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Adaptation

Sitting on my deck, looking out into the green of the fairy forest and our yard, the sun starts to fade from view and the light behind my screen dims. I still hear the creek gurgling along its way and tonight my neighbors are on their deck enjoying the beauty that is our shared backyard. I hear her grandchildren giggle and laugh while the adults talk.

When they first came out onto their deck I felt annoyed. I had been enjoying the quiet gurgling of the creek and the last tweets and chirps of the birds who live in our little forest. I debated moving inside and being grumpy because now I couldn’t enjoy my deck and yard, now I couldn’t concentrate on my writing. My body felt out of sorts. My brain too full.

I did go inside, however I left the laptop and my books on the table. I got a glass of water and went pee. I grabbed a cup of cherries to nibble on. I put on a pair of cozy socks. I took a deep, slow breath and literally shook my body, releasing the annoyance, the tension that had been building up and opening the space for the Truth that my neighbor and I can both enjoy our decks, our shared yard at the same time.

When I came back to my chair outside I felt lighter. I smiled at the children giggling. I breathed in the night air and started to write.

Then she came.

Each night I’ve been out here writing, I get a visitor. A red-breasted robin hops and runs along our yard, pecking and digging for food. When I see her, I feel the smile that grows on my face fill my entire body. She’s my friend. I stay quiet and watch her and then I try to get a picture of her, to share her with you, but she flies away into the trees.

I smile and accept that today is not the day to share her. Today I get to savor her for myself.

Then my daughter yells down from her bedroom “MOM!!! I saw your robin!!!”

Okay, maybe I do get to share her a little.

This is how life goes isn’t it? When we start to get comfortable, something happens to force a shift, to move us into discomfort even if only momentarily, as my neighbors did. My neighbors had done nothing wrong, they had no malice towards me, they were simply enjoying the beauty that we live in. And yet I internalized some message, that was never spoken or meant, that now I couldn’t enjoy our yard. Taking those moments to get some water and take time to breathe opened back up the space for both of us to exist, to share in the beauty of our space, separately.

And my friend the robin. She makes me laugh with the reminder she gave of how quickly one moment moves into the next and when we think an opportunity is lost, it is found.

Adaptation. Opening the space for things not to be exactly as we had planned or hoped and allowing what is to be. Rejoicing and relishing the moments, even when they bring annoyance or frustration. Breathing into the beauty of the now, knowing it will soon pass into the next now-moment, and the next.

 

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This is the life

I’m sitting out on my deck, working. Writing blog posts, responding to emails, connecting with my tribe. It’s almost 9pm at the moment, and I’m feeling refreshed as the breeze gently blows across my skin, I hear the creek softly gurgling, a few last birds chirping.  As I look into our little fairy forest beyond our backyard I breathe a sigh of content.

We’ve lived in this home for almost three years now. This is our third summer here. We have a gorgeous creek that runs through our backyard and a little fairy forest, full of trees and green. Our actual yard is the home to both The Mudpit of Pure Joy and some lovely green ground cover as well as a large covered deck. It’s a peaceful and grounding place to be. This summer is the first time I have started to fully take advantage of it.

In fact, it’s only been in the last couple weeks that I’ve started inviting my girl to play with me in the creek (as opposed to her begging me to go down there and me saying no). It’s only been the last couple weeks that I have started sitting out on our deck after dinner to work. I’m finding the space so deeply grounding and peaceful and I’m feeling a shift within me as I connect to our home, our backyard, to nature.

I’ve always known the beauty of this space, from the first moment I walked into this yard to look at it as a potential new home for us. The first thing I saw was our backyard, hearing the creek and I fell in-love – I didn’t care what the inside of the townhouse looked like, I knew in those first few moments this was our new home. I sighed a huge breath of release and grounding in those first moments of meeting our new home, as I surrendered to the changes in our life at the time, as I surrendered to the Universe, as I surrendered to the knowledge that everything was going to work out just fine.

I haven’t savored our back yard since those first moments almost three years ago. I haven’t allowed myself to step into its beauty and let it ground me. I haven’t allowed myself this peace, this joy. Not regularly, not more than two or three times over the last almost three years.

I wasn’t ready before  now.  I haven’t allowed this peace, this beauty into my daily life before now because I was still wrapped in a cloak of unworthiness and a sense of lack. Sitting here on my deck, there is no way I can not see the beauty of our home, of my life. There is no way I cannot feel gratitude for every gift our home gives us.

It can be overwhelming, the beauty. It can be blinding. Stepping into the abundance that we are each graced with, the absolute gorgeousness that surrounds us, that is us, can feel like drowning. It is so different from everything we are ever told our life would be, our life could be, this beauty.

We get lost in feeling undeserving. We get lost in fear of losing it. We get lost in wondering why me? We get lost over and over and find ourselves constantly searching outside, beyond the present moment.

When we slow down and breathe, we find ourselves, we find the beauty. When we release the shame, the fear, we open the space for the beauty, the peace, the joy to enter. 

Coming to this place in my life, finding this beauty, accepting this absolute gorgeousness of the present moment and slowing down to savor it has taken time. It’s taken deep introspection. It’s taken acceptance of my imperfections and my humanity. It’s taken stepping into both vulnerability and humility and staying there, releasing defenses and excuses and fear.

I’m seeing the beauty that is my home, that is my life because I’m ready to see it now. Because I have done the work, gotten to the other side of the pain and trauma. I have peeled enough layers, gone deep enough into myself to see the glow from within and it’s reflection in my world.

The work is life long. It has felt like almost daily for the past few weeks, new triggers have cropped up, new opportunities for growth have shown themselves. It isn’t ironic that as I step into the beauty of my life I also have stepped deeper into understanding how the pain of my past has manifested and is still manifesting.

I’m now in the place to explore these deeper layers. I’m now in the place to not only notice, but to also accept and release. It’s an amazing place to be.

 

My view, at work :)
My view, at work 🙂

 

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Living in fear and resistance

I was sitting at the spray park, talking with a friend as our children were splashing and laughing and exploring. She was sharing some realizations she’s had, part of her transformation journey and her words were pulled right from my soul. Her words were my own unspoken words, my own unacknowledged fears and fights. Her words were her own, of her personal struggle, and they spoke of the struggle of many of us.

The struggle of motherhood. The struggle of being a stay at home mom. The struggle of being a working mom (either outside of inside the home). The struggle of the role of motherhood not being valued by society, by our families and ultimately not being valued by ourselves.

I will not share my friend’s words. They are hers, her story, her journey. I will share what it stirred up in me. What I realized about myself and my own journey in motherhood. As both a “working mom” and a “stay at home mom” and the variations I’ve lived between the two for the last six plus years.

I longed for motherhood in a way I have never longed for anything else in my life. I wanted to be a mom. I wanted a house filled with children, my own and their friends. I wanted to bake cookies and pies and paint on canvases and our bodies and have kiddie pool parties and bar-b-ques with all the families we know. I wanted a life not very different from the life I have now. I dreamed of it, I longed for it with an aching I can’t truly describe.

The day our daughter was born was transformational. To say it was the happiest day of my life is honestly an understatement. I think there are no words for those first moments when we get to hold our child. OUR child. Whether the child came from our bodies or not, those first moments of connection are indescribable. There is joy mixed with terror. Tears pour out in release as we acknowledge everything is different, an acknowledgement that we had made mentally when we knew our child was going to enter our lives, but one that our body hadn’t fully accepted until that moment, when they are in our arms.

We don’t really know how our life is going to be different. We can’t imagine. Everyone can tell us how our lives will change, but until that child is in your life, you really have no fucking clue. And that, I believe is where resistance to this role I longed for, this life I dreamed of, steps in.

I do resist this life of mine. I feel frustration with motherhood. I feel less than because I’m “not contributing” to our household. I feel uninteresting because my focus day and most of the night is my girl and caring for her. I feel angry because the dishes and the laundry and the mess is never-ending.

The Truth is, I love my life now. I love that I get to spend most of my days with my girl, guiding her and being with her and watching her. I love that I can show my love of our family through cooking our meals, through lovingly washing and eventually folding and putting away our clothes. Showing love to our home and the beautiful people who live in it by organizing and vacuuming and every now and then even dusting. I love that I get so many ways, every day, to show the people who mean everything in the world to me just how much I love them.

And the Truth is, I feel shame that I love my life so much.

I was raised to have a career. I was raised that to have value and importance in a home, one must provide financially. I was raised that “women’s work” is uninteresting and boring and ultimately not useful. That being focused on being a mom means not living up to my “potential.” Raising children and maintaining a home shouldn’t be fulfilling and if it is, one is clearly “less than.”

What a bunch of bullshit.

I know it’s bullshit, these myths and stories that I was raised with, that so many of us were raised with. I know the value of raising our children and giving them a home that is safe and filled with love. I logically know all these things and even parts of my heart knows the Truth is in the value of our work as mothers. And yet…

Yet these myths and stories run deep.

These myths and stories have been distracting me without my conscious knowing. I’ve been allowing myself to work on my business or school when it is time for me to focused on my girl. The laptop comes out and I go into a zone, or I have my phone by my side and I constantly check it. Distraction after distraction taking me away from those beautiful moments with my girl, those beautiful moments that flutter away whether I am present in them or not.

These myths and stories have been fueling my anger without me being aware. I’ve been getting angrier and angrier at the dishes and laundry and being “the only one” who picks up and cleans  in our home (another myth and story of it’s own, another Untruth). I’ve been picking at my girl and my man, saying unkind words, allowing shame to enter our relationships, shame that is coming from me.

These myths and stories have been feeding my feelings of “less than” and unworthiness and taking me away from the present moment. I’ve been seeking ways to feel valuable, important, worthy. This seeking has lead to unkindness towards friends, family and myself. I have lashed out in ways that I am not proud and in ways that honestly probably no one has even noticed.

All of us have stories and myths that affect us in ways we aren’t consciously aware. These myths and stories drag us down and prevent us from growth and release and joy. These myths and stories feed on the negative emotions they produce, “proving” their “truth.” Once we become aware however, they start to lose power.

It’s the becoming aware that can be the trick, of course. The first step is being open to change, being open to growth, being open to acknowledging our own Truth and struggles when others share their vulnerability with us. Being open to your own vulnerability, to your own pain, to the Truth that you have hurt others in the past–knowingly or unknowingly.

After the talk with my friend on Tuesday so many things became clear–the fear and resistance I had been clinging too, that had been clinging to me. I released tears, acknowledged my own deep-seated fears, shared them with my husband and let him know this wasn’t something for him to fix, it was something for me to simply know, to share. And with the release, and the acknowledgments, space was opened. Space for patience. Space for love. Space for repair–with my friends, my family, myself.

Releasing these myths and stories from our hearts, creates much needed space for the joy, the peace, the beauty of our lives to enter. Releasing opens the space for us to ground, to center.

Being open to acknowledging the stories and myths, to seeing how they play out in our lives, is the first step to our release and growth. This is a huge step into vulnerability. It can be terrifying to do this work, work that puts us in a place of acknowledging the pain we have caused others, the pain that others have caused us. However the only way to release this pain is to move through it. We experience the pain every day, whether we know it or not–it’s not a matter of avoiding the pain, there is no way to avoid it. It is a matter of moving through it so that we can experience the beauty and joy and peace that is on the other side of it.

We cannot do this work alone. This is work that is done in community, in relationship with others. It is work that requires both guidance, support and honesty. If it weren’t for the conversation with my friend on Tuesday I would not have seen my own Truth in her words. If it weren’t for the safety of my relationship with my husband I would not have been able to acknowledge these myths and stories and release them through tears and words. If it weren’t for each of you, I would not have witnesses to my journey–sharing that you and I are not alone, that through our imperfections we are all in this together.

Community. I am called to gather community. I am called to guide others in this deep personal work. I am grateful for those in my life, who I guide and who guide me. Truly, we are all in this together.