M=Making the Most Of It

My friend Kellee sent out a challenge this week and the timing could not have been more perfect. With the changes in the weather, school back in session, and the coming holiday season, I feel now is a good time to assess where we are at, where we would like to go, and possible plans for getting there. Here are 10 of my personal "To-Do's" for the coming months:

1. Yoga- My daily practice whittled down to a never practice during the summer and it is time to get back to it.

2. Learning- Not that I am not learning all the time but I want to add some more structured class time learning to my agenda for the fall. First up, knitting socks through community education.

3.Budget- I have been playing with our family budget this summer but feel it is time to challenge myself to find ways to use money more efficiently.

4. Facebook- It is time once again to lower my overall computer time and Facebook is always a good starting place for me to lower screen minutes.

5. Play More- The girls are young, they will not be this young forever. Now is the time, here is the place, and fun is on the agenda.

6. Scare myself- Halloween is around the corner but this challenge is not about spooks. I have always been a nervous, slightly fearful person. I have found the best way to overcome that is to push myself to do things that scare me.

7. Mess it up- This one goes along with #5. Life is messy. It can always be cleaned up again.

8. Invest in friendships- Now that I am no longer hanging on in life by my fingernails I have the energy to invest in good friends.

9. Alone time with my kidlets- One on one time with both of our girls helps me to get to know them better. It gives me the ability to just say "yes" to whatever it is that particular little person wants to do, or mostly yes without having a compromise session balancing multiple needs.

10. Alone time with my sweetie- Our kids are bigger now. We have a few more babysitting options like grandma and cousins. John and I started this adventure together and will be here when the littles head out the door for the wide world. Now seems like a good time to catch up and maybe go for a walk or two sans children.

Well, there you have it. Thanks for issuing a challenge Kellee and the reward surely offered incentive.

L=Life is...

Yesterday I got out of bed, leashed the dog, and headed out the door for our morning exercise. Lately, this ritual has been happening later and later because of the changing time of sunrise. As the time has gotten later it has forced me to rush more and consider time more carefully as it is necessary for me to be home for John to head out to work. The rushing has been getting to me and as soon as I got on the trail to run yesterday I could hear a little grumpy voice in my head cursing the changing seasons. My inner curmudgeon said, "I hate it when the seasons change." and then I began to laugh out loud.

Truth is, I love fall. I love the changing of the leaves and the crispness in the air after all the heat. I love apples and cinnamon and harvest festivals. I love this time of year and how it nudges me back towards my home and family. I adore the unexplainable desire to cuddle with my kids and husband and cocoon ourselves in the joys of home.

Okay then, if I don't hate fall or the changing of the seasons what is my inner curmudgeon going on about? Aha, the real issue here is I know once again I have to change things up. I have to find a new solution for the dog and I getting exercise. The direction of my energy moved to the task at hand. What are all the options for meeting this need? I made a short mental list and then whenever I found another solution I added it to the list. Next thing to do, try the things on the list, be ready for some of them not to work, find a working solution and then be ready to abandon that one if and when it no longer works, like when the seasons change again.

Life is change. Really that about sums it up doesn't it? And the quality of life seems to be directly related to how well a person can manage change and find workable solutions that meet every ones needs. Cursing change, as I was starting to do, is pointless and a waste of energy. Energy that can be used to find new solutions and opportunities, making our lives richer and more joyful.

K=Kindness

When I was a little girl my sister and I shared a bedroom. We had twin size beds with red metal frames with bars all along the headboard and footboard. Both of our beds were on wheels. Every night we would go in to our room and we would be very, very quiet but we would not go to sleep. Without making any noise we would push our little beds together and begin to put all of our stuffed animals and dolls around the edges.

I remember either having a discussion or just the mental thought process of working out where the toys would go. I wanted to sleep with the toys but not suffocate them and I wanted each and every one of my toys to know how much I loved it. I determined that my only option was to sleep in the middle of the bed without covers so I could make sure the stuffed beings could have what they needed. I had to sacrifice for their needs. Something strikes me really hard when I write this story today. At the age of 5 I was already utterly and dangerously co-dependent.

I went along continuing to behave in this pattern until just 2 years ago. At that time I made a huge and fairly drastic life decision. The first 3 days I just cried. After that it was 2 years of remembering and digging through, falling down and getting up. I spent long bike rides pulling apart my own thinking and hours on the phone with my mentor Jennie. When I got hung up I called my husband and asked him to remind me how bad things were before I made the decision to change my own life. My good friend Julie got to hear my rants or my sobs more than once. Other people knew nothing, could not possibly understand that the me on the outside was barely holding things together while the me on the inside completely fall apart.

That was scary, probably the most scary thing, watching me fall apart and just having to have faith that somehow, someway I was heading in the right direction.

Step by step, that little girl learned that love contains respect, that healthy people have boundaries (not to be confused with walls my friends) that taking care of your own needs has to come first and only leaves you more able to take care of those that depend on you. That little girl learned that when whole people come together magic and beauty and joy light up our lives, even in the midst of chaos and destruction.

Most importantly, I learned that kindness is not something we do. It can be something we do, but first it is something we feel. Kindness comes from an open and willing heart. It comes without strings and it can come from anywhere. And I am thankful to many people who knowingly and unknowingly offered even the smallest kindness in the past 9 years when I have most certainly not felt very kind.

This ride started long ago, I thank those who have taken it with me. Those who have known me from the earliest of days that always knew who was inside the facade. I thank those who joined on late, who have only known me during some of the most tumoultous years of my life, the nine years since I gave birth and first started to open Pandora's Box. And, I even thank those who sort of left me on the road. Of course, this ride is not over, it has just taken on a different tone and any and all of you are welcome to stick around to see where our adventures take us to next.

J=Joy

I have a picture of myself that I carry around in my planner. The picture was taken when I was about 4. The 4 year old in that picture had already experienced many things other people won't ever experience in their entire lives. Yet, that 4 year old is joyful, vibrant, buoyant. It is my favorite picture of myself and I carry it around to remind me that this is the most essential part of me, the joy that has always been a part of my being.

There are times in life when I have forgotten that person. When I have been angry, resentful, sad, when I have wanted everyone to leave me alone. That is part of who I am too. The grief, sadness, and even the anger have made me more in touch with the joy, even though that seems strange. And all of these emotions and feelings are part of what it feels like to be human.

Lately, when I am around people who are unhappy, I have a keen awareness that I know what it feels like to be unhappy. I know the years it took to be able to even think about my brother and his death and not be completely overtaken with anger, sadness, or loss. I know about running away faster and faster thinking you can out run the past or at least pretend it did not happen. And I know what I know now, that sometimes people get through it and get on with their lives. That peace can find you at the oddest of times in the most unexpected of ways. I am also aware that I cannot assume when meeting someone where they have been, what they have seen, and the events that have made them who they are.

I=Intention

Several times recently as I have been working through one situation or another I have found a common thread. The common thread always comes back to the intention I have when I am pursuing an activity. In the past couple months, every situation that has led to discomfort, bad feelings, and challenges for me personally can be traced back to not having the proper intention when making choices. Some of my choices have come from a desire for me children to do something I want to do or want them to do and others have come from feeling pressure to do culturally "normal" things.

For sure, these are pretty normal things to do and I am not beating myself up about my choices or the consequences I get to face because of them. On reflection, though, I feel that a huge part of my job as a parent, especially of my oldest daughter, is to help her make choices in keeping with her heart. And, for this reason, I feel lucky to have taken a long look at my choices and how they are actually not in keeping with my role as the person who helps her learn to listen to herself.

H= Heart's Desire

In the last month or so, I have noticed my little family has been coming upon challenges that are interpersonal in nature. Things that take a quiet mind, a kind heart, and a thorough examination before acting. This is not something at which I excel. My first instinct is to run or fight when in these situations, this is the skill set hard wired in to my biology and the same one promoted by my family of origin. Fortunately, I have honed a certain degree of skill in sitting and waiting. Waiting for an opportunity, waiting for an instinct, waiting for myself to settle, and more waiting. I know that the pattern I have had in the past of zooming in to fix, destroy, or otherwise just make myself more comfortable with a situation leaves an absolute path of burnt nothing, hurt feelings, regrets, and nothing I want to carry with me as I go forward.

It occurred to me this morning, that it is my utmost heart's desire to change these patterns. The ones my biology and my family superimposed upon my young self. It is my heart's desire to have something entirely different, something my soul can feel good about, and something my children can learn from. It is a deep yearning I carry within me to do what is kind, to evolve, move forward, and carry myself with more love tomorrow than I did today. So, though these varying situations had me a bit overwhelmed a day or so ago, I now see that I am being handed the loveliest of opportunities.

Whenever you reach the edge of your ability in anything, there is the opportunity to grow. The opportunity to push past what was once a barrier and to find a whole new person capable of more on the other side. So, though what I am looking at requires grace and tact, careful choices and the willingness not to run away and though these are all skills I have struggled with at some point in time, I feel capable and willing to wait and watch and act when appropriate and hopefully find myself on the other side.

Lenses

Monday night as I prepared for bed, I found myself thinking about the historic events of the day. I found myself pondering how my emotions were so different than some of the people who I know and respect. At first, I started concocting a rock solid argument for why I was right. It occurred to me that this, in itself, is an act of war. I intend to invest no energy in war. Therefore, I had to do something different.

Funny thing, even with the strong desire, the focused attention, and a background in yoga and meditation, I found it incredibly challenging, almost impossible to move my thoughts away from "being right" for very long. Even harder, was trying to have any notion of why a person might feel the way they did about an event or situation.

Every person comes from a unique background comprised of the culture they are born in, the family they are born to, and even the birth order in which they find themselves. I know from my experience as a parent, that the way you look at life when you have your first child and the way you see it when you have your second can be radically different. Each of us then has our own life experiences, both pleasant and unpleasant, and with our sophisticated brain, we draw large conclusions about life while living it. Each conclusion then becomes a part of the lens through which we view the world and each person's lens is very different. By the time we are adults these lenses are so ingrained in the way we think, that we rarely question them.

So back to me sitting on my bed. I realized the only thing for me to do was accept that each of us comes from someplace very different. I realized I must radically accept, especially those I love and respect, as having viewpoints equal in validity to my own. I understood that the situation at hand was calling me to make a choice. That choice was to either close down and make enemies with ideas and people whom I do not agree with or to walk a different path and greet these difference with open-hearted acceptance.

The next day my oldest daughter, who knows nothing of the war in Iraq or Bin Laden, asked me what I thought could bring peace to the world. I thought for a moment and responded that we can really only bring peace to our own hearts and that we have to be satisfied at some level with that. That our presence in the world peacefully was proof that peace was possible. And I remarked that this honestly is a huge challenge that most of us will struggle with for a long time.

I found this TED talk today that really illustrates the challenge of understanding another person's experience.