Fall Lessons

Hello again, my dear wonderful readers. I thank you for tuning in and supporting me. Thank you.

I know I have been on a bit of a hiatus; okay that is probably too liberal a term, missing in action is probably more appropriate, but I am here to share with you what I have learned this fall and I hope that what I have learned helps you in some way because that is why I write; that some of what I experience may help you in some small way.

First of all, I did a bit of review before writing this – I looked back at what I had already learned and what I hoped to accomplish – some big things happened this year because I wrote my hopes, mistakes, lessons, and dreams out loud – BIG THINGS!

1. I am living out loud

This may seem like an easy no brainer for some, but I think there are a great deal of us that this is EXTREMELY SCARY thing to actually do. This living out loud – or being vulnerable – or allowing oneself to be seen is probably one of the scariest things I have ever done in my entire life – it doesn’t really get any less scary either – just in case you were hoping that was the case – but it does get easier to face that fear and take the step forward anyway; somehow that actually happens. See I don’t do social events; I am the girl who a year ago my daily mantra was, “You are worthless, you have nothing to offer, please oh please try not to talk when you are out in public.” But the most amazing things have happened this year because I worked and am still working to change this mantra – I went to my doctor and explained what was happening, she put me on a small dose of lexapro and said it would probably be a good idea to figure out how to manage myself and take care of myself a little better. So I did three things – I started writing this blog, I signed up for the Brene Brown/Oprah Winfrey Lifeclass and I started to see a therapist. All 3 things have helped me become a better version of myself.

2. Let me share some ah-ha moments from the Brene Brown class –

Talk to yourself like you would talk to someone you love – yes, very common sense logic I know, but weird thing was – I don’t ever talk to myself this way. But I started to really look back to see if I ever had and I was 10 when I started to talk to myself like I was some sort of mistake that shouldn’t have happened. So for the past 25 years I had built the mean bully in my head. This bully who roared so loudly is almost 90% quiet because I decided to seek help and to start to seek out joy.

You cannot numb the bad without numbing the good – This was huge for me. I am a person who numbs and what I found out was that I was really good at it. I numb with food, but I also just simply numb by isolating myself from others. My fear of getting hurt or not being liked was so great that I just removed myself from the situations where I would or could interact with others. This year I have changed that. For example, I recently went to a party (yep, I actually went and didn’t back out at the last second) and I talked to almost everyone there. This was a HUGE and I mean GINORMOUS deal for me. But what I have found by just showing up places and taking those leaps of reaching out to people is that I have found some amazing friendships this year. Women that showed up for me and helped me complete a crazy endeavor to bring joy to others (25 Days of Holiday Cheer) friends that come over for dinner, that help pick up my kids, friends that LOVE me – the real me. I was numbing this out of my life; I was missing JOY because I feared PAIN – let me tell you the JOY is so much greater than those moments of PAIN. Choose JOY, choose HOPE, believe in yourself and the most wonderful gifts start to come into your life. Now that doesn’t mean that I haven’t had some bruises along the way, but I have decided the JOY is so worth the bruises.

3. Prisons should play sounds of whining children on regular loops. 

Seriously, this is my kryptonite.I also really think this would help with repeat offenders, no one would want to go back to that, not EVER.

4. The person who invented flavored creamer is a saint.

No really, black coffee is disgusting, coffee with sugar and milk is drinkable but still fairly disgusting, coffee with sugar and creamer is pure heaven and the exact amount of fuel needed for a parent of small children. Thank you, flavored creamer inventor from the very bottom of my heart, thank you.

5. All I want for Christmas is two potty trained twins.

I know that some parents have worked out the secret special sauce that magically turns their children into potty trained geniuses; I am not one of those parents. I have had poop splash me in the face as I try to strip off soiled underwear; I have picked up poop off the floor, cleaned pee of floors and furniture, created sticker charts, tried target practice extravaganzas and still their will to learn it when they want to is winning out. I thought I would be okay with doing this task on their time-table; but having them use the toilet on my time-table would a special gift right about now. Maybe Santa can bring me my Christmas wish.

6. The people who you love the most also have the ability to drive you CRAZY.

I remember at my wedding, the priest said something to the effect that one day or some days we may wake up and think – I cannot believe I married this person. I did not think that could be true – it is true. There are days that my husband and I have driven each other crazy – we love each other like crazy but there are moments where we need to just be in different rooms for a while. The same was true when my children were born, yep it happened each time. That blissful moment when you hold them for the first time and you think there is no possible way that you could ever love a human being more and that they will always be so sweet and lovable. And then when you are knee-deep in tantrum mode in a disaster toy zone, right at the moment you are trying to fix something healthy for dinner after an already long day and you decide that someone may just not make it out alive before bedtime and you decide to go to the closet and scream into a pillow just so that you can function for the next 3 hours – yep those moments happen they are FOR REAL and they do not cross your mind when you hold that sleeping angelic child, but no matter how much they drive you crazy; you love them that much more that is also FOR REAL.

7. Remember to breathe.

My therapist had me try mediation. Yes, meditation sounds earthy and monkish; I am not earthy or monkish or even remotely ZEN. What is cool though is that meditation in plain and simple terms for us non-Zenners out there is just remembering to take deep breaths daily. This has helped me to react rather than respond in my daily life. Each night before I go to bed; for ten to fifteen minutes I breathe deeply. Sometimes I breathe out stress and fear and breathe in joy and calm – it just depends on the day what I choose to breathe out and breathe in, but each day I breathe and now when the hurricane of life is whirling through my house at F5 speeds threatening devastation and destruction of catastrophic proportions, I breathe and everything SLOWS DOWN – who knew just breathing was magic. Okay maybe everyone knew, but I am just learning this so please be astounded at this amazing discovery with me for just a second.

8. Tacos and Burritos are my favorite food.

Why is this important you may ask? It is important because sometimes eating what you really are craving is so important. I numb with food so food is dangerous for me – I can eat and eat and realize that at the end of the eating all I really wanted was a taco. So my point is if you want a taco for breakfast – eat the taco for breakfast. If you eat what you want to eat when you want to eat it – you aren’t hungry any more.

9. Beware advice in the form of a size 2 body.

I know, I know – we aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover. But sometimes we also need to speak the truth and I learned this particular lesson this week so I am sharing my truth. Earlier this week, I came across a girl who was petite and slender; blonde, and wearing a hat that said, ” LIKE A BOSS”. I happened to be out running with my mom and aunt – who had run into the bathroom. I was doing squats and this blonde boss joined me. She told me she was copying me and needed to. I told her she looked gorgeous and there was no need on her part to copy the squats to which she replied, “you know what they say 10% workout and 90% diet. You need to eat better.” My first reaction was to kick her; yep even us joy searching kindness believers want to kick people sometimes. But then I checked myself before I wrecked myself – this advice was coming from a 20-year-old who had not birthed any children, who still just had herself to take care of and had probably never lost 22+ pounds in her life. So point of my lesson – when you get advice from someone; remember the source.

10. Being the best you sometimes means you have to let the last secret out of the box.

There is one thing I have not written about here over the last year and this one thing is also the same thing that for the past 11 years I have spent a great deal of time struggling with. Sometimes ignoring it, not believing it, seeking answers, and so on. This is the last secret I have, but it is one that shouldn’t be a secret anymore. I recently finished the Alchemist, (I was on a five-hour drive – that is how I have time to read) and this quote really struck me, “”intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it is all written there.”

I am following my intuition on sharing this secret; I am trusting in my heart that it is finally time to let this last piece of myself out in the open. Here it goes:

I come from a long line of seerers – some people call them crazy, some people call them mediums, they all have different names, but I believe we are all seerers – we have the gift of our intuition – the gift that our childhood hearts and eyes can still see a small bit of heaven. Since as far back as I can remember – which is 2 – I have seen, heard and felt spirits and since I have already written a book this morning I am going to share with you the story that led me to tell you this secret.

Five years or so ago a friend of mine shared with me that she knew someone who had lost a child and since she knew of my secret she thought I should meet with them. I told her no. For the next several weeks I dreamt of a grave with a headstone. The headstone was detailed and the name on the grave was written in a language that I could not understand. But the name I knew anyway – the name was Matthew.

Matthew happened to be the name of the child that my friend was telling me about and thus I agreed to meet with the parents. I followed my intuition just as I am now. During this meeting, fear gripped me what would these people think? How could I possibly claim to help them communicate with their son. It just seemed near impossible and definitely CRAZY. However during that visit I shared with them things that were put in his coffin with him, that I knew the song his dad sang to him at night was a lullaby but had been replaced with Star Wars words, that he wanted his sister to have a very specific item of his, and that last of all as we visited his gravesite he wanted his name written on the stone that had yet to be placed in their native tongue. His father wrote several characters on a piece of paper and asked me to point to the one that was his son’s name. With no hesitation, because I already dreamt of the characters he showed me, I pointed to the correct one. Not only did this make his dad a believer, it made me a believer and so I share this last secret with you. A secret that will be a secret no more.

I know that I wrote a book today; thank you for reading it if you reached the bottom – thank you again for supporting me and letting me share myself with you. Enjoy today; choose joy and hope, and above all else let yourself be seen because someone out there needs you today more than you know.

Hugs-

M