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The good, the bad, the happiness in between….

Today I have been in a real pisser of a mood. I’m not sure what has made today any more spectacular in the bad mood department than any other day, but the feeling is here and it’s real.

There’s a couple of specific things that are irritating me, nothing that isn’t a first world problem, but irritating nonetheless. While I was away my cousin discovered that my furnace isn’t working – which means we have no heat. Perhaps not a big deal in some places, but it was snowing here when we landed on Saturday and it’s been cold and crappy since then. Today wasn’t bad, but the old house didn’t seem to know that and held onto the bone chilling cold of the past few days.

Because of this I’m tired, I need to sleep in my own bed, covered in purring cats. The purring cats and the lonely dog agree with me – they’re not happy that they’re alone at night.

Jenna was home sick today. While that’s really a poor Jenna thing, I managed to make it about me and was all I never ever get any time to do the things I need to do. My course work is so neglected because I’m always running around after people and I never have a freaking moment’s peace.

I had a massage today. I have found a wonderful woman who not only is working out all the tension and the anger and sad emotions that I’ve been storing in my hips (see where this is going?) but she knows how to release my jaw so that pretty soon I will actually be able to chew food on both sides – and maybe even not walk around with it clenched all the time. What a blessing that is!

I’m pretty sure she hit my anger button today as she was releasing things and it has just about sent me off the cranky deep end. The good thing is after all the work I’ve been doing I know this is just a feeling and that it will pass. Sometimes I can separate from that feeling and just allow it to work itself out of me – which is what it needs to do.

So, as I’ve been observing (and sometimes actively participating) in these pissy feelings I’ve come back to the intention of my blog. Happiness. Thank goodness I decided to follow 44 days of happiness last January when I turned 44, and I’m even more grateful that I decided to continue looking for a moment of happiness in every day since then. Because even with all the trials and tribulations of this year there has always been a moment of happiness in every day.

The flip side of my cranky feelings of today are these:

This wonderful, old, loving house we live in. I love it, the kids love it, it has been home since the moment we walked in the door. For some reason the past few days I’ve when been talking to people, I’ve told them the story of the miracle of how we returned home. This old house was empty and when I was home at Christmas time there were no appliances, the rooms were boarded off, there was no working toilet and it was just not in good shape. When I called on a Monday and said we were moving home I asked if it was possible for us to move into that house. By Sunday when we arrived, my cousins and aunt and uncle had cleaned the house, put in temporary furniture, bought some basic groceries (cheese and buns for that boy of mine), put appliances in, and even left a huge bar of chocolate. My Dad let me use his old car  so I was able to get around, and after he died my sister let me use her old car that she had been in the process of gifting to Dad.

If ever I doubted that miracles happen, the wings that lifted us up and brought us back home have convinced me that we are very much loved and very much supported and that with love absolutely anything can happen.

While my furnace isn’t working my mom has very graciously opened her doors to the kids and I to crash here. We can be messy and annoying and loud and she has been so kind about letting us stay here.

So, when you compare all that love and kindness and support to something as insignificant as the furnace not working – the scales are definitely tipped in favour of the happiness, loving, wonderful side.

Every time I have gotten frustrated today at being overly needed by kids and have groaned inside about it, they have either said something funny or come over and given me one of those awesome kid hugs followed by I love you mom. There is no better feeling in the world than that. I would never, ever trade being needed and loved for being alone and unnecessary. I consider those two my greatest blessings. Again, no contest – the happiness side of that coin is the winner.

As an aside, I spent a great part of the day angry about the fact that I’d lost my headphones. I had racked my brain trying to figure out where I had left then and finally I was forced to come to the conclusion that someone had broken into the house and stolen them (yes, only them – they had left everything of value and not messed anything up, but stolen them for certain). I found then in my backpack just a little while ago and did a little dance of happiness.

I’m so thankful for my happiness project and how it continues to steer me in the direction of joy, peace, bliss and happiness. I’m even thankful that these pissed off emotions are working their way through me, because the other option is that they stay stuffed in my hips forever and that’s not desirable.

My happiness moment today was watching Jenna walk across the room holding Aladdin. She holds him like a baby and from the front all you can see is a big ball of fur snuggled into her chest. She walked past me and he had his arm around her back giving her a huge hug. He loves that girl so much and spent most of the day cuddled up with her helping her feel better.

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Shriners and horses 

 The kids and I went to the Cochrane Labour Day Parade this morning. It’s been at least 10 years since I’ve been (so Jenna has never been and if Jacob has it was when he was a toddler) and it is my all time favorite parade. 

When I was little I used to ride my horse in the parade as a part of the Cochrane Pony Club, then later on I became a very happy spectator. They used to hand out little Dixie  Cups of ice cream and we would park our bums on the sidewalk and wave at friends and neighbors as they passed by. 

As my cousin and I were waiting for the parade to start she mentioned that her favorite part of a parade were the marching bands. That she wished that there were more bands in this parade and why weren’t any of the Stampede bands in it?

I said that to me the best thing about a parade were the Shriners and the horses. The Cochrane parade is full of both. No wonder it’s the best parade of all in my mind.

I mean who wouldn’t want to drive around in a little Dukes of Hazzard car??

 

 I was also saved my typical anxiety/panic attack as aside from the one I saw walking on the sidewalk, the parade was completely clown free. 

Happiness moment. Sharing one of my favorite events with my kids. Extra happiness moment was being with my cousin. So good to be back in the tribe. 

I wrote the other day about the song May It Be and how Jacob and I both came to love that song separately. We claim to have very different tastes in music, but once in a while our tastes align in the most unexpected ways. 

This morning when driving into town Crazy Train by Ozzie Osbourn came on. He reached for the volume on the radio and at the same time I was turning it up on the steering wheel. Fellow metal heads. Who knew!!?! Neither of us look like typical headbanger type people- he a jock and me living in yoga pants. But, I have always loved heavy metal from the 80s. And since Jacob didn’t know that about me it made it ok for him to like it too! Even Jenna gets into it. She’s a big lover of Bon Jovi and KISS. I love that drive into town, we have some of our best times on the road. 

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Chefs in the kitchen 

Tonight we brought a little New Mexico back to our kitchen. Well, a Canadianized version of southwestern cooking since it involved a lot of throwing what we had in the pantry into the mix. 

The kids decided they wanted enchiladas for supper, Jacob had made some last year in his foods class, so he declared himself head chef. 

The three of us worked in the kitchen together to prepare the meal. We used to cook together a lot, it feels like it’s been a long time since we have come together like this.  A welcome return of a fun and bonding activity. 

As we worked we listened to my “yoga mix” on my playlist. May it be is one of the songs. On our drive home I had to play the song to see if it was familiar to Jacob. I had thought it was familiar besides playing on my pandora station. Yesterday I realized that it was on his Hobbit album that plays non stop. His has a different singer and is just different enough that he didn’t recognize it. When he realized that we had both been enchanted by the same song we had a good giggle and then had to justify why our version was the better one. 

As we made supper, I played my yoga mix as background music. As well as May It Be, we enjoyed grooving to KDZ the Kripalu drummers. There’s something about drinking music that is good for the soul. 

My happiness moment, Jammin’ in the kitchen with my monsters. I sure missed them, we work best as a unit. 

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When a door closes, another one opens. 

This morning  I went out for my last sunflower walk here at the Tamaya Resort. I very intentionally went “backwards” so that I could walk halfway, stand at the Rio Grande and say thank you to Dad, to the river, to God; and then walk the last part of the path guided by Dad’s sunflowers.

To my initial disappointment, when I arrived at the river there was a lady already standing there. She looked like she was happily enjoying the view, but she was at my place where I had important emotional things I wanted to do. 

Then that lady and I made eye contact and I realized it was Susan, a woman I had shared lunch with a couple of days ago. Every once in a while you meet someone you just click with and I felt that click over lunch. We have a lot in common, but also are very different. Whatever the case, we had that click of a friendship. 

We stood at my spot at the river and hugged and chatted a bit. She was heading in the direction I had just come from and I asked if I could join her and walk together back to the hotel. 

It amazes me when I just  meet someone and already feel so comfortable with them. We talked about our lives and our journeys. When we were at the house of hummingbirds, she said she was taking this course in part in search of her tribe. Right away my ears perked up. I have been actively seeking out my tribe too. I think we may be tribe members. 

As I was packing up I was thinking about having run into her. She said it was interesting how we kept crossing paths (it’s a big place and I’m not a part of this course) and how it must mean something. I thought of how my intention had been to go have a really emotional moment of gratitude at the river for the healing it has offered me. How instead of that intended moment, I walked forward into a new friendship. 

My moment of happiness and of deep gratitude.  I feel every day like I’m making steps ahead on this journey, but big spiritual stuff happened for me these past few days. Fitting that I again was guided on how to move forward instead of standing still with the past. 

Good bye New Mexico, you hold a blessed place in my heart. 

  

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Tears from heaven 

I’m finding as I move further into my understanding of who I am (with the help of my Ayurvedic studies, my meditation, my yoga, my increasingly closer relationship with The Source) that I am loving my sacred quiet morning times more and more. They are what gets me on my path for the day ahead and the more relaxed and at peace I can be when I start off, the better my entire day is.

This is how we started the morning on our terrace at the Tamaya Resort, so quiet and peaceful and warm. 

After helping Mom get ready for her course I headed back out along my Sunflower Path to clear my head and stretch my legs. As I began walking I was impressed with how quiet my head was. I was congratulating myself on how unstressed and uncluttered I was as I strolled along. Of course, no sooner did those thoughts come than my emotions were all like oh yeah? You think you’re all zen? Here, let me show you what’s really going on inside. And suddenly I was filled with rage.

By the time I realized how completely angry I was, I was at the halfway mark which looks out over the river towards the mountains and towards one of Dad’s sunflowers. So, I stood there and mind raged at the Dad-sunflower. 

Now, it was cloudy when I left for my walk, but I’d been out for about a half hour and although it was a bit chillier than I had thought, it was just overcast.

As I reached the peak of my mind-yelling at sunflower-Dad I started crying. Thank goodness I’m getting more comfortable with this whole bawling my eyes out in public thing (it helped that the path was quiet and I had this space to myself) because my eyes really let ‘er rip with those wet tears.

I was standing there bawling with a huge rock on my chest and a big lump in my throat as my mind-yelling turned into deep sorrow and I realized I was more really sad than really angry. At this exact moment it started to rain. Tears from heaven.  I stood there crying in the rain for a few minutes just allowing all the emotion to flow out of me and into the rain, into the river, and towards sunflower-Dad.

Then I was done and so was the rain. I felt the weight leave my heart and clear my throat. As these grief and sorrow feelings flowed away, the rain stopped. I waved to sunflower-Dad and walked back to the path to finish my walk. The second half of my walk was lined with the rest of the sunflowers and I had the strong feeling it was Dad reminding me that I wasn’t alone.

When I came back to the room I turned on the TV to listen to while I organized things. The channel was on The Doctors and they had some guy on talking with Vicki from RHOBH. She lost her mother a few months ago and she was getting messages from her through this medium. Then he went on say that so often people who have passed on are trying to contact us, but that we have to remain aware of the signs.

I smiled and thought how much I appreciated that Dad made his signs pretty easy for me to see. But, he loved us like that – he would try and make it as easy as possible for us.

I turned off the TV, rolled out my yoga mat and spent some time in quiet body stretching reflection.

My happiness moment: my tears joining with Dad’s tears from heaven. Because happiness isn’t always rolling on the floor belly laughing. Sometimes it comes from a deeper place in the soul.

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May it be

I have always been a big fan of having a personal theme song. I’ve had a few throughout the years – Don’t Stop Believin’, Rebel Yell, Say Hey (I love you), The Sound of Sunshine, Alberta Bound (this got me through the last year. The kids and I chanted it over and over and over… and look where we live) being a few of them.

Only a very few times has a song just completely captured my soul and it has sung out this is my song!! Stop and listen to it!! The first time I heard The Gayatri Mantra by Deva Primal my inner being swooned with love. I didn’t know who she was or what the words meant, but I knew that I had to listen to that over and over and over again. 9 years later it’s still something I listen to on almost a daily basis.

Today a song came up on my playlist that I’ve listened to many, many times over the past couple of years and my soul has always yelled that one. That is an important song. Stop and listen to it. Stop and listen I would, but I never knew the name of the song or really understood what the lyrics were saying. Today I stopped and pulled up the lyrics and followed them while I listened to May It Be by Hayley Westenra. And I realized that this has been the theme song of my life for the past few years as I’ve been reaching for better things.

May it be an evening star
Shines down upon you
May it be when darkness falls
Your heart will be true
You walk a lonely road
Oh! How far you are from home

I started listening to this song when I was so far from home in every sense. Physically we were so far from home and our loved ones. I was so far from the home of my centered being, struggling to find myself in my storm of the dark night of the soul.

Mornië utúlië ([Quenya:] Darkness has come)
Believe and you will find your way
Mornië alantië ([Quenya:] Darkness has fallen)
A promise lives within you now

May it be the shadow’s call
Will fly away
May it be your journey on
To light the day
When the night is overcome
You may rise to find the sun

It was exactly what I did. I just kept believing (although it was while I was humming Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey) and I started to find my way.

When the night is overcome, you may rise to find the sun. I feel like that’s where I’m at now. Like I’ve just awoken to the gift of a beautiful sunrise of life.

A theme song that has been guiding my path out of that dark night of the soul and I wasn’t even aware. I guess that’s the great thing about reaching for better feelings, that I don’t have to control or worry about where they come from, just reaching for them is enough to make them come to me.

My happiness moment today was a re-walking of yesterday’s happiness moment, but with my Mom. We talked again about the sunflower picture that is in the bathroom of our hotel.

the photo is horrible, but the with the lighting in the bathroom there is only so much you can do. It’s a beautiful picture.  But, you get the added bonus of seeing me trying to hide in the corner of the photo 🙂 

Yesterday morning before my walk with the spirit of Dad, Mom had commented on how beautiful the sunflower picture was and how much Dad would have enjoyed seeing it and the inspiration he would have gained for his own photos. As we were out walking in the desert among the sunflowers Mom said it’s like Dad saying I told you I’d be in New Mexico with you. It was a beautiful and peaceful moment to share with her. I said that some people say that departed loved ones come back as butterflies and rainbows, but Dad comes back as sunflowers. Very fitting for who he was –  I knew immediately he was with us.

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Sunflowers and memories 

Sunflowers always make me think of Dad. All wildflowers do – he spent hours and hours taking us out in the fields as children and then as adults (as well as his grandchildren) and patiently teaching us over and over again the names of the local flowers.

But sunflowers…. it seemed every time he saw a sunflower growing in the garden he was dashing off to get his camera and take the perfect photo.

This trip to New Mexico has been so much more difficult than I anticipated.  Last summer when I was home, I watched Mom and Dad spend a great deal of thoughtful time on their applications for Richard Rohr’s Living School for Action and Contemplation. Mom was accepted, Dad was not. With that,  the hope still was that he would accompany her here. Because Dad so wanted her to take this course and thrive in its growth. By the time I moved back home in March, we knew he wouldn’t be coming here, but the dream was that he would be home and mom could share her trip in the evenings on the phone with him while I was along in person to help her out.

And then he died.

After a summer of the family prodding and pushing and lovingly supporting mom, she bravely decided to come here.

And even with all that as background, I still didn’t think this would be so hard. 

I dropped mom off at her session this afternoon still thinking I was ok. I had a few minutes of sadness this morning, but in general had felt pretty stable. But, as soon as she went into the conference room I felt like pulling a Sadness moment from Inside Out and lying on my back with my leg up in the air for Joy to pull me around while I coloured all my memory balls blue. However after standing there in the (public) hall leaking grief from my eyes I realized I also had to be my own Joy. 

I took myself outside for a walk. It’s beautiful here at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort and Spa. Not only that, but it’s so soul warming and peaceful. You can see the effect of the place on the smiles of the people as they move around.

As I was walking down the path all I could think was I miss Dad so much. I wish we were walking here together. We loved walking together, it made us so happy. I miss him… I miss him… I miss him.

I came around a turn and I saw this:


  Sunflowers. Just hanging out in the desert. As I stopped to look they were  everywhere.

Every time I turned…    There was the spirit of Dad walking along with me.

(A tree of sunflowers!! A tree – how cool is that??)
  I got to the banks of the Rio Grande (yet another one of those cool places I thought I would never get to) I stood there with Dad in my heart and looked across to the mountains. My happiness moment.

I knew I had to turn around and come back, but as I stood there in joyful sorrow I felt peace and love. Look in the left corner – there’s sunflowers there too. 

There’s a lot of healing that could happen in a place like this. I’m not sure how to describe it, or even exactly what it is. But this is the kind of place that can help heal your soul.  I’m grateful Dad came along for my afternoon walk so I could share this with him.

Even with the sorrow and grief of today, I am so grateful that we are here. Life does go on, and no one loved to really live life more than Dad did. He would want us to live, laugh, cry, love, experience all that life has to offer. I deeply feel the best way to honour his memory is to keep stepping ahead. Sometimes with smiles and sometimes with tears, but living and loving with a full heart.

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School time 

For the first time in forever I missed Jacob’s first day of school. I’m sitting in a hotel room on an adventure with my mom in New Mexico. It’s beautiful here. 

The happiness moment was waking up at 2am and having Jacob run out and give me a huge hug. I love that kid. He’s kept in contact with me as the day went on and I danced with joy when the news came that he had a great day and he likes his school and made friends I felt a huge happy sigh of relief.

His last first day as the new kid. No more moving. No more new schools. 

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Do you want to build a snowman?

My happiness moment began when my eyes opened today. The sun was reflecting on the mountains to the west and they looked like this:

  
I love it when nature reflects the joy in my soul. It felt like the sun was shining happiness into the day ahead. 

A second happiness moment happened when I was not there but I got to be part of the planning of it. Last night my niece and her entourage spent the night. She is 4 and lives and breathes Frozen. She had a brand new Anna dress and was so cute showing it off. On our walk home, Jenna told me she wanted to dress up in her Elsa costume in the morning, go knock on their door and ask Sia if she wants to build a snowman. 

I was out this morning when Jenna called to tell me she was heading over to do it. When I got home there was an Anna and an Elsa running around the kitchen giggling and squealing with excitement. Kid happiness. It hits right to the core of the soul. 

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I can see clearly now 

  
I was out walking with Jenna this afternoon and looked west and thought I can see clearly now. 

Like an onion (thanks Shrek) this thought had many layers. I literally could see clearly now, we have had insane smoke from the Washington fires all week and we haven’t been able to see much of anything. In my life I am starting to see things more and more clearly than I ever have. I have had a man help guide me to this clearer way of thinking, a man I never met but one that had huge impact on the blossoming of my new life. A man who wrote the book I can see clearly now – Wayne Dyer who I found out as I started writing my blog passed away today. 

I looked on Facebook before blogging and saw a post from a dear friend that her step dad had passed away last night, that post was followed by Wayner Dyer’s page making the announcement of his passing. So I sat and cried for a little while. 

When I realized a couple of years ago that I needed to start reaching for happier feelings and for better things, Wayne Dyer and his writings found their way into my life. Though he need knew who I was he held my hand and helped walk me to a better place. I deeply appreciate the gifts he gave from his spirit. 

On my walk, before I had my moment of standing and seeing clearly, I had been thinking of Dad. I had thought of other friends who had lost parents and how gut wrenching it is. I had been contemplating how I was handling his death and how and if I would heal those wounds. As I stood looking at my mountains I felt it all just was ok. Not that I was ok about his death, but that the process was ok. It’s just part of the path. The joy and the sorrow mix together. 

The happiness moment was standing looking west and seeing clearly. 

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