#becoming – Page 26 – The Emotional Alchemist

July 22, 2018July 24, 2018

It’s the stories that we tell

*I’m just here doing my favorite thing. Well one of many favorite things. Blogging in the bath. It’s 6 am on a Sunday. This is a very special Sunday. I just called Jill the “sperm lady” to thaw our donor D18310. I’ll never forget that number, just like I still know my (and many of my friends actually) childhood phone number. 541-772-7541.

Last night we did the trigger shot at 9 pm and toasted with champagne that my wife had bought for our first try. The bottle is adorable, and she brought me flowers. I am truly blessed.

This blog post was inspired by me reflecting on our journey during the first iui (intrauterine insemination), and our reconnecting in the days following the negative pregnancy test. My wife was so sure this first time she was pregnant. I have come to believe her intuition to a fault, because this love is truly magic. Her particular magic is kindness and a joy for living. She is never negative, unkind, or sarcastic. She’s still human and we were crushed on the morning of her sister’s wedding, when she began to bleed.

Every step of the way of your first iui is new and therefore commands every ounce of presence. It was as if we sat and stared at her stomach long enough and did nothing else we could conjure the baby into life no matter what. And that is how I could describe our attention for the first round.

I remember reading the tutorial for her ovidrel injection (trigger shot that makes you ovulate right when they need). We got a tiny bit snappy with one another which is so rare. I was all business and commanding left and right, she had been begging for my attention all night, and I had missed the signs. I have come to recognize when we do get a little short with one another as a flag for a need, rather than a threat. That in and of itself is a beautiful thing. I slowed down, apologized, and arrived by her side.

It turns out we were nervous because we care so much. Go figure. Because this all matters so much to both of us. Which is a great place to find yourself. “I haven’t doubted things for even one moment”, she said to me on our one year anniversary just a few days ago. Our getting married quickly, and in the way that felt best for us, and blending into a ready made family. She was able to admit all along she was nervous. She had never even done babysitting when she was young she would say. Two tours in Iraq with the United States Army had nothing on this adventure.

My wife is by nature incredibly shy, and often she gets that trait confused with a lack of bravery. It is my moral imperative to show her everyday how wrong she is on this. And she is rarely wrong. My wife is one of the bravest women I know. I don’t think I could do it. Go into a whole family, with all their scars and as an empath, not take on their stress rather than holding it warmly until it all melts into love. She has melted all of my painful parts into warm molten love.

Safe love is healing. Generous love is healing. Our love is healing me every single day. And the love of my children always encouraging me to become a better parent, it’s beauty inspired me always, is the reason we are all here taking this journey now.

Our family has safe and healthy love to share with as many as we can, and especially with this new little life that will hopefully be conceived today/tomorrow.

So the past couple of days my wife and I reconnected in our love. We picked our heads up from the daily grindstone and found one another’s gaze like we did so much more often in those beginning days. And I swear our love grew 10,000 times in a single moment, AGAIN! How big can it get? My heart might explode.

And this left me reflecting on two very important things on this very important day.

First, I ended up writing in my morning pages that I think the first failed iui was a blessing. Yes a blessing. How to succeed by failing is a writing assignment in my write into light course, and now I do this by habit. What I found is that it gave us even more clarity on several things, mainly of which is how much we want this baby. It gave us the opportunity to be graceful in the face of some powerful emotions, it made our love stronger, not more strained as everything warns about this process. And I know that if it takes years, and much more of an invasive process that it can be harder, but I also know we will love each other well through the whole thing, which is what we are on this earth for. To experience a love like this…

Second. We want this baby, and the ones we already have more than any other choice of how to spend a life. We are both on that page. We are not having a baby to save a marriage, to distract from something, to create something we never had. We are having a baby because of safe and healthy love. I was brought into this world so differently. The anticipation of me was the polar opposite of this. And perhaps only because of that awareness, I am able to feel every beat of the heart of this love now.

I am grateful every second. Speaking of being grateful, the bathroom cabinet fell off the wall and just scared the wits out of me. A blog post and pics to follow, but we are all so lucky no one was sitting on the toilet when this happened. I laughed (probably shock) that something like this would happen just as I was having such emotional clarity and peace. Curveballs my friend. I guess the bathroom did need another good remodeling :/

July 20, 2018July 20, 2018

Into the great wide open

I am in, an in-between right now. A waiting period we could call it perhaps, waiting for many things and also wanting for nothing. I think I am better at chaos, because perhaps then I can always feel productive/ important in some profound way. Karpman says, “it’s the situations we could call ourselves victims in, that we need to goad our creativity into action.” At least that’s my interpretation of his drama triangle that I’ve been working on in my life / practice lately.

It is more difficult to find peace in the stillness, for me at least. This is what happens when you have a desperate need or want based on a theory. Life inevitably hands it to you, so that you can see it’s different than you imagined. And back to the drawing board.

My wife and I are trying to have a baby. As usual I am skipping steps. Where are my blog posts about this process, my detailed chronicles of each step? I’ve already moved light years beyond those also. What is meant to be of this frenzied pace that is more natural to me than breathing oxygen? I have shifted from wanting to change and cut off my innate qualities, to accepting them, but also wanting to know (quickly of course) what they all mean.

Since we are trying to have a baby, and already have 3 large ones, and two fur babies, it makes sense that I am foreshadowing about any career moves. I already love my practice and my clients, so why am I already thinking of expanding, in a way that isn’t about my writing. Ie perhaps working at a college to help the kids pay for school.

We want a life that is our own. And right now we are slave to the necessity of good health benefits, a pension (prison), and a false prophet of stability that these things represent. Now don’t get me wrong I am grateful. This baby would not be without good health coverage. But as is typical of me what about after we have him/her/them?

The worst part of this dispatcher job is the grueling schedule that grates away at our emotional well-being. My wife works 7-3 one week, with an hour commute each way (and more when there is traffic), and the next week she works 3-11. So in short if we begin and end our days together as our love begs us to do, our sleep wake cycle one week is 1-2 am bedtime, 8-9 am wake, and then 9-10 pm bed time and 5-6 am wake. This also doesn’t include the fancy frenchie that has itchy fits and wakes up for a 4 am potty.

We joke that at least we are ready for the baby. We don’t scratch or claw at one another under these demands, but there are other downsides. My wife being chronically tired, and then hard on herself to boot, being one of them. My body is so attuned to hers that I feel it’s hardly a choice that I align with hers, even though my schedule does not. There is no choice when it comes to my love for her, I choose to spend my time with her. Does this mean that my writing won’t happen then? Can I do “it all”?

Would the grass necessarily be greener though.? It seems in life often you just trade one stress for another. It can’t be all that hard right ?! If only one of us worked and the other tended the children and home there might be a whole different stress. Resentment perhaps ? God I hope not, that is the 7th circle of hell that I lived in most of my past relationships. Financial stress? Nothing seems worth that.

So this morning in my pages writing I started to draft out equations. The first I wrote was that: whenever the focus is money, passion is killed. Then I attempted to reframe to: passion invites money. Written in mathematical formula:

$ =/ passion (couldn’t find the equal with a slash symbol.

Passion = money

Except that’s not at all what we are told. We are told about starving artists and stability. No wonder everyone is so confused. We are told that passion is frivolous. And indeed I had no room for any of my passions while food was needed on the table.

I am one of those rare people that has found a career that turns her passion into money also. But that only began at about 35 years old. That means I’ve been broke and struggling the better half of my young life. And no one wants that for their children.

My dreams currently, as intentions placed in the warm and loving hands of the universe. I am picturing Te Fiti here, when she holds Moana and Maui on her hand and gives them their “reward”, Maui his magic hook, and Moana a beautiful boat to travel home in.

My wife and I want a life where we have a home like in the movie The Family Stone. Picture a two story home, with staircases and railings. High ceilings and a fire place. The smell of wood and food baking in the oven. The sounds of laughter from friends and family. A home that you lay memories down in. Maybe that will be this home just as easily and we don’t know it yet. Because not living above our means to try and reach a dream, that we don’t know how it will actually feel anyway.

Can you have too many dreams? My head immediately shakes, no. But the shackles of reality argue.

We want a life where time together is our biggest priority. Where we can sit and read and craft and pursue each our passions. Where we can be near nature, land and water. Where we can feel alive and sacred.

We are having dreams of more than a 9-5 (ha if only). We want to see and do things, but doesn’t that require money?

And all the while in the back of my head I keep thinking the way is to trust my gift of writing and keep going. Except I keep trying to abandon it for stability, and not believing in my magic. I get more glimpses daily, but then it feels too dream like, and I collapse back into routine.

If all my dreams really have come true already…

I truly am rich beyond imagination.

Why is it always swiftly onto the next?

My guess is that passion drives this force of nature and something is meant by it. But what?! I want to know now ! I am always in a rush, even after I’ve crossed the finish line, I can see now that I just keep running.

I’d bet on that I’m always going to have more questions than answers, because for me being more curious than afraid never felt like a choice.

It feels like destiny….

July 8, 2018

The angry ex club post process: the conclusion …

*from left to right in the picture: my gorgeous wife, myself, my son (biological), twin B, their father behind them, my other son (“adopted”), twin A, and my other son’s mother, a warrior of a woman who has taught me a lot.

And now the epiphany out of that storm of self inflicted suffering. I am taking a light writing course from Martha Beck. Elizabeth Gilbert is also participating and they have been sharing life changing talks together. The process of light writer is to go deeply into the painful thing, sit with what’s in there, and come out the other side with a healthier (lighter) view of things.

Yesterday something felt dangerous. Made me feel so angry and wrapped up in those feelings. Intense dark feelings. It was the feeling of my lovers scorned congregating and making small comments to shame my character in front of my son. The energy of it all whether it was spoken or not. That felt terrifying to me. My ex husband learning or becoming close to people I had once been very close to felt threatening. Discomfort. In earlier times these feelings could easily have whipped themselves into a frenzied storm lending me to lash out to all who violated me.

Instead I sat with the feelings. Talked and walked. And then last night after a special wedding event that turned out fantastic, my son and I had a deep conversation. It probably was the wedding itself, that made us all feel so close and able to have that happen. He came into the bedroom, my wife and were in bed, and he cuddled and talked. The second he brought up spending time with the three I began to prickle with fear of how the conversation might go.

Deeply insightful my young man is and he began to unravel some things he recognized. Now here is the fear part. I’m such an open book, and one of the hardest parts is knowing what to filter. I said some of my truths and he got very quiet and a noticed a tear trickle down the side of his voice. So covertly I could have not noticed. Could have gone to bed and let it be. We were all oh so tired.

Instead I asked: and he resisted. He knew what he had to say could make me upset. Like me he always thinks ten steps ahead when it comes to someone’s feelings. But I pushed as I knew it needed to happen. The break needed to happen. Breaks are so often more the through variety than the down variety, and we rarely trust in this and know this gift.

He began to sob and was overcome by empathy for my situation and made himself the perpetrator in the scenario. He was so sorry that he had done any possible thing to be disloyal or participate with people who don’t respect me, because he loves me so much. He just kept apologizing. And of course I froze in terror. I had said to much. I did the wrong thing. Here was my son taking responsibility for my very big feelings, and I had caused that. The temptation to self loathe begins.

This is where my wife steps in and is that translator for me. She says the things that fear freezes. She and I were comforting. Myself with holding physically because my mind was racing to all the fearful places. And her with gentle words. Helping him see how heavy it would be to try and take on all feelings for all adults. How he must release himself from that obligation for it is too much for anyone.

He sobbed and sobbed and I feared and feared. Feared he was not ok, and boy have I done it so wrong. Every worst fear snarled and bit. The best I can do during those times is stay still and wait so I can learn.

He had an amazingly hard cry. And what is our model for such catharsis? Oh my god there’s something wrong! It shouldn’t be that way. Being in the presence of such raw emotion coming from your child weaves a tale that sometimes isn’t true. This is why I am sharing this story. People are terribly uncomfortable with what they do not understand, and they tell a story about a situation that makes sense. They forge a scaffolding that reduces their discomfort, and sadly also blocks and covers the possibility for truth to rise out of this situation.

As my son began to calm down, and his thoughts became more clear and realistic, it was like seeing someone who has been released from prison after ten long years. He was light and joyful, and all of his thoughts opened up to him. And all that fear and pain went with the shed tears. What was left over: was light and love.

We cannot be afraid of our children’s big feelings. We must embrace all of it. Their fears also. It does not mean we aren’t doing a good job when they cry. For me watching this, once the grips of my terror let go of me, I could see and hear that he needed that cry. He is very articulate and was able to tell me. But as parents we must learn how to see this, the need for it, without being told.

We became unburdened of our tales woven together with fear fabric. And the after is where closeness exists. This is why and how to find closeness that we are starving for. It’s by sitting in the feelings, and waiting for the catharsis that they are meant to achieve. If we cut things off at the feelings we do a great disservice.

After we had the most amazing conversation filled with understanding, compassion, and love. I broke into all of my fears about my exes adjourning. I realized outside of fear, rejection, and especially ego. What exists is that I just want them to have the same amount of happy that I have found. I want them to be happy and not stuck in repeating stories or patterns that don’t serve them.

I am able to let go of the fears my son will be influenced by their energy, or that anyone could hold the power to effect my relationship with my children except me. This one is huge for me. Our connection is not an easily breakable thing, the way that most of mine have been. I found me using a template too for the world. And that one has so much fear of loss.

Last night I saw how much my son loves me and looks up to me, and how close we are. And I am able to realize that I built that. When children are young they give blindly and can be really harmed in this way. I was always afraid I was the mom that was given to me. Now I am able to realize the gift she gave is that having seen all that I did, I was given the awareness I needed to know the choices before me.

That awareness has sometimes felt like a curse as I fumbled through the dark wood of error most of the first half of my life. My kids know and have felt that fear filled mother who seemed off in her own world trying to find her way out of hell.

I know their lives have been influenced by this. I am keenly aware. But I am no longer afraid that this is the worst possible life they could have had. That is an old story, that was my story at another time.

I am happy to say it no longer is, and it was never theirs. That has taken every ounce of my soul to not recreate in pattern. Making subconscious conscious, and working my way through. And do you know how it shows ? It shows through in their character. My children are so much more than good grades and politely polished.

My children are going to know the courage to pursue lives that feel like their own creation. My children know how to connect deeply with others. My children will never have to wonder if their mother truly loves them. My children have a mother that will help them learn to love themselves, and not just pursue some idea of success based on society.

I will ask my children how they feel, and not tell them how they should. I will strive for this always. I am enough. I am not where I came from, but the more that I live I am grateful for my beginning. There is no other choice. I couldn’t be who I am today without it.

In two short (long) days I am free of the prison of those emotions of all those stories I could have kept. I have no more anger for ex partners. I only wish them light and love. After all who am I to judge their path and what they need to find their own forgiveness and forward motion. Maybe what they are doing is exactly what they need.

July 7, 2018July 9, 2018

Singing the blues about ex partners that refuse to move on.

I’m extremely moody today. This is your warning. And even as I write this I am telling myself “shouldn’t this be in a journal Christina and not a blog”, nobody wants to see some unfinished drivel centered around your emotions. Of course the meanest possible way I could take the light and love bestowed upon me by other light writers. I’ve always been good at continuing where “they” left off.

The skies aren’t all dark today. In fact externally yesterdays storm and rain broke the humidity streak. It’s clear blue skies and thin and gentle warm air. The perfect weather for a back yard bbq wedding. My wife’s twin sister is getting married. And despite all the confusion around setting it up. How casual to be? Etc. I truly think a good time will be had by all.

We had our second negative pregnancy test this am. Yes we did what is always advised against and tested a few days early. Because we still don’t know. This is a learning process for us. We are no experts, and definitely not immune to human excitement, curiosity, and premature anything. Because logic no matter how necessary does not always win out over emotion. At best a good balance can be hoped for. But nothing can prepare you for something like this. The day we are supposed to test is the 9th, so we wait until then for either a big twist (a positive), or a confirmation of what is already expected. Knowing full well we have no control. Update: she got her period today, of all days. We will be onto round 2 of IUI.

I don’t know about anyone else, but when strong emotions are present and anything feels very big, it always seems to invite some unwanted things with it. Is this accidental? Intentional? Meant to keep things in perspective? I don’t know.

There was a convening of my angry ex club yesterday. My ex-husband, and more importantly the father of my children is the president. This one included my son, which made it feel extra uncomfortable. I try and stay enlightened and mature about the whole thing. To ask myself if something does come up for me: why it is there and what is it telling me I need to work on. I try to use a lens of compassion. And when all else fails…

I walk. The best antidote for that nervous energy. The stuff where you feel your insides are twisting and nauseated. Where you feel the emotions taking hold, and that you may blow your top at any moment. And usually at the wrong people and at the wrong time. The fallout from this has been enough for me to sit on feelings, when everything in me wants to explode. Instead I walk and I talk to a trusted friend who has known me for years. Headphones and sneakers, beating my frustrations into the pavement.

I write. The second step in my process of unearthing negative emotions and seeking catharsis. Needing that deeper understanding of self always. Needing not to land on an unfavorable conclusion, even under these circumstances.

Something about three people who have known me intimately, (and yet still processed me through their lens and world view), all hanging out together makes my skin crawl. Three victims all united by their abuse playing together with glee.

And all the “shoulds in life. I should be so enlightened and focused on my own happiness that it shouldn’t even bother me. Why should it feel like such an invasion? My mind fights back against worrying what scorned exes think of me and why. Is it because I never needed to think them bad people of our ending. That for me it was a bad fit for one reason or another. So why must they claim character flaw of me? And even a more important question, “why do I care despite knowing the full truth of this behavior.”

The first reason, incorrect sexuality despite the many tries at anything possible to change that. The second, a person whose triggers lie in mine and vice versa, the very circumstances were triggering. A family life with the kids and I was not their intended path, despite how we could comfort one another’s hurt parts in a moment. The chemical was seductive, but how it played out in relationship was in very unhealthy interactions. The third, the least healthy of them all. A rebound played out far too quickly. My attempt at my pattern again, and this time knowing better, being honest right away, but being naive to how honest they were with themselves. A totally different game.

Outside the wake of all of this my healthy self, and therefore relationship emerged. A partner who was gentle and kind, but also strong and solid as a person. A soft confidence. An earnest communication without manipulation. A whole new world. Emotionally attuned and stable. It felt impossible at first. I looked for every possible way I could be wrong again, but finally no red flags were found.

We are all healing in this home. Healing from love and loss. And K and A are red hot raw spots for me. So naturally I would want for them to convene with an ex husband that both of them talked poorly about while in relationship with me. If you’re thinking muddy waters. You would be correct? What could possibly be in it for all of them? Except for desperately seeking the comfort of fellow wounded.

My ex husband never seems to move forward with his own life. For the life of me after years of me seeking therapy and being honest with him about my struggles about being gay, in so many ways he is still at square one. And square one consists of him still attempting to insert himself into aspects of my life he has no business being in. And him valuing his opinion of me (which often includes judgment and criticism for anything and everything), over seeing what is important for him to show and teach our children.

And yet I still sing his praises to all who listen because his standard for being a good parent is “that he pays his child support”, and that “he shows up for his kids.” Well I have news for you guys there is more to being a good person than this. It runs much deeper. You can hand a bag of goodies to a homeless person when you swing by, and make food for all the soccer families, and smile at the pride of your seemingly unselfish acts, but when you insinuate that the mother of your children is somehow in some way not up to snuff to your children, are you then still a good person?

By what standard ? What are the standards here ? Well they always depend on the situation and whom you are asking now don’t they?

I am still working my way to taking myself off the battlefield and not showing up to every party I am invited to. Especially when the invite is to a pity party. No matter how seductive, I won’t go. There is no glory in it.

But processing the feelings out loud so if even one person feels seen by my sharing feels a worthy endeavor for me. A post like this is for both the author and the reader.

Isn’t that ok at the end of the day?

June 26, 2018

Choose love ❤️

A short but important piece I wrote on self-love this morning.

When I looked in the mirror this morning, actually when my phone turned on me unexpectedly, like a cruel mistress and I saw myself:

First I saw all the imperfections, the sun spots, the lines, the puffiness, the pale, and my tired looking eyes. How much weight I have gained in my face.

The very next thing I did is think about how loved I am by my family, my friends, and my clients as well. Then I thought you can’t be mean to that person who is loved so well.

I think how much my people love me, and that I must keep how I feel about myself in that equation. If I don’t I would isolate, be irritable, and mean when and in ways I don’t want to be, I would push others away if I felt unworthy.

That’s how it works folks. And then they would miss me, worry about me, and I would unintentionally take more than I give. Loving ourselves isn’t selfish, in fact it’s the most unselfish act we can give, because it isn’t easy. It is in fact often the hardest thing.

This is something that needs to be taught in our homes and our schools. I just read a psychology today article about how we don’t see ourselves “accurately” anyway. Our perceptions are shaped by so many social factors. So when given the choice: why not always choose love. It certainly feels better than any other choice, and that’s the point.

💜

June 21, 2018June 21, 2018

Sunsets and Rainbows

*last night driving home the sunset brought me to tears. I’ve been crying a lot lately. All of my emotions right at the surface… and then a giant beautiful rainbow. I didn’t even see any rain, it was just there for me.

Lately I am overwhelmed by emotions. Good ones. What even is this that is happening? After spending most of your life feeling strong on the outside, but inside; frantic, desperate, disconnected, panicked, wrong, bad, behind, abandoned, not enough, not chosen, and the list goes on.

Here I sit today feeling blessed, honored, humbled, more love than is ever possible, calm, being able to regulate, seeing Love everywhere and in everything. I feel stable like the roots of a great oak, and gentle like the rustling of it’s leaves. Many storms have passed through me, but still I stand. And to realize I stand as more, not less. The storms didn’t take, they gave.

For me to put down roots I had to break through concrete.

My Oak is in the midst of Times Square; having always felt out of place, but suddenly people are seeing it like it’s the most refreshing thing they have ever seen. It provides oxygen, shade, a different perspective, a place to rest against that is sturdy and vibrant with life.

It’s like an out of body experience, except for the first time I’m inside mine.

I am two feet in.

This morning I read an email from my dear friend Chip that I have mentioned. And I was thinking about how much I wonder about my Father, and hurt at the not knowing. I had an “Under The Tuscan Sun” moment, where I realized that here is this found father, right here. He writes me everyday basically, always checks in on us, and is supportive and kind.

Anywhere something was missing in my life, I had only to look through open mind and heart to see that it could be filled.

I realize in this moment I’ve missed a thousand rainbows and sunsets, just staring blankly into the world because of old pain and the stories it created.

Now in each moment I’m writing a gorgeous novel. And if these thoughts are never organized into a book someone else can read; you have only to look at my life to read it.

My book is one filled with love, and I never would have known I could say that before.

June 19, 2018

An Open Letter to My Children before Our New Adventure.

To my first born children, before this new addition rocks our lives.

Tyler I remember when I finished my Master’s Degree how vehemently you asked that I not pursue my PHd, which turns out is the best decision for us anyway. The point though, was you wanted your mom back. From all the school, from all the stress, and from being inside her head.

I know you all do.

And here we are about to bring a new life into this world. It seems insane sometimes doesn’t it? If things at times seem so hard now why? If you’re so stressful (how you might feel sometimes, not true) and mom is so stressed, why have another!? You must wonder about this at times. I know Court and I have.

Why with shootings, and so much evil, and already what can feel like not enough to go around, why bring another? Note: we have so much more than enough already in terms of resources and love.

You must all wonder some of these things, because Courtney and I are often talking about all the aspects. And you need to be able to share your feelings too. Even the scared ones, or ones that might not be easily received. Because this is how we sort out our feelings, and truer realizations rise to the surface after.

No truer words will ever be spoken than: I loved you first and you have made me who I am now. Every part of me who you watch loving this baby well, is who she is because of you. Courtney has me now because of you, and I have her now because of you.

If it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be helping people. You give me courage and strength. Your unconditional love healed so many things in me, when I didn’t even know that was possible. When I didn’t even know it was happening. I thought I was barely scraping by, but it turns out I held the key to happiness in my pocket all the time. I have only to look at your faces when they light up with passion, to know that.

I’m everything I am because you chose me as a mother. I’m beginning to believe with some mystical unknown force that we choose our parents to provide the tasks we need to fulfill our destiny in life. This happens without us knowing, but I bet it’s true.

And I believe this baby will choose us to be it’s family. Because with every new adventure we are also healed you know? You can’t watch unconditional love and joy, the kind babies possess, without being changed. Being touched by that kind of love has transformed me over and over, and you will always have been the beginning of that.

You are the heart of everything I do, never separate from me, the way it’s easy to believe. We aren’t loose particles floating aimlessly in the air, how I felt at one time. We are the roots of a great red wood tree. We will go see them someday. (In California). We are intertwined, strong, safe, sacred. We are growing things that will be important to the world, that are already.

I want us to talk about our feelings about this adventure as it unfolds. I want to create space for your fears, the way Courtney does for mine. Because it heals. I want you to watch how I was with you as a mother when you were little and know how loved you are. Know that I held you just as tenderly. And to watch Courtney experience the blessing of becoming a mother. How it grows and changes her heart the way it has mine.

I want you to have these experiences, closely intertwined with a family that loves you with all their hearts. Because that’s what you have, and I realize more and more that’s what I have too.

All my love,

Mom

June 14, 2018June 14, 2018

Out on a limb

My whole life I feel like I have been out on a limb. In so many aspects. Somewhere along the way I learned to take the risks. During more of the unsure times in my life these risks could definitely have been categorized as the unhealthy kind. So I internalized, as I do so well, more bad information about myself.

In this second half of my life my “risk taking” is the exact thing that has yielded some of the biggest pay out. I still look at those people who cross all their t’s and dot all their i’s with great admiration. And a serious dose of black and white thinking: they are right, I am wrong.

Here in the state of Connecticut I have found that risk taking could be as simple as speaking to someone in line at Starbucks. They don’t do that sort of thing here. Stay in your lane baby girl. Mind your business. More people starving for connecting here, than I have found anywhere else. Perhaps that’s why me, the queen of connecting, ended up here.

I met one of my dearest friends in life, a man closer to the end of his life than the beginning. A good man who likes the Hallmark channel so he can get a dose of real emotion when he needs. A man who loves his son and grandson, and a wife who doesn’t deserve it so much (from him, everyone deserves love).

I tell our story sometimes to clients and they are always baffled. You did what? Yes we borrowed sugar and an egg to make cookies. We asked a neighbor to borrow something. Naive as usual, I had never received the memo that people in Connecticut absolutely under no circumstances do this sort of thing. Psycho. Go to the store like everyone else does. Nevertheless this yielded a friendship that would become a surrogate father, and person who tells me I am their normal.

I tell him if I’m his normal he is in serious trouble. We loved him on birthdays when no one else showed him how special he is, and he loved me with all of my insecurities. He listened to a thousand anxious emails, worried I would never be loved the way I was hoping to, worried I was bad. Only one of those worries very occasionally threatens to crop up. I consider myself very blessed.

You see thoughts about going out on a limb come to my mind, and they won’t be dismissed in the name of anything. They keep tugging at the strings of my heart until I am forced to unleash them on an unsuspecting world. This wasn’t so well received when I was younger. I scared the hell out of people. I was called too intense more than you can imagine. Which of course triggered my family stuff. Too much, somehow not good that you’re around. I made myself smaller. My self became depressed, shrank.

I tried to just do day in day out with no magic. It never worked for me. When I ignore that urge to reach out when I feel that vibration, later the regret drives me mad. I know I missed out on the hidden secret the universe had wrapped in many papers and then in box after box, like those Russian nesting dolls. And the determination it takes to be brave enough to keep opening after not only finding empty ones, but also being ridiculed for trying.

I needed to belong somewhere, anywhere. That need trumped coming into my own. So it has taken me a long time to be here now. And when it comes to trusting myself I am still a baby deer wobbling on it’s new legs. Self-doubt had been my constant companion, ptsd has hard wired it into my system. But I always knew I belonged out on a limb.

Out on a limb you’re alone, nervous you will fall at any moment, and precarious. You face rejection, being discredited, and boat loads of shame. Why would anyone do that? Especially in Connecticut. If there ever was a state you do not do that, it is here. I often muse to myself that instead of being the “Nutmeg state”, we should be the repression state. I guess “Repressers” doesn’t ring as light and fun as “Nutmeggers, but I would venture it rings true to many.

Now before you’re tempted to think I’m generalizing in a terrible way, I’m not finished yet. Underneath a thin layer of steel, people here are warm and gooey just like all of us human beings. I would argue they may even be more passionate here. Whether it’s being fueled by the unbeatable fall seasons here, or the determination to make our own sunshine after a long cold winter, there is as much heart as anywhere.

The heart is in tact. And I have found people are just wanting those brave people to make that first move to connect in a real way. Sure some aren’t ready for it, that is their cross, and it is heavy. Another best friend heart (bless her), one who has known me at my worst and still seen through.

She once gave me a Globe from the show Wicked. She taped “keep defying gravity” in a small note she taped to the bottom. If the house ever caught fire this is the one thing I would grab. After the live animals of course. :p Her heart was crushed from birth perhaps, a thick skin became very necessary for her, and I broke through for a real friendship. My self-doubt made it feel invisible sometimes, afraid I wasn’t good enough, and so I kept myself away, as people who feel that way tend to do. I hope she always knows she is my person.

At that time I was an uncultured swine (ok that’s mean, a broke, single mother) and could certainly have never seen that show. I was as lost as a human can become and my behaviors sucked, and yet she still believed in some part of me. These people are two of many of my supreme gifts the Universe has given me. These people are how I help so many now. I had to be lifted up, to lift others. They are my angels and the light that shines through my eyes.

To be allowed to have the love I knew was behind a particular soul, more big risks, more limbs. I’m pretty sure she thought I was nuts in the beginning, but something bade her to keep going with it. And now we are standing on the precipice of a great dream, neither of us knew we had before.

This woman never wrongs me for the risks I take. Every time I go to talk to her I project she will tell me no way and that I’m not thinking and all sorts of other things. But she trusts me and our love to such a pure degree I HAVE to trust it also. It is unwavering. Her love and trust for me is UNWAVERING. And like the grinch who had been so hurt and rejected he had reached the point where he was bristly and mean on the outside, the parts of me that still threaten to become that way, just stop. I think my heart has expanded larger than my body, and all the light is just constantly radiating outwards.

I am a lighthouse for others, and I am beginning to believe that is true, and to love parts of myself that I shut down (to keep safe) long ago. Her love is my constant kerosene, and it’s a reflection finally of all the love I splashed at the world. A world who wasn’t ready for it, a girl who wasn’t ready to give it to herself.

Here I sit today, on the end of this limb, calmly having a picnic, dancing on the tip. For me this is the only way to live. Love is everywhere, inside of everything… Connecticut is no exception and neither are you….

💜

June 11, 2018June 11, 2018

Emotional parenting versus logical, part 1.

We need both, a tall order to be sure. It seems like I’m better at logical (the lessons), and everyone else the emotional.

*my blog posts are very long. I am aware, and working now at knowing the ideal is shortened into easily eatable portions. Part of what I do is show my whole process of talking through the feelings. So if you hang in for the whole ride, rather than dismissing for too overwhelming; you might find some special gifts within. My writing comes out raw. I am working on the process of making it more concise and readable. This one has a lot of personal emotion that isn’t resolved yet, so will likely read that way.

I Hope it makes some parents feel less alone.

I am in the parenting trenches again. No surprise there. Three children 16 yr old boy, and 14 year old twin girls provides this gauntlet for me. I finally learned being hard on myself doesn’t help. So here I am talking through my feelings about this, because that does. Whether it’s hearing myself, being willing to look inside, or someone else validating and jumping in with the ability to ask more questions to open more up: it is certainly better than holding myself hostage with intermittent beatings. That’s what I used to do, because I thought it was the only way. Actually I didn’t think, it was only instinct, the not thinking was the problem. This is how counseling can help. With a skilled professional things can often be seen and understood, that no one could have pointed out before. When it’s done well, it feels like magic taking place.

A favorite quote from The Myth of Sysiphus, “we get into the habit of living before the habit of thinking.” When I first saw these words they hit me like a lightning bolt of truth, and thankfully they stuck.

In our lives we go along with what are most often good intentions, but also a lot of misunderstanding of ourselves and others, assumptions, and a huge ol’ reservoir of pain. Only a courageous few turn their attention inward and are brave enough to weather the storms of self-doubt and shame. These are the people who enter my office.

As no surprise parenting is a big subject of work I do as a counselor. This includes parenting myself along the way, often becoming a parent figure that was needed to the client, etc. So for me to sit down and write my parenting shortcomings, fears, struggles, and hopefully victories too, is part of this beautiful work.

A hot topic today is kids behavior with regard to parents being very scared of providing consequences. We are very scared right now, and hold onto what we can to feel safe, even if that is an illusion. Control does not necessarily provide safety. Yet we try so hard at it, often unconsciously and often not with great results.

To further complicate matters often many people (including myself) are navigating the choppy waters of blending a family, and often lots of pain exists from the divorce that can accidentally be coming into play. A lot of that happens in my particular situation.

A fantastic strength in my family is my wife always educating herself when she feels lost, or more appropriately as an impassioned response to seeing me feel lost. We don’t scratch and bite at one another, she doesn’t point out what a poor job I’m doing. As I’ve stated I was good enough at that in the past.

So last night she found and we both read two articles I found very helpful and I want to post them here.

Why Children aren’t Behaving and What You Can Do About it

Navigating the Complex Emotional Terrain of Teenage Girls (also has helpful info for boys as well)

To not be repetitive I’ll let you read those for the expert advice and I’ll just go into my experience below:

With three children it seems like there is almost always a storm, and you get an occasional respite in between. During this time however you know you must scramble quickly to prepare for the next. That is the objective, not to play and refresh with them, because of course you must care for them. Lately I am thinking the play and refresh is equally as important. So perish at sea because you didn’t practically prepare, but die happy and smiling? Is this the only way.

All or nothing is still a struggle for me. As a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP) being overwhelmed is such a big part of my life, and all or nothing is the unpasteurized symptom. I have to work really hard at getting calm and feeling capable so I can choose one thing and tackle it, and then the next and then the next.

So I have the semi-typical situation where my children’s father (my ex husband) comes in every other weekend and sometimes mid week and spends time with the kids. I get paid the correct child support, and he is a good father to them in so many ways. My situation is more the exception than the rule. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have our struggles. One of the main ones being: being on the same page, especially as the kids get older, about rules, and staying consistent. Particularly if one parent is prone to having it be more important to disagree with the other parents rules, and then the kids pick up on that energy and run with it.

It makes everything the one parent is trying to instill that much harder. Example: 14 year old daughter who has been struggling with controlling her emotions becomes grounded. Now I don’t know how grounding changes with age for you other parents out there, but in our home it used to be for a period of time. I learned it was important this time be realistic. As they are older and so much more is going on, sports, social events, school functions, balancing so much, it gets harder to keep grounding in place. I own my own business and see other families for counseling as well. I am often run down.

What I have learned though is accountability is a key component in anyone’s character. When I was let out of it as a child I became not the best person to others. Also all the pain I had endured helped me give myself a free pass on important ways of behaving and treating people. Enthusiasm for life should not trump attention to how we treat people along the way.

My 14 year old when she gets lost in her emotions (age normative) will mow over anyone else in the name of her intensity. It’s a behavior I recognize as important to address now, while it can be, before it becomes a category 5.

With my discipline I have gotten to the point where the new guidelines are that punishment ends when you show that you fully understand your part in things, and are not blaming others for getting grounded. My daughter is still saying that I did this to her, or I’m ruining her life, versus her realizing her behavior dictates the consequence. This seems one of the hardest lessons.

Because their Father sees them less I think it’s much harder for him to want to spend that limited time going up against them. I can sympathize with him, it must be hard. But the bigger picture of what they also need to learn is important too. And what makes it harder for me also becomes harder for them in the end. When I get support and don’t have to do it (the hard parts of parenting) on my own, I then also have a lot more room to be fun and enjoy my relationship with them.

As a child I could get around any consequence, because I wasn’t really parented, and it did me no favors later in life. I was difficult to say the least and my relationships struggled. I couldn’t empathize very well, because I could just get my way. I didn’t have to sit in my feelings, or be asked to change. So this is a hot button of importance to me as a parent.

So the situation is that my daughter comes to me last night and says: “Mom I’ll be gone these days with my friends in New York. Dad is taking us. Anyone notice the first issue here? She’s telling me, not asking me. I haven’t heard a word about this from their Dad, he didn’t check in with me about those dates or if she had earned that privilege by first really working at how she is speaking to her family, and how she behaves when she is comfortable.

So of course I lost it with stress. It’s exhausting to go up against just teenagers, let alone to have all the ground work I am laying be destroyed in a mere few moments.

Everyone wants to be the fun parent, and see that delight on the kids faces when they are happy. Who doesn’t?! But someone also has to do the work. If one person is working, and the other is playing, it’s grossly unfair. And often this isn’t so much a product of bad parenting as it is of circumstance. Certain circumstances require even more effort if you want kids to learn to hold themselves accountable for their actions. While at a young age they can’t be expected to be able to accomplish this task yet, the groundwork still needs to be laid. In my opinion anyway. It is their job to find their own voice in fighting back, but it is the parents job to provide good boundaries. It truly is how they know they are loved, versus because a parent doesn’t. Which is how a consequence is seen emotionally.

For the purpose of length let’s make this a 2 part blog post. Stay tuned for some more information and the follow up.

I will end with a piece of my personal work that I want to be vulnerable about as a parent. Individual focused attention on each child. Even as I type those words I tremble with fear at how to rearrange my life, and what life throws at you to accommodate this. This is the medicine my children are requesting from me in so many words. And I have only myself to hold accountable to meet that need. If I blame anyone else, or the divorce, or my work schedule, etc etc, then I cannot grow.

I must grow…

Tag: #becoming