Tag Archives: narcissist

happiness

The spring puddle 

Things are melting like crazy and our giant puddle appeared in the yard today. This puddle holds generations of memories of kids splashing and playing – my mom remembers playing in it, my generation did, and so do our kids. Maybe even my grandpa’s generation found time to sneak out and play in the puddle.

It means (hopefully) the end of the brutal cold is gone and we have survived another winter. I am ready to see things start to grow, the calves start to come, the swans return, and smiles come back to our warmer and happier faces. Spring… it is the promise of new life and regrowth.

I have been working on some personal development – funny how the dark times seem to generate even stronger bursts of learning and growing. The rainbow in the storm.

It made me smile today seeing the puddle come back. I will need to grab my boots and my kids and go outside and play in it a little bit. Happiness.

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Spring forward 

It was beautiful outside today – for the first time in what feels like forever it was actually nice enough to go outside for a walk with my Dotted Dog. When I don’t do it on a regular basis, I forget how balancing just walking outside in nature is for my spirit.

I walked a path that holds so many memories for me – memories of my childhood, my horses, my dad. Usually when I do this walk I am filled with emotions about times past, in the last couple of years it has usually involved some tears as I pass by the spot where we scattered some of Dad’s ashes.

Today though, there were the old memories sitting there like old friend, but there was also a lot of looking forward in anticipation for the future. I was thinking about all the new footprints we will be leaving here as little memory banks. We have been working so hard these last few years to remove the unpleasantness of the past, it is really nice to be able to have reached a place where I can begin to look ahead with excitement and hope.

I am understanding that Mr. X will always try and send as much hate, chaos, and fear as he possibly can my way. That is just how life is going to be. But, I am learning better coping mechanisms – I am building a better support system – and my reactions are lessening. That allows me to be able to look ahead with joy more often than looking over my shoulder in fear.

Happiness was watching my happy, happy dog running all over the place, happiness was standing in this place I love so much and feeling that there are joyful things coming ahead.

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Happier calm

It seems like we are coming back to a happier kind of calm again. I am learning that I need to be able to provide safety and peace in our home no matter what is being thrown at us. So it’s the learning process of keeping myself grounded and focused on what’s important. 

It felt like that today. Things are shifting inside and out. I feel new energy coming to me and the cold weather seems to finally have left us. All of that is happiness. 

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You are really beautiful 

Tonight I had to take the girl into urgent care (again) because she was having some bad tummy pain. I swear we are their most frequent clients. 

The staff at the Cochrane urgent care are fantastic and always go out of their way to make sure my kids are well cared for and feel safe. 

The girl had to get some blood taken and she is terrified of needles. The nurse spent a lot of time talking with her and making sure she felt ok about what was happening. When she was done and we were talking, the nurse turned to my girl and said you are so beautiful, look at that face… just … wow…. look at you. You are so beautiful. 

On the way home my girl turned to me and said I was feeling so crappy and that nice lady told me over and over how beautiful I am. It made me feel so good. 

We got home and her brother wanted to know how she was feeling and what the doctor had said and all he got out of her was the lady looking after me said I was so beautiful. It made me feel so good. 

Little bits of kindness go a long way. Happiness. Love. 

(By the way she should be fine. It seems the stress of the last few weeks caught up with her and this is how her body displays it.)

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Movie night 

We had a bit of a tummy bug in the house today. That added to the stress that has been pummeling my family meant we really have needed to stop and slow things a bit. 

We all sat together tonight and watched Ice Age Collision Course – we love the Ice Age movies. I have really realized over the last couple of days we need to refocus on love and peace. We let some evil and hurtful forces enter into our energy fields and that is exactly  we have worked so hard to heal from. It will be a continuous journey, but one I am dedicated to leading us on. 

Happiness –  sitting with my monsters and laughing at a movie. What a blessing they are. 

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Safe place 

I have realized over the past couple of weeks that even though I strive to provide a safe environment, even though I have worked so hard to feel safe and to make the kids feel safe, that in fact we are very insecure in our feeling of safety. I believe we are safe here, but I think because we were unsafe for so long that those fears are hiding not far beneath the surface.

Although I was very conscious of the fact that we actually were unsafe when we were living that life, I had no choice but to stuff that feeling as far down as I could and try and keep moving ahead – not only for myself but for my kids too. I didn’t realize until lately how fearfully unsafe they felt during that time as well. I don’t know what I could have done differently, but I wish they didn’t carry that burden as part of their life history. Now that there has been some time and some healing I seem to need to go back into that space and acknowledge the fact that there was no safe place, no grounding, that it was in fact a very scary time. I wasn’t making it up or exaggerating it, it really was that bad. I have journals of that time that make me cry whenever I open them (which isn’t often – too much pain).

I went out for a walk today and without consciously intending to, ended up at my safe place. This is the place I visualize when I need to stop, breathe deeply, and imagine where I am when I feel safe. It’s a spot that is filled with decades of my footprints. Skating, swimming, walking, horseback riding – I’ve been here with loved ones, on my own, with my horse, with my dog. It’s my sacred ground. It’s funny, when I was away I spent time in my memory on many parts of the ranch, but not often here. It wasn’t until we were back and I was out walking that I remembered how much of my childhood I had spent in this spot.

I realized as I was standing in my safe place, taking in the security and the beauty of my surroundings, that I need to come to a safe place within myself. I think one of the hardest things to heal has been the fact that I lost faith in myself. Part of that was years of him telling me what a stupid, useless piece of crap I was, part of that was me not listening to my intuition, not trusting myself, and instead following someone who I knew was not being true to me. I lost faith, or the ability to trust myself, and that means I couldn’t feel safe within myself. I am learning to have faith in myself, I am learning that I can trust in the fact that I can look after myself and my kids. I will get to that safe place within myself.

And until I do, I need to remember that I have this place that lets me know what safe feels like. Being there is pure happiness.

It’s Canadian camouflage – the dotted dog and the grey horse

 

Our swimming/skating spot

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Take a back road 

We had some unpleasantness to deal with this morning in the form of having to get things lined up to take to my lawyer because Mr. X is refusing to cooperate once again. Shocker, I know. 

The decision was made to counter that yuck with some happiness. So we took a back road and enjoyed the beauty of where we live. 


We headed to Nanton and then did a beautiful scenic drive around the area. I mean seriously, paradise. 


And I think we found a house that is older than ours….


It calmed all of our souls. The kids make fun of me because I’m always going on about the mountains, but I heard them gasp more than once – and I was told to pull over so they could take in the scenery a few times. I love that they have such a deep appreciation for the beauty of where we live. This is what make my spirit happy. 

Happiness may not mean that things are perfect all the time. But we can choose to keep looking for the happy moments. There are always some to be found. 

I love this little family, I love my extended tribe, and I love where we live. There is a lot of peace and gratitude in all of that. 

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Our refuge


As you may know, we have been really struggling this week. I have felt like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders as I have tried to provide a safe place to fall for my boy while he’s in crisis, and the girl too who is pained as she watches her brother suffer. It’s been overwhelming and I have really struggled knowing what is the right thing to do. I have also been incredibly angry- angry at how things have turned out, angry at the person who caused this trauma, angry at this whole situation. Anger isn’t going to get me anywhere, I am well aware of that, but it’s been my companion this week nevertheless.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty lost. I just wanted to lie in bed and cry – tempting but not an option. I said a little prayer (ok, I yelled at God a little bit) and asked what I was supposed to be doing? What do I need to get us through this?

We got our lazy butts to church – a little late – but we got there. The sermon was about how God is our refuge.

God is our refuge and strength a very present help in trouble

Of course.

You know, there has been a lot of crap go down in our lives over the past few years. Every time I have tried to *do* something it’s either made it worse or nothing has happened at all. But, when I have stopped everything – and I mean everything –  and prayed, miracles have happened. We have had small miracles and some really freaking big miracles happen to us over the past few years.

I kind of forgot I had this place of refuge and strength.

I have kept coming back to the words of the therapist last week – that healing can’t happen when we don’t feel safe. And as long as Mr. X has any say in things he will do whatever he can to make sure we don’t feel safe and can’t heal. And I have been running around trying to put out the fires he sets while draining myself of everything I have in an attempt to make us feel safe. But, the only time that burden has ever been lifted, and when we actually do feel safe, is when I have handed it all over to God.

He is our place of refuge and strength.

Sitting in church with the two people I love most in the world while we were reminded that we already had the keys to our place of refuge and strength – that is happiness on such a deep level. We will keep healing, we just need to remember that we have this place of refuge that is with us no matter where we go.

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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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