Tag Archives: narcissist

happiness

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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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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In our own way

We have been really struggling in our healing process the last couple of weeks in our little family. I’m not sure why it is now that these issues are here, but they most certainly are. 

The kids have had several memories pop up bringing with them lots of questions and it’s meant a serious dose of anxiety for all three of us. 

Interestingly, not long after they started coming to me with questions and memories I found an old journal. It was one I wrote during the time we had the fight that ended our family (as it is now called). Sometimes I feel like maybe I’ve over exaggerated some of the things that went on in ourbhome, like time has made them more extreme than they were. Well, let me tell you… that is not the case at all. It was incredibly painful to transport myself back in time and relive the hurt, fear, terror, confusion, and many other things that were swirling around at that time. And to know that it went on for years… that this is the childhood they look back on… breaks my heart. 

Sometimes (like all the time) I feel like we should be over it all ready. We are home, we are safe, we should be fine. And yet we are not. One little thing happens and someone is triggered and we have to hold on for our lives to keep our balance. 

And then I remember that this is our healing journey. No one else is living it besides us, no one else gets to determine the path it takes. I’m learning every day to have faith that we are exactly where we are supposed to be. It’s tiring and tearful and I want to just be done with it, but we need to honor the process and give thanks that we are in the healing part of it. 

Happiness tonight was watching the boy play his basketball game. Every time he’s out there I see his confidence grow. He is such an amazing young man and has incredible strength. It brings me such joy to see him finding himself, knowing that he is in a faith filled spiritual journey of his own. 

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Faith or Fear

A year ago tomorrow I had an appointment to see a divorce lawyer. I was so scared and feeling vulnerable and completely blindsided. I had no idea what was ahead, all I knew was that the decision he made to sever finances from his wife and children was going to change our family and the rest of our lives.

The first couple of months after I filed for divorce were completely filled with fear. But the battle of fear vs faith was one I was familiar with. Years before when I knew that my life needed a change I sat quietly with God and realized that either I trusted Him completely or I didn’t. After having tried extensively to fix my life myself (and failing brutally), I handed it over to God in faith and everything changed.

I had to learn that lesson all over again last year. And I learned to walk in faith, I learned to trust God completely, I understood there was a plan and I just had to follow. I mean, I didn’t follow perfectly, and I certainly swore a lot at God (and doubted him too), but overall I learned to have faith and (more difficult), patience.

(Let’s be honest, I had to learn that lesson the year before as well as we were watching my dad die. It’s one of those lessons that I say ok, thanks God, that was brutal I have learned my lesson. I’ll never forget it. Please don’t be that harsh again. And then I forget and have to learn the lesson all over again)

Lately there have been fear feelings again. I don’t know why, my intuition just tells me that big changes are coming. This intuition has given me the heads up a few times over the past couple of years and has been dead on every single time, so I pay attention. I don’t know what the changes are, I don’t particularly embrace change, but I know that it happens no matter how I feel about it.

I came across this quote:

And I realized how true it is. I can either stress about whatever change is brewing, or I can walk ahead in faith.

This photo was taken almost 10 years ago when we moved from Quebec to Rhode Island. It was a big, scary move – and a huge leap of faith. It was also a step into some really, brutally hard years. But those years have also brought me into myself and there’s a huge gift in that. If all that crap hadn’t happened I wouldn’t be who I am today, I wouldn’t know that when the storm hits I can stand in it and walk through with my loved ones. I wouldn’t know that I want to surround myself with people who make me shine brighter instead of those who want to dim my shine.

I’ve changed a lot over the last year. For a while I thought I was changing back into who I was before. But, I’ve realized that’s not the case at all. I have grown into someone completely different than I have even been. For the first time in my life I know my value, I feel my faith, and I trust and love on a level I never knew was possible. So, with all the heartache of the past year there is a lot of gratitude as well. I am glad I had the opportunity to turn into this version of myself.

That is happiness, deep and lasting happiness. Being here with my kids, seeing them smile and trust and love – that is happiness. Watching them grow, seeing them bond with their tribe – happiness that bursts my heart.

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Love is what you do 

Love is not what you say

Love is what you do. 

I have begun to understand the importance of these words over the last few years. I have had people in my life who would say one thing but do something completely opposite. In fact, I’ve probably done that myself. I’m sure we all have. 

But, as I began to heal and began to focus on becoming the best version of myself that I can be, I really began to notice that what makes a person is not what they say but what they do. 

It made me really focus on being impeccable with my word (from The Four Agreements), and made me want to be surrounded by people who were the same. I’m certainly not there all the time, but it’s something I put a lot of attention on. 

I’ve talked about this amazing healing community that is being built up around the kids and me. One of them is my massage therapist who does cranial sacral treatments on both me and the boy. It helps calm the nervous system, helps with PTSD, and with anxiety – as well as many other healing things. 

But the therapist, he has really connected with my son – he gets him, understands what he’s going through, and has really gone above and beyond to help him out on his healing journey. 

We can heal ourselves and can we heal each other. And we need a community to do that in. Listening to my boy talk about the healing that is happening and the support he’s feeling as he goes through it is a huge happiness moment. 

For me, the grounding of being home and with my tribe helps give me the strength to reach out and give support 

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At The Hub

I woke up feeling pretty under the weather. The cold virus hit our family over the weekend and the boy and I have been taking turns with fever chills – no fun to say the least. 

He only had to go to school for an hour today (a tutorial during exam week) and I had no choice but to hang in town until he was done. There’s an new coffee shop near his school and I finally tried it. I love it – I think it’s my new place. It’s got comfy chairs, nice soft music, and great smelling food.  I bought a tea and sat quietly and read while he did his thing at school. That’s happiness. 


When I picked him up I also ended up driving his friend home. After we had dropped him off, my boy told me how grateful he was that I was around for him, that he hears friends talk about how they never see their parents, and although I may be a smother sometimes that he’s happy I’m there for him. That’s happiness to the core of my being. 

Providing them with a safe, happy childhood is my number one priority and it makes me glad to know that they’re feeling that. 

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Sunrise with Derek and survival mode

We have been enjoying some pretty amazing skies lately, and this morning I was fortunate enough to get outside and see the day break with my good buddy Derek. Look at that little face! How can you not love him. It warmed my heart to  start the day getting cuddles from this little dude (Peaches and George are in the back ground, the less-talked-about orphan calves).

Happiness

We finally got our lazy butts back to church after almost a month of finding many reasons to sleep in and it felt really good. I love my women’s group, and I always get so much out of the sermon.

The topic today was how to step out of the shadow of being in survival mode. This is exactly what I have come to the realization lately that I need to do. The last few years have been all about survival – there has been a lot of growth as well – but survival has been the driving force. I feel sometimes like all I do is run around and put out fires and that I never actually get to move ahead to where I want to be. My body tells me I am survival mode as it is exhausted from holding my being in a constant stressed state of flight or flight. And you know what? The danger, the stress, the fear…. it’s not present in my life anymore. I don’t need to be in survival mode. It’s like my soul, my body, my being does not know how to let go of being in survival mode.

All of that I have known for a while, but my question was how do I get out of it? Because trust me, I have been working hard to get there.

Our pastor had some ideas.

Stay the course. Show up every day, be strong and courageous to do what God wants regardless of the outcome. Work from a faith based perspective rather than an outcome based one. 

Fear keeps you from coming out of the shadows (Oh my.. this is so me). Identify your fears, look them in the eye, then list the ways that God has been faithful. I have taken huge leaps of faith the past couple of years, and I am learning how to do this one, but fear has held me back from taking chances and achieving great things my whole life.

Experience God’s word every day of your life. And remember, you can read God’s word, study His word, and not still not hear Him. We need to hear Him. I need to hear Him. Sometimes I get so busy telling Him what I want I don’t stop to listen to what He is telling me.

And then this:

Genesis 12:1-2

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

And he went.

Going where God wants us to go is never without leaving something behind. We need to ask what we need to leave behind in order to come out of the shadows.

The last couple of years I have left so much behind. There has been a lot of pain – some of that I have left behind, some of that I still carry with me (some of it my children still carry and I carry their burden as well). I have a pretty good idea of what I need to leave behind to come out of the shadows. I am no longer a victim. I was put in that role, and I have played it for a long time. I am no longer his victim and I don’t have to carry the emotional burden that comes along with that. I can learn to leave that behind. It has been almost a year now since I filed for divorce, I have learned so much, have gained more strength than I thought possible, know that there was no truth to that life we were living, it’s time to learn how to come out of the shadows. I’m ready. That is also happiness.

 

 

 

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