We had a family supper celebrating my uncle’s birthday tonight. Lots of good laughter and conversation, ending in a big political conversation with my son and cousin. As someone who avoids political conversations at all costs it amazes me that he’s so interested in it. But he’s figuring out who he is and what his beliefs are and that’s a good thing.
Mostly it was just really nice to spend time with my tribe.
I cannot get this song out of my head today. It started on auto repeat in my brain as soon as I woke up and it just keeps getting stronger
I’ve been listening to Iyanla Vanzant on an Oprah podcast and she said:
Everything that requires healing is going to rush to the surface
And if you don’t take a minute to breathe, to gather yourself, to pray – you will do what you’ve always done
So you’ve got to be clear enough, grounded enough, centred enough, to say
How am I going to handle it this time
So the lesson is… pause
Then she talks about how we go from one job, age, relationship, to the next without a pause
We leave a relationship and jump into the next one thinking the grass is greener
But because you haven’t paused, you bring all your old stuff into it.
I have been craving this pause. This place to stop and unpack what is no longer serving me and leave it being.
I’ve been slowly in the process over the last few years, but the call is getting stronger. It is becoming a matter of survival.
Stop
Pause
Let go
Change
Embrace new beliefs
Connect with God
Pray
Sit in stillness
Be at peace.
Our Deepest Fear
By Marianne Williamson
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.
We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.
It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.
This is taken from her book A Return to Love which is one of my all time favourite reads.
I have been working a lot with forgiveness lately. Clearly given my reaction to an incident a few days ago I still have a ways to go with forgiveness. Time helps, but I don’t believe it actually heals all wounds. I need to actively work at it, and ask God for help with it, but I’m determined to do it. That will being peace which is what true happiness is after all
As an added bonus happiness moment, we saw the new Marvel movie. Those films have become a tradition in our home that we quite look forward to.
I have a friend who understands that the way to make me happy is to feed me chocolate. Tonight he made me homemade lava cake as part of a trial experiment – one I was happy to be a guinea pig for. It was awesome.
Its a good reminder to find happiness wherever you can. My heart is heavy today knowing my cousins lost their mom last night. Life is short. Live in love.
In my riding lesson today my instructor was trying to explain to me how to keep my hands at the right angle and height, my toes in, my legs bow legged, my lower leg on, and remember to stay on at the same time.
I said I had a hard time multi tasking and if I thought about my hands then my leg went to Shit, and vice versa.
She told me to simplify things in my mind, to just make it all a pattern I followed.
I then had the best ride I’ve had so far. Everything came together and he was round and on the bit and happy.
After she asked me what I was thinking that made it so different.
I said I wasn’t thinking at all.
She responded by rolling her eyes and saying she wasn’t going to ask me questions anymore.
I clarified and said, well what I did was clear my head. I stopped thinking and just started feeling.
She jumped up and down and said yes that’s it exactly.
Life is so much simpler when I feel instead of think.
On another note, I was included in a group photo share of a picture of my son that I had shared on here. A big reason why I didn’t blog last year was because my kids wanted the window to their lives closed to Mr X and his family. Lesson learned. I will no longer include photos of the kids on this blog and I will concentrate on my own personal happiness and growth. It’s a challenge since my kids are one of my greatest sources of joy, but honoring their wishes comes first. Relationships take work and time and commitment. You don’t get to bail on that and watch how their lives are going through my window. Not anymore.
I finally got a bunch of paperwork off to my lawyer today. It doesn’t sound like a happiness moment, and in general nothing to do with my divorce is happy, but I really needed to deal with some of these issues.
I don’t need to prove anything to him, but I need to remind myself that he can’t break me. So even if he won’t do his part, I need to make sure I’m doing mine.
We attacked the house today – specifically the mountain of laundry, but also the mountain of pet hair (it’s a thing) and the mountain of junk.
Step by step we are getting sorted and organized in this house. It’s been a challenge, moving into a house that has had generations living in it before. There’s lots of stuff, but what makes it slow is the memories. It’s easy to get lost in the memories as we sort through things. Fortunately it’s mostly good memories (mixed with sad missing people emotions) and it’s been fun to share with my kids memories of my grandparents and of their grandparents.
We are so blessed to be here.
Tonight for the first time in forever we all had plans with friends and went our separate ways
I’m grateful for the closeness we share, but I’m happy they have friends they want to go hang with too. I feel often like all we have been through in the last few years has prevented them from being “normal” teenagers. And maybe that’s a good thing. But I’m happy they’re doing regular teen things now too.
And I’m also grateful for a parenting free night.
I had my riding lesson today – which really is my therapy session.
It’s coming, but I feel like as soon as I get my hands where they need to be, and my elbows at my sides, my knees move, or I lose my balance, or I’m posting on the wrong diagonal (happened today, I was embarrassed).
My horse was farting around and I didn’t get after him for it, so my instructor got after me. Then she said she was working hard to push me out of my comfort zone, because I was so resistant to it.
Ughhhh
That’s the story of my life lately. For years I’ve prayed to be home, grounded, safe, happy. And for years there has been a crisis or trauma of some sort.
So I’m tired. I’m happy to sit quietly in my comfort zone and not make waves. I enjoy being invisible and just taking a few breaths.
But that isn’t life, and it certainly isn’t the way to grow and heal. And I need to continue with my growth and my healing.
Which means I need to be pushed out of my comfort zone.
Not suddenly, not dramatically, but quietly and lovingly. It doesn’t have to be leaps and bounds, but rather consistent, steady steps towards my goals.
It’s the best therapy I could ask for.
