to notice a negative thought and then examine it, looking at the feelings that the thought precedes and the evidence for the reality of the thought. (Let me know if you want me to email you a thought record. They're fantastic.) Looking for evidence is huge. Usually, when you have a negative thought, there is really no actual evidence that the thought is a true thing, other than just being a thought in your head. It really works like magic.
After this past week, I've noticed that I am still holding onto some negative thoughts that I really need to let go of more so than I had been willing to admit to myself. Some are things that I have tried and tried to release. Others are things I am only now becoming fully aware of. A huge stumbling block to really being present / aware / positive is holding onto grievances. I'm not talking about grudges. It's a little different. Holding onto grievances is more like holding onto your own negative thought about something. Maybe something that didn't go your way, something that was out of your control or something that brought up a lot of negative emotions in you.
I may stick with this mantra for a while and use some of the actions listed here:
http://www.wikihow.com/Forgive
Please share your thoughts and even the grievances you choose to work on in the comment section. I haven't picked mine yet. But I will.
Week 15
Mantra | Forgive
Action | Choose 1 Long-held Grievance to Work on
Week 14 | Open Yourself to the Universe | Work through Resistance & Negativity
Last week was really tough, and I owe the Preeclampsia Foundation another $10.
"Trust the universe" was certainly a meaningful mantra for the week as we endured a disheartening consultation with a new OB, some serious stress with Bri's job, and then a really awful stomach flu that tore through the whole family by the end of the week, leaving Bri and I to literally tag team between parenting the bathroom. It was the kind of week that tests every bit of patience and faith that you have. By Friday morning, just a couple hours before I realized I had caught the nasty bug that G brought home, we had such a frustrating, nearly impossible transition to daycare and I was super late to work, and I just lost it and yelled at him. Sick, stressed, spontaneous, headstrong mom + spirited, slow-to-adapt, intense, headstrong child = FAIL. Keep calm and carry on... I was able to do that a LOT this week in some really testing times, but I just lost it that morning and did not keep calm.
This commercial actually popped into my head on Friday morning.. Remember this?
Where does that leave me for this week? Still feeling pretty yUcK. Still needing to tap into some real strength and faith. Still lots of dangling issues from last week.
Many of you know that I really like the book, A New Earth. I've studied it off and on ever since my experience with HELLP, and it really resonates with my spirituality and general life philosophy. It's simple and profound at the same time. It just speaks to me. When I'm knee-deep in reading the book or watching videos I feel peaceful and centered. I am able to be aware and present more often and more quickly. As evidenced by Friday's low point, I can sometimes allow myself to be sucked into a pit of negative thinking when multiple stressors stack up. I was reading A New Earth yesterday and this passage was especially meaningful:
"Resistance is an inner contraction... You are closed. Whatever action you take in a state of inner resistance (which we could also call negativity) will create more outer resistance, and the universe will not be on your side; life will not be helpful. If the shutters are closed, the sunlight cannot come in. When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness which in a state of inner openness you become one with. Circumstances and people then become helpful, cooperative. Coincidences happen. If no action is possible, you rest in the peace and inner stillness that come with surrender. You rest in God."
I have lived this way, and know this to be true, which makes it especially frustrating when I am living with resistance, with negativity. (Mom, I hear your voice in my head right now... ) So...
Week 14
Mantra | Open Yourself to the Universe
Action | Work through Moments of Resistance & Negativity
"Trust the universe" was certainly a meaningful mantra for the week as we endured a disheartening consultation with a new OB, some serious stress with Bri's job, and then a really awful stomach flu that tore through the whole family by the end of the week, leaving Bri and I to literally tag team between parenting the bathroom. It was the kind of week that tests every bit of patience and faith that you have. By Friday morning, just a couple hours before I realized I had caught the nasty bug that G brought home, we had such a frustrating, nearly impossible transition to daycare and I was super late to work, and I just lost it and yelled at him. Sick, stressed, spontaneous, headstrong mom + spirited, slow-to-adapt, intense, headstrong child = FAIL. Keep calm and carry on... I was able to do that a LOT this week in some really testing times, but I just lost it that morning and did not keep calm.
This commercial actually popped into my head on Friday morning.. Remember this?
Where does that leave me for this week? Still feeling pretty yUcK. Still needing to tap into some real strength and faith. Still lots of dangling issues from last week.
Many of you know that I really like the book, A New Earth. I've studied it off and on ever since my experience with HELLP, and it really resonates with my spirituality and general life philosophy. It's simple and profound at the same time. It just speaks to me. When I'm knee-deep in reading the book or watching videos I feel peaceful and centered. I am able to be aware and present more often and more quickly. As evidenced by Friday's low point, I can sometimes allow myself to be sucked into a pit of negative thinking when multiple stressors stack up. I was reading A New Earth yesterday and this passage was especially meaningful:
"Resistance is an inner contraction... You are closed. Whatever action you take in a state of inner resistance (which we could also call negativity) will create more outer resistance, and the universe will not be on your side; life will not be helpful. If the shutters are closed, the sunlight cannot come in. When you yield internally, when you surrender, a new dimension of consciousness opens up. If action is possible or necessary, your action will be in alignment with the whole and supported by creative intelligence, the unconditioned consciousness which in a state of inner openness you become one with. Circumstances and people then become helpful, cooperative. Coincidences happen. If no action is possible, you rest in the peace and inner stillness that come with surrender. You rest in God."
I have lived this way, and know this to be true, which makes it especially frustrating when I am living with resistance, with negativity. (Mom, I hear your voice in my head right now... ) So...
Week 14
Mantra | Open Yourself to the Universe
Action | Work through Moments of Resistance & Negativity
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