Category: Connection

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Honest Truth

On Sunday, after seeing her overflowing Easter basket when she woke up, which included a 2-foot chocolate bunny, our daughter announced “You and daddy are the Easter Bunny!” Nick and I were in shock and asked her why she thought that and said things like “Would mama and daddy ever buy you that much candy at once??” all of which she gave a very narrow eyed knowing look to. We didn’t initially fess up to anything. We both want the magic of the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus to last as long as possible. We both enjoy the beauty of it all, of doing something extra special for our girl and not taking the credit. I hoped the conversation was dropped, with Nick and I neither admitting or denying anything.

Then in the car on the way to my cousin’s for the annual Easter egg hunt and brunch, she asked if her Daddy and I were the Easter Bunny. I again asked her why she thought that and we discussed it. She had That Look in her eye — that look that says “I’m trusting you to tell me the truth. I’m ready for the truth” and so I admitted that yes, her Daddy and I are the Easter Bunny. I didn’t say anything about the Tooth Fairy or Santa. To be fair, she didn’t ask about them and we’ll cross that bridge when we get there in six months or so.

Reality sunk in. My baby is growing up. She turns six next week and I’m filled with a mixture of joy, awe and sadness. The mystery of the Easter Bunny is solved and I realized in talking with Nick later that it was around this same age that I figured out that Santa wasn’t real, though in a very painful way, which involved my parents refusing to be honest with me and even threatening that Santa wouldn’t come if I didn’t believe.

I didn’t talk with my girl about the magic of the holidays and what the Easter Bunny (or Santa or the Tooth Fairy) represent to me or to her Daddy. We didn’t get into that conversation, however I’m sure we will at some point.

What was important on Sunday was that, when I looked in my girl’s eyes and saw how much she wanted and needed the Truth, I gave it to her. I’ve accepted that my child is both a little girl and growing into a very young woman. While only almost six, those pre-teen and then teen years do not seem so far away. The first six years of her life have been filled with Nick and me building strong attachment bonds with her, with each other and keeping open doorways for communication. The next six years will be filled with the same, as will the six after that and six after that and so on.

I’ve realized that what is key, what is most important is recognizing her individuality. Knowing that her childhood is nothing like mine. Knowing that I have learned much from the painful lessons of the relationship with my own mom. Knowing I am studying, for a career, about child development, attachment and families. Knowing I have tools and practices that were never available to my own mom and thereby knowing I will not follow in her footsteps.

My baby is growing up. She’s a child now. There’s no denying it. In the way she talks, her interests, how she can figure it all out. She’s independent, confident and has an inner spark and glow in her eyes that had left my own eyes by her age.

And while she is growing up into this beautiful person, and while she is no longer literally a baby, she will always be my baby. I will always be here for her when she wants or needs me. I will love her beyond the end of our days. I will always be on her side. She’s my girl.

One of the songs I sing to her at bedtime is You are My Sunshine (with my own lyrics). The closing line is “I love you more and more every day.” It’s true. Every day I love my girl a little more than the day before and every day I can’t imagine how I could love her more without my heart literally bursting.  Yet every day I do. Every day.

Understanding and acknowledging and accepting her individuality, her personhood has been a huge part of our parenting. Treating her with respect. Allowing her to be a child while never treating her as if she is less because of her age. Parenting this way is hard, it requires me to dig deep almost daily and face my own past, my own fears with bravery and grace and a willingness to own my shit and grow as a person. It’s a tall order and some days I’m better at it than others. Some days are filled with apologies, tears and repairing measures while others are filled with laughter, connection and joy.

And so my girl grows from a little girl to a big girl. And our journey continues…

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My mindfulness practice has had the greatest impact on my ability to be the parent I want to be. I want to share this practice, and the tools I’ve found and developed with it with everyone who is ready to grow into the person your Soul is calling you to be. My Grounding in Grace e-course is filled with mindfulness exercises as well as reflection and soul work. And I’m very excited about the video prompts I’ve been working on for this course. Because I strongly believe that to bring peace to the world we must start in our home, and because I so deeply do not want finances to prevent a single person from taking this course if she or he is ready, the program is Pay-What-Feels-Good and I also have scholarships available. For more information about the course and to register click here. The course starts on April 9th and runs for 30 days. I would love to have you join the amazing community that is growing around this program.

 

 

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A prayer

To my ancestral mamas,

I forgive you.

I forgive you for being human. I forgive you for clinging to your own hurt, terrified and lonely little girls inside your souls. I forgive you for not being able to pass on the love, the acceptance, the connection, the beauty that you wanted for your daughters, for yourselves.

I forgive you all for thinking you were terrible mothers. I forgive you all for being terrible mothers at times. I forgive you the hurt, the pain, the loneliness that you all passed down, generation after generation, all the way to me.

I send you love. I release the heavy burden you passed down to your daughters because you didn’t know what else to do with it. I’m setting it down for us all. 

I send you freedom. All of you I carry not only in my DNA, in my blood, I carry you in soul. As I repair and grow and transform and heal, you do too.

I give to us all a beautiful relationship with my daughter. The pain, the fear, the loneliness no longer serve us. It is time to connect, to bask in the joy and beauty of motherhood, to release the fear of fucking it all up. 

I soak in your strength. I bask in your love. Together, we will start to enjoy today, to enjoy our beautiful children, one moment at a time.

 

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One of Those days

It’s been one of Those days. You know, the kind of day you just aren’t proud of. The kind of day you wish you could hit rewind and start all over. The kind of day where you just lose it and it feels so awful.

Yeah, one of Those days, today, for me.

It was one of those days where I. couldn’t. stop. I couldn’t let it go. I kept getting more spun up and becoming more of the mama I absolutely do NOT want to be. My girl, my heart, in tears. No one being heard. Everyone yelling. No peace. Chaos. Seeking control. Trying to control. Being totally out of control.

Yeah, one of Those days, today, for me.

Eating lunch helped. I started to calm a little bit. I was able to calmly convince my girl to eat something too.

Then it slowly started up again. I wanted the house cleaned up, it was a disaster. It made my incredibly sensitive self want to explode. More with me controlling, knit-picking, shaming. More frustration. More yelling. More no one being heard. More tears.

Finally, dear gods in heaven, finally I  s l o w e d  down.

I picked my girl up, and sat with her in our pink chair. I let her melt into my arms. I asked if I could listen to her heart beat. She said yes.

I listened.

I slowed down, and listened to the most beautiful sound in the universe… the beating heart of my child.

I melted.

I held her, her head resting on my chest, listening to my heart. I held her close and now it was my turn – the tears came.

I apologized for being mean. I explained that mama is frustrated and worried and stressed about things that have nothing to do with my girl. Grown up things. Money. Food. Bills. I told her that I wouldn’t be working at my job anymore and that it scared me a little. I explained that when I get scared I get so frustrated so easily. I explained that even though I was scared, she would be okay, always. Mama and Papa would always make sure she was okay.

As my tears flowed and I voiced the truth that my frustrations had nothing to do with her, as I held my beautiful girl in my arms and remembered the beautiful sound of her beating heart, I calmed. I found center. I found peace.

I’m not sure how long we sat there. It was long enough for me to let go of some of my crazy controlling, to let go of directing my frustration with life at my girl. We got up and worked on cleaning for about a minute more and then she took out one of her workbooks and asked me to help her with it. I made tea. We worked together on her writing and then went and watched a movie. We played some online games after that.

We found our calm, our peace. We found our balance together again. No more yelling. Lots of listening. Lots of being heard.

Centering, slowly.

Repairing, slowly.

Practicing, always.

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Nourishment

There’s been a lot of talk about support in my world lately. I have a big issue with the word support. Support to me, is about others helping you stay right where you are, not having someone who helps to grow, helps you change, helps you look deep inside of who you are and how you want to change.

Sometimes I need those pats on the back and those you-go-girls. Most of the time however, I need nourishing: I need people who will gently point out my role in the dance I’m frustrated with, who will gently, yet firmly, shift me from a place of blaming the other towards looking inside myself and how I have contributed to the relationship.

There’s a phrase, it takes two to tango. And it certainly does.

The thing is, we can’t control the other dancer. We can’t make the other take the steps we want him or her to take and we can’t make him or her dance a waltz if they are determined to dance a polka.

We can look at ourselves. We can determine how we want to enter the dance floor. We can breathe in our own truth and recognize the truth of another. We can enter the dance with an open heart, or not.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in blaming the other. It’s easy to see all the faults and mistakes of our dance partner. What’s hard stopping and looking deep within. Sometimes we need another person to help us with that.

My husband seems to have this all figured out. He knows when I need someone to simply love me, to give me space to cry and be sad and have a little temper tantrum about how life is not fair. And he has a special knack of reigning me in when I start to board the Blame Train. He does more than support me, he helps me grow. To paraphrase a line from a movie “He makes me want to be a better person”. And he helps me be that better person.

He nourishes me.

I have friends who do this too. Who gently point out when I’m being a wee bit crazy, when I’m totally off my center, when I’m looking outside for truth and not inside. These women are my sisters, one of them in blood and all of them in my Soul. They live in different parts of the world and my contact with them all varies. And yet I know they will always be there for me, to help me be the person I want to be.

These Sisters nourish me.

They will be there in times of crisis too. When it really is just about support, having someone to keep me safe, someone who can help me hold my life together. Times of crisis are not times for growth, they are truly times for support, times of being stable.

Every day life isn’t crisis. Everyday life is about growth and being that person you are deeply called to be. Are you surrounded by people who help you reflect and look deep inside yourself? Or are you surrounded by people who keep you stuck in patterns and behaviors and relationships that don’t nourish you?

I’m here to provide nourishment for you. Nourishment for your soul. Nourishment so you can grow and become the beautiful and amazing person you are called to be.

 

The last session of Centering in Community starts in just a couple days (February 5), and registration closes that same day. This is an amazing program that provides you with exercises to get back in your body and back to your center and reflection topics to look deep at who you are truly called to be. It’s pay-what-feels-good and go at your own pace. I would love to have you join our growing community. 
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Love and Repair

Love is a very special kind of emotional bond, the need for which is wired into our brain by millions of years of evolution. 

– Sue Johnson, author of Hold Me Tight and co-founder of Emotionally Focused Therapy

We’re social creatures, humans. We need to have another person in our lives who loves us, who will be there to support us, who has our back, no matter what. For children this other person would be a parent. For adults it would be our romantic partner or a sibling or very close friend.  Having this other person is fundamental to our resilience in regard to stress and trauma. Having this other person allows us to be free to explore our world and express our true self.

As a child I didn’t have that kind of support or bond with my parents. Now that I’m an adult, I have that person. My husband is truly amazing. He is patient. He is supportive. He loves me, truly unconditionally. He’s not perfect, none of us are, however he is truly perfect for me.

I forget that sometimes.

Sometimes I get wrapped up in my old myths. You know, those stories a lot of us have about not being worthy of love; that we can’t trust another person to take care of us. Or sometimes I get so spun up that I can’t even see how much he loves me, because of all my old stories or my own panic mode is activated for some reason which leaves me terrified of being abandoned.

I have seen this panic in my daughter in the past. It usually came out when I was in my own panic mode and shutting down, going into my own self-preservation mode, leaving me unable to truly provide the connection that my daughter needs to feel safe.

I’ve become an expert at repair.

The key to repair isn’t about simply saying “I’m sorry”. True repair happens as we reach out and start to authentically connect with the Other. Those steps to connection – to strengthening the attachment bonds – are basically the same whether we are repairing with our child, with our spouse or partner or with a close friend or sibling. These steps can be challenging, because it requires me to step a bit out of my own myth and story to and actually see and hear the other person. Letting go of those old stories can be scary and yet, so very freeing and exhilarating.

The best part of stepping into deep connection repair is how it has opened my life to joy. How many more peaceful moments and loving days I get to have with my family. How my husband and I can always come back together after a separation and go straight into a deep connection without being stuck in old stories about ourselves, each other or our relationship.

I am deeply in-love with my life. I want you to be deeply in-love with your life too, to have authentic and connected relationships with those close to you. Because of my longing for you to have this sense of peace and joy, I have developed an on-line program, sharing these steps to repair and connection. Included in the program are daily emails as well as personal one-to-one email correspondence. Once the program has ended you will also have the opportunity to have either a telephone or skype session with me, as I truly want to know how you are doing and help you work through any place in the steps you may be stuck.

Today I release my program, Repairing in Relationship,  to you. We will start on the traditional day of love, February 14 and work together for seven weeks exploring the steps to repair and reconnection. I’m looking forward to helping you and your family find your way to peace, love and joy.

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