Tag: #blendedfamily

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A Very Thankful Thanksgiving….

As all these big feelings wash over me (they used to crash, now they cascade), I can tell it’s time to bring my heart to the blog and weave.

I am bursting at the seams with gratitude this Thanksgiving. Holidays as a rule are difficult for me, and that’s an understatement. I am always a guest in someone else’s Family Stone Family, the one whispered about when I leave the room. Thankfully nothing like Sara Jessica Parker in the actual movie. I was the Claire Danes, but still….

I was always liked that was never the problem. The problem was I chose my partner for the kids and for safety and love. I was at such a deficit. And don’t get me wrong all the people I’ve shared my time with are special and I learned so much from them. I really have no horror stories in my love life. Sometimes however I fear I became theirs. A taste of love and belonging and then yanked away. I experienced those losses too though, whether they were my decision or not. Another family, another warm heart beat pulled away, excruciating.

They weren’t a fit because their hearts were as unsure as mine if we could pull the whole thing off. I wonder at times if I had more faith in life and myself if it would have been different. But then how could it be when I am this happy now, and they are in their journeys towards happiness as well.

I figure those who take the actual time to read through this whole thing deserve to know our IVF has worked. We are 5 weeks today I believe. And once we hit 2000 HCG (we are at 1100), blood level then we will begin ultrasounds. We won’t make any official announcements until it progresses a bit further, but that whole thing is so superstitious and sort of the opposite of faith. I hate the whole privacy idea in a way. Sure it might be exhausting to share bad news with your loved ones, but you will need them right ?!

We need each other, all of us beautiful fragile human beings. Why isn’t that allowed.

We are so fucking careful and so private. I’ve never liked that, but since my life isn’t just me anymore I have to walk that line a bit more carefully. I do not want to live scared of anything ever again. I’ve spent most of my life anxious. Anxious I won’t be loved or even liked for that matter, and often I wasn’t. Anxious I wasn’t enough. Anxious I wasn’t smart like other people. Anxious about my health. Anxious about how everyone around me feels, if I have somehow hurt or bothered them. Anxious about money. Anxious at any minute something terrible could happen. And it always could.

On fucking eggshells most of my life. Profound exhaustion. And now I’m stepping out into the light and loving myself enough to stop stressing my body and my heart with these anxieties. I am practicing enough self love that when someone else doesn’t see me how I’d like to be seen I can weather that storm.

Rian just popped in the bathroom and said, “you should watch Courtney butter this turkey, it’s making me uncomfortable” bwhahahahhaah! I told her to butter that bird up with love and she’s doing just that. There is actually a video, but I’m not allowed to post it 😉 sorry guys!!

My latest self-inflicted therapy is of the exposure variety. I am going to get over my profound nervousness of if people like me or not, by exposing myself to the highest possible annoyance. Arriving on their doorstep to tell them about how solar can save them money and the environment.

Last night a lady told her adorable children who came to the door to tell me to get away. The house was so cool too and I was warm and friendly. Scolded like a bad dog, and instead of reacting I simply smiled and thought of a time I would have done the same because I was overwhelmed, and thought I needed to protect myself from someone trying to take advantage of me. So I get it lady. You keep paying your giant electric bill and teaching your kids to be rude. Ok so I’m as enlightened as I can be, but still human 😉

But these interactions don’t up end my world anymore, reaffirming a long held belief that I’m bad, wrong, and unworthy. I’m learning to let them roll off my back, that they have nothing to do with me.

And sure enough I landed a nice couple with a giant electric bill, amazing sun on their roof, and it warmed me right up. They also had a 6 month old baby who adored me and laughed the cutest and it made me so excited to be a mom again soon enough !!

“There will always be light and dark in life, and often we never know which we will find behind the door we knock. We must knock anyway, even if it’s mostly dark, because eventually you’ll land the right door, and things can change in an instant.”

The dark is always more seductive, it gives us permission to blame and to throw our hands in the air. We had a deep rejection this holiday, and I’m surprised to find myself watching this one from the outside. It’s been so long since it felt like my sexuality was a shameful thing. I should say since someone else shared they thought our sexuality was a shameful thing. It cuts like a knife to the heart, we will feel the sting and the loss today.

But it will never be as bad as the pain of living a life inauthentic. I always know that truth. Sad, scared, and unhappy people will always spread those feelings, the best we can do is to love them anyway. From a distance. I’m proud we won’t let this be a dark cloud on our happy time. It hurts, but it won’t block out our sun. See what I did there 😉

I’ve created my own solar panels for how I receive energy in my life, and it’s clean energy. I’ve chosen the kind of want to focus on and absorb and learning to protect myself from pollution.

This Thanksgiving is the first one where I feel like I belong. I am about to be 38 years old. It seems like that story would be a sad one, but I assure you it is anything but.

I belong here and am not a guest. I am grateful beyond measure for my kids who believe in a mother who has made herself from scratch. I am grateful they let me make mistakes and love me anyway. I am grateful for my beautiful wife who is the glue of this whole operation. I always thought I had to be the glue and fell into resentment at times, but it turns out she is. She is the constant warmth that keeps me glowing. She made this house a home in so many ways.

I am in radical gratitude this year!!!

My life gets better and better with time. Thank you to all who follow my journey. You are definitely a dedicated reader, and you are part of me being able to believe I am not too much.

A toast to family, red wine, and turkey basters to all of you 😉

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Ivf: a love story

Every time I have fallen in love I’ve always thought my heart could not possibly get any more full or it would burst. Then every time I do, I realize it’s stretching capacity. It’s like a pair of jeans that never get too small, every person’s dream right 😉

What I am in the midst of learning blows away every variety of rigid thinking, supposed to or should be. Never underestimate your adaptability folks. Your brain is wired for it. It can be a little hard to wrap your mind around that, because it’s always wired to complete tasks quicker by the railways of habit. So when you make it think a different way and go off the tracks it’s first reaction is to balk.

But if you keep going through that resistance that’s where the payoff lives.

Lately I am completely wordless with presence. I’m living less in my head and more in the storybook creation of my life. I like the layout, the language, and I can’t put the book down right now.

Yesterday was embryo transfer day, and I am just here basking in the glow of so many emotions I didn’t even know were there. Sometimes you can’t know how you will feel until you’re feeling it. Sometimes you’re just called by an unnameable gale force wind and you have to follow that absurdly until the next great realization.

I’m in love with my life lately, and that’s more than I ever imagined. It’s like being on ecstasy 24/7. Disclaimer I’ve never actually done that truthfully, drugs freak me out I’m too much of a hypochondriac. Life already burns bright for me. I feel gratitude for every tiny thing.

Anyway yesterday we experienced being able to see our new baby be transferred inside my wife. It was unreal. Admittedly there is a lot to sort through emotionally using the sciency approach and fighting feeling it’s somehow still less natural. It’s always a challenge in some way not to feel less than, and that challenge is increased when you’re a woman, a minority in any capacity, etc.

But it’s the challenge that makes you even more fiercely grateful, and I wouldn’t trade that for the world.

We are lucky and blessed to have our family and friends cheering us on at this time. I’m still my whirling dervish self and constantly need to be learning and challenging myself to new growth levels. And I’m enjoying being a parent, a partner, a warm guide, and a friend.

Baby’s first photo. This is a fully formed highest quality level blastocyst (baby dust) hatching from its protective layer. Hopefully right now the little one is firmly embedding itself into the uterine lining and will develop from the size of a microscopic speck (anyone else thinking of Horton Hears a Who), into our much anticipated bundle of joy. And sleepless nights.

Yesterday was a gorgeous New England fall day (in November).

My wife’s twin was able to come, and the reaction of all the fertility doctors and nurses was hysterical, many double takes. They made the hole thing really fun and many hugged us and wished us well. Snow patrol chasing cars came on and of course tears were shed. The embryo traveling in looked like a quick shooting star, and there it is: we must wait and see if that spark becomes a glow, and that glow becomes our beacon. And if for some reason this one isn’t the one for us, we must have the courage to begin again, but we aren’t at that part of the story yet. And for once in my life I refuse to skip ahead. I want to taste every delicious word as it unfolds.

We celebrated our victory by getting tacos and an authentic churro to share, at the food trucks on Long Wharf. The water sparkled under the sun’s golden fingertips like a bed of diamonds. The air was crisp and cool, and not a single fearful emotion could touch my mind, not a single one.

This is what living is really all about. Daring to reach for what you really want in life, sometimes not even knowing what exactly it is until you have created it!

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Ivf Retrieval Day

It’s retrieval day!!!!

It has been feeling like the (an) end to this journey, but it’s actually just the beginning.

It’s the end of hormone injections and the related symptoms, and the end of a great many questions and nervousness. The end of three failed iui treatments and all the associated emotions. And yet it’s the beginning of an even more intense period of waiting for phone calls from the lab on the development of our little one (ones).

It’s beginning again down a road into a dark forest and not knowing what’s on the other side.

Will we get lost in there? Another gigantic disappointment, another cycle to wait and more hormones before a frozen transfer if this one doesn’t stay? How much of this roller coaster can we take? It’s been such a wild ride. But for the first time in my life even amidst sometimes crushing disappointment nothing feels like life or death.

I never even pictured having another baby, ever.

I spent most of my life worrying I didn’t deserve, nor was I up to the task of the first three. So to find myself standing here, calmly walking toward my next dream with confidence and joy. It is a dream like no other. I’ve already won the lottery, and written the best seller, and recognized my singing voice on stage in a moment of sheer shock and gratitude. Finding my love already feels like all those things mixed.

It has changed me so profoundly I am becoming rewired.

So many of my anxieties are calmed. And this isn’t a momentary high from idealizing something that turns out much differently. This is the real deal. Steady on my feet and walking headfirst toward another amazing dream, one I never saw.

It’s not very often life surprises me.

This is because whenever it did when I was young, and that was often, those were not good surprises. I became hyper vigilant and carefully in control of each happening to avoid further pain. But that has its side effects. And finding this love has surrendered me back into a childlike dreamer I was always meant to be.

I’ve turned my Stephen King movie into a John Hughes one. Sorry Stephen I love your work, I just wouldn’t want to be in one…. again.

And I used to be too fragile to be in the creation of a dream. Any setback would crumble and tumble me, and lead me down a path of dark thinking and misery.

Now I am finding faith and a well balanced way to view reality.

So it’s neither fantastic or terrible, but a mixture of both of those moments on a steadfast bridge of love.

I have a family of best friends on there with me, and I’m finally adjusting to life in partnership and belonging that I couldn’t feel I deserved before. Now I am accepting this as my life, and everything that comes with it.

So here we are…. I’m about to be a “nearing 40” new mother. Here I am, the happiest I’ve ever been.

At another new beginning….with knowing there will still be so many more.

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The Great Room Cleaning Stand-off

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?

My seventeen year old son is brilliant, kind, generous, sensitive and anything a parent could want in a child. However lately we have reached a place where we do not see eye to eye, and I am wracking my brain to crack the code on this situation.

To give you some background I could be described as middle of the road when it comes to cleaning. My wife and I do not fight over household chores. We generally ebb and flow with effort in this department and when one of us ebbs, the other tries to flow. We do this dance fairly seamlessly unlike the resentment filled arguments with past lovers. We came into this both having thought through the complexities of the situation, and choosing to be grateful we have the other, all bags included.

We don’t ask for made beds, or color coordinated sock drawers. We understand that if our room becomes cluttered at times when we are exhausted or extra tired that this will happen with kids sometimes. Our expectations are that things are sanitary, somewhat kept up with etc, and that every couple of weeks you do a deep clean. Sweep, mop, vacuum dust kinda deal. That maybe 2 times yearly you go through all the crap that has amassed, and your clothes and see what you need and what you don’t. And for the love of all that is holy change your bedding at least every two weeks. For obvious reasons :p

About a month ago give or take I noticed that my son wasn’t eating hardly anything but fast food, potato chips, and gummy candies from where he works, Trader Joe’s. These empty containers could be found tucked behind the bed, in drawers etc. The regularity of showering diminished, the laundry piled up, pay stubs cluttered everywhere. The room took on an unsettling odor. And even the smallest task seems to appear insurmountable to him.

I chalked up this struggle to ADHD, as his computer had already been removed from his room so he could get into some kind of organizational routine. So we tried Vyvanse. Thus far the room isn’t clean and his mood is worse. He has new behaviors of lying, being more verbally aggressive, and placing all blame for his current predicament on me.

He got into my phone and read text messages he shouldn’t have, and I’m quite sure this breach of boundaries is the largest culprit of held anger. If you read something out of context and put it through your own fears and emotions it can be a deadly weapon. The result a poisoned relationship. As highly sensitive people it is hard on both of us that this is dragging out in this way.

As a child I wasn’t really raised per say. My grandparents talked at me, but they rarely followed through. And we had no structure built into any family unit. Once I reached a certain age they just often said they didn’t know why I didn’t help around the house etc. I was shamed in front of friends. They felt helpless and would say “you don’t keep your room like hers right.”

So for me I wanted my kids to not only feel part of a family, but to participate as a part of a working unit as well. This has been part necessity and part purposeful through the years. Most of the research I have read suggests children who help others and learn hard work are better off than those with everything done for them. I tend to agree based on my struggles and lack of that in my upbringing.

I know all about choose my battles and I’m confident many parents who would give their eye teeth for a child like mine would say, “just clean it he gets good grades”, or another camp who couldn’t stand the disarray and therefore would clean it out of their need.

I somehow feel it’s extremely important that he cross this hurdle on his own, and that he understands none of us are entitled to anything in this life. It is important to me my children are grateful, humble, and respectful. I was not. I can go on and on about our differences in upbringing there are many, most importantly of which is a lack of any invested parent on my end. However my behavior either way sucked, and it took me most of my life to relearn a better way. I don’t want my son to have this same struggle.

I’m quite sure the more we see the less desirable versions of ourselves in our young charges that we really become upset. And in these moments it’s difficult to be gentle and nurturing. I want to hug him and help him, and by God I also want to slap him. Such a confusing concoction of emotions.

So the stand-off is this: in an effort to not let him off the hook for accountability and responsibility that he will need in this life, and before he goes away to college, I have removed his privileges. A car we have provided and help pay his insurance on, a phone his parents pay for, etc. Now I can’t figure it out. If I were a senior and had to ride the school bus I would have that room cleaned in 2 hours flat. One swift upswing of motivation, be it rooted in anger or whatever.

Motivation! I am providing the motivation. He has dug his heels in and refused. I have bent and tried a more gentle approach after the storms calm. I had given back the car at least to get to work so he doesn’t use all his money on Uber and Lyft. Again 30 bucks for a ride or clean your room?! I bent to try and be an understanding parent. And my reward for having been a willow tree? He lied about the time he got out of work, and then caused a huge scene and protest. To which Courtney’s beloved co-worker and great friend helped defuse. It takes a village folks it really does! And we are lucky.

In all of this what hasn’t happened is him owning his behavior. He will say things like gee why would I lie? You think because I miss my friends. And that I am controlling his life. Now he is determined that he needs help, is depressed, and doesn’t know why he can’t clean his room. So his statement is that he physically can’t clean his room. Is it odd that I can’t understand this?

I have recognized he was over-scheduled with work and lots of high level courses. I can spot the signs of burn out a mile away, and he kept citing these as reasons to again break the rules. So I’ll offer practical solutions to him. I had suggested before classes began to reduce work hours and focus on school. But I won’t let him out of accountability and responsibility in the name of his emotions. In my opinion this does a person a great disservice.

I’ll meet part way. When he asks for help between one of his three parents, and a multitude of extended family, and even my ex partners who love him, he receives it.

And still nothing gives.

Stuck.

And I miss my son.

His response to this is to lay in his room, when he could have just cleaned the room and step into accountability. We each up the bar on stubborn, when what we really need is to let go….

So internet land help?! Share your experiences as a teen or a parent. How did you get through these battles and not lose your hair or your sanity?

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Writing the Life Authentic: How to not repeat a pattern, complete with raw example from my own life

*Somewhere in the town of Stamford far removed from family and creature comforts my wife is coping with another possibility of life leaking out of her. Hurting physically and mentally. Here at home I am doing the same. We are both sending one another signals of love and light, they are powerful enough to make it across Countries, so I have faith that they will reach one another and hold us safely these few towns away.

Interesting that our love has such a strong and safe foundation, and that a love that was built on expectations and ideas of dreams yielded three children in a way that felt effortless at the time. It could have been easy to expect that this should be granted us because true love would make us entitled to the gift of children. This is often not how life works.

We all take so many things for granted…

I was brought in a round about way to thinking about childhood me. I want to talk about her, but also what got me here.

In an attempt to not be upset with myself for yet another thing I bit off, but was unable to chew and swallow, I took some time today to watch the next video in my Martha Beck Write into Light course. The material will no longer be available as of October 31st. After all the talk, and the money invested I am determined to finish this thing that I started. So here I am again facing myself down in the mirror, this course demands nothing less. I have learned by now that it is not all or nothing, but rather beginning anew as many times as necessary to keep going. I am grateful I was born with the courage to continue on this process. I don’t believe everyone is so lucky, In fact the more I understand, the more I see my gifts as rare gems in this way.

In fact this is what module 5: Writing a life authentic, is concerned with. In it MB talks about how will power doesn’t work when it comes to change. Funny because the power of my will has often felt like the only thing that kept me going. MB describes how our neural pathways are wired for habit, and something we are used to doing gets deeply entrenched and becomes essentially automatic (myelin sheathing on the neurons) and nearly unstoppable. She describes the only process she has found to be successful at actually creating change to be “light writing”. A process where you observe a pattern and watch yourself like a field researcher, you must be removed enough to not get sucked into the story, so you can actually watch the behaviors. She suggests you write DEEPLY into whatever you are working on. It’s kind of like taking a plain sheet of paper out and brainstorming. For this particular lesson she is teaching about how to not repeat a pattern. She has suggested two things.

One is to take a pattern you do not want to repeat and write it down on a piece of paper. She says it is important that you choose something you yourself deeply want to change, it has to come from a DESPERATE NEED THAT IS YOUR OWN, versus something your mom or partner etc wants you to change. Then take that paper and rip it into many pieces or burn it. Say outloud as you do this, “I invite in a new pattern”. She explains even if it sounds silly the importance of putting a physical aspect to this. She then instrucs you to do one of two things in your exhale. The exhale is the part you brainstorm through and get all your thoughts out. The inhale is the more constructed piece of writing that gives attention to your reader.

So I need to choose to either write a manifesto about leading a revolution to break this pattern. Rally! Have fun with it. …. here is what I will no longer tolerate about this pattern.

Or to write a comedic anectdote, one that is lighthearted. How you did something over and over again, how you can look at it with humor enough to be able to change your behavior.

Something that came to mind was how when my wife and I get stressed out with my ex-husband and some of the petty arguments that we both must engage in to fuel: we think of Buzz Light year and Woody in Toy Story, and say “you’re a sad strange little man, you have my pity”. It has helped us more than once. Now a disclaimer to this is that I do not feel my ex-husband is a bad person, or any less of a father because we get into these tifs. In fact as I chip more and more away at the bedrock of the issue I am able to see both of our disappointment and how deeply that can run that we didn’t get to have the picturesque idea of all these years of our children’s having been shared together. That we both have needed to endure the sharp pain of separation, misunderstandings, and watching our kids be confused or hurt during the process. That we both are being challenged with re-writing a script that we thought we had already worked so hard at. We already risked so much, and carved so much out, to have to begin again and again feels unbearable. It feels wrong, and flawed, and bad, especially according to the rules of society. How deeply ingrained in each of us is it that once you make a committment of a lifetime that it must work that way. Particularly for the conscientiously minded folk such as ourselves.

Neither of us intended things to work as they did. That is one thing that I can say with 100 percent clarity at this point. And keeping us on the same page as far as the pain that comes with divorce is a much healthier way to look at it than one of us a victim and one a perpetrator. At this point in his storyline of events, he is still much more determined to see me as the perp and he the victim, it comes out time and time again. And he ups the bar as he attempts to recruit my ex-partners into those rankings. He has stated as much that he feels people should not be bought and discarded like cheap dollar store toys. He appears unable to see how this is his projection of our relationship not working out, and takes a great deal for granted when it comes to specifics. If he were able to look a little closer at what I had to overcome to achieve healthy relationship perhaps he would understand more. He is right actually that love should not work that way, and boy is it painful when it does. But there is much more than meets the eye here with me and love. There is a lifetime of work, several actually, that I’ve somehow managed to do in one.

And I do promise that you must be up close to truly see. And you must have been able to do your own self work of separating from your ego enough to observe things in such a way so that they can be changed. Otherwise your main fight will be that of how you are perceived by others. One can spend their whole lives in this way. 

But my realization in the here and now is that for me to beg to be seen in a particular way brings me right back to my childhood. A person can only see things from a viewpoint that is reflective from how far they themselves have traveled. To try and ask for them to see further is impossible and will end up frustrating to levels I cannot even begin to tell you. This is possibly one of my greatest sources of pain in this lifetime. And now the gauntlet is thrown for me to not repeat this pattern anymore. My only battle is to see myself through a generous lens. I have borrowed my wife’s for now, and people before her. But I understand as well as anyone by now that when using this model, if you do not please the person seeing you in the way that they are looking for, the generosity expires.

Much like in therapy if you don’t take the lessons that are offered and make them your own, and make them real, bring them outside the office, the magic ends at the end of the appointment and dissipates with the termination of the therapuetic relationship. A therapist lends their generosity of vision, seeing people at their best selves, but the Client themself must learn this way of seeing and apply it. They must seek to understand how the therapist is able to do that with such information to the opposite end. As if the stigma of seeking therapy itself is not cause enough to not be able to do this. So many people with their opinion at the ready to slay a person’s attempt of breaking out of painful patterns with their criticism. And to what end? To be able to stroke the ego. To be able to say “see look I was right”.

To this point with regard to my ex-husband, what would he possibly gain by proving me to be the mother that he believes. If he were able to be right and he could know that I am in fact selfish, and get my kids to believe this. What is the prize here? I see only loss and suffering at that. Immense confusion and pain.  And this is why I must challenge myself to not be a victim either, because what is possibly to gain by believing the father of my children is a bad person, in the name of ego. Wouldn’t it be healthier to believe that his life turned out so differently than he had imagined that he can’t bear to live in a truth that doesn’t back his story, that he has lost the zest he once had from this attachment fracture. Such extreme disappointment that he is lost with how to move forward. And what is someone feeling this way in need of? Certainly not more criticism and turmoil.

Sometimes in life I think we end up fighting so hard for something, when we aren’t even sure anymore what we are hoping to acheive from it. That’s a little scary don’t you think? May I always strive to be aware of the “why”, the reason I want to acheive what I am working hard towards. If I put this template down, would I ever be able to see it as a good thing for my children to see a dark and ugly side of things? This helps me to be truly aware of the power the ego can wield, of how seductive it can be. Come to the dark side it says, we have cookies it says. Of course it would say that to me. I love cookies.

If you’re looking for me I’ll be here resisting cookies and my ego lol. And being honored to be invited into the sacred processes of my client’s world, so that we both may feel less alone.

My blog post on childhood me, will have to wait… or perhaps I’ll post it after this one since I am “on a roll”.

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Third Time is The Charm

*this was the case in Love, and hopefully it will become a theme and produce a baby for us to share all this love with, in our 3rd cycle of iui. I am dreaming of the moment.

Love was always my biggest battle. To achieve it, to know when it was real or not, to find it given freely and not with too large of a price tag. To balance it with the demands of a life of my own creation. This one I have struggled with particularly.

Over the years as most human beings I have received a great deal of various critical feedback on my love. The way I love, my beliefs about love, the way this has shown in my life. Particularly with regard to a certain set of rules around ex partners. What these well-meaning people intended I think was very different than what was delivered.

Healing loads of shame and critical judgment. So much that I almost lost trust in my self with regard to love. Almost.

Several days ago my ex wife got married. I was surprised to find this brought up a lot of emotions for me. It isn’t supposed to is it? I mean we have both moved on, and I am happy now. So I “shouldn’t” have those feelings or they should mean something threatening to my current marriage. Why do we do such things to ourselves.

My realization is that love in its purest form, the kind where no one intentionally wronged another (and we rarely do), is beautiful regardless of if it lasts forever or not. But isn’t it supposed to? There’s that damn word again. We can unintentionally cause so much pain to another by assuming we know the one correct way to do things. Such arrogance. What makes us think we know such an important decision for another’s story?

I have been shamed and criticized often for seeking connection or communication with people I have loved. Only now to realize that was their fear and insecurities and not actually some unhealthy behavior in me. I knew I was being genuine.

My conclusion is there are many different kinds of exes in our lives. Many are teachers, and companions for a length of our journey, not the duration. How much less might people suffer if we honored this process of trying for love, and licking our wounds with respect and dignity when it doesn’t work. Rather than being labeled a failure. Or being instructed in some particular way based on the advice givers perspective, thus causing more shame.

Love in its purest is never a failure, perhaps a redirection or a lesson, but never a failure. As if it doesn’t hurt enough to hold deep disappointment, without the criticism of society.

Time is one of the only things that can make the blur and confusion eventually clear. I am fortunate enough to see much more clearly after only a little time, and I’m a person who likes to reach with those truths. This does not mean that much of the rest of the world is ready for that variety of work. Because of its rare form, in my mind I always became “bad or wrong”, an easy legacy minted in childhood. I carried it too long.

So you can imagine my relief in this 37th year of my life when I examine love with such a different lens. When I watch a wedding video of my ex wife singing to her new wife, and can only find gratitude and joy for them. And also that little bit of sadness that is a part of my story now, when our paths diverged. Imagine my joy now that I have found that is not only allowed, but to me this is what it means to be enlightened. It means we can hold Love in our hearts for others, without it meaning anything but pure gratitude.

As a “doer” these are wires that were crossed for a long time for me. I thought a feeling meant you had to do something with it. I would charge boldly and often blindly forward, not even quite sure what I was doing, but always knowing it felt like some important truth to me. And then shortly after I would be bathed in shame of one variety or another. Other people aren’t like this. They move forward with a resolve of steel. I should be like those other people. Why am I so weird and wrong? I felt I was begging to be loved, and always at the core was my extreme dysfunction, and then the self-loathing would begin. This for me, was as easy a process to take over as breathing oxygen.

The profound gratitude for my whole story you will see written all over my body and face now is the gift. So I encourage anyone who finds their way to this post to learn to find closure within themselves, and to see their hearts and stories through the generous eyes they deserve.

And I will be here wishing in earnest for a baby, wishing that my ex-husband could find this clarity also so we could have a good relationship, wishing my ex-wife and her new bride all the happiness in the world, and wishing myself peace from a mind that would always try to find her at fault and shame her.

I am here working toward these goals in earnest. Also I wanted to share an excerpt from a part that after editing will be in my memoir someday.

“That was back when I thought pure love for someone meant you had to be with them…

I watched your wedding video and at first there was sadness. Sadness I would later identify as the unlived possibilities of our unfinished life together. And later I watched it again.. and smiled from ear to ear for your joy. For you getting your wedding, the one you wanted, with the dress and the family. And witnessing love, and being in the Love I have now, for some reason opens things, rather than closing them.

I am open to the truth of the gratitude I feel for the fact that our love was/is real. I see where this is non-traditional, or even crazy. By societal standards I am a stalker with an unstable mental state. But in my truth, the one I know, I’m just deeply grateful for my whole story, and you have a big place in that. You know from having been with me that I don’t travel by the standard rules of doing things, or what other people think. I had to find my truth. And the truth I feel today is nothing but unconditional love for my whole experience, for this home, for your family. For you.

Wouldn’t it be easier to just chalk you up as an ex and feel all the things one should about an ex. I think maybe now I can feel all the love I wasn’t able to then. Yes that is the sadness. Now that I have achieved this state of security within myself, I can see what was always there. I can weave a story that isn’t me being unhealthy or writing like a crazy person to an ex all those times. I was simply offering the real love I had found within myself. (With a very real side of the panic I have often lived with, rejection sensitivity, and PTSD, oh if only I could have found kindness for myself then)

And I can know now that you didn’t have to accept that offer for it to be genuine and real. In this way no one can actually take our own experience from us, no matter how things change. Wasted time is a lie we tell ourselves in the name of shame. I have never wasted a second, well ok maybe now with Instagram and Facebook, but never in my attempts at Love.

A favorite Rumi quote still on the fridge is “The heart is comforted by true words, just as a thirsty man is comforted by water.”

I have always found this to be true for me. Perhaps for you they will just be unnerving. It’s not an easy thing to have a mind like mine. At least in my earned security I can write into the Universe and for anyone who wants to read, and not make those who do not want those words uncomfortable. Boundaries were one of my biggest battles. One I am still working on. They get stronger each day, and they honor my self, rather than shame her.

I like this new awareness of the space I occupy in the world. My life feels like an authentic adventure story, and I find gratitude for every single part.

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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…