Tag Archives: grounding

happiness

The heated steering wheel

It started with a heated steering wheel. To backtrack a bit, this summer my sister was showing me her new Volvo and one of the features was a heated steering wheel. 

I had just come back after spending the last 4 years in Southern Virginia, and it was a warm spring day in Alberta so I’m afraid I didn’t fully appreciate how awesome the option to have a  heated steering wheel is. 

Today I had to take my car into the Volvo dealership for some maintenance and the courtesy car they gave me had (among many other exciting features) a heated steering wheel. Extra exciting since we woke up this morning to a pretty decent dump of snow.  It was a happiness moment keeping my hands warm while I drove on the cold road.   
While I was driving back home enjoying my new ride I got to thinking about my happiness journey and how this year has taken me in directions I never would have imagined. 

Years ago when I read Eat, Pray, Love I was mesmerized by her happiness journey, but with little kids and a crazy schedule I was also pretty bent that she could run away for three months and find her balance. 

Slowly I’ve come go realize that Elizabeth Gilbert could do that because of the things that made her uniquely her. 

The things that have come into my life this year to hold, support, and encourage my happiness journey have happened for reasons that make me uniquely me. 

Not many people have family who opens up a house for them when they are in crisis and needing help. Not many families have an old house that just happens to be empty and sitting there waiting for the right moment to be occupied. 

I called on a Monday and said we were coming home, and by the weekend they had the house ready for us. And I’d seen the place at Christmas. They went to a lot of work to transform it into the place we now call home. 

Likewise, not many people have a sister who steps in and gives them a car to drive (and a pretty nice one at that). She had her old Volvo at home  to gift to Dad, but after he died she turned around and gave it to me to use. Supreme kindness. 
 
I’m learning a lot from following other people’s happiness journeys, but I’m cognizant of the fact that what makes someone else happy may not be what works for me. Likewise, the tools that other people have available to them as they walk their path are different from what I have. 

I am incredibly blessed in my life and one of the greatest things about my journey for happiness has been a reminder of the wonderful life I have been given. 

Which is sometimes  made even sweeter by a heated steering wheel. 

Standard
happiness

Yoga Bliss

I wrote the other day about how doing yoga has made me a better person, albeit not a more flexible one. Since then I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it was that really drew me to the practice of yoga in the first place. Mostly it was the way it calmed me and made my soul happy. When I would really get into it I wasn’t as bothered by the fact that that I don’t bend as well as I want to because my spirit would just feel so good.

I was really good and faithful about my practice before I fell into my dark night of the soul years. I’ve struggled as I’m finding myself again to really develop a solid routine that makes me feel good.

I realized that maybe I’m doing the wrong kind of yoga these days. Now, I’m doing my Healing Light Yoga Therapy, which is a completely different kind of practice. One that is so important to my emotional and spiritual well being. But, it’s not something I do on a daily basis. It’s something I need to do in addition to some kind of regular yoga practice.

I had to sit down quietly and think about what it is that I want from yoga. What I came up with was that I needed to go to Kripalu. Lovely, but not really possible at this moment in time. So, I had to think what is it about Kripalu that makes me feel so good?  (ummmm everything) and what can I do here to replicate that feeling.

Lightbulb went off.

On several of my visits to Kripalu I have been fortunate enough to have attended a class led by Rudy Peirce. The way he leads a class made me fall in love with yoga in the first place. Yoga based on compassion and love. Every time I have done one of his classes I feel so much better about everything.

He has some CDs that he sells and I had bought a couple of them on a visit to the Berkshires years ago. I loaded a class on my phone (they’re audio) and spent some time this morning reconnecting with my spiritual practice of yoga.

I felt so much better when I was done. This morning I had felt really anxious and ungrounded and when I was finished my yoga I felt more like myself again. There is something about his voice and the way he so calmly and patiently guides one through the poses that calms me down. I knew it was working because Ella the Yoga Cat showed up on my mat and purred her way though most of the class. She only does that when she’s really feeling the bliss.

My happiness moment was the wonderful feeling I had after my class this morning. I need to keep attracting all that love and bliss into my soul so that I have more of it to shine back out into the world.

As a bonus happiness moment, Jenna spent the entire ride into school this morning looking out the window of the car at the moon shining brightly with Venus underneath it . I love how being in this space is getting us more and more in tune with nature.

   

Standard
happiness

Life off the leash 

Years ago I put myself on a leash. I tried so hard to be the person that I thought other people wanted me to be, I  stifled a lot of the things that made me me.  Interestingly enough, the people I was trying to impress with by being someone other than myself either didn’t notice or weren’t impressed. Of course now I know that trying to be someone other than who I really am is an exercise in futility, but it took me a little while to get there.

The unfortunate byproduct of all of this sadly though was that over time of not being true to my self, I lost touch with who I really am. Thus years of anxiety, unhappiness, and tears.

One of the great things about this happiness journey that I am on is that I have started finding myself again. Not all of the stuff I’m finding is fantastic, but it’s all really me. And I’m happy about that.

It’s a beautiful day in Southern Alberta today. Apparently we are in a heat wave – experiencing above average temperatures. It isn’t beach weather, but it’s about +5C which for this time of year is pretty warm. I took the boy and the dog out on the ridge for a walk (I made it both times past where we scattered Dad’s ashes without breaking down in tears…. progress!). I listened to Jacob go on and on about the new Star Wars movie and I watched the dog run and jump in the snow.

Dottie looks like I feel. Poor Dottie had to live life on a leash for 8 years until we moved here where she has the freedom to run. She is an entirely different dog with all the freedom she has. As I’m letting go of the idea that I need to be anyone besides who I am (my leash), I’m feeling more and more like she looks.

Happy.

Freedom

My happiness moment today was walking with my kid and my dog along a ridge where my footprints have been hundreds of times before. I used to ride here, walk with Dad here, toboggan on the hill below here, and I know we have lots of new memories to make along the ridge. Off the leash.

Standard
happiness

The slow road 

Sometimes I get frustrated by how long it is taking me to get my mojo back. I know part of it is impatience, part of it is the fact that that it has seriously been a long, slow road.  Like, I’ve been on this road for a few years now. I just want to be stronger and have my zing back already. I miss that version of me. 

I guess what it also shows is how completely broken I was before I started reaching for better things. When I remember that, and think about where I was, then all I am is proud and excited at how far I’ve come in my journey to make a better life. The best thing is it’s made a better life for those around me too. 

The kids are reaching for the stars while learning what it means to feel firmly grounded and supported. 

Both of my kids are fascinated by these happiness moments I’ve been watching for in the last few months. Often we will be driving to town, or sitting at the dinner table and one of them will start asking what our happiness moment was today. An awesome byproduct of me looking for mine is that they look for theirs now too. 

Tonight I was sitting on the couch contemplating life and Jenna sat down beside me. She asked me what my happiness moment was, and I wasn’t sure yet. Then she cuddled up beside me and we just sat there. Voilà! Instant happiness moment. 

The good thing about being on this long and slow road is that I’m able to take the time to soak in these little happiness moments. The little ones that all add up and make life. 

We took the long slow road home today in the snow and came across one of our four legged friends trying to hide on us. 

  
Being able to slow down and breathe in nature is my antidepressant and anti- anxiety. 

  
So, I will breathe deeply and dig down and keep on this long and slow road. At least I’m headed in the right direction. I’m headed home. 

Standard
happiness

Safety, grounding, flying free

I have been thinking lately of the irony of the feelings of safety, security, and grounding that I get from living in this old house that has looked over so many generations of my family. Getting grounded and centred back into my self has been a huge part of my healing journey. But the fact remains that while I find comfort here, this home only exists because of the adventurous will of my ancestors. Had they not had the strength to leap out of their comfort zones and abandon all the safety and security in their lives for an unknown, pioneer life in the West; I would not have this house to sit in.

I’ve been feeling lately like I’m sitting on the edge of a huge cliff. I’ve been climbing and climbing for a couple of years now getting to the place where I do feel some grounding and safety. Now that I’m (kind of) there it’s like I’m being asked to free fall off into the unknown. I don’t like heights and I don’t like falling. Yet that is what I’m being called to do.

Unlike my ancestors, my adventure quest isn’t asking me to pack up and head out on a physical adventure. In fact, that is what the last 10 years of my life have been about. Those years almost lead to the complete destruction of my soul, but also to the building up of myself into a stronger, more humble, better version of myself.

The quest that I’m being called to take now is an adventure of my inner soul. It’s scary and I have a thousand reasons why I’m not prepared for it, but still…. I’m being called. I can feel the past couple of weeks that I’ve been edging closer and closer to my free fall off into this journey of faith.

Today’s happiness moment was a visit with my cousin and her husband. They live just far enough away that we don’t see each other as often as I would like. And often when I see them it’s at a larger family function so visiting isn’t as intimate. Getting to visit in a quiet and relaxed manner was such a treat. She’s just enough older than I am that she’s always been one of the cool cousins who I looked up to, and she was kind enough to put up with me when I was an annoying younger kid following her around. Lord, I made her sing the found a peanut song a million times one summer…

 

Standard
Uncategorized

Sunday supper

It’s been years since Sunday supper was a thing in our household. A lot of the time it felt like we spent the evening preparing for the stress of the week instead of celebrating the end of the weekend. 

Since coming home again, we have had a lot more occasions to celebrate weekends, or Holidays, or sometimes just Tuesdays. 

Tonight we had an impromptu family supper up at my cousin’s place. It was more like a feast actually – roast beef (beef from the cattle they raise with tender loving care) and all the fixin’s. Easy and fun conversation around the dinner table with grandparents and aunts and uncles and parents cousins and kids. We had the  whole multi generational thing going on. 

We are so incredibly blessed to live where we do with the family and love and support wrapped securely around us. Being safe and happy in the arms of our home. My happiness moment today. 

Home is where my heart is.   

Standard
Uncategorized

Security and confidence

Lately I’ve spent a lot of time figuring out my emotions on safety and security, and how that has affected who I am today. I have spent a lot of time feeling unsafe, or like there was a real lack of security in my life. It’s been something I’ve craved and sought after, but I often felt like I was chasing rainbows – hopeful, but uncertain that I would ever reach my desire.

With a lot of work, and a lot of help, I’m finally beginning to realize in my body and soul that I’m safe and that I can be secure. The fact that we are back home and surrounded with love and support of our people has played a huge role in that. Also though, I have been working like a madwoman to release all the old fears and misconceptions and grief I’ve carried along with me for too long.

All of our house pets have been adopted from shelters. They all have had some kind of abuse or neglect before they came to live with us, so they all arrived in the house with a lot of fear and a lack of security.



Over the years I have watched Dottie settle into (kind of) a more normal and calmer version of herself. She’s very attached to me – I am her security blanket if you will – but she’s more trusting and calmer than she was 8 years ago when she first came to live with us. Ella too has calmed into a more secure and loving cat. She’s gone from her strict rule of being “close but no touching”,  to sitting on my keyboard, purring, while I’m trying to type this blog.

Abu and Aladdin were the last members of our little tribe to join us. They both were pretty insecure and fearful when they arrived. They had good reason to feel that way too as their young lives had involved a lot of turmoil. 2 months later I’m seeing that they’re getting more secure and trusting with us.

Having faith and trust in the people (or animals) you live with with is so important. If we can’t feel safe and secure, we don’t have the confidence to spread our wings and fly, we can’t let our guard down and open our hearts to those around us. Feeling safe is, I believe, one of the most important things in life.

Today I was at Jenna’s teacher conferences. One of her goals is to be more confident in school and speak up for herself. I’ve watched how the kids are relaxing into life here and thriving with the sense of security that comes with having a strong support system in our lives. She’s so much more confident and brave than she gives herself credit for, but I was proud of her that that was one of her goals. Making sure we all feel safe and loved is what it’s all about.

My happiness moment today was hearing about what a great job she’s doing at school – how she’s part of the leadership group, how she’s making friends, how she’s starting to feel like she belongs there. My wish for my kids (and me too) is that they spend the rest of their lives feeling safe and secure and loved.

Standard