Author Archives: Melissa

happiness

Quiet moments 

We spent the evening stabilizing our family. It’s not perfect, but we balance each other well. It brings us back into harmony with our true selves. 

I feel so insecure with all I’ve learned from Ayurveda. But when things like this happen and I realize all our coping skills come from what I’ve learned I am reminded of how it has saved my life. The meditation, grounding foods, self care – all of it comes from my studies. It was a huge gift that was sent to me at exactly the right time. I am so grateful for that. 

The evening was spent with young people in and out of the house. Laughter, popcorn, snow, spaghetti and meatballs,tv, and love. All so simple. That’s what I’ve really discovered over the last couple of years – the more simple we make our lives the richer they are. We are less stressed, we live in the moment more, we enjoy nature. Thoreau was right. Simplify, simplify, simplify. 

My happiness moment was feeling the peace and the love in our home. We have worked hard to create a safe environment here and it truly is where we come to heal. 

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Grounded in love

We are in crisis, there is no other way to put it. Full out, white knuckle, crisis. We have been in crisis for years where our security and safety was an issue, then the upset of my dad dying, the divorce and all the ache that has brought, and then we circled right back to the safety and security issue, to the crisis and the well being of a child. 

You need to feel safe in order to be able to heal. Because the issue of safety is treated like a game, healing continues to be almost impossible. We have made lots of steps ahead, but things like what happened to my boy last weekend come along and it’s enough to flatten him. Whether the threat is real or not, his fear is. This is the aftermath of living with a narcissist who rages and destroys safety. Crisis. And I can’t just wave a wand and fix it. 

This is a happiness blog, and this blog has pulled me through some real shit and it will continue to. Happiness isn’t always laughter and Disney animals. Sometimes it is remembering to look for the rainbow in the storm. 

We are at the gym, the girl and I were on the treadmills and the boy is playing basketball with friends. It’s happiness. It’s happiness because we are home, we are rooted, we have a community, we have support. We are grounded in faith, we are grounded in love. That gives hope, and happiness can come from hope. 

So those of you who read this, please pray  or send healing light for my little family. We need some extra support right now. Thank you ❤

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Calm the chaos

We kind of managed to stop the world for a little bit this afternoon and my family took some time to come together and calm the chaos. One thing the three of us have learned is how to love and support each other no matter what. It is really a pretty amazing thing, love and support in a way I never thought would be possible. 

Things seem calmer and more grounded. We still need to hold tight to each other, but I think today did a lot to provide security. 

The courage and love my kids have is amazing. It gives me the strength to keep moving ahead. That is happiness, on a very deep and spiritual level. 

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Breathe through it. 

The boy has been dealing with a lot of anxiety issues in the last few days. His coping skills are getting better, but it frustrates me that even after all this time there is still the insecurity there.  He is so good about letting me in and sharing where he’s at. I believe it’s what is going to not only see him through this but make him an even more incredible soul. 

I know exactly the source of the anxiety, and it frustrates the hell out of me that there isn’t anything I seem to be able to do to make it better for him, but we will continue to hold space for each other and be strong. 

After a few panic attacks at school today we spent a few hours just bumming around town before his game tonight. I could see him relaxing and coming back to himself.  The fact that he can do that is pretty impressive. 

We went for his favourite meal before the game and sitting there together gave us a really good opportunity to talk and share where we are at. This relationship we have grown – it is happiness 

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Family Day 2017

My understanding of what a family is has certainly changed over the years. I so badly wanted what I considered a traditional family – mom, dad, kids, dog, cat, horses, happiness. That didn’t work out so well for me. We are our own little family, and a pretty happy and functional one at that, but it wasn’t how I had imagined life would turn out.

Being a single – or solo – parent is hard work. There has been so much emotional turmoil that we all have gone through and the recovery and healing from that is substantial. At least one time a day something comes up that triggers some kind of pain in my children (or in myself), and sometimes it takes all the strength I have to deal with it. And I have to deal with it always as the only adult in the household – which means no one to bounce ideas off of, to discuss strategies with, to lean on.

I have discovered the three of us have incredible strength.

I feel like we celebrate the fact that we are a family all the time, but today is Family Day and it makes me appreciate what we have even more. Even with the hard times (or maybe because of the hard times) we are so incredibly close. I have a relationship with my children that is better than anything I could have ever imagined.

That is what real happiness is.

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Future Jenna’s problem

The girl and I went to Bragg Creek and had lunch at Creeker’s Bistro for the first time – definitely a place we will go back to. We sat in the corner (as is our usual MO) and talked about little things and stole food off of each other’s plates. Normally I have a full on ban on people taking food from my plate – or my taking food off of their plate – but Jenna somehow has managed to make that rule not apply to her. She’s been happily stealing my food since she was born.

When we were done we each had a little sweet treat which was delicious, but we both decided was more than we had really needed (although we really enjoyed eating it). As we were driving home I lamented that with the dessert I had eaten too much and that I was going to regret it later. Jenna quipped back “I ate too much as well, but I’m not going to worry about it – that’s Future Jenna’s problem”. It was so unexpected and funny I laughed until tears were rolling. Then she found it so funny that I was laughing so hard she laughed until she was crying as well.

It’s these little moments that make up the big memories. This is the stuff we will remember. This is happiness.

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Sharing meditation

Both the boy and I have had some pretty intense bouts with anxiety. I decided a few years ago that I was willing to do anything I needed to in order to stop the constant panic attacks I was having (ironically that has lead to my living a completely different and happier life now than the one I was trapped in back then, funny how that works). I have had to learn many different coping skills, as has my boy.

One of the greatest things we both do is meditate. I hate it – I love it. Sometimes it is so very difficult to force myself to sit quietly with myself, with my Source for 20 minutes and just be. But after I do it I always feel so much better. And the more consistently I do it, the more it pays off in my every day life.

The boy texted me today that he was having some anxiety triggers come up. Before I could suggest anything he told me he was heading off to meditate. When he was done he not only told me how much better, calmer, more grounded he felt – but he sent me the link of the meditation he did on YouTube and told me that I needed to do it as well. I can’t believe that my 15 year old boy sends me meditation links. I love that. All of the work we have done to learn how to make ourselves feel secure and grounded is paying off. He knows how to identify the feelings of anxiety and is learning how to calm them.

I have been feeling a little anxious the last few days as well, and I have been doing much the same thing  – meditating, calming, grounding, laughing with friends.  It is a world away from the helpless feelings of panic and fear that I felt years ago. I still get fearful, I still want to panic, but I have this deep sense that I am doing exactly the right thing, I am doing what I need to do, following my dharma.

That is happiness.

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Tears in the wind 

For the first time in ages I took my Dotted Dog out for a walk along the ridge. It was still pretty windy, and a little muddy and icy, but it was certainly nice to get outside and spend some healing time in nature. It’s been a few months since I have done this particular walk and I forgot that as soon as I got to the spot where we had scattered some of Dad’s ashes I would have to stop and cry. It was blowing so hard that the wind took away my tears almost as soon as they were out of my eyes. I wonder how much longer it will be before those tears come without warning. Dad would have loved the walk along the ridge tonight.

I go on all the time about how happy I am that we are home and how much I love it here – but seriously… look at this place. I am grateful every moment of every day that God brought us back where we belong. We are home, we are safe, we are loved.

Today I met with an agency to discuss children who could participate with Celebrate Every Child. I had to give a little talk about myself and how it was that the idea, the dream, for this project came to be. It was pretty emotional as I had to put myself back where we were a year ago when we were in such a scary and uncertain place. I had just filed for divorce, our finances had been completely cut off, I was in the process of discovering so many painful things about the life I had been living. I had to go back even before that to the life we lived where there was so much pain and fear, so much hurt and sadness. And then I got to talk about how my tribe stepped in and helped me and my kids when we were at our bottom, when we had nothing. I got to talk about how the kids and I were now at the point where we wanted to pass on some of the blessings we had received.

They loved my idea of giving birthday parties to children who because of family circumstances would not get one, they agreed that every child deserves to be celebrated. I am one huge step closer to seeing this dream become a reality. This is such huge happiness I am at a loss for words to explain how grateful I feel. I think this is something that can make a big difference to children who really need some happiness in their lives.

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Honey cat

The girl and I have had a really nasty stomach bug for the last couple of days so things have been pretty quiet around here. 

Tonight though, our super chill cat Abu got on the counter (where she does not belong) and spilled over my pot of special honey which ended up all over the counter and all over Abu. 

So poor Abu had to tub, and poor Jenna had to do it. She sat in the bath giving sad little cries, but because she’s Abu she was not scratching or fighting. Her brother Aladdin got really upset and kept peering into the tub to see if she was ok. Even her arch rival Ella came to see what was going on (this may not have been an act of kindness, we aren’t sure). 


I am constantly amazed by the love that Abu and Aladdin have for each other, and the love they show us. They came into our lives at a time when we really needed them and they continue to be an incredible blessing. They are happiness. 

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