Words From My Heart

There’s a special meditation I do to connect more deeply with my Higher Self. I was never a person to believe in Spirit, or God or Self with a capital S but then one day I decided to ask if there was really something there, a whole universe of wisdom inside of me, a voice, a God that connected everything and spoke only of love and infinite wisdom? It sounded to good to be true. So I sat down to disprove, took a few deep breaths, closed my eyes and said “Hello” internally and was immediately met with an answer, a response that sounded from a place not only deep in my heart, but deep in the heart of everything. I was astonished, I’d expected to sit, and to wait… for nothing, but once I opened up, even skeptically to hearing what was already there for me to access, the words flowed freely and I was swept away by the love, positiveness and wisdom that radiated from this place I never knew I had. From that day on I knew that if I ever felt lost, if I ever needed guidance, words of acceptance and love or just a little extra something I could always turn to this place, this place that sounds from my heart and from the heart of everything.

I very deeply wanted to share those words with you, or some of my favorite “quotes from God” if you will, but ever time I wrote them I just couldn’t press publish. There’s a line somewhere out here in the ether of the internet, a place that I have to draw between sharing in hopes of reaching someone who needed to hear my words, and pushing my spiritual practice too far out into the open, sharing things that really are only meant for me. So while I will keep my personal conversations with my Higher Power private I do encourage you to have your own, to find a quiet corner in your life and take a moment just to turn inwardly, to talk, and to listen to the voice that answers and to hopefully know what it’s like to connect with the most wise parts of yourself, the part that connects you to everything and everything to you.

The small idea that I will leave you with is this. Your heart is where the truth comes from anything that you hear coming from your heart is honest and pure, and the ears are where the ego lies, if your message feels as if it comes from your ears know that it is tainted by fear based human emotion and look deeper into yourself to hear the quiet, but true voice in your heart.

 

The Road Ahead

When my Grandpa died 10 months ago he left behind a whole collection of tarot and oracle cards. A few months ago my sister and I divide them up and mine were left in a box in our barn, out of site but not out of mind. I retrieved them today and didn’t know where to start, so I sat down and laid out a card from each deck just to see what they could tell me. I put all the pertinent parts into a list and wrote a short instruction.

You are on the verge of re-birthing your world. The difficult action of giving up directing anger towards yourself, your husband and your children has seemed impossible, but it is not. Choose the path you will be proud of even if it’s challenging beyond all measure, even if you’re not sure you can do it… know you can, it is a hero’s journey to face the monster when you could easily choose another way. Control the situation by choosing YOUR path, YOUR actions, and YOUR reactions. And when you don’t know what else to do believe in the extraordinary power of prayer and seek the answers inwardly from a steady and sure place. Remember that EVERYTHING dies, but then lives on in the lives it touches just as the flowers return in the spring, and the animals live on through their offspring and through the people who eat their flesh to survive. You can never know how much time you have, how many days are left, but you can choose to make today count, to make today a day you’d be proud to call your last, and know that when it is your time, or the time of those dear to you we will live on in the lives and the hearts we’ve touched… So always reach with a true and gentle hand. 

 

Perception and the Otter

This week has been a reflective one. I keep finding myself wondering what it is that I’m missing, or what it is that I have too much of. With the new moon tonight I know that there is something to be let go of, something to change, something to start fresh with, and with the added power of the eclipse there’s a lot of energy moving around in the world not matter what direction you believe in.

My sister called me yesterday to let me know that she’s gone on a journey (shamanic, spirit drum kind of journey) and asked her guide what animal could help me. I was moved that she thought of me, and that she looked so deeply within herself and the mystic to find something so meaningful to share. She told me the story of her journey and let me know that she’s seen an otter for me, and that it had confirmed that it was for me, and that what I needed was to be more playful, and to share that realization, and that playfulness with those around me.

I was hit hard by these words, this gift that was offered to me. I’m constantly telling my husband that I can’t play with the kids. I can build them anything, create any ship, sew any costume, but when it comes to the actual imagination parts of play I am uncomfortable and stumbling. I am a serious person by nature, probably… well… most likely… might as well face it… I’m a serious to a fault kind of person. I just don’t like to play. It’s awkward and doesn’t fit me right. I can’t focus on the moment, on the task at hand. I’m always thinking about what needs to be done or what I’d like to be doing myself and I just can’t get into it. My husband is playful by nature. He plays with the kids, he tries to be playful with me, but I just can’t understand it.

So when she said “otter” and “playful” I knew that it was something I needed to work on, and that being less serious and more playful was going to make a big difference in my life.

To get a better idea of what I could do I did a meditation and drew a card to get a better idea of what I needed to change with the new moon, and how I could better embody change as a person., as I closed my eyes and tried to sink down into my heart center a word kept playing in my head. I couldn’t get focus on anything else. I couldn’t see the space inside myself that I’ve created for to find answers. I couldn’t get close, my Self wouldn’t even allow me to enter the message was just there no symbolism or deciphering necessary. Just one word….

“Perception”

I drew a card to go with it, and it was a beautiful expansion on the concept of perception it was from the Brian Froud Fairy Oracle and basically said “Balance changes constantly, but it is still balance” and I realized that balance is all about perception, it’s about how you see the situation you are in and that it’s possible to always be in balance because you can always see yourself as being there if only you change your perception.

So today I look for ways to see situation in a more playful light, to lighten up and embody the curiosity and playfulness of an otter and to give myself to opportunity to find the balance and peace in all moments, not just the ones that are easy to see.

Realization of Completing

This morning while the girls were occupied I found myself wandering about the house aimless and a little lost about what I was supposed to be doing. I walked by my oracle deck on the shelf and decided I needed to pull a card for the day. I shuffled until I felt the pull, the intuitional spark that means the card I need is on top. I flipped the card; it was upside down which I knew always changes the meaning of the message. I grabbed my guidebook and flipped through the pages. The Singer of Transfiguration in reverse… means the exact same thing as it would any other direction which threw me for a loop because I hadn’t encountered that before.

“Jackpot! This card in a reading signifies the joy of success after a time of struggle. A new way of life has been accepted and is being integrated. A sense of inner peace is growing. The struggle has all been worth it. This is a time of consolidation and joy, and is both a reward for past achievements and time fof preparation for the next climb up the path… Even reversed, this card simply suggests that the realization or completion of this process is just around the corner.”
-The Fairy Oracle – Brian Froud and Jessica Macbeth

As I read these words I smiled. Whether you believe in the mystical power of oracle cards, or the scientifically sound power of suggestion these words resonated with me. On Sunday we had a rough day all around. The whole family was home and sometimes we just don’t know how to all be in the same place at the same time for a whole day. It happens so rarely we’re just all a little lost in our rolls. I found myself over and over again noticing my bad temper beginning to flare and holstering it for a more helpful attitude and a more empathetic heart. Over and over again I took my natural response and put it aside and offered the empathy and consideration that I wanted to those around me, and it felt good. I’d never been able to do that before.

As I looked at the card, and read the meaning it struck me that I’m always working, I’m always trying to grow, and that in all of that I’ve forgotten that sometimes you simply need to be, to enjoy where you are and just be. To really truly appreciate the journey that you’ve made and give yourself a break, bask in the glow of success. Because that’s what this is, this is success. Making it this far, creating the life you have even if it’s not where you want it to be you’ve made it here, I’ve made it here, and that deserves a rest, a sense of peace and an acknowledgement of the struggle and the work that you have already put in.

So today I smile. Today I rest. Today I appreciate where I am, and that I’ve made it this far.

The Joy of Nothing

This week nothing happened. I didn’t have any profound thoughts, there were no big changes; I didn’t feel sad and low, and I didn’t feel high on joy and happiness. I spent my days with the kids and my evenings with my husband; we got to see a movie alone together and the girls learned all about the letters M and S.

As I write this I realize that part of what I’m putting in the nothing category is spending a few hours in the ER with someone very close to me, but since it didn’t turn out bad it doesn’t seem to have hit to hard on my radar. The camaraderie of spending time with another person, waiting was valuable and part of the even keel of my week.

I made meals, we ordered pizza, and I felt content. We laughed and we spent time in silence. The girls and I wondered around the neighborhood in the sunshine and we felt alive. It was nice. It was steady, and I feel grateful to have been able to notice and appreciate that. I know there have been many times in my life just like this one and I’ve let them pass by without appreciating how amazing it is for things to just be, to be calm to be neither the highest high, nor the lowest low.

I know something will come, today or tomorrow or next week something will shake us up or shake us down and we’ll find a new experience, a new part of the path, a new way of being and that’s that.

Comfort for Low Times

The last few days I have been killing it as a Mom, Wife… really just as a Person in general. I love these moments. When the stars align and life feels easy, manageable and there’s just no sign of overwhelm for miles. It feels so good.

I used to find myself in these lovely reprieves thinking that I’d made it. That I was finally at peace, at balance, at center and that since I was here this is what is was forever going to be like. I’d worked hard enough and here was my reward, a lifetime of level headed bliss.

Then it would end and I’d be disappointed, beat down, and left wondering where I’d gone wrong, what had happened to push me off of my lighthearted pedestal and back into tired, overwhelmed suck-dom?

Yesterday I found myself worrying about feeling so good, wondering if I should try to tone it down so that the comedown wasn’t so fast and hard when it inevitably came. And then it hit me… this is not forever. The come down is coming and it always will, it always does, not matter what. Blissful happiness is just a state of being as with all the other emotional states of beings, and just as I always feel better at some point when I am sad, I will always feel sad at some point when I am at my happiest. It’s just the nature of things, and instead of hiding, or worrying about feeling low again I realized that this is my moment to live these feeling, this is my moment to live this part of my life fully, and from this I can take the comfort that if my highs always find a low the same must be true for my lows, and I will always feel happy again when I am sad, and in my darkest moments that’s a valuable comfort to have.

I Accept My Best

I am a perfectionist, but only when it comes to myself. I have this really unrealistic standard for how I should behave, how I should think, what my life should look like, but when it comes to the people I know I really think they’re all doing a great job. I mean of course they have struggle, and make mistakes but that’s just part of life, and they all handle those things within a completely realistic level and are strong and beautiful because of it.

As I write this I can’t help but laugh a little. I know that my self judgment is too much, it’s too critical, it’s unrealistic and it’s harmful to my spirit. I mean really that’s why I’m sitting in front of the keyboard typing away at this particular post, because I know that I’m tending to fall off the ridiculous side when it comes to what I don’t allow in my own life.

There’s this quote in Living Your Yoga by Judith Lasater that always humbles me right on the spot…

“If you expect more from yourself than from others, you are saying that you are better than others and, therefore must perform at a superior.”

So what I’m really here to say is this.

“I accept my best”

I accept that sometimes my best is yelling at my kids, or picking a fight with my husband. I accept that my best can involve tearing myself down and crying big snotty uncontrollably tears. I accept that my best is sometimes making food that tastes mediocre or that no one really likes. I accept that I don’t always think my best is good enough. I accept that my best is all I can do in that moment.

I accept that my best is knowing just what to say to my children and knowing just how to hold them so they feel better. I accept that my best is loving my husband in a way that makes him feel like he’s the only one in the world for me. I accept that my best is loving myself like I’m the most important person in the world to myself. I accept that my best is knowing I’m worth all the fuss. I accept that my best is laughing and playing and skipping stones on the ocean. I accept that my best is making the most delicious meals that not only nurture the body but feed the soul.

I accept that my best is always changing, that my capacity for happiness and positivity are relevant to the moment I am in, just as my capacity for anger and sadness are relevant to the moment I am in. Sometimes my best is beautiful and calm, and sometimes my best is a beautiful and volatile, but everything I do is as good as it gets in that moment, and that is what I accept, that is where I am right now, that is what I am right now. I accept my best.

I am Volatile

Sometimes I’m a really bad communicator. The conversation I think I’m having is not the conversation my husband is hearing. I come into it with a feeling, with a need to be met by being allowed the opportunity to consider and reexamine my feelings by seeing them bounced back to me by another person. I wind up being hyper critical and mean instead. I’m not an “In” person. Holding things to myself to mull over is like waiting for a balloon to pop… I can feel it getting fuller and fuller, stretching and straining on the edges until…

There’s water all over the floor. Kay spilled the bowl I was using to clean up the paint that covered the table… I can feel the strain, the moment before the pop. I start to aim it at the children, feeling spilling from my mouth that have nothing to do with them. I pull it in, I find some control. I ask them nicely to head to their room.

I get down on the floor to clean up the water. I am prickly and tired. Overwhelmed by things I can not change, worries I can no affect, sadness I can not appease. I hit my head on the table; I’m so tangled up inside myself that the feeling of the wood digging into my skull is welcome, manageable. I want to hit my head again, to feel something I can completely understand, to feel something I can control, and to feel something I can stop. I pull out from under the table… This is not a path to go down.

*POP

It was too much, the shear thought of wanting to cause myself pain to feel better pushes me over the edge and I slam the side of my hand against the wall in frustration… the sheet rock buckles and I hit it again then slam my hands against the floor… stupid walls… they always seem so much more solid than they are. I weep on the floor, chest wrenching, wet sobs of overwhelm and despair.

I get up. I ask for help. Help arrives. I cry. The kids play in the other room coming out only to give me hugs and kisses. I talk. I cry. We clean up.

I’m so disappointed in myself. So ashamed in what I’ve done, what I’ve become…

I start to calm down… I look at it more objectively. I sent the kids away instead of unfairly focusing my anger on them. That’s a place I’ve grown. I didn’t hit my head on the table a second time. I showed self restraint and self preservation. I didn’t hit the wall in anger, I banged my hands in frustration… the wall just happened to be softer than anticipated. I asked for help.

Overall, as a volatile person who works hard to be stable and not inflict her own frustrations on others. I am proud of myself. I was going to explode, it was just a thing that was going to happen, too many contents under pressure, and while I do wish I wouldn’t have damaged our home, that’s all I damaged, and that’s something.

I learned this. It’s not about changing myself, it’s not about making myself better, or more like the mythical person I compare myself to. It’s about accepting myself exactly as I am and cultivating the tools to direct my fire, my uncontrollable-ness, in a direction that is not harmful. That balloon is going to pop, it’s unavoidable, life is always going to have its moments when so many things build up so quickly there’s no way for me to mange it peacefully and in time, and those are the moments when I must take my volatility and let it come and though I can not control that, I can choose a direction. I can choose to aim my frustrations in a direction that will not hurt those around me, and for the first time in life. I’m just fine with that.

Though I’m going to have to reexamine my communication skills.

Always Balanced?

Moving on, moving forward, I find myself viewing life like it’s a one time thing, like if I figure out this whole happiness, balance thing now then I’ve got it. No more struggles, no more sadness, no more wondering.

But it’s just not true. I’ve been happy before, I’ve been balanced, but yet I find myself just discovering those things again, like old friends whom have been gone for a while, and while I know I found them somehow last time the way I found them now is different, they weren’t in the same place, they weren’t down the same path, or my place, and my path had moved so far from them I couldn’t find my way backwards… because really we can never go backwards.

Moving houses, having babies, loosing loved ones all of these things have thrown me off as well as just plain old uninvited depression that chooses to show up without being found and must be embraced and then sent on it’s way.

But in reality… in my current happy balanced state I know that it’s all necessary, it’s all a part of life, it’s all a part of balance though I think it’s easier to see balance when we’re happy because it just feels right, but we couldn’t have the “right” now without the “wrong” of yesterday. We wouldn’t know it, we wouldn’t feel and it wouldn’t balance us because we wouldn’t recognize its greatness.

What I’m really trying to say is that even when it’s hard, even when it’s sad, even when it feels wrong, it’s still right, it’s still your path, your place, one side of your balance, even if you choose to change or it changes on it’s own you still need to be exactly where you are to get to where you’re going.

So here I am, right here, on the top of the mountain looking down at the climb I just made and reveling in the strength I had when I thought I was weak, the bravery I showed when I believed I was cowering and the sheer power of will it took to show up to everyday and just keep going, keep trying, keep living,

So wherever you are, I want you to know that you can do it and that even if you don’t feel brave or strong or like anything’s ever going to be better than it is right now, that’s okay. There are better days ahead, but its okay not to feel like there are.

 

Inspiration and Parenting Philosophy

Parenting is a huge challenge. There’s lots of books on the matter, but there is no one formula that can raise an emotionally stable, confident, well adjusted child that thinks for themselves while following moral guidelines that speak to their true understanding of the needs of people and themselves as individuals and as a part of humanity.

When my oldest daughter turned two I realized something that seemed pretty obvious, but that I struggle with everyday. “You can’t make anyone do anything” you can coerce, you can bribe, you can physically force, but a person who does not want to do as you are commanding can always resist even and most certainly children.

In the moments of pure frustration and anger I want my daughters to obey, to follow my demands without question, without delay and without any sign of resistance, but in the moments of calm clarity I know that the resistance, the questioning, the unwillingness to be demanded upon is where their true, honest, good character qualities lie. While I don’t think anyone wants a four year old who doesn’t do what they’re asked, everyone wants a teenager who questions the judgement and decisions of their friends, and refuses to go along with things they feel unsure about.