I Will Not Look Away

I have been tangling with judgment lately. I have been trying to untangle. These roots run deep.

I am self-righteous. I judge. I still project my pain.

Projecting is so easy and it feels so good.

I don’t want to feel my insecurities around mothering so I will look at what you are doing and find flaws. 
I don’t want to address my own unhealthy habits so I will fixate on yours and feel superior.
I don’t want to admit my fears so I will criticize yours.

I like it when it is all about you and never about me. I like getting to be the right one while you are over there being wrong. I like being superior. I like being big.

I am not big here. This is not my BIG place. When I create any kind of disconnection from love I am certainly not BIG. This is me being small.

I am not meant to stay small.

We all struggle. Instead of seeing someone else’s hard time for what it is, pain and struggle, I am wanting to use it for my gratification.

If I am willing to see the truth about the pain and struggle of others it means I have to be willing to hold my own truths about my pain and struggle as well.

This is being BIG.

Being BIG means not looking away from pain. It means loving someone in their struggle and pain. It means loving myself in my pain and struggle.

Projection feels so good, it is so easy. Deep love takes work, it is hard.

I can do hard things. I am not small. I am BIG.

I choose love and all the hard AND goodness that comes with it. I am ready to set down my judgement and self-righteousness to pick up LOVE. I will not look away from pain.

I choose love every time.

 

 

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I Encourage You to Write – Repurposed

This post was originally published February 2017 in my former writing space. I am bringing it home to Adding to Nine because this is where it is meant to live.

This post was born when I was a mentor and working as a therapist to teenagers at a youth shelter. It is my two pieces of advice for anyone wanting to heal, especially those who want to hold space for other’s as they heal.

As I welcome this post home, I do so with my dear friend in mind. I am so glad you are writing and am HONORED you are sharing your truths with me. Don’t you dare stop writing, your fight matters.

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Something has come up a few times now as part of the mentor-mentee relationship, I am being asked for tips/advice on this or that as it pertains to healing/holding space for those who are healing. I realized I have two tips/pieces of advice that are universal no matter who I am speaking with.

1. Start seeing a therapist
2. If you don’t have the funds for therapy then start writing until you do and then keep writing once you do.

That is it folks. That is my sage wisdom about life and feeling fulfilled and whole.

The see a therapist part is important because you need to have one person in your life that has no other role in your life than to listen. To listen to it all. Anything you have that needs to be heard that is your person across the board.

This is coming from a woman who has a husband, soul friends, girl friends, trust worthy co-workers, mentors.. I have a lot of people in my life that are here to listen. It doesn’t matter. None of them can hold it all for me. Not even my husband.

And here is my truth about that: I would never want them to. Again, not even my husband.

My therapist is my person that helps me with my relationship with myself so I can learn to listen to myself and be the one person responsible for holding all of my stuff. My truth is that if there is any aspect of myself that I am asking someone else to hold because I don’t want to then I am doing it wrong.

There is nothing that my husband, or friends, or family, or co-workers, or mentors can do to make me feel better about something if I am not first willing to hold it for myself and help myself feel better about it.

So I say again: Tip #1: Get a therapist.

Tip #2 is of equal importance. Start writing.

I realize there are a lot of reasons/excuses that are out there for why you aren’t doing this.

I am not a good writer. My grammar isn’t great. I don’t have time. I don’t have a computer. I don’t want anyone to read it and judge me. I don’t know what to write about.

Keep making that list folks. Write down all your reasons/excuses so every piece of you that is fighting against writing has been heard and then START WRITING.

Start writing right now. Don’t even feel pressure to finish reading what I am writing. You have my full blessing to close the window to my blog right now. Just start writing.

Write about whatever you want. Start making lists. The first list can be that list of reasons you don’t want to write. Make your grocery list. Make a list each morning of who you want to be today. Make a list of your heroes and what draws you to them. Write anything just write. Write everyday until you get to the point where going a day without writing feels like going a day without air.

This is how you get to know who you really are. You are not processing your thoughts and feelings with anyone but yourself. You don’t need anyone else’s opinion or input on your life, you only need to be with yourself. Write.

Write and learn who you are. Write to find yourself. Write to learn your own truth. Write to be heard. Write to heal. Write to get it out.

Writing gives you time to be alone and quiet so you can hear your own inner wisdom about your life.

It does not matter how you start. Write on napkins. Write on whatever is next to you, as long as it is not living because that would be problematic. Just write.

If you do only one thing today I encourage you to write.

Are You My Mother?

This week started with me caught in the current of the river rapid I have long called mother. After the flood of emotions, I once again stabilized my vessel by freely accepting love from my husband and calling in my support from soul family and friends.

The week has carried on calmly.

Yesterday I started to make my plan for how to address the transgression that led to the emotional upheaval. In doing so I decided to call on the Universe and my own intuition for guidance and support.

I pulled cards from three decks – Self-care, Mother’s Wisdom, and Work Your Light.

My over arching question being what should I be doing about my mother?

The messages were clear. One in particular was clarity that I desperately needed.

While I have unraveling my attachment to my family of origin, specifically my mother, the feeling of being a motherless child has continued to rise and it is painful. That child does not want to be motherless. The world does not feel safe without a mother. My truth is, for so long my mother is part of what has made the world feel unsafe.

Still, this child has been searching. She does not want to be without a mother. Her question is, Who is my mother? If it is not her, than who? We have to have a mother!

I have felt like the little bird from the book. Abandoned and scared in my nest, then deciding – I will go find my mother. I search everywhere – in other relationships, in food, in shopping, in drinking, in work.. All along asking, Are you my Mother?

Are you the thing that can replace her?

Are you the thing that can bring the comfort I so long for?

Just like the bird I have discovered over and over the answer is No.

My husband is not my mother.
Ice cream is not my mother.
Clothing is not my mother.
Alcohol is not my mother.
Work is not my mother.

None of this will replace her. None of this will heal the wound she created. None of this will fill my void.

The card I pulled to answer the question, Who is my Mother? was Pachamama.

The words I read washed over me bringing me the comfort and truth I had been searching for;

You are within her and she is within you. You are inseparable from Pachamama. Sitting among the trees you can feel this bond. 

This is a truth I have known. I possess the mothering comfort I am seeking and it is all around me.

Our Oak tree’s name is Nana for a reason. She is maternal, she is comfort.

What I seek is within me as well. I do not need to look outside of myself for the love I am needing.

I am sitting with each message I received and the truth they are leading me towards.

I am grateful for guidance and support in all of it’s forms.
I am grateful for eruptions that bring deeper  connection to my truth.
I am grateful for the reminder that I am what I am seeking.

I am a Leader

Here are a few words that have been used to describe me as a child; willful, tenacious, ring-leader, bossy, strong willed, stubborn.

Not all of these words have a natural negative connotation so let me be clear; they were absolutely meant as criticism.

Any attempts to get me to conform were met with fierce opposition.

I bucked every Sunday at being forced to attend church. I refused to get out of bed, I hid from my  mother who chased me with a hair brush, I squirmed and screamed as I was forcibly stuffed into tights and a lacy dress. If my parents were lucky I slept through mass; otherwise I spent my time sitting on the floor between pews poking the feet of the parishioners in front of us, or banging the song book against the wood of the pew.

My parents were relentless week after week, as was I. This was an ongoing battle throughout my entire childhood.

My willfulness did not apply exclusively to my resistance to religion. This energy carried over in other areas garnering me further unwanted attention.

The boys of my youth did not like my loud, decisive way of being. The specific group of boys I am referring to were raised strictly along the gender lines of boys will boys and girls will be ladies.

Well no one has EVER accused me of being a lady.

So once again someone who insisted I be something other than what I am attempted to (literally) beat me into submission. Submit I did not, taking the beating I did.

I come back to reflect on all of this now because motherhood is teaching me many things about myself and one of the things I recently discovered is that I am a leader.

While on so many levels I have always known this, it is also a truth I have run from.

Being a leader is something for BIG people and when I was playing small this label terrified me. As a child I was a leader, I refused to follow, refused to give in, refused to be shoved into a box of someone else’s making. I refused until the pressure became too much. My inside resolve temporarily crushed by the outside force.

Now, coming home to myself and rescuing that bad-ass little girl, I call her Scout, I am able to speak my truth: I am a leader.

I know this is true because;

I bristle at the idea of self-help books, I will not be saved by someone else’s truth. Even if my truth ends up mirroring the truth of others, and I know it will because I am not the only person experiencing my awakening, I still have to come to it on my own.

I do not belong in religion. Religion to me = Rules. My relationship with my creator has no rules. Love and connection are the language of the Universe, as long as I stay in tune with that Sacred Truth I experience spiritual alignment.

I do not belong under my mother’s control. Or anyone’s for that matter. I will not play small to fit in to boxes that would serve to suffocate. I will not willingly put on shackles and restraints to comply with familial expectations/social norms.

I do not belong in a box of anyone’s creation, I do not belong in restraints.

I release all the lies that I believed about myself.

I reclaim my truth: I AM strong-willed. I AM tenacious. I AM a leader. I AM strong willed. I AM stubborn when it counts. I AM the BOSS of me. I AM my own.

These are my truths now and I embrace them in love, not shame.

I am not small.

I am BIG. I am POWERFUL. I am a LEADER.

I am the hero of this story.

 

Creating My Web

All of the dysfunction with my family of origin, my experiences so far as momma, and the dreams I keep having, have led to a pretty incredible vision board this year.

I vision board every year. It helps me to have a visual of the path I am on, even when the path is not clear. Vision boarding is an intuitive process, I do not always understand everything that comes out when I am creating but by the year’s end all becomes clear.

Because I am done playing small this year I knew I needed to go big with my board. If I am saying that I am BIG I need to see that truth visually represented. Not to mention being BIG is hard work, there is a lot that goes into it, I needed plenty of space for all the hard that I am mastering.

When I finished the board, to the degree that it is finished, I saw so much symbolism in the shape I created.

I see a flower, its petals occupying the negative space on the board. To me this represents growth. I was once a seed planted in the dark in the mud, now with all the healing I have been experiencing I am finally breaking the surface.

I also see a spider web. This symbolism came about after discussing with my therapist that I had been seeing spiders everywhere. She said that she had been seeming them as well and when we looked up the symbolism behind the spider it had to do with creating your dreams, making them realities. She also felt that the web was significant because in my board I have a very clear center, that is me. Without that dedicated center the web does not hold up. Essentially, in order for me to do all this BIG work I have to be firmly connected to myself or it does not hold up.

In two short months I have accomplished things in my relationship with myself and in relationships with others that for years has seemed impossible.

I know now that impossible was just another lie I used to tell myself when I was small.

On my vision board there is a section left incomplete. That section comes later this year after I attend a healing retreat that I know is going to knock down and shatter my final wall. On the other side of that wall is EVERYTHING. On the other side of that wall is my life’s purpose and my work going forward. I will complete the last section later this year and it will lead to bigger intentions going forward.

I am grateful for connection.
I am grateful for a visual reminder that helps me to feel supported and purposeful in this work.
I am grateful for my path and even more grateful that I am finally walking it.

Getting Creative: Creative Communication

Another space where my husband and I have been embracing the creative energy coursing through our home since the birth of little bubby is in how we communicate.

First we introduced the conversation cup. The conversation cup is our vessel for holding conversations we need to circle back to in order to honor what needs to be addressed with the appropriate space and time. Sometimes we use the conversation cup because we are in the middle of a conversation that is going south and we need to step back and gain perspective in order to continue towards connection. Sometimes we use the conversation cup to hold a topic we know needs more time than the thirty minutes we have together in the morning, it lets us jot down our key points and come back to it when there is enough time to honor everything that needs to be expressed.

The conversation cup holds hurt feelings, misunderstandings, truths not yet spoken, dreams, ideas, love.. Above all the conversation cup is about connection because our communication is about connection. We strive to always stay on each other’s team, when it starts to feel like we are not on the same team we know it is time for a break, to call in the conversation cup, and come back to whatever it is when we know we are both in a better place to hold whatever it is together.

This is us getting creative in our communication and for us it works.

Another area where we have recently gotten creative in how we communicate is related to expressions of gratitude.

We were already practicing gratitude with one another but not regularly enough to consistently keep scarcity at bay. We were experiencing scarcity in different ways; I was experiencing scarcity related to support with little bubby and my husband was experiencing scarcity related to time.

Here’s the thing, scarcity is a liar. It is an illusion. That is my truth at least. Scarcity shows up to tell tales of not-enough and it is important when I hear those whispers creeping up from dark places that I remember my truth: Who I am is enough. What I have is enough. What I do is enough. I am grateful. I am love.

What we have started doing to enhance our connection even further and really lean into the abundance of our love is writing down our daily gratitude for one another.

We have a dry erase board on the refrigerator that we mainly use to jot down items we need at the grocery and track little bubby’s feeding/napping schedule; last week I drew a heart on the board and underneath it I wrote folding your blanket and putting it away. 

In our home everyone has their own snuggle blanket for movies etc and my husband sometimes forgets to fold his and put it away. That day he didn’t and I appreciated it. I was afraid I would forget to tell him by the end of the day so I left him the note on the board. What started as a way for me to make sure my Mom-Brain remembered to thank my husband for a small thing I appreciated him doing has turned into a daily practice now.

My husband and I both have hearts on the board in different colors; he writes my notes in purple, I write his in green, and everyday we express our love and gratitude for what the other person is doing.

It helps us both feel seen, appreciated, connected to our intention as a family and in our marriage. There is no room for scarcity when love and gratitude occupy such a large space in our home.

We are both doing things we have never done in any previous relationship, romantic or otherwise. We are allowing our love for one another and our intuition guide us and amazing things are taking place.

My husband and I are not small. We are big, we have wings. Our babies will know how to fly, they will know how to love, they will know they are lovable – we are showing them.

I am grateful for this man whom I get to call my partner. I am grateful for the little soul who chose us and breathed new life into a love that already felt big. I am grateful to have found my wings, I am grateful to be using them. I was never meant to stay small on an unstable branch, I was always meant to fly.

Invitation to be Seen

This evening as we prepared for our walk I got all my essentials; sunglasses, head scarf, mala beads, earrings..

I am about 2 months over due on a hair cut which means my normally ultra short pixie is more of a shag. I do not love the shag AND I am letting it go on purpose – a post for another day.

Because I do not love the shag I try to hide it and I overcompensate in other ways when I go out into the world – extra accessories etc.

Getting ready takes a bit longer (to be clear, longer means 15 minutes instead 3) and little bubby is over it. I know this because of the very clear message he communicated to me this evening at the end of our walk.

We got to our park, the traditional last stop on our walk before going home, and I took him out of the stroller for cuddles on the grass. I sat on the ground and he sat in the blanket of my maxi dress playing with a leaf.

After a moment he started pulling at the mala on my wrist, I took it off and let him jangle it around like a rattle. He cooed and giggled as the Tree of Life charm hit against the magnesite beads. He looked up at me with a smile and his focus shifted; he reached up and pulled on the tie of my head scarf unraveling the knot so the scarf fell into his lap. I had a momentary pang of insecurity/shame as I thought Oh know, everybody will see my awful mop of hair, then little bubby started cooing and thrashing the scarf around and my shame immediately melted away. Then he came for my sunglasses, pulling them off and chewing on the lens.

By the time he was done I was completed unmasked. All the careful time spent armoring up to go out into the world, and in a matter of moments I was completed disarmed. My son knows what he needs and wants, his momma. He needs and wants to see me, he does not want me to hide, he made that clear tonight as we sat in the grass together. So that is it, I am done. I will not hustle for my worthiness because my hair is unruly and I am in a transition. Little bubby needs to know he is loveable and worthy in his body, as is, and I show him that by loving myself fully in my body – as is.

I need to address my shame directly for a moment:

1. We were completely alone in the park so everybody who?
2. My hair is okay as is, all of me is.
3. Little bubby does not see an embarrassing mop of hair, he sees his momma – I will not allow anything to keep him from seeing me.

When we were done playing and cuddling in the grass, I scooped him up and carried him across the street to our home. When I got inside I had a thought..

My healing work is very deeply connected to the feeling of not being seen most of my life. For so long I have felt shameful and small and desperate to be seen while simultaneously being terrified at the thought. This little soul chose me to be his momma and since he has come into my life the message has been clear – I want to see you. I need to see you. Please stop hiding.

I hear you baby, I see you, and I will let you see me. I will not hide. I will not let that be the example I set for you.

You are lovable, you are loved, you are worthy of being seen and heard. 

I am lovable, I am loved, I am worthy of being seen and heard.